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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Could you talk about trust? Whenever I trust, whatever happens is beautiful; when doubt arises, I am in pain. Just the fact of trusting you, or life, or somebody, is enough to make me feel light, happy. Why then do I still doubt?It is one of the most fundamental questions of life. The question is not only about trust and doubt: the question is rooted in the duality of the mind. It is so with love and hate, it is so with body and soul, it is so with this world and the other world.Mind cannot see the one. The very process of mind divides reality into polar opposites – and reality is one, reality is not two, reality is not many. It is not a multiverse, it is a universe.This existence is an organic whole. But the mind basically functions by dividing, the mind functions like a prism. If you pass a ray of light through the prism, it is immediately divided into seven colors. Before passing through the prism it was simply white, pure white; after the prism it is the whole rainbow.Mind divides reality into two. And those two are bound to be always together, because in existence itself they are indivisible. The division exists only in mind, only in your thought.You say: “Could you talk more about trust? Whenever I trust, whatever happens is beautiful…” But your trust is nothing but the other pole of doubt; it cannot exist without doubt. Your trust is simply an antidote to doubt. If doubt really disappears, where will your trust be? What need will there be of trust? If there is no doubt then there is no trust either.And you are afraid to lose trust, you cling to trust. In clinging to trust you are clinging to doubt too, remember. You can have both, but you can’t have one. Either you have to drop both or you have to go on keeping both; they are indivisible, two sides of the same coin. How can you avoid the other side? It will always be there. You may not look at it, that makes no difference. But sooner or later you will have to.Another part of mind is: it gets bored with anything very soon. So if you are in trust, soon it gets bored with it. Yes, it is beautiful, but only in the beginning. Soon the mind starts hankering for something new, for something different, for a change. Then there is doubt, and doubt hurts; again you start moving toward trust. And trust becomes boring, and you have to fall into the trap of doubt… One goes on this way like a pendulum of a clock: right, left, right, left, one goes on moving.You will have to understand that there is a trust totally different from what you have known up to now as trust. I am talking about that trust. The distinction is very delicate and subtle, because both words are the same. I have to use the language that you use. I cannot create a new language; it will be useless because you won’t understand it. I cannot go on using your language in the same sense you use it, because then it will also be useless: I will not be able to express my experience, which is beyond your language. So I have to find a middle point; I have to use your language, your words, with new meanings. That compromise is bound to be there. All the buddhas had to do that much.I use your words with my meanings. Hence, be very alert: when I say “trust” what I mean is totally different from what you mean when you use the same word. When I say “trust” I mean the absence of the duality of doubt and trust. When I say “love” I mean the absence of the duality of love and hate. When you use the word trust it means the other side of doubt; when you use love it means the other side of hate. But then you are caught in a duality, in a double bind. And you will be crushed between the two; your whole life will become a life of anguish.You know trust is beautiful, but doubt arises because your trust is not beyond doubt. Your trust is against doubt, but not beyond. My trust is a transcendence; it is beyond. But to be beyond you have to remember: both have to be left behind. You can’t choose. Your trust is a choice against doubt; my trust is a choiceless awareness. In fact, I should not use the word trust; it confuses you. But then what to do? What other word to use for it? All words will confuse you.I should not be speaking really, but you would not be able to understand the silence either. I am speaking in order to help you to become silent. My message can be delivered only in silence. Only in silence, the communion… But before that becomes possible, I have to communicate to you, persuade you for it. That can be done only through your words. But one thing, if remembered, will be of immense help: I use your words, but with my own meanings – don’t forget my meanings.Go beyond doubt and trust, then you will have a new taste of trust – which knows nothing of doubt, which is absolutely innocent. Go beyond both, then simply you are left, your consciousness, without any content. And that’s what meditation is all about. Trust is meditation.Don’t repress your doubt. That’s what you go on doing. When you listen about the beauties of trust, the wonders of trust, the miracles of trust, a great longing, a great desire, a great greed arises in you to attain it. And then you start repressing doubt; you go on throwing doubt deep into the unconscious so that you need not encounter it. But it is there. And the deeper it is, the more dangerous it is, because it will manipulate you from the background. You will not be able to see it, and it will go on influencing your life. Your doubt will be more potent in the unconscious than in the conscious. Hence, I say it is better to be a doubter, it is better to be skeptical knowingly, consciously, than to be a believer and unknowingly, unconsciously remaining a doubter.All believers doubt, hence they are so afraid of losing their trust. Their trust is poor, their trust is impotent. Hindus are afraid of reading the scriptures of the Buddhists, Buddhists are afraid of reading the scriptures of the Christians, Christians are afraid of reading the scriptures of other religions. The atheist is afraid to listen to the mystic, the theist is afraid of listening to the atheist. From where does all this fear come? Not from the other: it comes from your unconscious. You know perfectly well – how can you avoid knowing it? You may like to forget, but you cannot – it is there! Vaguely you always feel it, the doubt is there, and anybody can provoke it. It may have become dormant, it can become active again; hence the fear of listening to something that goes against your belief.All believers live with closed eyes and closed ears and closed hearts – they have to, because the moment they open their eyes there is fear. Who knows what they are going to see? It may affect their belief. They cannot listen, they cannot afford to listen, because something may go deep into the unconscious and the unconscious may be stirred. And it is with great difficulty that they have been able to control it. But this controlled doubt, this repressed doubt, is going to take vengeance, it is going to take revenge sooner or later. It will wait for an opportunity to assert itself. And it is growing stronger and stronger inside you. Soon it will throw off your conscious belief systems. That’s why it is so easy to change people from Hindus to Mohammedans, from Mohammedans to Christians, from Christians to Hindus – it is so easy.Before the Russian revolution, just sixty years ago, the whole of Russia was religious – in fact it was one of the most religious countries. Then what happened? Just the revolution! The Communists came in power, and within ten years all that religiousness evaporated. People became atheistic because now they were taught in the schools, colleges, universities, everywhere, that there was no God, that there was no soul.They used to believe in God, now they started believing in no-God! They used to believe before, they are still believing. Before doubt was repressed, now trust is repressed. Sooner or later Russia is going to go through another revolution – when trust will come up again and doubt will be thrown back into the unconscious. But it is all the same. You are moving in circles.In India, you are great religious people. It is all rubbish. Your so-called religion is nothing but repressed doubt. And that is so in other countries too.This is not the way of inner transformation – repression is never the way of revolution. Understanding, not repression: try to understand your doubt, try to understand your trust; try to understand your no, and try to understand your yes, and then you will see they are not separate, they are inseparable. What meaning can yes have if the word no disappears from languages? What meaning can no have if you don’t know anything about yes?They are bound together, married together, they cannot be divorced. But there is a transcendence. There is no need to divorce them, there is no need to separate them – don’t try the impossible. Go beyond. Just watch both.This is my suggestion: watch when doubt arises, don’t get identified with it. Don’t get disturbed, there is nothing to be disturbed about. Doubt is there – you are watching it, you are not it. You are just a mirror reflecting it. And when trust arises there will be a little more difficulty in watching because you say, “Trust makes me so happy, trust makes me feel so beautiful.” You will jump upon it, you would like to become identified with it. You would like to be known as one who trusts, as one who has faith. But then you will never get out of the vicious circle. Watch trust too.And the deeper your watching becomes… You will be surprised: looking deep into doubt you will find the other side is trust – as if the coin becomes transparent and you can see this side and you can also see the other side. Then watching trust you will be able to see doubt hiding behind it. That moment is of great realization: when seeing that doubt is trust, that trust is doubt, you become free from both. Suddenly, a transcendence! You are no longer attached to either, your bondage is finished. You are no longer caught in the duality, and when you are no longer caught in duality, you are not part of the mind at all – mind is left far behind. You are simply a pure consciousness. And to know pure consciousness is to know real beauty, real blessing, real benediction.If you want to call that state “trust,” then you will understand my language. I call that state trust which knows nothing of doubt, not even a shadow of doubt.But of course I am using language in such a way that no linguist will agree with. But that’s how it has always been. The mystic has something to say to you which cannot be said. And the mystic has to communicate to you something which is incommunicable. The problem for the mystic is: what to do? He has something, and it is so much that he would like to share it – he has to share it. Sharing is inevitable, it cannot be avoided. It is like a cloud full of rainwater: it has to rain, it has to shower. It is like a flower full of fragrance: the fragrance has to be released to the winds. It is like a lamp in the dark night: the light has to dispel the darkness.Whenever someone becomes enlightened, he becomes a cloud full of rainwater. Buddha has called the man of enlightenment one who has attained meghasamadhi – megha means cloud, samadhi means the ultimate consciousness: one who has attained the cloud of ultimate consciousness. Why does he use the word cloud? – because of this intrinsic necessity to shower. A man who is enlightened becomes a flower which has opened. The mystics in the East have called the ultimate opening of your heart, of your being, of your consciousness, sahasrar – one-thousand-petaled lotus. When this one-thousand-petaled lotus opens, how can you avoid sharing your fragrance? It is natural, spontaneous; it starts spreading into the winds.A buddha is a man whose heart is full of light; a buddha is one who has become a flame, an eternal flame which cannot be extinguished. Now it is bound to dispel darkness. But the problem is: how to give the message?You have a language which is based on duality and he has an experience which is rooted in non-duality. You are on the earth, he is in the sky. The distance is infinite but it has to be bridged. And you cannot bridge it, only a buddha can bridge it. You know nothing of the sky, you know nothing of that inexpressible experience, that ineffable experience. But he knows both. He knows your darkness because he has lived in that darkness himself. He knows your misery because he has passed through it and he knows now the bliss of ultimate attainment. Now he knows what godliness is. Only he can manage to bridge, only he can manage to create some links between you and him.Language is the most important link between humanity and the buddha. In fact, language is the most distinctive characteristic of human beings; no other animals use language. Man is man because of language. Hence, language cannot be avoided, it has to be used – but it has to be used in such a way that you are constantly reminded that it has to be dropped, and the sooner the better.Drop both doubt and trust, belief and unbelief, skepticism and faith – drop both! And then see something new arising in you which is not trust in the old sense – because it has no doubt in it – which is trust in a totally new meaning, with a totally new texture. That’s what I am talking about, that’s what I call trust: trust which is beyond doubt and your trust, beyond both, whatsoever you have known up to now.There is a light which is neither your darkness nor your light, and there is a consciousness which is neither your unconscious nor your conscious. What Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung called conscious, unconscious, are parts of your mind. When Buddha talks about consciousness he is not talking in the same sense as Freud and Jung – his consciousness is the witnessing consciousness, which witnesses the consciousness of Freud and the unconsciousness of Freud.Learn to become more of a witness, create more watchfulness. Let each act, each thought, be seen. Don’t become identified with it; remain aloof, distant, far away, a watcher on the hills. Then one day you will be showered with infinite bliss.The second question:Osho,Stronger and stronger the feeling arises in me that there is an absolute connection between ego and no, and between love and yes. And that love cannot say no, only pseudo love which is from the ego can say no; and that ego cannot say yes – ego can only say a pseudo yes which is hypocrisy. Yet my mind doubts, objects to the simplicity of this understanding.The first thing to be understood is that truth is always simple. It is the untrue which is complex. Truth is utterly simple; it has no complexity in it. That’s why the knowledgeable person goes on missing it.Jesus says: “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” Truth must be very simple. If only children can understand it, then it can’t be complex. Truth simply is. That “isness” may create a great wonder in your heart, it may mystify you – but it mystifies you because of its simplicity, because of its obviousness. It may create great awe in you but that awe is not of complexity.If truth was complex then philosophers would have discovered it long ago, because they are experts in complexity. They have not been able to discover it yet. And they will never be able to discover it. Their very search is in a wrong direction. They have assumed that truth is complex from the very beginning – they never doubt the basic assumption – and they are rushing behind their own complex minds. And the more they go into the mind and think and argue, the more complex the whole thing appears to be.Science cannot find truth because science also wants things to be complex. Why do science and philosophy want things to be complex? Science is only an offshoot of philosophy. Even today in Oxford University, the department of physics is called the “Department of Natural Philosophy.” Science is an offshoot of philosophy; that’s why we still go on giving PhD’s to scientists – PhD in chemistry, PhD in physics, PhD in mathematics – but PhD means doctor of philosophy.In the ancient days there was only philosophy, then slowly, slowly a part of philosophy became more and more experimental, and that part became science.Science can function only if something is complex. Why? – because the complex can be divided, analyzed, dissected. The greatest difficulty with the simple is it cannot be dissected, it has no parts to dissect. If you ask a complex question the scientist can answer it; but if you ask a simple question, a very simple question, then trouble arises.If you ask, “How many stars are there?” the scientist can answer. But if you ask, “Why does arithmetic have basically only ten numbers, from the first to the tenth, then again the same thing is repeated: eleven, twelve, thirteen…? The basic digits are ten. Why? Why ten? Why not seven? Why not five? Why not three?” Then the scientist is at a loss. He will shrug his shoulders. He cannot answer it – because the answer is so simple that to say it looks absurd.Arithmetic has ten digits because you have ten fingers! And primitive people used to count on the fingers, so ten digits became the fundamental thing. It has nothing scientific about it – just a coincidence. If you had eight fingers, or twelve fingers, the whole of mathematics would have been different. It is not a necessity.A great mathematician, Leibnitz, used only three digits: one, two, three… Then four never comes. Then comes ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen… Then fourteen never comes. Then twenty… And it worked well, perfectly well. Albert Einstein even reduced it to two. He said, “Ten is superfluous – only two are necessary: one, two… That will do! You can count all the stars.”The number ten is accidental, but so many of our assumptions are only accidental. They don’t depend on any fundamental law. And if you ask a very simple question… For example, G. E. Moore has asked, “What is yellow?” Now, no scientist can answer it, no philosopher can answer it. You can say at the most, “Yellow is yellow” – but that is a tautology. You are not saying anything new in it. If yellow is yellow, what kind of answer is this? We know yellow is yellow – but what is yellow? You can point to the yellow. You can take the person and you can show him yellow flowers, but he will say, “That I know! They are yellow flowers. My question is: what is yellow?”G. E. Moore, a great philosopher and logician of this age, concedes that it cannot be answered. Why? – because it is so simple. A simple question cannot be answered. The simpler it is, the more impossible it is to answer it.Hence, the first thing to be remembered is: truth is simple. That’s why nobody has yet been able to say anything about it, and all that has been said about it is superficial.Lao Tzu insisted his whole life that he would not write anything about truth. When finally he was forced to write – he was really forced to write: that is the only great scripture which has been written at the point of a bayonet!Lao Tzu was leaving China in his very old age… And you can think of his old age, because when he was born the story is he was eighty-two – when he was born! So you can imagine how much older he must have been when he died. He was already eighty-two when he was born! A beautiful story, which simply says that he was so mature when he was born that he was a child but never childish… And remember the distance and difference between a child and the one who is childish.When Jesus says, “Those who are like children…” he is not talking about childish people; he is talking about innocent people. Lao Tzu must have been so innocent that the people who wrote about him could not write that he was only nine months old. His innocence was so deep and so profound that it could not be attained in only nine months; hence they thought he was at least eighty-two years old. He was born with white hair.So when he was old – nobody knows how old, people must have lost track of his age… When he felt, “Now it is time to leave the body,” he started moving toward the Himalayas, because there is no other place more beautiful to die.Death should be a celebration. Death should be in nature, under the trees and the stars and the sun and the moon. He had lived the whole of life with people; now he wanted to go back to nature, and before he entered into the ultimate he wanted to die amidst trees and mountains and virgin peaks.But the king of the country ordered all the guards on all the boundaries: “Don’t allow Lao Tzu to escape. Wherever he is caught, force him to write down his experiences, because he has something invaluable and we cannot allow this man to escape taking it with him.”He was caught at one of the posts and the policeman insisted, “You have to write it down; otherwise I will not allow you to leave the country.”So, sitting in the policeman’s hut, and the policeman with his bayonet, Lao Tzu wrote Tao Te Ching.The first sentence is: “Truth cannot be said, and that which can be said is not truth anymore.”No great scripture begins with such a beautiful statement. He is saying, “If you have understood this sentence, please don’t read on.” He deceived the policeman. How could a policeman understand what he was writing? But he deceived. The first statement simply states that there is no need to read any more: if you have understood this you have understood all.“The Tao that can be said is no longer Tao.” The moment you say it you falsify it. Truth is so simple it cannot be uttered, words are complex, languages are complex. Truth is so simple it can be indicated. Hence Buddha says, “Buddhas can only show you the way,” and Zen masters say, “Don’t cling to our words – our words are nothing but fingers pointing to the moon.” And remember, the fingers are not the moon. The moon has nothing to do with fingers, but you can only indicate.Truth is so simple, that’s why the whole problem arises.You say: “Yet my mind doubts, objects to the simplicity of this understanding.” Yes, this happens: when you start understanding simple truths – and all truths are simple – the mind doubts. The mind says, “Things cannot be so simple.” The mind is really a very strange phenomenon.You have a proverb – almost all the languages of the world have such a proverb – which says: It is too good to be true. Too good to be true? As if truth and goodness are enemies! You can’t believe in the good, you can’t believe in the true. You should change the proverb: too good to be untrue.In the same way the mind says, “Too simple to be true.” Change it: “If it is not simple, it cannot be true.”Truth is simple; hence innocence is needed, not knowledge. Hence a pure heart is needed, not a mind full of information. Hence love is needed, not logic. Truth is simple.The second thing to understand: as a general statement your understanding is very close to the truth.You say: “Stronger and stronger the feeling arises in me that there is an absolute connection between ego and no…” Never use the word absolute, avoid it as much as possible – because it is the word absolute that creates fanatics. Nobody has the absolute truth. Truth is so vast! All truths are bound to be relative. It is the word absolute that has dragged the whole of humanity into misery. The Mohammedan thinks he has the absolute truth in the Koran; he becomes blind. The Christian thinks the absolute truth is in the Bible. The Hindu thinks the absolute truth is in the Gita, and so on, so forth. And how can there be so many absolute truths? Hence the conflict, quarrel, war, religious crusades, jihad: “Kill others who are claiming that their truth is absolute – our truth is absolute!” Down the ages, more murders, more rapes, more lootings, have been done in the name of religion than in the name of anything else. And the reason? The reason is in the word absolute.Always remember: whatsoever we know and whatsoever we can ever know is bound to remain relative. To remember it will give you compassion. To remember it will make you liberal. To remember it will make you more humane. To remember it will help you to understand other viewpoints.Truth is vast – simple but vast, as vast as the sky. The whole universe contains it, and the universe is unlimited, infinite. How can you conceive of the whole truth? How can you have the absolute truth in your hands? But that is how the ego functions.The ego is very tricky. The moment you start feeling something true, the ego immediately jumps in and says, “Yes, this is the absolute truth.” It has closed your mind: now no more truth will be available. And the moment you assert, “This is absolute,” you have falsified it.A man of truth is always relative.If you had asked Mahavira, “Is there a God?” he would have said, “Yes – but that is my first statement. The second, no; that is my second statement. And the third, yes and no both; that is my third statement.” And he would make seven statements, and each statement would start with “perhaps”: perhaps yes, perhaps no, perhaps both, perhaps both not, and so on, so forth. Sevenfold logic!What Mahavira did in the world of religion, Albert Einstein did in the world of physics: the theory of relativity. These two names are very important, their contribution is great.Jainism could not spread for a single reason: because you cannot create a religion on the base of “perhaps.” People want absolute truths, people want to be fanatics, people want to be believers. They want to depend on somebody, they want somebody authoritative. Now the moment you say perhaps, they become disinterested in you. Their mind says, “This man does not know; otherwise why should he say perhaps? If he knows, he knows; if he does not know, he does not know. What place is there for perhaps?”But Mahavira will not say yes or no, because if you say yes it becomes absolute, if you say no it becomes absolute. The “perhaps” is always there. Why? – not because he does not know but because he knows, hence the “perhaps.”Never use the word absolute – avoid it. It has been a calamity in the past; in the future we have to avoid it. Use perhaps more.Your statement would have been closer to the truth if you had said, “Perhaps there is a connection between ego and no.” Of course it would not have sounded so strong; perhaps makes it very diluted. With absolute it is more allopathic; with perhaps it becomes homeopathic, very dilute. With perhaps it can appeal only to people who understand. With absolute it is very appealing to fools, stupids, mediocres, the insane, pathological… It is very appealing!Doctor Harisingh Gaur, one of the great legal experts of the world, used to say to his students, “If you have the law in your favor, speak very silently, slowly, be mild, polite – because the law is in your favor, don’t be worried. But if the law is not in your favor, then beat the table, speak loudly, with a strong voice. Use words which create an atmosphere of certainty, absoluteness, because the law is not in your favor. You have to create an atmosphere as if the law is in your favor.”Whenever a man of truth speaks, he speaks in a humble way, he speaks in a simple way.Avoid the word absolute; it has been in the service of lies, it has never served truth. It has been murderous with truth, poisonous as far as truth is concerned. Better learn to use the word perhaps.Yes, with a “perhaps” there is a connection between ego and no. The ego feeds on no, it is its nourishment. The ego avoids saying yes as far as it can avoid. If it has to say yes, it says it very reluctantly, because when you say no you assert your power; no means you are somebody. When you say yes you are no longer powerful, you have surrendered – yes means surrender. Hence we go on saying no even when it is not needed at all.A child asks his mother, “Can I go outside and play on the lawn?” and she says “No!” Now, there is no need, not at all: it is sunny, it is green outside, and flowers and butterflies… And what is wrong in the child going outside and playing in the sun? Why should he remain in a closed room? But his mother says no – not that knowingly she is saying no; it is unconscious. No comes easily. No seems to be very natural, habitual, automatic. And children become very, very alert about it – children are very perceptive, they watch everything. He will start creating a nuisance, he will go into a tantrum. He may start crying or he may start throwing things or he may start shouting or he may do something which annoys his mother. And sooner or later his mother is bound to say, “Go out and play!” And that’s what he had asked in the first place!And this is so with everybody: the first thing that comes to your tongue is no. It comes so immediately that there has not been time enough to ponder over it. You say yes only when you are forced to say it. It is very hard, it is so difficult – as if something is being snatched from you. In a natural state, things will be just the opposite: yes will come easy and no will be difficult.A man who goes deep in meditation will find the change happening: yes will become easier and easier and easier, and one day yes will be a simple response, spontaneous. And no will become more and more difficult, harder to say; and even if one has to say no, he will say it in such a way that it sounds like yes. He will formulate it in such a way that it doesn’t hurt the other’s ego – because it is by hurting the other’s ego that your ego feels good.The ego is violent. The more you hurt others’ egos, the better you feel – you are higher, you are superior. With yes, all superiority disappears. With yes, you simply dissolve.So it has a truth in it, a very simple truth in it: there is a connection between ego and no, and between love and yes. But remember the “perhaps”; if you make it absolute you may go wrong. With “absolute” everything goes wrong – because sometimes love knows how to say no. It is not an absolute thing that love will always say yes – no. Love can say no, too. But the no that comes out of love is totally different from the no that comes out of ego. Their qualities are different, they exist on different planes.When love says no, it is not to hurt you, it is to help you. When love says no it is full of love, it has a poetry around it, not violence. It is suffused with love. And a man who always says yes and has become incapable of saying no – even when it is needed, his yes is mechanical – his yes has lost all meaning. It is like a gramophone record. He simply says yes as a matter of course. He need not even listen to what you are saying, his yes is inevitable.A man had come to see Sigmund Freud. Those were the days when Sigmund Freud was too obsessed with the idea of sex; everything was to be reduced to sex. Just as Christianity for two thousand years had been repressing sex and was obsessed with sex, so was Sigmund Freud. He was almost a saint! If obsession with sex makes a person a saint, Sigmund Freud is a saint.All the Christian saints have been obsessed with sex; they have created a very repressive society, ugly, sick, nauseating. Sigmund Freud is a revenge, a revenge of the unconscious; he becomes the mouthpiece of the unconscious. Now he was doing the same thing from the opposite end: everything had to be reduced to sex.A camel passed. Freud and the man who had come to see him both looked outside the window. Sigmund Freud asked the man – as he was always asking people – “What are you reminded of, seeing the camel?”And the man said, “Sex.” Freud was of course very happy. Whenever your theory is supported, new evidence that even a camel reminds a person of sex…Then to be more clear and on more certain ground he asked, “Do you see these books on the rack? What do they remind you of?”And the man said, “Sex.”Now even Freud was a little puzzled, and he asked, “What do I remind you of?”And the man said, “Sex.”And Freud said, “How is it possible? The camel reminds you of sex, the books remind you of sex, I remind you of sex…”The man said, “Everything reminds me of sex!” Everything can remind you of sex if it is too repressed, and everything starts taking a sexual color. Sigmund Freud was of course very happy seeing this man. He noted down the whole story. He used to tell this story again and again to his students.Once it happened, when he was telling it to a new class of students, one of the students who had also been in his class before said, “But sir, you have told this story last year too.”Sigmund Freud waited for a moment and then said, “Then you need not laugh, but let others laugh. If you have laughed last year, that’s okay, no need to laugh anymore. But I have to tell this story because it has a point.”There are people, millions of people, who are in this situation. There are people who are reminded of food by each and everything; they have been repressing food. And anything, if you repress it too much, will create pathology.For example: if this idea settles in your mind that love always says yes and ego always says no, then ego means no, love means yes. They have become equivalent, they have become synonymous. Now there is a danger: you will start repressing all no’s just to be loving. And so many no’s repressed in your unconscious will not allow you to be really loving. Love will remain on the surface, it will be a facade, a pseudo face; it will not be your original face.So please avoid the word absolute; it can create difficulties for you. Yes, there is a connection, but the connection is not absolute. There are moments when love can say no, and only love can say no, and there are moments when the ego can say yes.The ego is not innocent, it is very cunning. It can use yes too, when needed. It can use yes as a stepping-stone, it can use yes as a lubricating agent. You cannot go on saying no to each and everything; otherwise life will become impossible for you. You have sometimes to say yes – you may not like to say it, but you have to say yes. But you will say it in such a way that the ultimate result is no. You will say it only as a polite gesture, but you will not mean it; you may mean just the opposite.I have heard…There was once a Sufi who found himself in a large mass of people milling about outside the palace of the king of his country. The king had ordered that all the famous people of his realm were to be assembled and odes recited in their honor. The court poets had been working for months to get their verses ready, and this was the day of the great gathering of honor.The royal guards separated the guests from the onlookers but the Sufi began to say, “I don’t want to be praised, I don’t want to be honored, I don’t want an ode in homage to me to be recited.”This, however, was to no avail, for the guards hustled him into the audience-chamber. He was struggling so hard – others only resisted from locally conventional modesty – that the king ordered him to be seated next to the throne. Then the king ordered the king of poets to recite the ode in honor of this most modest man. The poem was nowhere to be found. They asked the sage his name, but nobody could remember who he was, if anyone. Finally the king asked him to say something. He said, “I do not want to be praised!”“Why not?” demanded the king. “If you don’t want to be praised you should not have come to the reception!”“But I did not come – your guards picked me up in the street. I was not even invited. All I was doing was saying that I did not want to be praised!”But why should you say that? He was shouting outside the palace, “I do not want to be praised! I do not want to be praised!” And he was making such a nuisance. Why? The ways of the ego are very cunning. It can play the role of being humble. It can shout from the housetops, “I don’t want to be praised!” It can even decline a Nobel Prize.That’s what George Bernard Shaw did. He refused to accept the Nobel Prize on the grounds: “Now it is below me. It is for young people – they will be happy. I have gone beyond all this praise, it is childish for me!” But it is an insult to the Swedish Academy and the king. So he was pressed from all over the world, by kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents. Those who had never written to him all wrote letters to him, “Please accept it – it is insulting to the king and to the country.”For two or three days he created much noise, and then he accepted – on the grounds that because so many presidents and prime ministers and kings and queens were asking him, just to make them happy, he would accept it. Again he created great news, front page news. He accepted the Nobel Prize and then immediately donated it to the Fabian Society. Later on it was found that he was the president of the society and he was the only member! But he kept the world for seven or eight days continuously in his grip, and when he was asked he said, “What was the point of just getting a small corner in the newspapers that a Nobel Prize has been awarded to George Bernard Shaw? I used the opportunity as much as possible; I exploited the opportunity as much as possible.”It was not humbleness, it was the way of the ego. And he knew – he was clever at it, at the game.Remember: the ego can sometimes say no, sometimes yes, whichever suits. It can use yes too – it is so cunning. And love also can say sometimes yes and sometimes no, because if the yes is going to hurt the other… If the child is asking to go outside and play in the sun it is one thing, but if the child is asking to play with some electric gadget which can be dangerous or the child wants to drink poison, then you have to say no – and love will be ready to say no.Love can say no out of love. Ego can say yes out of its own projections. There is no necessary connection, so don’t make it absolute, that’s all. Perhaps there is a certain connection – and there is – but that “perhaps” has never to be forgotten.Mahavira used to look very strange to people, because he would not start any sentence without perhaps. It looks a little odd. I am not saying that you have to start using perhaps before every sentence. I am not saying that when you fall in love with a girl you have to say, “Perhaps I am in love with you, perhaps not, who knows? Nothing is absolute, everything is relative.” I am not telling you to become an exhibition of stupidity. But let that “perhaps” become part of your being, let it be an undercurrent.In fact it is so. When you are in love it is only perhaps, there is no need to say it, but it is only perhaps. You are not even certain about your own self, how can you be certain about your love? You have not even loved yourself, how can you love somebody else? You don’t know what love is – because love is known only at the highest peaks of consciousness.What you call love is lust, it is not love. It is using the other as a means, and to use the other as a means is the most immoral act in the world; it is exploitation. But the other will not allow you to exploit, if you can’t create the atmosphere in which the other falls a prey and easily becomes a victim. So you have to talk about love, and you have to talk about love which will remain forever. And you don’t know even about tomorrow, you don’t know even about the next moment!A lover was saying to his beloved, “I am ready to die for you. Just say it! I love you so much that just a hint from your side and I can commit suicide, I can sacrifice my life. I am going to get you – no power in the world can prevent me! Even if fire showers from the skies I am going to find you!” And so on, so forth.And when he was departing the girl asked, “Will you be coming tomorrow?”He said, “If it doesn’t rain.”It is all perhaps! One should be aware of it – it helps to bring sanity to you, it helps you to be more healthy and whole.But there is a simple truth in it: that yes somehow is part of love and no part of ego, but not necessarily connected. Sometimes no can be found with yes, with love; yes can be found with no, with ego.Your approach to life should be that of yes, that of love; and if no is needed at all, it has to serve yes, it has to serve your love. Let the no be the servant and yes be the master – that’s enough. I am not saying destroy no completely. If you destroy your no completely, your yes will become impotent. Let yes be the master and no the servant. No as a servant is beautiful; as a master it is ugly.And that’s what has happened: no has become the master and yes has been reduced to the state of a slave. Free your yes from that slavery and dethrone your no from its mastery, and you will find a right synthesis of your being, of the negative and the positive. You will find a right harmony between the dark side and the light side, between day and night, between summer and winter, between life and death.The third question:Osho,I have just arrived from the West – Paris – where I had heard about you and read some of your books. They touched me very deeply and one question arose in me:How is your spiritual dimension and the work you do on a spiritual level capable of conducting and enlightening the behavior of a man involved in action on a materialistic level – for instance, urbanism, struggle against hunger, thirst and all other distresses?I do not divide existence into these old dichotomies, the materialistic plane and the spiritual plane. There is only one reality: matter is its visible form and spirit its invisible form. Just like your body and your soul – your body cannot be without your soul and your soul cannot be without your body.In fact, the whole split of the past has been a heavy burden on the human heart – the split between body and soul. It has created a schizophrenic humanity. As I see it, schizophrenia is not a disease that happens once in a while to a person. The whole humanity up to now has been schizophrenic. It is very rarely, only once in a while, that a man like Jesus, or Buddha, or Mahavira, or Socrates, or Pythagoras, or Lao Tzu, has been able to escape from this schizophrenic pattern of our living.To divide reality into antagonistic, inimical realism is dangerous because it is dividing man. Man is a miniature universe; if you divide the universe, man is divided; if you divide man, the universe is divided. And I believe in the undivided, organic unity of existence.To me there is no distinction between the spiritual and the material. You can be spiritual and function on the materialistic plane – and your functioning will be more beautiful, your functioning will be more joyous, your functioning will be more aesthetic, more sensitive. Your functioning on the materialistic plane will not be tense, will not be full of anguish and anxiety.Once a man came to Buddha and asked, “The world is in such a distress, people are in so much misery – how can you manage to sit silently and so joyously?”Buddha said, “If somebody is suffering from fever, has the doctor also to lie down by his side and suffer? Has the doctor out of compassion to get the infection and lie down by the side of the patient and be feverish? Is that going to help the patient? In fact, whereas there was only one person ill, now there are two persons ill – the world is doubly ill! The doctor need not be ill to help the patient; the doctor has to be healthy to help the patient. The healthier he is, the better; the healthier he is, the more help is possible through him.”I am not against working on the material plane. Whatsoever work you are doing – urbanism, struggle against hunger, struggle for ecological balance, struggle against poverty, exploitation, oppression, struggle for freedom – whatsoever your work on the material plane, it is going to be benefited, tremendously benefited, if you become more spiritually rooted, centered, calm, quiet, cool, because then the whole quality of your work will be changed. Then you will be able to think in a cooler manner, and you will be able to act more gracefully. Your understanding of your own inner being will be of tremendous help to help others.I am not a spiritualist in the old sense and I am not a materialist either in the old sense. The Charvakas in India, Epicurus in Greece, Karl Marx and others are materialists. They say only matter is true and consciousness is only an epiphenomenon, a by-product; it has no reality of its own. And then there are people like Shankara, Nagarjuna, who say just the same thing in a reverse manner. They say the soul is real and the body is unreal, maya, illusion, an epiphenomenon, a by-product; it has no reality of its own.To me, both are half right, half wrong. And a half-truth is far more dangerous than a whole lie – at least it is whole. A whole lie has a certain beauty, but a half-truth is ugly – ugly and dangerous too – ugly because it is half. It is like cutting a man into two parts.Just the other day I was reading a story:It was very hot, and a man was passing by the side of the swimming pool of an intercontinental hotel with his young daughter. It was so hot, the girl said, “I would like to go in the pool and cool myself.”The father said, “Okay, I will sit underneath the tree, and you go ahead.”But she was stopped immediately by the guard and he said, “This pool is restricted. It is not allowed here for Jews, and you look Jewish.”The father said, “Listen: I am Jewish. My daughter’s mother is not Jewish, she is a Christian, so my daughter is half Jew, half Christian. Can you allow her to take a bath only up to the waist?”Dividing man is dangerous, because man is an organic unity. But this is how it has been done down the ages, and now it has become almost routine thinking, a conditioning.You are still thinking in the old categories. I don’t belong to any school – the school of the materialists or the school of the so-called spiritualists. My approach is total, it is holistic. I believe that man is both together: spiritual and material. In fact, I have to use the words spiritual and material just because they have always been used. In fact man is psychosomatic, not material and spiritual, because that and creates duality. There is no and between the material and the spiritual, not even a hyphen. Man is materialspiritual – I use it as one word, materialspiritual. And both sides…Spiritual means the center of your being and the material means the circumference of your being. The circumference cannot be there if there is no center, and the center cannot be there if there is no circumference.My work is to help your center become a clarity, a purity. Then that purity will be reflected on the circumference too. If your center is beautiful your circumference is bound to become beautiful, and if your circumference is beautiful your center is bound to be affected by that beauty.My sannyasin is a total man, he is a new man. The effort is so that he will be beautiful from both sides.There were once two mystics talking. The first one said, “I had a disciple once, and in spite of all my efforts I was unable to illuminate him.”“What did you do?” asked the other.“I made him repeat mantras, gaze at symbols, dress in special garb, jump up and down, inhale incense, read invocations, and stand up in long vigils.”“Didn’t he say anything which might give you a clue as to why all this was not giving him higher consciousness?”“Nothing. He just lay down and died. All he said was irrelevant: ‘When am I going to get some food?’”Of course, to a spiritual person it is irrelevant, talking about food – what has that to do with the spirit?I am not that kind of a spiritual person. I am as hedonist as Charvaka, as materialist as Epicurus, as spiritualist as Buddha, Mahavira. I am the beginning of a totally new vision.In the new commune, just as there will be a Buddha Auditorium, a Mahavira Meditation Hall, a Jesus House, a Krishna House, a Lao Tzu House, there are going also to be gardens dedicated to Epicurus – because his school was called “The Garden.” There are going to be lakes dedicated to Charvakas. In the new commune the spiritualists and the materialists all have to be respected. We are trying to create a harmony, a new synthesis.The last question:Osho,Why are all the so-called Indian gurus rushing to America?In the very ancient scriptures there is a story. Meditate over it.This is the story:When destiny was being planned, the archetypal representatives of various peoples and schools were offered their choice of gifts.The Japanese asked to be given the Zen koan so that people would always be attached to the power of perplexity. The Hindu guru asked for the mantra and the assertion that everything was derived from his philosophy.Then an American-to-be was asked for his choice. Since he was to be one of the last peoples to emerge, most of the more attractive things had been handed out. But he was not long in asking: “Give me the dollar – then they all will come to me, sooner or later!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Want nothing.Where there is desire,say nothing.Happiness or sorrow –whatever befalls you,walk onuntouched, unattached.Do not ask for family or power or wealth,either for yourself or for another.Can a wise man wish to rise unjustly?Few cross over the river.Most are stranded on this side.On the riverbank they run up and down.But the wise man, following the way,crosses over, beyond the reach of death.He leaves the dark wayfor the way of the light.He leaves his home, seekinghappiness on the hard road.Free from desire,free from possessions,free from the dark places of the heart.Free from attachment and appetite,following the seven lights of awakening,and rejoicing greatly in his freedom,in this world the wise manbecomes himself a light,pure, shining, free.Man lives in misery – not because he is destined to live in misery but because he does not understand his own nature, potential, possibilities of growth. This non-understanding of oneself creates hell. To understand oneself is to be naturally blissful, because bliss is not something that comes from the outside, it is your consciousness resting in its own nature.Remember this statement: your consciousness resting in itself is what bliss is all about.To be relaxed in one’s own being is to be wise. The English word wise does not connote the same depth, profundity and significance as the word buddha. Wherever you come across the words wise man remember it is a translation for buddha. Buddha has a totally different meaning in the East. It is not just wise, it is far more than that. Wisdom is greater than knowledge, buddhahood is the ultimate. Buddhahood means awakening. Knowledge means objective knowledge – knowing that which is outside you. It can never be more than information, because you cannot see things from their insides, you can only watch them from the outside; you will remain an outsider. Science is that kind of knowledge. The very word science means knowledge – knowledge from the outside. That which you know is an object, you are separate from it. Knowing the other is knowledge.You can go round and round, you can watch it in every possible way. You can weigh and calculate, and dissect and analyze, and you can come to logical conclusions, which will be useful, utilitarian. They will make you more efficient, but they will not make you wise. Wisdom is subjective knowledge; not knowing the object but knowing the knower – that is wisdom.Buddhahood is a transcendence of both. In buddhahood there is no object, no subject; all duality has disappeared. There is no knower, no known; there is no observer and nothing as observed – there is only one. Whatsoever you want to call it you can call it: you can call it God, you can call it nirvana, you can call it samadhi, satori, or whatever… But only one remains; the two have melted into one.In English there is no word to express this ultimate transcendence. In fact there are many things which cannot be expressed in Western languages, because the Eastern approach toward reality is basically, fundamentally, tacitly different. Sometimes it happens that the same thing can be looked at in the Eastern and in the Western way, and on the surface the conclusions may look similar, but they cannot be. If you go a little deeper, if you dig a little deeper, you will find great differences – not ordinary differences but extraordinary differences.Just the other night I was reading a famous haiku of Basho, the Zen mystic and master. It does not look like great poetry to the Western mind or to the mind which has been educated in a Western way. And now the whole world is being educated in the Western way; East and West have disappeared as far as education is concerned. Listen to it very silently, because it is not what you call great poetry but it is great insight – which is far more important. It has tremendous poetry, but to feel that poetry you have to be very subtle. Intellectually, it cannot be understood; it can be understood only intuitively.This is the haiku:When I look carefully,I see the nazunia bloomingby the hedge!Now, there seems to be nothing of great poetry in it. But let us go into it with more sympathy, because Basho is being translated into English; in his own language it has a totally different texture and flavor.The nazunia is a very common flower – it grows by itself by the side of the road, a grass flower. It is so common that nobody ever looks at it. It is not a precious rose, it is not a rare lotus. It is easy to see the beauty of a rare lotus floating on a lake, a blue lotus – how can you avoid seeing it? For a moment you are bound to be caught by its beauty. Or a beautiful rose dancing in the wind, in the sun… For a split second it possesses you. It is stunning. But a nazunia is a very ordinary, common flower; it needs no gardening, no gardener, it grows by itself anywhere. To see a nazunia carefully a meditator is needed, a very delicate consciousness is needed; otherwise you will bypass it. It has no apparent beauty, its beauty is deep. Its beauty is that of the very ordinary, but the very ordinary contains the extraordinary in it, because all is full of godliness – even the nazunia flower. Unless you penetrate it with a sympathetic heart you will miss it.When for the first time you read Basho you start thinking, “What is there so tremendously important to say about a nazunia blooming by the hedge?”In Basho’s poem the last syllable – kana in Japanese – is translated by an exclamation point because we don’t have any other way to translate it. But the kana means, “I am amazed! I am in awe! This nazunia is unbelievably beautiful. I had never thought that a nazunia flower can be so beautiful.”What has happened? – this nazunia flower is so beautiful that all lotuses, roses and all great flowers have simply faded away from Basho’s consciousness, this nazunia has taken possession of him. The kana means “I am amazed.” Now, from where is the beauty coming? Is it coming from the nazunia? – because thousands of people may have passed by the side of the hedge and nobody may have even looked at this small flower. And Basho is possessed by its beauty, is transported into another world. What has happened? It is not really the nazunia, otherwise it would have caught everybody’s eye. It is Basho’s insight, his open heart, his sympathetic vision, his meditativeness. Meditation is alchemy: it can transform the base metal into gold, it can transform a nazunia flower into a lotus.“When I look carefully…” And the word carefully means attentively, with awareness, mindfully, meditatively, with love, with caring. One can just look without caring at all, then one will miss the whole point. That word carefully has to be remembered in all its meanings, but the root meaning is meditatively. And what does it mean when you see something meditatively? It means without mind, looking without the mind, no clouds of thought in the sky of your consciousness, no memories passing by, no desires… Nothing at all, utter emptiness.When in such a state of no-mind you look, even a nazunia flower is transported into another world. It becomes a lotus of paradise, it is no longer part of the earth; the extraordinary has been found in the ordinary. And this is the way of Buddha: to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to find all in the now, to find the whole in this – Buddha calls it tathata.Basho’s haiku is a haiku of tathata: this nazunia, looked at lovingly, caringly through the heart, unclouded consciousness, in a state of no-mind… And one is amazed, one is in awe. A great wonder arises. How is it possible? This nazunia – and if a nazunia is possible then everything is possible. If a nazunia can be so beautiful, Basho can be a buddha. If a nazunia can contain such poetry, then each stone can become a sermon.“When I look carefully, I see the nazunia blooming by the hedge! Kana…” I am amazed. I am dumb. I cannot say anything about its beauty – I can only hint at it.A haiku simply hints. The poetry describes, the haiku only indicates – and in a very indirect way.A similar situation is found in Tennyson’s famous poetry; comparing the two will be of great help to you. Basho represents the intuitive, Tennyson the intellectual. Basho represents the East, Tennyson the West. Basho represents meditation, Tennyson mind. They look similar, and sometimes the poetry of Tennyson may look more poetic than Basho’s because it is direct, it is obvious.Flower in the crannied wallI pluck you out of the crannieshold you here, root and all, in my hand,little flower – but if I could understandwhat you are, root and all, and all in all,I should know what God and man is.A beautiful piece, but nothing compared to Basho. Let us see where Tennyson becomes totally different. First: “Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies…”Basho simply looks at the flower, he does not pluck it out. Basho is a passive awareness: Tennyson is active, violent. In fact, if you have really been impressed by the flower, you cannot pluck it. If the flower has reached your heart, how can you pluck it? Plucking it means destroying it, killing it – it is murder! Nobody has thought about Tennyson’s poetry as murder – but it is murder. How can you destroy something so beautiful? But that’s how our mind functions; it is destructive. It wants to possess, and possession is possible only through destruction.Remember, whenever you possess something or somebody, you destroy something or somebody. You possess the woman? – you destroy her, her beauty, her soul. You possess the man? – he is no longer a human being; you have reduced him to an object, into a commodity.Basho looks carefully, just looks, not even gazes concentratedly; just a look, soft, feminine, as if afraid to hurt the nazunia.Tennyson plucks it out of the crannies and says: “…I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, little flower…” He remains separate. The observer and the observed are nowhere melting, merging, meeting. It is not a love affair. Tennyson attacks the flower, plucks it out, root and all, holds it in his hand. Mind always feels good whenever it can possess, control, hold. A meditative state of consciousness is not interested in possessing, in holding, because all those are the ways of the violent mind.And he says, “little flower.” The flower remains little, he remains on a high pedestal. He is a man, a great intellectual, a great poet. He remains in his ego: “little flower.”For Basho, there is no question of comparison. He says nothing about himself, as if he is not. There is no observer. The beauty is such that it brings a transcendence. The nazunia flower is there, blooming by the hedge – kana – and Basho is simply amazed, is struck to the very roots of his being. The beauty is overpowering. Rather than possessing the flower, he is possessed by the flower; he is in a total surrender to the beauty of the flower, to the beauty of the moment, to the benediction of the herenow.“…little flower…” says Tennyson, “…if I could but understand…” That obsession to understand! Appreciation is not enough, love is not enough; understanding has to be there, knowledge has to be produced. Unless knowledge is arrived at, Tennyson cannot be at ease. The flower has become a question mark. For Tennyson it is a question mark, for Basho it is an exclamation point. And there is the great difference: the question mark and the exclamation point.Love is enough for Basho – love is understanding. What more understanding can there be? But Tennyson seems to know nothing of love. His mind is there, hankering to know: “…but if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all…” And mind is compulsively perfectionist. Nothing can be left unknown, nothing can be allowed to remain unknown and mysterious: “…root and all, and all in all…” has to be understood. Unless mind knows everything it remains afraid – because knowledge gives power. If there is something mysterious, you are bound to remain afraid because the mysterious cannot be controlled. And who knows what is hidden in the mysterious? Maybe the enemy, maybe a danger, some insecurity? And who knows what it is going to do to you? Before it can do anything it has to be understood, it has to be known. Nothing can be left as mysterious. That is one of the problems the world is facing today.The scientific insistence is that we will not leave anything unknown, and we cannot accept that anything can ever be unknowable. Science divides existence into the known and the unknown. The known is that which was unknown one day; now it is known. And the unknown is that which is unknown today, but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow it will be known. The difference is not much between the known and the unknown; just a little more endeavor, a little more research, and all the unknown will be reduced to the known.Science can feel at ease only when everything is reduced to the known. But then all poetry disappears, all love disappears, all mystery disappears, all wonder disappears. The soul disappears, godliness disappears, the song disappears, the celebration disappears. All is known… Then nothing is valuable. All is known… Then nothing is of any worth. All is known… Then there is no meaning in life, no significance in life. See the paradox: first the mind says, “Know everything!” – and when you have known it the mind says, “There is no meaning in life.”You have destroyed the meaning and now you are hankering for meaning. Science is very destructive of meaning. And because it insists everything can be known, it cannot allow the third category, the unknowable – which will remain unknowable eternally. And in the unknowable is the significance of life.All the great values of beauty, of love, of godliness, of prayer, all that is really significant, all that makes life worth living, is part of the third category: the unknowable. The unknowable is another name for God, another name for the mysterious and the miraculous. Without it there can be no wonder in your heart – and without wonder, a heart is not a heart at all, and without awe you lose something tremendously precious. Then your eyes are full of dust, they lose clarity. Then the bird goes on singing, but you are unaffected, unstirred, your heart is not moved – because you know the explanation.The trees are green, but the greenness does not transform you into a dancer, into a singer. It does not trigger poetry in your being, because you know the explanation: it is chlorophyll that is making the trees green. So nothing of poetry is left. When the explanation is there, the poetry disappears. And all explanations are utilitarian, they are not ultimate.If you don’t trust the unknowable, then how can you say that the rose is beautiful? Where is the beauty? It is not a chemical component of the rose. The rose can be analyzed and you will not find any beauty in it. If you don’t believe in the unknowable… You can do an autopsy on a man, a postmortem – you will not find any soul. And you can go on searching for God and you will not find him anywhere, because he is everywhere. The mind is going to miss him, because the mind would like him to be an object and God is not an object.God is a vibe. If you are attuned to the soundless sound of existence, if you are attuned to one hand clapping, if you are attuned to what the Indian mystics have called anahat – the ultimate music of existence – if you are attuned to the mysterious, you will know that only godliness is, and nothing else. Then God becomes synonymous with existence.But these things cannot be understood, these things cannot be reduced to knowledge – and that’s where Tennyson misses, misses the whole point. He says: “…little flower – if I could but understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.” But it is all “but” and “if.”Basho knows what God is and what man is in that exclamation mark, kana: “I am amazed, I am surprised ‘…nazunia blooming by the hedge!’” Maybe it is a full-moon night, or maybe it is early morning – I can actually see Basho standing by the side of the road, not moving, as if his breath has stopped. A nazunia… And so beautiful. All past is gone, all future has disappeared. There are no more questions in his mind but just sheer amazement.Basho has become a child: again those innocent eyes of a child looking at a nazunia, carefully, lovingly. And in that love, in that care, is a totally different kind of understanding – not intellectual, not analytical.Tennyson intellectualizes the whole phenomenon, and destroys its beauty. Tennyson represents the West, Basho represents the East. Tennyson represents the male mind, Basho represents the feminine mind. Tennyson represents the mind, Basho represents the no-mind.Let this become your basic understanding, then we can go into the sutras of Gautama the Buddha.Want nothing.Where there is desire,say nothing.A simple statement, but the import is great. Want nothing – because this is what all the awakened ones have come to know: that misery is created by desiring. Misery is not a reality, it is a by-product of desire. Nobody wants to be miserable; everybody wants to destroy misery, but everybody goes on desiring, and by desiring one goes on creating more and more misery.You cannot destroy misery directly, you have to cut the very roots. You have to see from where it arises, from where comes this smoke. You have to go down deep into the soil, to the roots. Buddha has called it tanha – desiring.The mind constantly desires. The mind never stops even for a single moment desiring; all day it desires, all night it desires, in thoughts it desires, in dreams it desires. Mind is the constant process of desiring more and more.Mind remains eternally in discontent. Nothing satisfies it, nothing at all. You may attain to whatsoever you wanted to attain, but the moment you attain it, it is finished. The very moment of attainment and your mind is no longer interested in it. Watch and see the tricky mind. For years it may have been thinking to purchase a certain house, a beautiful house; for years it may have worked hard. Now the house is yours – and suddenly nothing is left in your hand. All those dreams, all those fantasies that you had about this house have flown away, and within hours, or at the most within days, you will again desire another house. The same trap, the same track, and you go round and round in circles.You wanted to have this woman, now you have her; you wanted to have this man, now he is yours – and what have you gained? All those fantasies have flown away. Instead you are frustrated! The mind only desires. It knows only how to desire; hence it cannot ever allow any contentment. Contentment is the death of the mind, desire is its life.Buddha says: Want nothing. That means be contented. That means whatsoever is, is more than you need; whatsoever is, is already so profound, so beautiful: the nazunia flower by the hedge! You are living in such a tremendously beautiful world, with all the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon; with the flowers and the mountains and the rivers and the rocks and the animals, the birds and the people. This is the most perfect world possible, it cannot be improved upon. Enjoy its beauty. Relish the celebration that goes on around you. It is a continuous celebration.The stars go on dancing, the trees go on swaying ecstatically. The birds go on singing. The peacocks will dance and the cuckoo will call… And all this goes on and you remain miserable – as if you are determined to be miserable. You have decided, you have staked all that you have, to remain miserable; otherwise there is no reason to be miserable. The thisness of existence is so beautiful, the nowness of existence is so incredibly beautiful, that all that you need is just to relax, rest, be. Let the separation between you and the whole disappear.The separation is created by desiring. Desiring means complaint. Desiring means all is not as it should be. Desiring means that you are thinking you are wiser than existence. Desiring means you could have made a better world. Desiring is stupid. Non-desire is wisdom. Non-desire means a state of contentment, each moment living totally and contentedly.Want nothing. Where there is desire, say nothing. Buddha is not saying that just by not wanting anything, desire is going to stop immediately. You have become habituated to it, it is an ancient habit – for lives and lives you have desired. It has become autonomous. Even without you it goes on by itself, it has its own momentum. So just by understanding that desire creates misery, that there is no need for desire, that one can simply be and enjoy the sun and the wind and the rain, desire is not going to stop so easily.Hence Buddha says: Where there is desire, say nothing. If desire arises in you just watch it, don’t say anything. Don’t express it, don’t repress it. Don’t condemn it, don’t fight with it. Don’t evaluate it, don’t judge it. Just watch – carefully. The nazunia by the hedge… Just look at it, with no prejudice for or against.If listening to buddhas you become anti-desire, then you have not understood them, because anti-desire is again desire. If you start desiring a state of no-desire, it is getting into the same rut from the back door. Non-desiring cannot be desired; that will be a contradiction in terms. All that can be done is to watch desire, carefully. And in that very watching, slowly, slowly, desire dies on its own accord.This is the existential experience of all those who have become awakened. I am a witness to it – I say to you not because Buddha says so: I say to you because this is my own experience too. Watching desire, slowly, slowly desire dies on its own accord. You don’t kill it, you don’t fight with it, you don’t condemn it, because if you condemn it slips, dives deep into your unconscious; then it starts residing there, and it controls you from there.If you repress desire, you will have to constantly repress and you will have to be constantly on guard. In the day maybe you can succeed in repressing it, but in dreams it will surface again. That’s why psychoanalysis has to study your dreams. It can’t believe you when you are awake, it can’t trust you when you are awake – it has to look into your dreams. Why? – because your dreams will say what you have been repressing. And whatsoever is repressed becomes very powerful, because it enters your unconscious sources and from there it goes on pulling your strings. And when the enemy cannot be seen it is more powerful – naturally, obviously.Buddha is not saying fight desire, Buddha is not saying be against desire. He is simply stating a fact: that desire is stupidity, that desire creates misery, that desire will never allow you to be blissful. So watch desire. Say nothing about it: simple, very simple watching. Don’t sit like a judge.Happiness or sorrow –whatever befalls you,walk onuntouched, unattached.And happiness will come and sorrow will come, because these are the seeds that you have sown down the ages, and whatsoever you have sown you will have to reap. So don’t be disturbed. If happiness comes, don’t become too excited; if sorrow comes, don’t become too depressed. Take things easily.Happiness and sorrow are separate from you; remain unidentified. That’s what he means: …walk on untouched, unattached, as if they are not happening to you but happening to somebody else. Just try this small device, it is a valuable recipe: as if they are not happening to you but to somebody else, maybe to a character in a novel or in a movie, and you are just an onlooker. Yes, unhappiness is there, happiness is there, but it is there – and you are here.Don’t become identified, don’t say, “I am unhappy,” simply say, “I am the watcher. Unhappiness is there, happiness is there – I am simply the watcher.”It will be of great importance if some day in the future we start changing the patterns of our languages, because our languages are very deeply rooted in ignorance. When you feel hungry, you immediately say, “I am hungry.” That creates an identification and gives you a feeling as if you are hungry. You are not. Language should be such that it does not give you this wrong notion “I am hungry.” What is really the case is: you are watching that the body is hungry; you are a watcher that the stomach is empty, that it desires food – but this is not you. You are the watcher. You are always the watcher. You are never the doer. You always go on standing as a watcher far away.Get more and more rooted in watching – that’s what Buddha calls vipassana, insight. Just see with inner eyes whatsoever happens, and remain untouched, unattached.A tough, old-time Indian fighter came straggling back into camp with seven Shoshone arrows piercing his chest and legs.A doctor examined him and remarked, “Amazing stamina. Don’t they hurt?”The old-timer grunted, “Only when I laugh.”In fact, they should not hurt even then – and they don’t hurt to a buddha. Not that if you pierce the buddha with an arrow there is no hurt; the hurt is there. He may feel it even more than you, because a buddha’s sensitivity is at the optimum – you are insensitive, dull, half dead. The scientists say that you only allow two percent of information to reach you; ninety-eight percent is prevented, outside. Your senses don’t allow it in. Only two percent of the world reaches to you; ninety-eight percent is excluded.To the buddha, a hundred percent of the world is available, so when an arrow pierces a buddha it hurts a hundred percent; to you it hurts only two percent. But there is a great difference: a buddha is a watcher. It hurts, but it does not hurt him. He watches as if it is happening to somebody else. He feels compassion for the body. He feels compassion, his compassion for his body, he will do whatsoever he can do for the body, but he knows that he is not the body.So, in a way it hurts him more than it hurts you, in another way it hurts not at all. He remains aloof, unconcerned. It is a very paradoxical state. He cares for the body, but yet remains unconcerned – unconcerned about the consequences. He takes every possible care because he respects the body. It is such a valuable instrument, it is such a beautiful servant, it is such a good house to live in – he takes care but he remains aloof.Even when the body is dying a buddha goes on watching that the body is dying. His watchfulness remains to the very last. The body dies and the buddha goes on watching that the body has died. If one can watch to such an extent, one goes beyond death.Do not ask for family or power or wealth,either for yourself or for another.Can a wise man wish to rise unjustly?The things of the world do not matter – wealth, power, prestige don’t matter. The buddha cannot ask for them for himself or for another. That distinction has to be remembered. Ordinarily it is thought that a buddha will not ask for himself, but he can ask for others. No, he will not ask for others either. That’s where Christianity and Buddhism have diametrically opposite visions.There is a story:A woman came to Buddha crying, weeping, carrying the dead body of her only son. People had told her that if she went to Buddha he may do some miracle; he was such a compassionate man. Buddha asked the woman, “Do one thing: go into town, bring some mustard seeds. One condition has to be fulfilled: they should be brought from a house where nobody has ever died.”The woman was very happy; this was not a problem because their whole village was growing mustard seeds. So every house was full of mustard seeds. She rushed from one house to another, but in her excitement that her son was going to be revived again she forgot completely that the condition was impossible, it could not be fulfilled.By the evening she had knocked on all the doors, and everybody said, “We can give you as many mustard seeds as you want, but they will not help because we cannot fulfill the condition: somebody has died in our family – not only one but many persons really. My father died, my father’s father died… And thousands of others before.” Somebody’s wife had died, somebody’s mother, somebody’s brother, sister, somebody’s son… She could not find a single family where nobody had ever died.By the evening, when she came she was a totally different woman – she came laughing. In the morning she had come crying and weeping; she was almost mad because her only son had died. Buddha asked her, “Why are you smiling?”She said, “Now I know – you tricked me, you befooled me, but I could not see the point at that time. Everybody has to die, so it is not a question now that my son has died. He had to die one day or other. And it is good, in a way, that he has died before me: if I had died before him, he would have suffered. It is better for me to suffer than for him to suffer. So it is good, perfectly good.“Now I have come for initiation. Initiate me into sannyas because I would like to know: is there anything beyond death or not? Is death all or does something survive? I am no longer interested in my son.”Buddha said, “That was the purpose of sending you, so that you can be awakened.”Now you can visualize the same story about Jesus Christ. What Christians say… Because nobody knows what kind of man Jesus really was except what the Christians say about him, and they are saying wrong things about him. If he was really a buddha – and he was – then he would not have been interested in reviving people from death. He would not have revived Lazarus from death – what was the point? Lazarus was no longer alive. He must have died a few years later; even if he was revived he would have died a few years later. Death is going to happen; you can at the most postpone it.A buddha is not interested in postponing. A buddha’s whole effort is to make you alert, aware that death is coming. He is not to protect you from death, he has to take you beyond death. And Jesus is a buddha. My understanding of Jesus is totally different from the Christian interpretation. To me, this is a parable: Lazarus coming back to life simply means Lazarus spiritually reborn.Buddha has said many times – Jesus has also said – “Unless you are born again, you will not enter into my Kingdom of God.” But “born again” does not mean that you have to be resurrected. “Born again” means a spiritual process of awakening. Jesus must have awakened Lazarus from his sleep, from his metaphysical death.When you come to me you are metaphysically dead – you are Lazarus. The story says Jesus called Lazarus out of his tomb: “Lazarus, come out!” That’s what every buddha has been doing down the ages: calling Lazaruses to come out of their graves. When I initiate you into sannyas, what am I doing? – calling, “Lazarus, come out of your grave! Be reborn!”Sannyas is a process of rebirth. Lazarus must have been initiated into the deeper mysteries of life which go beyond death. But to make this beautiful metaphor into an historical event is to destroy the whole poetry of it, the whole significance of it.A buddha will not ask – for himself or for his family or for anybody else – for power, prestige, possessions, because they are utterly useless.Can a wise man wish to rise unjustly? That’s impossible. Remember, the wise man is a translation of buddha. An awakened man cannot do anything unjust – it is impossible, it can’t happen in the nature of things. The awakened one can do only the right, the just. And to ask for power, prestige, money, possessions, fame, is stupid. A wise man cannot ask for them, either for himself or for others.And the buddha knows whatsoever is just is already happening; there is no need to ask for it, there is no need to desire it. Existence is very just and very fair. Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the inexhaustible, eternal law, that existence is very fair and very just. Simply remain natural and existence will go on bestowing a thousand and one blessings on you without your asking for them.A famous statement of Jesus is: Ask and it shall be given. If you ask Buddha he will say: Ask not and it shall be given. Jesus says: “Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you.” If you ask Buddha he will say: “Knock not, because the doors are already open.” Just look: the nazunia flower, and Basho looking at it carefully…Few cross over the river.Most are stranded on this side.On the riverbank they run up and down.Buddha says again and again that people are in such a hurry, not knowing where they are going, but in a great hurry they are going somewhere. And they simply go up and down, on this bank, hoping that by running and rushing and remaining occupied they will reach to the other shore.I have heard that the pope in the Vatican received a phone call, a long-distance phone call, from New York. The bishop from New York phoned in a very nervous, excited, feverish state: “Sir, immediate instructions are needed: a man who looks like Jesus has entered the church, and he says, ‘I am Jesus Christ.’ Now what am I supposed to do?”The pope pondered over it for a moment and then said, “Look occupied.”What else can you do? If Jesus has come, at least look occupied, do something! Let him see that his people are very busy – be busy. Even if there is no business, don’t be worried.That’s what people are doing – busy without business, looking very occupied. And all that they are doing is just rushing up and down the same bank. This way you cannot reach the other shore.Few cross…the river. Most are stranded on this side. What does he mean by “this side”? This side means death, time, this momentary existence. That side means deathlessness, timelessness, eternity, godliness, nirvana. One needs guts to cross the stream because the other shore is not visible. In fact, only this shore is visible, the other shore is invisible. This shore is gross, the other shore is subtle. This shore is material, the other shore is spiritual – you cannot see it, it cannot be shown to others.Even those who have reached the other shore can only call you, invite you, but they cannot give any proofs. I cannot give you any proof of godliness; Buddha has not given, Jesus has not given – nobody who knows can give any proof of godliness. Godliness cannot be proved. You can only be persuaded to come to the other shore and see on your own.Buddha says again and again: “Ihi passiko! Come and see!”But the wise man, following the way,crosses over, beyond the reach of death.The only effort of any intelligent person in this world should be, first and foremost, how to know something which cannot be destroyed by death – because death can happen any moment, next moment, tomorrow. Because death can happen any moment, the intelligent person’s first effort will be to know something that cannot be destroyed by death, and to be centered into that something which is deathless, to be rooted in that, so you are not destroyed.But the wise man, following the way, crosses over, beyond the reach of death. Death is the most important phenomenon – far more important than birth, because birth has already happened; now you cannot do anything about it. But death has to happen – something can be done about it, some preparation. You can be ready to receive it, you can be consciously in a state of welcome for it.You missed the opportunity of birth, don’t miss the opportunity of death. And if you can receive death in a meditative state, you may be able to receive your next birth – which will be followed by death – consciously. If you can die consciously, you will be born consciously. Your next life will have a totally different flavor. And a person can be born only once after he has died consciously – only one more life.The Christians, the Jews, the Mohammedans, believe in only one life. My interpretation is that when you have died once consciously, and are reborn consciously – that life is the real life; only that is worth counting. All other lives before it were not worth counting. That’s why these three traditions have not counted them. It is not that they don’t know about them – Jesus is perfectly aware of past lives – but they are not worth counting. You were asleep, you were dreaming, you were unconscious. It was not life; you were somehow dragging yourself in sleep.Buddha used to tell his disciples: Count your life only after you have taken sannyas.Once it happened…A great king, Bimbisara, had come to see Buddha. He was sitting at Buddha’s side talking to him and an old man came, bowed down, touched Buddha’s feet, an old sannyasin. And as it was the habit of Buddha to ask, he asked the old man, “How old are you?”And the old man said, “Just four years old, sir.”Bimbisara could not believe his eyes, could not believe his ears: “This old man who looks almost eighty, if not more, is saying he is four years old?” He said, “Pardon me, sir, can you repeat it again, how old you are?”The old man again said, “Four years old.”Buddha laughed and said, “You don’t know the way we count life: it is four years ago that he became a sannyasin, that he was initiated into the eternal, that he was taken into the timeless. It is only four years ago that he crossed from this shore and reached to the other shore. He has lived for eighty years, but those years are not worth counting; it was sheer waste.”Nobody has interpreted Christianity, Judaism, Islam, in the way I am interpreting. They all believe in one life, and Christians, Mohammedans and Jews think there is only one life. That is not the case; you have lived many times, but they are not worth counting. Only one life will be worth counting: when you will be born consciously – but you can be born consciously only if you die consciously.So the first and the most important thing in life is to prepare for death. And what is the way to prepare for death? – what Buddha calls “following the way.” Meditate over this small anecdote:Nan Yin, a great Zen master, was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella.After greeting him, Nan Yin remarked, “I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the left or on the right side of the clogs.”Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan Yin’s disciple and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.This is the way. One has to be alert and aware of each and every thing that one is doing. Now, Tenno had not done something very serious – he had simply forgotten where the umbrella was, at the right side of the clogs or at the left side. You will think Nan Yin is too hard; it is not so. It is out of compassion that he asked this question.Nan Yin’s own master, when he had come for the first time to his master, had asked a similar question…Nan Yin had traveled almost two hundred, three hundred miles into the mountains to reach the master, and do you know what the master asked, the first question? Not very philosophical, not very metaphysical… The moment Nan Yin bowed down, the master asked, “What is the price of rice in your town?” The price of rice…!But Nan Yin instantly said, “I am no longer there, I am here. I never look back, and I destroy all the bridges that I have crossed. So forget all about the rice and its price!”The master was tremendously happy. He hugged Nan Yin, he blessed him, and he said, “If you had told me the price of rice in your town, I would have thrown you out of the monastery. I would not have allowed you here, because we are not interested in rice merchants.”Each master has his own way of seeing into disciples’ inner beings. Now this was a simple question: Nan Yin asked, “Where is your umbrella – on the left or on the right side of the clogs?” Now, nobody can think of Immanuel Kant asking such a question to any of his disciples; nobody can imagine Hegel or Heidegger or Sartre asking such a question to one of his students – impossible!Only a man like Nan Yin, a man who is a buddha, can ask such a question – so ordinary, yet with such extraordinary insight. He is saying, “When you were putting your umbrella, were you aware? Or did you just do it mechanically?”Once a professor from a university came to see Nan Yin. He threw his shoes – must have been angry or something – slammed the door, came in. At least thirty other disciples were sitting there. Nan Yin looked at the professor; he was a very famous professor, must have expected that Nan Yin would stand up and welcome him. Instead, Nan Yin shouted at the professor and told him to go back and ask forgiveness. “You have misbehaved with the door, you have misbehaved with the shoes! Unless they forgive you, unless I see that you have been forgiven, I will not allow you in – get out!”Shocked, shattered – but the professor could see the point. Still he tried; he said, “But what is the point of asking forgiveness from the shoes or the door? They are dead anyway, how can they forgive?”Nan Yin said, “If you can be angry at them and they are dead, if to be angry is okay, then you should be ready to ask forgiveness too – apologize!”The professor went; for the first time in his life he bowed down to his shoes. And he remembers in his memoirs: “That moment was one of the most precious in my life, when I bowed down to my shoes. Such silence descended on me. For the first time I felt free of the ego, utterly open. The master had done the trick. When I came back, he received me with such joy. He said, ‘Now you are ready to sit by my side, now you are ready to listen to me. Now you are finished; otherwise the thing was incomplete. And never leave anything incomplete, otherwise it goes on hanging around you. You will have a hang-up. If you misbehave with the door and you don’t complete the whole process, you will remain angry somewhere.’”Moment-to-moment awareness is the way of a buddha. If you can remain aware, moment to moment, you will become perfectly clear that there is something in you which is beyond death, which cannot be burned, cannot be destroyed, which is indestructible. And to know that rock of indestructibility within you is the beginning of a new life.He leaves the dark wayfor the way of light.The way of living unconsciously is called by Buddha the dark way. And the way of living consciously, attentively, moment to moment, bringing your consciousness to each act, each small act, each detail, is the way of light.He leaves his home, seekinghappiness on the hard road.By “home” is meant clinging to security, safety, the familiar, the known. By “leaving the home” he does not mean leaving your family, your children, your wife, your husband – that has been, down the ages, how the Buddhists have interpreted this line. That’s not my interpretation. That is not real home. The real home is something inside your mind: the calculatedness, the intellect, the logic, the armor that you create around yourself against the whole world – that is “the home.” “Leaving the home” means leaving all security, going into the insecure, dropping the known, moving into the unknown, forgetting the comforts of the shore and going into the troubled waters, into the uncharted sea. That is the hard way – but the other shore can be attained only through the hard way.Those who are lazy, those who are always in search of some shortcut, those who want godliness cheaply, those who are not ready to pay anything in return for the ultimate truth, are befooling themselves and wasting their time. We have to pay with our life, we have to pay with all that we have, we have to surrender totally, we have to become committed intensely and wholly. That is the hard way, and only through the hard way one can cross the stream of existence and can reach to the other shore, the deathless, the eternal.Free from desire,free from possessions,free from the dark places of the heart.If you are ready to drop all armor of security and comfort, if you are ready to drop all calculative mind, clever mind, cunning mind, if you are ready to drop the mind itself, all dark parts of your heart will disappear. Your heart will become full of light, desire will disappear – “desire” means future. And possessions will not be anymore your clinging – “possessions” means the past.When there are no more desires, no more clinging to possessions, you are free from past and future. To be free from past and future is to be free in the present. That brings truth, godliness, freedom. That, only that, brings wisdom, buddhahood, awakening.Free from attachment and appetite,following the seven lights of awakening,and rejoicing greatly in his freedom,in this world the wise manbecomes himself a light,pure, shining, free.And as you move more and more into the present, inside you will come across seven lights – what Hindu Yoga calls seven chakras, Buddhist Yoga calls seven lights, seven lamps. As you become more and more detached from the body, detached from possessions, uninterested in desires, your energy starts moving upward. The same energy that is contained at the lowest center, at the sex center… Now, only at the sex center do you sometimes have the experience of light, which you call orgasm, but very rarely even there. Only very rarely, very few people have known that, making love, a moment comes when lovers become full of light. Then the orgasmic experience is not only physical, it has something spiritual in it.Tantra tries to create that space and context in which the sexual centers start radiating light. And when two lovers are not only exploiting each other’s body but are really worshipping each other’s body, when the other is a god or a goddess and lovemaking is like prayerfulness and meditation – with great reverence one goes into lovemaking – it happens that the two centers meet, the male and the female energies, and great light starts flowing inside your being.The same can happen on six other, higher points; the higher the point, the greater and brighter the light. The seventh point is sahasrar, the one-thousand-petaled lotus. There the light is so much that Kabir says it is “as if one thousand suns have suddenly arisen” – not one, but one thousand suns.Free from attachment and appetite, following the seven lights of awakening, and rejoicing greatly in his freedom, in this world the wise man becomes himself a light, pure, shining, free. He himself becomes a light to himself and he becomes a light unto others too. Be a buddha! Life is meaningless without it. Be a buddha! Only then you are fulfilled. Be a buddha! Then you have bloomed. Be a buddha and you will know godliness resides in you.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,If the jealousies, the possessiveness, the attachment, the needs and expectations and desires and illusions drop, will anything be left of my love? Has all my poetry and passion been a lie? Have my love pains had more to do with pain than with love? Will I ever learn to love? Or is it not a learning but a gift, an outgrowth of something else? A grace descending?Love cannot be learned, it cannot be cultivated. A cultivated love would not be love at all. It would not be a real rose, it would be a plastic flower. When you learn something, it means something comes from the outside; it is not an inner growth. And love has to be your inner growth if it is to be authentic and real.Love is not a learning but a growth. All that is needed on your part is not how to learn the ways of love but how to unlearn the ways of unlove. The hindrances have to be removed, the obstacles have to be destroyed – then love is your natural, spontaneous being. Once the obstacles are removed, the rocks thrown away, the flow starts. It is already there – hidden behind many rocks, but the spring is already there. It is your very being.It is a gift, but not something that is going to happen in the future: it is a gift that has already happened with your birth. To be is to be love. To be able to breathe is enough to be able to love. Love is like breathing. What breathing is to the physical body, love is to the spiritual being. Without breathing the body dies; without love the soul dies.So the first thing to be remembered: it is not something that you can learn. And if you learn you will miss the whole point; you will learn something else in the name of love. It will be pseudo, false. The false coin can appear as a real coin; and if you don’t know the real, the false can go on deceiving you. Only by knowing the real will you be able to see the distinction between the false and the real.And these are the obstacles: jealousies, possessiveness, attachment, expectations, desires… And your fear is right: “If all these disappear, will anything be left of my love?”Nothing will be left of your love. Love will be left, but love has nothing to do with “I” or “you.” In fact, when all possessiveness, all jealousies, all expectations disappear, love does not disappear – you disappear, the ego disappears. These are the shadows of the ego.It is not love that is jealous. Watch, look, observe again. When you feel jealous, it is not love that feels jealous; love has never known anything of jealousy. Just as the sun has never known anything of darkness, love has never known anything of jealousy.It is the ego that feels hurt, it is the ego that feels competitive, in a constant struggle. It is the ego which is ambitious and wants to be higher than others, wants to be somebody special. It is the ego which starts feeling jealous, possessive – because the ego can exist only with possessions. The more you possess, the more the ego is strengthened; without possessions the ego cannot exist. It leans on possessions, it depends on possessions. So if you have more money, more power, more prestige, a beautiful woman, a beautiful man, beautiful children, the ego feels immensely nourished. When possessions disappear, when you don’t possess anything at all, you will not find the ego inside. There will be nobody who can say “I.”And if you think this is your love, then certainly your love will also disappear. Your love is not really love. It is jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, anger, violence; it is a thousand and one things – except love. It masquerades as love. Because all these things are so ugly, they cannot exist without a mask.An ancient parable:The world was created, and every day God was sending new things to the world. One day he sends Beauty and Ugliness to the world. It is a long journey from paradise to the earth. The moment they arrive it is early morning, the sun is just rising. They land near a lake and both decide to have a bath because their whole bodies, their clothes, are so full of dust. Not knowing the ways of the world – they are so new – they take their clothes off; utterly naked, they jump into the cool water of the lake. The sun is rising, people start coming.Ugliness plays a trick: when Beauty goes swimming far away into the lake, Ugliness comes onto the bank, puts on the garments of Beauty, and escapes. By the time Beauty becomes aware that “People are arriving and I am naked,” she looks around: her clothes are gone. Ugliness is gone and she is standing naked in the sun, and the crowd is coming closer. Finding no other way, she puts on the clothes of Ugliness and goes in search of Ugliness so that the clothes can be changed.The story says she is still trying to find… But Ugliness is cunning and goes on escaping. Ugliness is still in the clothes of Beauty, masked as Beauty, and Beauty is moving in the clothes of Ugliness.It is a tremendously beautiful parable.All these things are so ugly that you cannot tolerate to be with them even for a single moment if you see their reality. So they don’t allow you to see the reality. Jealousy pretends to be love, possessiveness creates a mask of love – and then you are at ease.You are not befooling anybody else but yourself.Mulla Nasruddin was passing by the side of a cemetery. He saw a grave; on the grave there was a stone and on the stone was written: “I am not dead – I am only fast asleep.”Mulla had a belly laugh. He said, “You are befooling nobody but yourself.”These things are not love. So what you know as love, what you have known up to now as love, will disappear. It has nothing of poetry in it. Yes, passion is there, but passion is a feverish state, passion is an unconscious state. Passion is not poetry. The poetry is known only by the buddhas – the poetry of life, the poetry of existence.Excitement, fever, are not ecstasies. They look alike, that is the problem. In life many things look alike and the distinctions are very delicate and fine and subtle. Excitement can look like ecstasy – it is not, because ecstasy is basically cool. Passion is hot; love is cool, not cold but cool. Hatred is cold; passion, lust, is hot. Love is exactly in the middle. It is cool – neither cold nor hot. It is a state of tremendous tranquility, calmness, serenity, silence. And out of that silence is poetry, out of that silence is song, out of that silence arises a dance of your being.What you call poetry and passion are nothing but lies with beautiful facades. Out of a hundred poets, ninety-nine are not really poets but only in a state of turmoil, emotion, passion, heat, lust, sexuality, sensuality. Only one out of a hundred poets is a real poet.And the real poet may never compose any poetry, because his whole being is poetry. The way he walks, the way he sits, the way he eats, the way he sleeps is all poetry. He exists as poetry. He may create poetry, he may not create poetry, that is irrelevant.But what you call poetry is nothing but the expression of your fever, of your heated state of consciousness. It is a state of insanity. Passion is insane, blind, unconscious, and it is a lie. It is a lie because it gives you the feeling that it is love.Love is possible only when meditation has happened. If you don’t know how to be centered in your being, if you don’t know how to rest and relax in your being, if you don’t know how to be utterly alone and blissful, you will never know what love is.Love appears as relationship but begins in deep solitude. Love expresses as relating, but the source of love is not in relating: the source of love is in meditating. When you are absolutely happy in your aloneness, when you don’t need the other at all, when the other is not a need, then you are capable of love. If the other is your need you can only exploit, manipulate, dominate, but you cannot love.Because you depend on the other, possessiveness arises – out of fear. “Who knows? – the other is with me today; tomorrow he may not be with me. Who knows about the next moment?” Your woman may have left you, your children may become grown up and will be gone, your husband can desert you. Who knows about the next moment? Out of that fear of the future you become very possessive. You create a bondage around the person you think you love.But love cannot create a prison – and if love creates a prison, then nothing is left for hatred to do. Love brings freedom, love gives freedom. It is nonpossessiveness. But that is possible only if you have known a totally different quality of love: not of need but of sharing.Love is sharing of overflowing joy. You are too full of joy; you cannot contain it, you have to share it. Then there is poetry and then there is something tremendously beautiful which is not of this world, which is something that comes from the beyond. This love cannot be learned, but obstacles can be removed.Many times I say learn the art of love, but what I really mean is: learn the art of removing all that hinders love. It is a negative process. It is like digging a well: you go on removing many layers of earth, stones, rocks, and then suddenly there is water. The water was always there; it was an undercurrent. Now you have removed all the barriers, the water is available. So is love: love is the undercurrent of your being. It is already flowing, but there are many rocks, many layers of earth to be removed.That’s what I mean when I say learn the art of love. It is really not learning love but unlearning the ways of unlove.The moment you are centered in your being, rooted in your being, you become full of grace, as if godliness has penetrated you. You are empty and God starts descending in you. He can descend only when you are not: your absence becomes his presence.God is not a person but a presence. And two swords cannot exist in one sheath: either you can exist, or godliness. You have to disappear, evaporate. Your absence is what sannyas is all about.The process of sannyas is the process of becoming absent more and more, so that one day there is only empty space left inside and nothing else. In that emptiness, whenever it is total, instantly God is felt. God is felt as a presence – and God is another name for love. And to know God is to know poetry, to know God is to know celebration, to know God is to know bliss – sat-chit-anand.That’s how the mystics in the East have defined God: sat means truth, chit means consciousness, anand means bliss. If you are utterly empty, you will come to know these three things. For the first time you will have some taste of truth, some experience of consciousness, some flavor of bliss.But right now, although it will hurt you because it will be very destructive… What I am saying is going to shock you. You have believed in your poetry, in your passion, you have believed in your illusions and dreams and you have felt great because of all this. And I am saying all this is simply nonsense. Although the majority of humanity lives in such illusions, all these are mirages. If you really want to encounter life you will have to be ready for many shocks, you will have to be ready to be shattered into pieces.The function of the master is to destroy you, because only when you are destroyed the context is created in which godliness can be felt. Your death is the beginning of a divine existence.Die! Die to the ego, die to your past, and you will be resurrected. That resurrection will make you go beyond death, beyond time, beyond misery, beyond the world – what Buddha calls “beyond this shore.”The second question:Osho,Why does Jesus tell his disciples: be as cunning as the serpents and as innocent as the doves?The serpent is the symbol of wisdom. In all the ancient cultures of the world – Hebrew, Hindu, Chinese – the serpent is the only symbol which is common.By “cunning” Jesus does not really mean cunning as you understand it. In the ancient Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, there is only one word for both wisdom and cunning, hence the wrong translation.But why have Christians chosen to translate it as cunning and not as wisdom? – because of the biblical story that it is the serpent who seduced, corrupted the mind of Eve, persuaded her to go against God’s commandment and to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Because of this biblical story the serpent has become the original source of sin. It is the serpent who persuaded Eve, then Eve persuaded Adam and humanity fell from the grace of God. Adam and Eve were turned out of the Garden of Eden; hence the serpent became a condemned phenomenon.But in reality the parable has a totally different meaning. Christians will not concede to that meaning. What meaning do I give to that immensely significant parable? It has many meanings. That is the beauty of ancient parables: they have many-dimensional richness. They are not one-dimensional, they are multidimensional. They can be interpreted in a thousand and one ways; that is their richness. They have many facets; they are like a diamond – and the more facets a diamond has, the more valuable it is.When the Kohinoor was found for the first time it was a very big stone, the biggest diamond the world has ever known. Now it is only one third of its original weight, because down the ages the jewelers have been polishing, cutting, and polishing and cutting; they have been giving new facets to the diamond. Now it is one third of its weight but millions of times more valuable. So are ancient parables: they are kohinoors. But the problem with the so-called religions is that they become addicted to one meaning. Then they become afraid of other meanings, other possibilities.The serpent is not cunning, the serpent is wise in the parable. It is because of his wisdom that humanity was born. If there had been no serpent, you would not have been here – not even Jesus would have been, nor Buddha. The world would have lacked humanity. It is the serpent and his wisdom that creates this great journey of humanity – and it has been of immense value; otherwise there would have been trees and animals and birds, but no Lao Tzu, no Zarathustra, no Krishna, no Buddha, no Mohammed, no Christ, no Kabir, no Nanak. Yes, trees would have been there and birds and animals, but existence would have missed something of immense importance; it would have missed humanity, it would have missed human consciousness, which is the ultimate growth point up to now. It is the serpent and his wisdom! The serpent was far wiser than Eve and Adam, because he taught them rebellion.Wisdom is always rebellious. In fact, if you ask me, God was giving an opportunity to Adam and Eve to rebel; hence the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge. This is a simple psychological fact. The garden was so big that Adam and Eve, left to themselves, would never have discovered the tree of knowledge; it was only one tree and there were millions and millions of trees.But God pointed out the tree and said, “Don’t eat the fruit of this tree.” By saying this he is provoking. In fact, the first seducer is God; the serpent is the second seducer. The serpent is simply an agent of God, a messenger of God. God must have waited long after he prohibited… Now Adam and Eve are bound to eat the fruit of knowledge.You can try it. Prohibit children: “Don’t eat ice cream, don’t go near the fridge!” – and then they are bound to go. They might not have gone if you had not told them not to go. Prohibition becomes invitation. You are challenging them; you are challenging them to assert themselves.God has challenged Adam and Eve, and then he must have waited long. The challenge didn’t work; Adam and Eve must have been very obedient people. They were the first people on the earth; hence they may not have tasted rebellion and the joys of rebellion and the growth that rebellion brings. The agony and the ecstasy of rebellion were unknown to them. Hence the serpent was used as a messenger; in the whole animal kingdom, the serpent was chosen to be the messenger of God. The serpent is a symbol of wisdom – and it is because of the serpent that you are here. The serpent is really the father, the father of humanity.The original statement of Jesus means: be as wise as the serpents and as innocent as the doves. But the word cunning is also beautiful. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you are cunning you cannot escape from the bondage of the world – because the bondage is so complex that you have to be very sly. Gurdjieff used to say that if you want to learn from a master you have to be very sly, cunning. That’s how he learned. He moved for at least twenty years from one master to another master – but masters take their own time, they are not in a hurry. They don’t live in time, they live in the eternal, so there is no hurry. But Gurdjieff was in a hurry, so rather than waiting until whenever the master felt the time was right and he would impart his knowledge, he would impart his wisdom, he started stealing wisdom from the masters.Gurdjieff says he learned by stealing, by being cunning. It looks strange to use the words sly, cunning, in reference to spirituality, but Gurdjieff is a rare man. If you understand him rightly, what he means is simply: be clever, be intelligent, be utterly alert, be wise.In the East, the serpent has become the symbol of the energy that is dormant in you. In Yoga we call it “kundalini” – the serpent power. It is dormant in your sex center, like a coiled serpent, fast asleep, snoring. At the lowest center of your being your energy is asleep; it has to be awakened. And once the serpent starts rising in you, you will be surprised that you are not so small as you appear from the outside. From the inside you are as vast as the sky; even the sky is not the limit.The serpent is a beautiful symbol. It has no legs, still it moves so fast; its movement is a miracle. Zen people say: godliness cannot be explained, truth cannot be defined. To define truth is like putting legs on a snake. The snake moves without legs, there is no need of any legs. If you put legs on the snake you may stop its movement totally; it may not be able to move at all.So it is with wisdom: it moves without legs. It moves without information, without knowledge. It moves without intellectuality; it moves intuitively.The serpent dances listening to music. Scientists were very puzzled in the beginning, because the snake has no ears at all, it cannot listen. But how can you deny it? – everybody knows that the serpent becomes absolutely hypnotized by music; it sways, dances. How does it become possible? – because it has no ears. Then after great inquiry and research it was found it has no ears but it hears from every cell of its body. Its whole skin functions as an ear; it is all ears.And that’s how a disciple has to be: all ears; not only listening from the ears but listening from the feet to the head, listening from each cell of one’s being so that each fiber of your existence starts pulsating, falls in rhythm with the master.The serpent is of great significance. Jesus is right. You became puzzled because of the word cunning. It simply means wise.Sheikh Mustapha needed one more horse before setting off on a trip into the desert. Two steeds were brought to him from a nearby village, but the owner of each horse, not wanting to give up his animal, insisted his nag was worthless, broken winded, old and crippled.“It is a simple thing to settle,” said the sheikh. “We will stage a race. The winning horse will be taken.”An advisor stepped forward and whispered, “It won’t work, Your Highness. Neither man will let his horse run fast.”“They will,” said Mustapha. “Let each man ride the other’s horse.”You can call it cunningness, you can call it wisdom. The sheikh is wise, is cunning, is sly. He says, “Let each man ride the other’s horse.” Then there is not going to be any difficulty to decide who comes first, because each will try the hardest possible to bring the horse first – it is the other’s horse.Jesus says: “Be wise, be cunning, be sly” – because life is complex, very complex, and your bondage is very ancient. You have become accustomed to your slavery. Unless you behave very intelligently, there is no possibility of your ever getting out of this imprisonment. You will have to focus all your energy on a single point: how to attain freedom.It is like a prisoner: if he wants to get out of jail he will have to be really cunning, wise, sly. He will have to watch from where to escape, he will have to watch continuously what side of the prison is less guarded. He will have to watch very carefully which guards can be bribed. He will have to make some connection with outside people; only if he can get some help from the outside – a rope, a ladder, certain information: at what time of the night he should escape, at what time the guards are changed, at what time the guard falls asleep, how to get the rope, how to get a ladder… If he behaves stupidly he will be caught, and he will be in far more danger than before. It is better not to try to escape if you are not intelligent enough.Hence each master sharpens your intelligence. Wherever you find that your intelligence is being dulled, escape from that place as fast as possible.And that’s what is being done in almost all the so-called spiritual places. The so-called ashrams and temples and mosques and churches dull you, they console you. They tell you that you are already free, there is no need to go anywhere. They tell you that the prison does not exist – this is your home. They tell you the guard is not your enemy, he is your friend. He is not guarding you so that you cannot escape, no; he is guarding you so that nobody can enter and harm you. They say: “Decorate the prison.” They give you all kinds of suggestions and advice how to decorate it and how to make it beautiful. They console you. And the more you are consoled, the more you are lulled into sleep, the less becomes the possibility of your ever becoming a buddha, ever becoming awakened, ever becoming really free.Your so-called saints go on singing lullabies; they help you to sleep better. And you will be surprised that the so-called mantras are nothing but a way to fall deeply asleep. That’s what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation is. If you repeat any word… It does not matter what word you repeat – Rama, Rama, or Krishna, Krishna, or Christ, Christ, or Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola – anything will do. If you go on repeating a certain word continuously it will help you to fall deeply asleep, because the mind becomes bored with it. When the mind becomes bored it starts feeling dull, sleepy. When the mind becomes bored there is only one escape from the boredom – to fall asleep.Mothers have known it for centuries. Transcendental meditation has been used by all the mothers all over the world. Whenever the child is not going to sleep they start repeating a single line, a lullaby. Anything will do; just go on repeating the same again and again and the child starts falling asleep.And that’s how hypnosis functions: any repetition – a mantra is not necessarily needed – anything. You can make a black spot on the wall and go on looking at it, looking constantly at it, and within minutes you will be fast asleep, because consciousness needs flow, consciousness needs something new to keep alert, consciousness needs movement. Consciousness is a stream.In fact it is because of this that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation – which is neither transcendental nor meditation – has become so significant in America. America is the country which suffers most from sleeplessness, the only country which can sleep only through tranquilizers, sleeping pills – and even those are no longer working – the only country which has become so restless that sleep has become almost impossible. New methods are needed, more subtle methods are needed.But to fall asleep is not meditation, it is consolation. It will give you a little rest and tomorrow you will find yourself a little more fresh. It is good – I am not against Transcendental Meditation; it is a nonmedicinal tranquilizer. If you use tranquilizers you can use Transcendental Meditation – far better. At least you are not stuffing yourself with chemicals which may have side effects. It will not harm you, but it is not meditation at all – because meditation means the sharpening of intelligence. Meditation means becoming more alert, more bright, more brilliant, becoming more luminous, becoming more wise.Jesus is right when he says: “Become as cunning as the serpents.” Have you watched a serpent – how alert he is, how watchful? A slight disturbance, just a dry leaf in the wind, and the serpent escapes. You walk, your footsteps are enough: just a little sound and the serpent is gone like the wind. He is so alert, so watchful.Learn that watchfulness, learn that alertness. Learn that beautiful movement, that flexibility, that fluidity of a serpent. And be as innocent as the doves.Jesus is bringing the polar opposites: be wise, intelligent, but not knowledgeable, and be innocent. You may misunderstand wisdom as knowledge; hence he adds: be innocent as doves. If you are innocent and wise you cannot be knowledgeable; you will be intelligent, but you will not be knowledgeable. You will not go on accumulating knowledge, you will not become a walking Encyclopedia Britannica. Those kind of people are almost always stupid.I have come across a man who was really a walking Encyclopedia Britannica; that was all that he read. Now, the Encyclopedia Britannica is not something to read; once in a while you can consult it. But this man was continuously reading it. You could have asked any question; if it is in the Encyclopedia Britannica then that man was able to answer it exactly like that. For a few days he stayed with me; I have never seen such a stupid man – very knowledgeable and very stupid.This happens because his knowledge has not given him more consciousness, his knowledge has given him only information. Information becomes accumulated in the memory part of your brain – and memory is not consciousness; consciousness is a totally different phenomenon. Consciousness is the witness in you, it can witness your memory.Sometimes you see a person, you remember that you remember him, but still the name does not come. You say it is just on the tip of the tongue, you know it is just on the tip of the tongue, and still it is not coming. What is happening? Your consciousness says it is in the memory, but somehow the memory is blocked, somehow the memory is not in a state to deliver what you need. There may be some obstacle; maybe you are so much in a hurry that the memory has become tense. You try hard; the harder you try, the more difficult it becomes. Then in tremendous frustration you drop the whole project. You go into the garden, you sit under a tree, you start smoking… And suddenly it bubbles up, it surfaces.Your consciousness is a totally different phenomenon. Your consciousness was saying, “It is in the memory…” but somehow you have not been able to find it. And then sitting under the tree, smoking relaxedly, it surfaces. Now your consciousness watches it surfacing; now you know it has come in front of you. You are seeing it coming up; you are the seer, you are never the seen. You are never the content of consciousness, you are consciousness.The knowledgeable person gathers content, and the meditative person sharpens consciousness. The meditative person becomes wise; the knowledgeable person remains simply knowledgeable. But if some situation arises in which his knowledge is not applicable, he will behave very stupidly. He will not know what to do, he will be completely at a loss. If the answer is in the encyclopedia he will repeat it like a gramophone record, but if the answer is not there in the encyclopedia then he will simply be dumb; he will not be able to respond spontaneously.Wisdom is a spontaneous response; knowledge is depending on the past. Knowledge is mechanical; it can be done by a computer. And sooner or later it is going to be done by computers, because memorizing is a waste of time, an unnecessary waste of time. A small portable computer can do everything: you can keep it in your pocket and it can remember the whole Encyclopedia Britannica; just pushing a button any information can be available.In the coming century the whole education system is going to be totally transformed and changed because of the computer. It will be stupid to teach children history, geography – unnecessary, there is no need. All that can be done by a computer; the child can carry the computer.And my own observation is: the less you depend on memory, the more intelligent you become. That’s why it happens that in the universities you will not find very intelligent people. Professors, chancellors, vice-chancellors – I have seen many, but it is very difficult to find some intelligent person there. You can find more intelligent people among the farmers, among the gardeners, among the villagers. And the reason is clear: because they are not knowledgeable they cannot depend on the memory. They have to respond to reality, they have to respond to challenges, they have to bring their consciousness to respond – their consciousness remains sharper. A farmer, a villager, is far wiser than a professor in the university. The professor can depend on the memory, the farmer cannot depend on the memory.I have heard…A woman purchased some canned fruits, but it was a new type of can and she did not know how to open it. So she told the cook, “Wait. I will look in the literature – the literature that has come with the can. Let me see: they must say how to open it.”She went to look in the literature. After half an hour when she had studied the whole literature she came back, but the cook by that time had opened the can. She asked, “How did you manage? It was even difficult for me to find out in the literature how to open it! How did you manage?”The cook said, “Because I can’t read I have to depend on my intelligence. You can read; you need not use your intelligence.”Be wise – that means be more conscious. And be innocent – that means be more like a child, full of wonder and awe. If these two qualities are there, wonder and awe, intelligence and wisdom, you cannot miss God; it is impossible to miss God.Then you will not ask where God is, you will ask where God is not. He is everywhere, within and without.The third question:Osho,Why do men have hair on their chests?Well, they can’t have everything!The fourth question:Osho,L. Ron Hubbard's work focuses on clearing the mind, whereas you often speak of dropping the mind. What is the difference? Please comment.L. Ron Hubbard’s work is psychological, it is not spiritual. To clear the mind is a psychological work: to drop the mind is a spiritual revolution. Clearing the mind you remain attached to the mind, and howsoever you clear it, it remains. Even if the glass wall is absolutely transparent and you can see outside as clearly as if you are outside, still you are not outside. The very clear, absolutely transparent glass wall still keeps you imprisoned. You can see the butterflies in the sun, you can see flowers, you can see birds flying in the sky, you can see clouds and the moon and the stars…And if you don’t try to get out you may remain in the deception that you are out in the open. But if you try to get out, you are in for a great surprise: there is a transparent wall that prevents you – you are still a prisoner.The mind can be made very clear, but the mind remains. In fact the more clear it is, the more you will be deceived by it – because it will become more and more transparent. You will not feel enclosed by it, you will become identified with it. And the clear mind will give you great insights, great visions – of light, of love, of the beyond – and you may start thinking that you are having spiritual experiences.No experience is ever spiritual; all experiences are psychological. To go beyond your psychology is what I mean when I say drop the mind.Hubbard’s work is very ordinary; it should be part of the psychological literature. But in the West people have forgotten completely what spirituality is all about; hence it is very easy to deceive. And I am not saying that Hubbard is deceiving others – he may be deceived himself. He has a clear mind and his processes are good as far as clearance of the mind is concerned, but it is not spiritual work. It cannot take you to the eternal and it cannot make you aware of your innermost core. It keeps you identified with the mind, and the more mind becomes clear and beautiful, the more you become attached to it because the more precious it looks. And when it starts giving you visions and spiritual experiences, then it becomes absolutely impossible to drop it. It is easier to drop an unclear, confused mind; it is difficult to drop a clear mind.So I am not interested in making your mind clear. My whole effort is to make you aware of your confused mind, to make you aware of your ill mind, to make you aware of your insanities, to make you aware of your schizophrenia, to make you aware of your whole pathology, so that you are bound to drop it, you cannot cling to it anymore.And the moment mind is dropped, the moment you know you are not the mind, a mutation has taken place. You are transported into another world; you have entered into the world of consciousness.The body is there. The physiologists work on it and they think the body is all – they don’t even believe in mind. Mind is an epiphenomenon, just a by-product; it is nothing but the functioning of the body. Then there are psychologists who think man is more than the body: he is psychology, he is mind, he is not just the body. But their mind also is going to die with the body; maybe it is separate but it cannot exist on its own.The psychologist has not moved very far away from the physiologist. And in fact psychology and physiology are two aspects of the same coin. Man is neither body nor mind but both: man is bodymind, man is psychosomatic. The body affects the mind, the mind affects the body; hence they are not separate. You drink alcohol: the alcohol goes into the body but affects the mind. You can take LSD or marijuana: it goes in the body, it changes the chemistry of the body, but immediately your mind is totally different.Even a man like Aldous Huxley was deceived by LSD. He thought that under the impact of LSD what he was experiencing was exactly what Kabir had experienced in his mystic experiences, in his mystic world. A man like Huxley, a man of far more clear mind than Hubbard, got deceived. He thought, “We have found the shortcut to spiritual experience: LSD is enough. There is now no need to fast for years, no need to stand on your head for years, no need to torture your body, no need to do the old, ancient austerities. Those are bullock-cart methods, and we are in a jet age and we have found a spiritual shortcut – LSD.” He was deceived because he also thought that the mind is all. And LSD can give you great mental experiences because it can change your mind.Change the body, the mind changes. Change the mind, the body changes.That’s how hypnosis works. If you are hypnotized and told that tomorrow you are going to have a great fever, if it is insisted on again and again and you are conditioned that tomorrow, early morning, as you wake up you will find yourself with a great fever… Nothing has been done to the body, just your mind has been conditioned: tomorrow morning you are going to suffer from a fever. One can even die.In 1952, a few countries of the world made laws against hypnosis. They made it clear that only authorized hypnotists can be allowed to hypnotize people, because in one of the universities of America a great accident happened. Four students, all psychology students, were studying about hypnosis and the history of hypnotism, and they became intrigued and they wanted to try it. So they hypnotized one of their friends; he must have been really very vulnerable.Thirty-three percent of people are very vulnerable; out of three, one person is very ready to be hypnotized. These thirty-three percent are the problem in the world; up to now they have been the problem: anybody can hypnotize them. Adolf Hitler depended on these thirty-three percent, Mao Zedong depended on these thirty-three percent. All wars, all fanatic crusades, have depended on these thirty-three percent. One third of the people of the world are very prone, very ready, to be hypnotized.By coincidence that boy must have been one of those people, and the three tried hard to hypnotize him. They hypnotized him and they were feeling great, because whatsoever they were saying, he was doing. They told him to dance, he danced. They told him, “This is very hot water,” and they gave him ice-cold water, and he could not drink it. He said, “It is too hot, my mouth will be burned.” And they were surprised when they put a small pebble on the palm of the hypnotized person and told him that, “This is fire.” He was already burned, immediately burned, actually burned – by a cold pebble. They became more and more intrigued by the whole phenomenon.They tried the last thing. They told the person to lie down and they told him, “You are dead!” – and he died. Then they tried hard to wake him up, but it was too late. Because of that incident many countries have made laws against hypnosis. Only authorized professionals should be allowed to use it because it can be dangerous. It can affect your mind, and through the mind your body.Mind and body are not separate, but you are a third entity. You are in the body, in the mind, but you are not identified with them. You are a witnessing consciousness.My work is totally different from Hubbard’s work: his work is psychological, my work is spiritual. My effort here is not to give you a clear mind; my effort here is to give you a state of no-mind, because only through no-mind will you be able to know the reality – the reality within and the reality without. But the no-mind is the door, the only door.The fifth question:Osho,Why is it that the journalists never seem to understand you?It has nothing to do with me. They have never understood Jesus, Socrates, Buddha, Kabir. They cannot understand; it is against their investment.The journalist lives on creating sensations. Any news is news only when it is sensation. They live on rumors and they have to make rumors very spicy. They have no interest in truth, because truth is never news. Truth is so ancient, truth is always the same. I am saying the same truth as Buddha said, Christ said, and all those who have known. It is nothing new – how it can be news?And they come here in search of news. They have to invent – and it is really interesting how inventive people can be.Just a few days ago I was reading a report in a Punjabi magazine about this place. The man says, the journalist says, that he has been here for fifteen days, stayed in the commune, and whatsoever he is writing is based on his own experience. Because he introduced his article in this way I became interested: what has he seen? So I went through it. Ordinarily I don’t read what journalists go on writing, it is impossible. We have a big press department for that, at least thirty persons continuously reading and collecting, because it is happening all over the world, in all the languages. So much is being published that it is impossible for me to keep any track of it. But because this man said, “I have been there for fifteen days,” I looked into the article. I was amazed!He says that this place is spread over fifteen square miles! Now, I think even Pune is not spread over fifteen square miles. He says the moment you enter the gate the first thing that you see is a big white marble statue of a naked woman! Because I very rarely go to the gate, I asked Laxmi, “What has happened? Where is this statue?”He says that there are artificial lakes, artificial waterfalls, thousands of sannyasins swim naked in the lake. There are underground air-conditioned halls where ten thousand people can sit together. Each morning I deliver a discourse in an underground hall. You are sitting in an underground hall, air-conditioned, and not only that – all the disciples have to sit in absolute nudity! Feel your clothes – if you think you are wearing clothes you are deceived. You are all naked.Now these people have a great investment in creating rumors. That’s how the magazines, the newspapers sell. They have nothing to do with truth. This man has never been here.They cannot understand for two reasons. First: if they understand, they will not be able to write anything. That has happened to a few journalists. Those who have understood have become sannyasins; they have forgotten all about writing. They had come to write; now they have decided not to go again back, they have decided to be here.Not only journalists… Here there are detectives from many countries. And a few detectives have even become sannyasins! And they have confessed to me that they had come as spies, but now they have understood what is happening here and they would like to become part of the commune.If a journalist goes and reports exactly what he has seen, nobody is going to believe him. That’s what happened with Satyananda. He had come from a famous German magazine, Stern, to report; then he became a sannyasin. His becoming a sannyasin created trouble. His own people with whom he had worked for years – the chief editor, the editors and others –thought that he had been hypnotized. He tried hard for months to convince them that he had not been hypnotized, but they wouldn’t listen. They were not even ready to publish what he had written. They said, “You are too influenced, you are not in your senses.” And even when they agreed after months of argument to publish it, they cut the whole article in half in such a way that it lost all context, it lost all its wholeness, it became fragmentary.In the first place, the journalist lives on rumors. He is not here to understand me, he is here to misunderstand me; that is his investment. Secondly: the people who become journalists – not all the people but almost ninety-nine point nine percent of the people who become journalists – are very uncreative people. In fact those who can create, create; those who cannot create, criticize. Uncreative people become great critics.It is easy to criticize poetry, it is difficult to write poetry. It is very easy to criticize painting – you can criticize Picasso, but you cannot paint like Picasso. It is easy to criticize anything.Turgenev has written a story, The Fool. In a certain town there was a man who was known as the greatest idiot in these parts. He was very worried because wherever he would go people would laugh at him, whatsoever he would say people would ridicule him. Even if he was saying something right people would laugh at him because nobody could believe that the idiot could say anything right. It was assumed that he was a perfect idiot.A Sufi mystic was passing through the village. The idiot went to him and he said, “My whole life is wasted – everybody thinks I am an idiot. Can you help me?”He said, “It is so easy! Just start doing one thing – start criticizing, and after seven days come to me. I will remain here for seven days just for you; within seven days everything will be changed. But criticize! If somebody quotes Shakespeare, immediately say, ‘What is there in it? It is all nonsense, rubbish!’ If somebody says, ‘The moon is beautiful, look!’ – just say, ‘What is it? I don’t see any beauty. Prove what beauty is there!’ Nobody can prove it, because beauty cannot be proved. If somebody says, ‘What a beautiful morning,’ – immediately jump upon it and start criticizing. Do only one thing for seven days: go around the town and criticize everybody.”Within seven days the man came back – not alone, followed by hundreds of people, and they all said, “You have done a miracle! The greatest idiot has become the greatest wise man. Nobody can argue with him.”It is easier to criticize, very easy to criticize. It is very difficult to create.And what I am creating is something invisible. Unless you have very sympathetic eyes you will not be able to see it. Unless you fall en rapport with me you will not be able to understand it.Father Murphy was a priest in a very poor parish. He asked for some suggestions as to how he could raise money and was told that a racehorse owner always had money.He went to a horse auction, but instead of buying a horse he got a donkey. However, he thought he would enter it in the race and the donkey came in third. The next day the headlines in the paper read, “Father Murphy’s ass showed.” The archbishop saw the headlines and was displeased.The next day the donkey came in first and the headlines read, “Father Murphy’s ass out in front.” The archbishop was up in arms and figured something had to be done. Father Murphy had entered the donkey once again and the donkey came in second.The headlines read, “Father Murphy’s ass back in place.” The archbishop thought this too much, and forbade the priest to enter the donkey in the next race.The next day the headlines read, “Archbishop scratches Father Murphy’s ass.”The archbishop ordered Father Murphy to get rid of the donkey. He was unable to sell it, so he gave it to Sister Agatha for a pet. When the archbishop heard this he ordered Sister Agatha to dispose of the animal at once. Since she could not give it away, she sold it for ten dollars.The next day the headlines read, “Sister Agatha peddles her ass for ten dollars.”They buried the archbishop three days later.Journalists live on such stupid things. Their whole investment is wrong, their priorities are wrong. And they know perfectly well how to report about politicians because that is their business. The politician understands them, they understand the politician; they speak the same language. But when they come across a person like me, the distance is so vast: they speak one language, I speak totally another. They can’t understand what I am saying. They go on misunderstanding it, they go on putting their own interpretations on it.And the journalists think themselves very clever, they think themselves very knowledgeable, they think themselves very intellectual. A great misunderstanding prevails that they are part of the intelligentsia – they are not!Intelligence is always creative; it is only nonintelligence which is critical. Criticism is not of much value; hence I don’t pay any attention to what they go on saying. And you need not be worried about them – leave them to themselves.The last question:Osho,How do you manage to speak year in, year out, and still it is always as fresh as the morning rays of the sun?I am a drunkard! I don’t know what I have said yesterday. In fact I don’t know what I have said today. And slowly, slowly you also become drunkards with me, so you go on forgetting. Hence it appears every day fresh and new, because neither I remember nor you remember! And there is no need to remember either.The new priest at his first mass was so afraid he could hardly speak. Before his second week at the pulpit he asked the other priest how he could relax.The priest replied, “Next week it may help if you put a martini in the water pitcher. After a few sips, everything should go smoothly.”The following week, the young priest put his elder’s suggestion into practice and really talked up a storm.After his sermon, he asked the other priest how he liked the sermon.The elder priest replied, “There are a few things you should learn before addressing the congregation again:1. Next time sip instead of gulp the martini.2. There are twelve disciples, not ten.3. There are ten commandments, not twelve.4. David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.5. We do not refer to our savior Jesus Christ and his disciples as J.C. and the boys.6. Next week there is a taffy-pulling contest at Saint Peter’s, not a peter-pulling contest at Taffy’s.7. We do not refer to the cross as the Big T.8. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Big Daddy, Junior and Spook.9. Last but not least, it is the Virgin Mary, not Mary with the cherry.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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At the end of the way,the master finds freedomfrom desire and sorrow –freedom without bounds.Those who awakennever rest in one place.Like swans, they riseand leave the lake.On the air they riseand fly an invisible course,gathering nothing, storing nothing.Their food is knowledge.They live upon emptiness.They have seen how to break free.Who can follow them?Only the master,such is his purity.Like a bird,he rises on the limitless airand flies an invisible course.He wishes for nothing.His food is knowledge.He lives upon emptiness.He has broken free.Gautam Buddha’s search is not for God; it cannot be. If God is not known already, how can you search for him? If the search depends on believing in God, then the search is falsified from the very beginning.A true search has to be neither of belief nor of disbelief. If you believe, you will project; you will autohypnotize yourself according to your belief. There is every danger that you will find whatsoever you believe in – you will create an illusion of it.Deep belief can create a space in which hallucinations become possible. Hence the Christian can see Christ and the Hindu can see Krishna. The Hindu never comes across Christ, the Christian never comes across Krishna. Why does it never happen? – because whatsoever you believe, you find. Not that it is there in reality, but because you are projecting it on reality. Reality functions as a screen and you go on projecting your own prejudice. If you disbelieve, then of course there is no possibility of ever finding it; from the very beginning your mind is closed.Hence Buddha’s search is not for God. We don’t know whether God is or is not; we cannot take any standpoint. And without taking a standpoint about God there is no possibility of inquiring into his reality.This is a basic difference between Buddha’s approach and the approach of all other religions. Buddha is far superior. The other religions are very anthropocentric: their idea of God is nothing but their idea of man – projected, magnified, decorated, made as beautiful as possible, but it is man projected onto the sky.That’s why the Negro will have a God according to the Negro idea of what a human being is: the lips will be thick, the hair will be curly. The Chinese will have his own projection, the Indian will have his own idea. There are three hundred religions on the earth; there are not three hundred Gods. Why these three hundred religions? And these three hundred religions have at least three thousand sects, and they all have differences about God and God’s conception.God is one, because reality is one. If God is equal to reality, synonymous with reality, then there are not many existences, there is only one existence – it can’t have so many images. In fact, no image can represent it; every image will be only partial. And to claim the whole truth for the part is a sin – a sin against yourself and against humanity and against truth.And the moment you start thinking about God in anthropocentric terms, you make an image. That image is nothing but a toy to play with. You can worship it, you can pray, you can bow down to it, but you are simply being stupid. You are bowing down to your own toy, you are worshipping your own creation! And that’s what your temples, your churches, your mosques are – man-made, manufactured by man’s own mind.God cannot be manufactured. God cannot be part of man’s creation. On the contrary, man is God’s creation. The Bible says God created man in his own image. But what has happened on the earth is just the opposite of it: man has created God in his own image. And of course there are many kinds of man, so there are many kinds of God, and great quarreling continues, who is right. It is not the question of what concept of God is right, the question basically is whose concept is right.God too has become an ego trip. Christians fighting with Mohammedans, Mohammedans fighting with Hindus, Hindus fighting with Jainas, and this sorry round goes on and on. The whole history of humanity has been ugly because of these so-called religious people. They have proved the most irreligious. They have proved to be the greatest fanatics, utterly blind, deeply prejudiced, completely closed, not ready to listen to anything that goes against them or that is a little bit different from their idea. Religions have made people blind, deaf. Religions have made people foolish, unintelligent.Buddha is a totally different world, he brings a totally different vision. The first thing to be remembered: he is not interested in God. And the miracle is that he finds godliness. His inquiry is not into godliness, but he ends, he lands, in godliness. His inquiry begins with a totally different angle, and that is the right angle to begin with. If you start as Buddha starts, you are bound to find godliness.H. G. Wells is right when he says that Gautama the Buddha is the most godly man on the earth and yet the most godless. Yes, he is a paradox. He denies God, he says there is no God. He says there is no need to worship, he says there is no need to believe. Inquire, don’t believe! Search and seek, but without any prejudice for or against. Start with a totally pure and open mind. Start like a small child, in utter innocence, who has not even heard of God. And he does not say that if you start this way you will find God, because he knows the cunningness of human mind. If he says, “If you start this way you will find God,” your mind will say to you, “Then this is the way to find God – start this way,” but deep down your desire for God remains. The desire for God arises in your psychology; it is not a spiritual search.Sigmund Freud is right that God is nothing but a search for a father or mother figure. Buddha would have agreed with him, Buddha would have blessed Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud’s insight about it is very accurate. He does not go very far, but he begins rightly, though he becomes stuck in the middle because he was not aware of Buddha and he was not aware of Lao Tzu. He remained basically part of the Judaic–Christian tradition – which is not very evolved, which is not yet a metaphysics in the true sense of the term.Christianity and Judaism are very earthly religions, more rooted in man’s psychology than in man’s spiritual understanding. And because man’s psychology is a chaos, whatsoever is rooted in his psychology is bound to remain a chaos.Man needs a father figure, somebody to depend upon. In the name of God people are not searching for God but are only searching for excuses for their dependence – beautiful excuses so that the dependence does not look like slavery, so the dependence also starts having a flavor of religiousness, spirituality. But to call God “the father” indicates what you have been searching for.There are religions which call God “the mother”; it is the same, the same game – either mother or father. If the society is mother-oriented, matriarchal, then God becomes “the mother”; if the society is father-oriented, patriarchal, then God becomes “the father.”Germany calls itself “the fatherland,” India calls itself “the motherland”; the difference is only in names. Whether you call the country motherland or fatherland does not make much difference, because you create the same trouble. The labels are different but it is the same politics; the labels are different but it is the same childish approach toward reality.Why do you seek for God? Out of fear? Yes, there is fear, because there is death. If you are seeking God out of fear you will never find him. God can be found only through love, not through fear.In all the languages of the world such phrases exist as “God-fearing”; the religious person is called God-fearing. It is utter nonsense! A religious person is never God-fearing: a religious person is God-loving. His prayerfulness arises not out of fear but out of tremendous love and gratitude. His prayer is a thankfulness, not a demand. He does not ask for security, because he knows already that he is secure. He does not ask for safety, he does not ask for protection, because he knows that existence protects, that existence is our home, that we belong to it and that it belongs to us. Why should he ask for such things which are already available, which are already given, which are built in, in your very existence?But the so-called religious person goes on demanding. Maybe he has lost his father, his mother… And everybody one day or other loses them. It is not really that your father dies, then you lose him; the moment you become mature, you start moving on your own, the father is lost, the mother is lost – and the childhood illusions are lost. And then great fear arises: up to now you were protected by your father, cared for by your mother. Now who is going to protect you and who is going to care for you? The sky seems to be very cold, indifferent, existence seems to be utterly neutral; it does not care this way or that, whether you live or die doesn’t matter. A great fear arises in one’s being, a trembling. Søren Kierkegaard has exactly called it trembling; in that trembling he thinks religion is born. Yes, in that trembling religion is born, but that religion is pseudo, that religion is not true.Religion is born when you are centered, rooted, not trembling. Religion is born in great understanding, not in fear. Religion is born when you start feeling that existence responds with love, that it is not uncaring, that it is not cold; that it is very warm, that it is very welcoming. It is our very life – how can it be uncaring toward us?But the so-called religious people go on asking God for protection; hence God is called “the great protector.” The religious people go on asking God for eternal life because they are trembling; they are scared of death and death is coming every day closer and closer. Soon it will encompass you, it will drown you in darkness. Before that you have to find a secure ground, a home. That becomes your search for God.Buddha is not interested in such a search. He says rather than listening to the ill, pathological mind and going according to it in search of God, it is better to drop this pathological mind. It is better to drop this whole pathology, be free of it – because in that freedom is seeing, in that freedom is knowing.Free from mind you become a knower. You become so absolutely certain of immortality, of timelessness, of deathlessness, that there is no need for any God to protect you – you are already protected. In that protection you bow down to existence in gratitude. In that protection, in that caring, in that love that goes on flowing invisibly from the universe toward you… It nourishes you every moment. It is the universe that you breathe in and out, it is the universe that flows in your blood, it is the universe that becomes your bones, your very marrow. The moment it becomes your own experience, you have become religious.And now you know that God is, but this is a totally different God. It is not a father figure – it is not a figure at all. It is not a person but a presence, a loving presence overflowing the whole cosmos. Now it is not a person controlling, a dictator dictating. It is not like the Old Testament God who says, “I am very jealous.”Buddha says: “God and jealous? Then who is going to be beyond jealousy?” Buddha says even man has to become non-jealous, only then will he be able to know God. But can it be a condition that you have to become non-jealous and then you will know a jealous God? Can it be a condition that to know a jealous God, first you have to drop all your jealousies? That would be very illogical! The Old Testament God says, “I am jealous, I am angry. Those who don’t listen to me will be condemned forever!”Bertrand Russell has written a book, Why I Am Not A Christian. In the book he gives many arguments; one of those arguments is worth considering. He says the Christian and Jewish God seems to be utterly unjust, unfair, because Christians and Jews believe only in one life… Bertrand Russell says, “As far as I am concerned, for all the crimes that I have committed, even the hardest judge cannot sentence me for more than four years. And if the sins that I have not committed but only contemplated are also included, then too, at the most, eight years, ten years.”In a life of seventy years, how much sin can you commit? In a life of seventy years one third is spent in sleeping, the other one third in working for bread and butter. What time do you have to commit sin and how much can you commit? And, Russell says, the Christian, the Jewish God says you will be punished for eternity! Now, this is unfair! Even if you punish a man for seventy years, okay; seventy years at least he lived. If life itself is sin, if to breathe is sin, then send him for seventy years to hell – but sending him to hell for eternity, for ever and ever he will be in hell… Russell says that this is unjust. If this is your idea of God, then what is your idea of the Devil? How can God be more devilish? This is a very evil conception.But because the so-called religions are based in fear, such ideas create more fear in people. And the priests exploit your fear; they say you will be condemned, punished. They have created pictures, paintings of hell, hellfire and they have invented all kinds of tortures for hell.These people can’t be saints. Even to contemplate that others should be burned in fire forever and forever needs a very cruel mind – even to think about it, even to write about it.Buddha says the search, the true search, is not for God, cannot be – because God is the need of a pathological mind. Let this sink deep in you; otherwise you will not be able to understand this very superior vision of religion.Secondly, Buddha says religion is not a search for truth either, because the moment you start inquiring about truth you become intellectuals. The whole inquiry becomes philosophical, intellectual, rational – truth is a rational concept. Then you start thinking that you have to go through many logical processes, that you have to argue, discuss, debate, and then finally one day you will come to the conclusion – as if truth is going to be a conclusion of a logical process, as if truth is going to be a by-product of your syllogism.Truth is not just intellectual. And what can the intellect think about truth? It is all imagination, inference. At the most it can arrive at a certain hypothesis, a workable hypothesis, utilitarian; but it can never arrive at any truth.That’s why philosophy never arrives; it simply goes on and on in circles – it moves in vicious circles. Science also never arrives at truth. At the most it comes across hypotheses which are accepted today and rejected tomorrow because tomorrow you find a better hypothesis which works more efficiently; hence yesterday’s hypothesis has to be discarded.Newton was discarded by Albert Einstein; Albert Einstein will be discarded sooner or later by somebody else. Science never comes to truth, to ultimate truth. Everything is utilitarian: if it works then it is worth using. But the question is not of truth, the question is of utility.Buddha says truth can only be existential, not intellectual. Intellect will be a part in it, emotion will also be a part in it, the body will also be a part in it – and the center of it is going to be your witnessing consciousness. It will be a total phenomenon, not only intellectual, not only emotional.There are two kinds of religion: the intellectual religions and the emotional religions. The intellectual religions philosophize and the emotional religions worship, pray – but both are partial. And the truth is not just the sum total of all its parts: it is more than the sum total of its parts.Hence Buddha says an existential approach is needed – not intellectual only, not emotional only. The philosopher is not going to discover it, nor is the devotee.Thirdly, Buddha says, “My search is not for bliss either…” because you cannot conceive what bliss is. Whatsoever you will conceive is bound to be somehow colored by your idea of happiness. And your idea of happiness is not very blissful, is not very close to bliss. Your idea of happiness is much closer to unhappiness. Your idea of happiness is nothing but the opposite of unhappiness – and they are both together, two aspects of the same energy. Like day and night they are joined together; day follows night, then night follows day, and it goes on and on. Happy one moment, unhappy another, happy again, unhappy another… And this way your whole life is wasted.When you hear the word bliss, what notion arises in your mind? – something of happiness, something of eternal happiness, something when you will never know unhappiness again. But if unhappiness disappears, happiness cannot remain. If darkness disappears completely there will be no light. They depend on each other; they appear contradictory but they are really complementaries. So whatsoever you conceive of as bliss is going to be wrong from the very beginning. You will be searching for a new kind of hedonism – maybe spiritual, metaphysical. Maybe you are not searching for happiness here, but you are searching for happiness on the other shore.And that’s what all the religions talk about in the name of heaven, paradise: what they are missing here they project in paradise. If you look into different people’s ideas about paradise you will immediately be able to know one thing: what is missing in their life. You will not know anything about paradise, but you will certainly know what is missing in the lives of the people whose conception this paradise is.For example, the Mohammedan paradise has provision for homosexuality. Strange! But that’s what was very prevalent in the days when Mohammedanism was in its early stages. The Mohammedan countries have still remained very homosexual; it is the only paradise. So if some gay people are here they should remember it. When after death you are asked, “Where do you want to go?” immediately say, “To the Mohammedan paradise.” But don’t go to a Hindu paradise! That has never been the idea in India; it has been a sin.If you go to a Greek paradise you will find homosexuality very praised. In fact, in the Greek culture man’s body was thought to be far more beautiful than the woman’s body; hence all the Greek sculpture is centered around the male figure. Even in the schools of Plato and Aristotle homosexuality was the rule, not the exception. The Greek idea of paradise is bound to be according to the Greek mind.In the Hindu paradise you will find beautiful women and they are all stuck at the age sixteen, for centuries and centuries, because the Hindu idea of beauty is the sixteen-year-old girl – not even eighteen, what to say about twenty-one! The Hindu idea is that at sixteen the woman attains perfection; after that there is deterioration. And because the Hindu so-called saints were starving themselves of feminine relationship, from female energy, their minds were too obsessed with women. Of course they had to find some consolation somewhere; their paradise is their consolation.In their paradise women have bodies of gold, eyes of diamonds. What kind of women these will be! Utterly dead! I don’t think the Hindu saints will allow blood to run through their veins – cows’ milk will be far better and far purer, and holier too! And these girls go on dancing continuously, singing songs, around sages – sages who had renounced family life here on the earth. They are really on a picnic! Their paradise is what they are missing here.Analyze the paradise of any race, any country, any religion, and you will know what they are really missing here. The Hindu paradise is very rich – Hindus are poor. In the Hindu paradise there are rivers of milk – water does not flow there. In the real world of the Hindus you cannot even find pure water in the rivers.I have not tasted water for at least fifteen years – I have to depend on soda water! All kinds of impurities are found in Indian rivers, Indian water, because the whole sewage system goes on pouring itself into the rivers, and buffaloes and cows and people are taking their baths there. Indian rivers seem to be the dirtiest – and that is the only water to drink. But they have managed beautifully in paradise; they have dropped water completely. Rivers are of milk and curd!And there are wish-fulfilling trees; you simply sit underneath the tree, no need to work at all. Indians are tired of working, utterly tired. Just sit under a wish-fulfilling tree and whatsoever you wish is immediately fulfilled, instantly – just as you have instant coffee. That too takes a little time, but under the wish-fulfilling tree the wish arises, “A woman!” and the woman appears. “Food!” and suddenly there is food. “Coca-Cola!” and immediately there is Coca-Cola. India has been starving for centuries; the wish-fulfilling tree simply indicates the starving country, the poor country.When these scriptures were being written many things were not there in the world, hence they are not there; otherwise Rolls Royces would have been in paradise, especially made in solid gold, for the great sages, mahatmas, saints. They have golden thrones, so there is nothing wrong about having solid gold Rolls Royces. Here you have to move in worthless cars; even they are very difficult to find. India produces the worst kind of cars in the world!I have heard that when the manufacturer of Ambassador cars died – I knew him, he was my friend, so I believe that the story is true – he was suddenly taken to paradise. He was very puzzled because he was not hoping for that much. He was thinking that if he could get some good quarters in hell, that would do. This was too much! He was a little puzzled. He asked when the door was opened, he asked the doorkeeper, “Is there something wrong? – because I had been thinking that I would be thrown into hell, I have never done anything good. Why are you taking me in?”The doorkeeper said, “You made the Ambassador, and because of the Ambassador many more people have remembered God than through anything else. Whosoever travels in an Ambassador remembers God continuously: ‘My God!’ You have made people so religious. Even atheists when they travel in your car start remembering God – they have to! Hence this special concession for you: a special place has been reserved for you in heaven.”If the scriptures were to be written now, then there would be solid gold Rolls Royces and everything that is missing here would be there.Buddha says: “My search is not for bliss” – because the moment you talk about bliss, people start thinking of pleasures. It is better not to talk about bliss, it is dangerous. People will simply misunderstand.Then what is his bliss for? He has chosen a word never chosen before – he says: “My search is for freedom.” That word is immensely important: freedom from the ego, freedom from the mind, freedom from desires, freedom from all limitations. In a way, he is very scientific in his inward journey. He is saying if you can create a space in your being where your consciousness is totally free, then all is achieved: Godliness is achieved, truth is achieved, beauty is achieved, bliss is achieved. But only in freedom anything becomes possible.Hence these sutras:At the end of the way,the master finds freedomfrom desire and sorrow –freedom without bounds.Not godliness, not truth, not bliss, but freedom. Freedom is Buddha’s word which contains all: godliness, bliss, truth, beauty. And freedom avoids all other pitfalls. Freedom needs courage; you cannot attain to freedom if you are afraid. Freedom needs that you drop all identification with the mind and the body; otherwise you will remain confined, you can’t be free.Freedom means that you get out of this constantly desiring mind. It is the desiring mind that creates paradise. If you drop desire, how can you talk about paradise? If you drop desire, sorrow disappears automatically, because sorrow is a shadow of desire. The more you desire, the more frustrated you feel, because no desire is ever fulfilled. Desire is unfulfillable; its very nature is such. It is not that you are incapable of fulfilling it; desire’s very nature is such that it cannot be fulfilled – it goes on becoming bigger and bigger. In the beginning you ask for ten thousand rupees; by the time you have ten thousand, your desire has moved ahead of you – it is asking for one hundred thousand rupees.It is like the horizon that surrounds the earth: it looks so close by. Move, and it moves ahead with you. The distance between you and the horizon remains always exactly the same. In fact, there is no place where earth meets the sky – there is no horizon. The horizon is a mirage: it only appears, it is not a reality.So is fulfillment: fulfillment is only a mirage. It only appears there, very close, alluring, enchanting, inviting. You go on moving, and you waste your whole life; and by the time you are dying you have not even moved a single inch closer to fulfillment. People die on the same spot where they were born. People die in the same stupid state in which they were born.I have heard…Sir Henry, bored with English country life, visited a French Salon De Plaisir. In response to Sir Henry’s request for something unusual, the madam suggested, “I can give you Hott Tung, a Chinese delicacy.”“No,” replied his lordship, “I have already had one of those.”“Perhaps,” asked the madam, “you would like to make a selection from our Black African group.”“I have had one of those too,” yawned Sir Henry. “Actually, the only thrill I have not tried would be a little bitty girl, about eight years old.”“This is outrageous!” shrieked the madam. “The very idea is criminal! I am going to summon a policeman.”“No, don’t do that,” said the Englishman. “I have already had one of those!”You can have everything and yet you will not have anything at all. You can have all the wealth of the world and still you will be poor. You can have all that the world makes available and yet the discontent will be deeper than ever before – because before there were hopes, now even hopes will disappear.At the end of the way, the master finds freedom… The goal is to find freedom, but one has to start becoming a master of oneself, master of one’s consciousness. That is the beginning, the first step. You are not master of your own consciousness. You are a slave of a thousand and one desires, thoughts, imaginations. You are pulled in this direction and that. You don’t know who you are and where you are going. You don’t know why you exist at all. You don’t know the purpose of your life, you don’t have any sense of direction. How can you be a master of yourself?The first thing to becoming a master of oneself is to become more conscious of your acts and your thoughts. Unconsciousness is slavery, consciousness is mastery.I call my sannyasins “swamis”; the word swami means the master. It simply means one who is trying to become centered in his being, rooted in his consciousness, who is trying not to be pulled by desires against his wishes. But desires are very cunning and the ego plays such games that unless you are constantly alert you will remain a slave.Rabinowitz, hiding with his wife from the Nazis in a secluded Berlin attic, decided to get a breath of fresh air. While out walking he came face-to-face with Adolf Hitler.The German leader pulled out a gun and pointed to a pile of horse manure in the street. “All right, Jew,” he shouted, “eat that or I will kill you!” Trembling, Rabinowitz did as he was ordered.Hitler began laughing so hard he dropped the weapon. Rabinowitz snatched it up and said, “Now, you eat the manure or I will shoot!” The Fuhrer got down on his hands and knees and began eating.While he was occupied, Rabinowitz sneaked away, ran through an alley, climbed over a fence, and dashed up the stairs to the attic. He slammed the door shut, bolted and locked it securely. “Bessie! Bessie!” he shouted to his wife. “Guess who I had lunch with today!”The ego is very subtle. It can find opportunities where they don’t exist at all; it can make the impossible possible. And you have to be very alert, because the mind is always rationalizing. The mind can go on rationalizing everything and it can rationalize so beautifully that even you will be allured – it is your own mind deceiving you!Unless one is really committed to being free it is impossible to be free. It is very rarely a man becomes free, very rarely: a Jesus, a Moses, a Mohammed – only few and far between. But everyone has the capacity, everyone has the seed, the potential. You can become a Jesus, you can become a Buddha, you can become a Confucius, you can become a Socrates.All that is needed, all that is required, is there. Only one thing is missing: you have not yet decided, you are indecisive; you have not decided to become a master of your own being. And then stupid things go on deceiving you, but you can always rationalize.It is little known that Sherlock Holmes had a secret vice unrevealed in the stories. When Dr. Watson came around to 221B Baker Street one afternoon, the housekeeper told him that Holmes had a visitor, a schoolgirl.Watson sat down to wait, but then heard muffled sounds coming from the study. Fearing that the schoolgirl might be an assassin in disguise he broke open the door, only to find the great detective and the girl – a very young girl – engaged in rather a shocking form of play.“By God, Holmes!” huffed the doctor, “just what sort of schoolgirl is this?”Smirked Holmes, “Elementary, my dear Watson!”You can always find ways and means to protect yourself, to deceive others and to deceive yourself – unless a very deliberate, conscious decision has been made. I call that decision sannyas.Sannyas is nothing but a decision, a total decision, a commitment, an involvement that, “Now my whole energy is going to move in one direction – the direction of freedom; I have decided to be free, free from all desire and free from all sorrow. Freedom without bounds is my goal.”And it can be attained. Once the decision is there and you are pouring your energy into it and nourishing it, nobody can prevent you from attaining it. It is your birthright.Those who awakennever rest in one place.Like swans, they riseand leave the lake.Buddha is saying: “If you start awakening you will be surprised that your whole life you were stuck in the same place, you were not really moving. Your movement was empty, impotent. You were not moving because you were not reaching anywhere. You were moving up and down on the same bank, thinking that by running up and down you will reach the other shore. But the other shore is as far away as ever, and you are unnecessarily wasting your breath.”Those who awaken… Those who become committed to freedom, those who take a decision that, “Now I am going to be free from all that is dark in me, from all that creates future in me, from all that is past in me – I am going to be free from it all. I am going to be a pure freedom so that I can have wings and I can soar high, to the ultimate heights of being and existence….” Unless you decide that… And it needs guts to decide. Many people come here and they go on hesitating for months about whether to take the jump or not – and never for a single moment thinking what they have got to lose, never for a single moment realizing that time is rushing out of their hands, tomorrow may never come… If anything has to be done, it has to be done right now.And strange is man and his ways! That which is useless he is immediately ready to do, and that which is of immense value he postpones. He goes on saying “Tomorrow,” and tomorrow never comes. Instead comes death.And this has been happening many times. This is not your first life on the earth; you have lived millions of times and each time this postponement has been your root cause of misery.Now don’t postpone any more. Use this opportunity. Use this context that I am creating here. It is a buddhafield. If you are ready to take a jump into it, you will never be the same again. But the jump has to be total. You should not cling to the bank, you should leave the bank absolutely. In that very leaving, in that very renunciation of the bank, the transformation happens – you start becoming free.It is not the chains which are keeping you in bondage; it is you who are holding on to the chains, it is you who are clinging to the chains. This is a very absurd situation! The prison is not holding you in; it is you who are afraid to go out. And you go on believing that there is no way out: “What is there to find outside? Those who have gone have never returned. Who knows? – there are wild animals and dangers. Here I am safe, living comfortably.”Don’t think in terms of comfort, think in terms of freedom. Don’t think in terms of safety, think in terms of being more alive. And the only way to be more alive is to live dangerously, is to risk, is to go on an adventure. And the greatest adventure is not going to the moon – the greatest adventure is going to your own innermost core.Those who awaken never rest in one place. Don’t be stagnant, don’t remain in one inner place. Move! Movement is life. Become a river. Don’t remain a stagnant pool, otherwise you will stink.That’s why millions of people stink. Their life does not seem to be a benediction, a blessing. Their life gives no aura of beauty, their life does not radiate. They seem to be completely dark and dismal, utterly depressed, hiding inside their own caves, not capable to come out in the sun, in the moon, in the rains, in the wind; not courageous enough to open up like flowers, not capable of risking and being on the wing.Those who awaken never rest in one place. That is growth. Go on growing. God is not something that you will encounter on the road; godliness is your ultimate growth. God is not to be found anywhere, you have to become God. In fact, you are God; you only have to discover your reality.A real human being is one who goes on growing. Each morning the sun finds him never in the place where it had left him the last evening. Each evening the sun finds him somewhere else, not at the exact place where it had found him in the morning. He is movement, he is revolution. He goes on and on, he never looks back. He never moves on the old trodden paths; he finds his own way.Like swans, they rise and leave the lake. Have you seen swans leaving the lake?I am reminded of Ramakrishna…His first samadhi, his first glimpse of godliness, glimpse of truth or bliss, happened when he was only thirteen years old. He was coming back from his farm – he was a farmer’s son. He was coming back to his home. On the way there was a lake. The rainy season was just to come, the monsoons were approaching. The sky was becoming cloudy, dark clouds, thunder, lightning… And Ramakrishna was almost running because it seemed that it was going to pour heavily. He was passing by the lake of the village. Because he was running he disturbed the swans in the lake and they all flew together.Swans are one of the most beautiful birds, the whitest – symbols of purity, innocence. A long queue of swans suddenly rose high against the backdrop of the black clouds. Ramakrishna was transported into another world. The vision was so beautiful, and the vision was such a message, he fell there on the bank of the lake in utter ecstasy. The joy was such that he could not contain it; he became almost unconscious as far as the outside was concerned.The other farmers were returning to their homes, everybody was in a hurry; the clouds were there and it was going to rain and they wanted to reach home. They found Ramakrishna lying on the lake bank absolutely unconscious, but with such joy on his face… So radiant was his being that they all fell on their knees. The experience was so superb, it was something not of this world.They carried Ramakrishna home; they worshipped him. When he came back he was asked, “What happened?”He said, “A message from the beyond: ‘Ramakrishna, be a swan! Open your wings, the whole sky is yours. Don’t be trapped by the lake and its comfort, security and safety.’ I am no longer the same person. I have been called. Existence has called me!”And since that day he was never the same person: something was triggered by the swans rising high in the sky.Buddha says: Like swans, they rise and leave the lake – as if Buddha is predicting something about Ramakrishna. The distance is vast, twenty-five centuries, but the prediction is true. It is not only about Ramakrishna, it is about all those who are going to awaken ever; it is about all the buddhas.The swan has become a symbol in the East of the awakened one, hence the awakened one is called paramahansa. Paramahansa means the great swan.On the air they riseand fly an invisible course,gathering nothing, storing nothing.Their food is knowledge.They live upon emptiness.They have seen how to break free.This sutra is of immense import. Drink it slowly, let it sink in your heart. On the air they rise… The world of spirituality is a subtle world; it is more like air than like earth. You can feel it but you cannot see it. You can breathe it and live on it but you cannot hold it in your fist. It is invisible.On the air they rise and fly an invisible course… And the course of a buddha, of one who is awakened, is invisible; hence nobody can follow a buddha. He leaves no footprints. He is like a swan flying in the sky; he leaves no footprints. He is not like a man walking on the sand.Buddha has said again and again: “I am like a swan, a bird in the sky. I leave no footprints. Hence you cannot imitate me, hence there is no need to bother to imitate. Understand – that will do.” Listen, feel, imbibe the spirit of a buddha, that’s all. Be nourished by his presence, be thrilled by his being, but don’t try to imitate. Don’t try to become a carbon copy, because existence loves only originals; carbon copies are rejected.On the air they rise and fly an invisible course, gathering nothing, storing nothing. The man who has awakened gathers nothing, stores nothing. He remains utterly empty inside. “He gathers nothing, stores nothing,” means he goes on continuously dying to the past. It is the past that you gather, it is the past that you store. You think it is very valuable – it is all junk! Even the greatest experiences of the past are junk. They were great when they were present; once they are past they are useless. Throw them away. Forget all about the past so that you can remain clean and pure and available for the new. If you become too cluttered with the past, who is going to be available to the new? And the new is constantly impinging upon you! Remain spacious, go on creating space inside you. And the only way is not to store anything.The past stored becomes your ego; the past creates the ego. And the ego fills you so much that it leaves no space for godliness to enter, or truth to enter, or bliss to flow in, or beauty to penetrate you.The sun comes and knocks on your doors, but your doors are closed. The moon comes and waits at the door, but you don’t open it – because you are too full of yourself. You are the only barrier between yourself and existence. You have to disappear.And remember that the ego will find new ways to enter inside you. If you push it out from the front door it will come from the back door. It will wear new masks. It may become knowledge, scholarship, austerities. It can pretend anything. But remember: the past accumulated in any way is bound to culminate into an ego. And the ego is always comparing, the ego is always thinking in terms of superiority, inferiority. And because of these comparisons, these ideas of superiority and inferiority, you go on suffering, you live in sorrow.Nobody is superior and nobody is inferior, because comparison is false, comparison itself is not valid. Two persons cannot be compared because each is unique, they are not alike. You can compare two Ford cars, that’s okay, but you cannot compare two individual human beings. What to say of human beings? – you cannot compare two rosebushes, you cannot compare two rocks, you cannot compare two pebbles on the seashore, because each pebble is unique. There is no other pebble like it, not only on this earth but on any other earth anywhere, on any other planet anywhere.Scientists say there are at least fifty thousand earths where life exists, and millions and millions of planets which are dead. And each planet must have millions and millions of pebbles, but you will not find another pebble which is exactly like this pebble. How can you compare two dissimilar things?Comparison is the way of the ego. Avoid comparison, otherwise you will always suffer. You will suffer in two ways. Sometimes your ego will feel superior to somebody; that will give you airs, that will get into your head, that will make you tense. You will not walk on the earth; you will become drunk, drugged. Or sometimes it will give you the feeling of inferiority; then too you will be crestfallen, shattered. Again great anguish and pain…And this will happen continuously, because in one thing you may look superior to somebody, and in another thing you may look inferior to somebody else. Somebody is taller than you and somebody else is smaller than you. Somebody is more beautiful, although you are more knowledgeable. But somebody is stronger, has a more muscular body, is more athletic – and you look a very poor specimen in front of him. Somebody is so ugly that you feel great compared to him, and somebody is so beautiful that you start feeling ugly. Now you will be pushed and pulled between these two; these two rocks will crush you.Harlemite Huckley was driving his big, blue Cadillac through Mississippi. He pulled up at a gas station and honked his horn.“What do you want, boy?” asked the attendant.“Give me ten gallons of gas,” said Huckley. “Check my oil and wipe off the windshield. And look, man, I am in a hurry.”Immediately the attendant pulled out a big .38, picked up an empty oil can and said, “You must be one of them smart ones from up north. I am gonna show you, boy, how we expect your kind to behave around here.”He threw the oil can into the air and emptied his gun at it. When the can came down, it had five bullet holes in it. The attendant tossed it to Huckley saying, “Now, you look that over and think about it.”Huckley looked at it, then got out of the Caddy and picked up an apple he had lying on the seat. He threw the apple in the air, whipped out a knife and as the apple came down, he made a few passes at it. The apple landed at the attendant’s feet, peeled, cored, and quartered.The attendant said, “How many gallons of gas did you want, sir?”This will happen every day, this will happen every moment. There are millions of people and each individual is unique. Drop that nonsense of comparing. But you cannot drop it unless you drop the past – the past lives on comparison, the ego feeds on comparison.Buddha says: …gathering nothing, storing nothing. Their food is knowledge. Knowledge is not the right translation of what Buddha means. It would have been truer to translate it as knowing, not knowledge. The difference may not look great between these two words, but it is great, it is vast. It is tremendously important to understand the difference between knowledge and knowing.Knowledge is always of the past; it is a finished phenomenon, a full point has come. Knowing is always a present process. Knowing is alive, knowledge is dead. A buddha is not a man of knowledge but a man of knowing. A scholar is a man of knowledge, a pundit is a man of knowledge but not a man of knowing. Knowing is riverlike, flowing.And it is very important to remember, as far as Buddha is concerned, that he did not believe in nouns, he believed in verbs. He says the noun is only a convenience. In fact, in reality nouns don’t exist, only verbs. When you say, “This is a tree,” your statement is linguistically acceptable but not existentially, because by the time you said, “This is a tree,” it is no longer the same tree – one dead leaf has fallen, one new leaf has started coming up, the bud has opened. The bird that was singing on the tree is no longer singing. The sun that was shining on the tree is hidden behind a cloud. It is no longer the same tree, and it is growing, continuously growing.A tree, to be true, should be called “treeing,” not a tree. A river should be called “rivering,” not a river. Everything is growing, moving, everything is in a flux. Verbs are true, nouns are false. If some day we are going to create an existential language, it will contain no nouns, it will contain only verbs. You are not the same person that had come this morning to listen to the discourse. When you leave you will be a totally different person – so much water has gone down the Ganges, so much has changed. You may have come very sad and you may leave laughing. You may have come very serious and you may leave very playful. These changes are tremendously important.Hence I will translate it: “Their food…” – the food of the awakened ones – “…is knowing.” Knowledge is not the right translation. They are continuously in a state of awareness, consciousness; they are continuously learning, knowing. They never say, “I have known.” They only say, “I am available, open to know, more available, more open to know.” The full point never comes, the process continues.Life is a process, not a thing, not a commodity. It is an unending river, no beginning, no end. Inexhaustible it is: Aes dhammo sanantano. This is the very law of life, that everything goes on changing. Buddha has said: “Except change, everything changes.” Heraclitus would have agreed with Buddha, Buddha would have agreed with Heraclitus; they would have embraced each other. And they were contemporaries, almost contemporaries.It has always happened in the world that whenever some insight happens in one part of the world it is always echoed all over the world in different parts, in different languages, by different people – as if something triggered in one part invisibly affects other sensitive souls everywhere else.When Buddha was alive in India, Greece was rich with Heraclitus, with Socrates, with Pythagoras. China was rich with Lao Tzu, Confucius, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. And all these people have something very similar, although their languages are different.Heraclitus says: “You cannot step in the same river twice.” Buddha will agree absolutely; in fact he will say you cannot even step in the same river once, because the river is constantly flowing. And it is not only the river that is flowing, you are also flowing.A man came and insulted Buddha; Buddha listened to him silently. The next day he felt sorry, came to apologize. Buddha said, “Forget all about it, because I am not the same man whom you had insulted, and you are not the same man who had insulted me. So who is going to apologize to whom? And what can I do now? – that man is no more, it is finished forever! You will never see that man again, so don’t be worried. And you are not the same either! How can you be the same?”Ananda, Buddha’s disciple, who was sitting by the side, said, “Sir, this is too much! This is the same man – I cannot forgive him ever! He insulted you so much, he said such ugly words, he abused you badly. It hurts still in my heart. I could not say anything because you wouldn’t allow it. I had to swallow it all, otherwise I would have shown this man!”Buddha said, “Ananda, can’t you see this is not the same man at all? The man who had come yesterday was abusing, was insulting – this man is apologizing. How can they be the same? Do you think insult and apology are the same? This is somebody else! Just look into his eyes – tears are flowing from his eyes. Do you remember the other man? Fire was in his eyes! He wanted to kill me, and this man is touching my feet. And you still say, Ananda, this is the same man?”Nobody is ever the same. To know it is knowing, to be constantly aware of it is knowing. Their food is knowing…They live upon emptiness. And because they go on discarding the past they always remain empty. Their emptiness has a purity of its own. They are utterly spacious, like the sky without clouds. They live upon emptiness.They have seen how to break free. And this is the way: They have seen how to break free. Drop knowledge, become a knowing awareness, alertness, watchfulness, witnessing – all verbs, remember. Forget the past and remain available to the present and don’t project the future, and you will remain empty. And to remain empty is the way of the free man.Freedom is utter emptiness, but in that utter emptiness descends something from the beyond which Buddha leaves undescribed, unexpressed, because it is inexpressible. He does not call it truth, he does not call it godliness, he does not call it bliss. He does not call it any name; he simply keeps quiet about it, utterly silent. He says: “Come and see.”Who can follow them?Only the master,such is his purity.Unless you also become a master – master of your own inner being, of your consciousness – unless you also become empty, you cannot go with the buddhas, you cannot fly with the swans.Like a bird,he rises on the limitless airand flies an invisible course.He wishes for nothing.His food is knowledge.He lives upon emptiness.He has broken free.And if you can keep the company of a buddha you will also be free. You will also rise on the winds. You will also start the flight of the alone to the alone. You will also start moving to the ultimate.Buddha calls this ultimate freedom, nirvana – cessation of the ego, cessation of your personality. Freedom means freedom from your personality. Then whatsoever is left is godliness, is truth, is bliss.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Could there be an ultimate goal of the physical evolutionary process? If so, what is it?Digvijay, there is no goal of life. Life itself is its goal. It is not moving toward some target. It is herenow, it has no future. Life is always in the present. But the mind cannot live in the present: mind dies in the present. Hence, down the ages, mystics have invented devices to bring the mind to the present. The moment the mind comes to the present, it melts as snow, melts in the hot sun; it disappears, evaporates.And the disappearance of the mind is the greatest experience possible to human beings, because in that disappearance is the appearance of godliness.Mind lives in the future; the future is its territory, its kingdom. And the future is possible only through goal orientation. So mind makes goals out of everything; life must have a goal – not only a goal but an ultimate goal. Then mind is perfectly happy, then it can project itself: how to achieve that goal, how to reach to that ultimate?The moment you ask how, mind is perfectly at ease. It is very clever, cunning, skillful in inventing ways and means to achieve something, whatsoever it is – but it has to be there in the future. Mind lives through creating goals: political, social, evolutionary, spiritual, and so on and so forth; but the mind needs some goal to exist, it feeds on it.In truth, all is and nothing is going to happen. Tomorrow never comes. It is always now and here.The mystic approach is totally different from the goal-oriented mind. The mystic says, “Live the moment in its totality, love the moment in its totality, drown yourself in this overwhelming existence, and you will come closer and closer to God.” By God I don’t mean some person; by God I simply mean the essential core of existence, the center of the cyclone.The universe is the circumference and godliness is the center. If you dive deep in the now, in the here, you are bound to encounter the center. And the miracle is that the center of all is also your center too. To become aware of it, to live that center, from that center, into full awareness, is to be a buddha, is to be enlightened.But remember, buddhahood is not an ultimate goal. It is not something which has to be achieved somewhere else. It is available right now – it is available immediately, not ultimately. Remember these two words: the ultimate and the immediate. The ultimate brings in the mind, the immediate helps the mind to disappear.To me, the immediate is the ultimate. There is no goal, physical, psychological, spiritual. All is as it should be: it already is. Drop your tensions, anxieties for the future, what is going to happen. All has already happened. Live it! Don’t be ambitious. Goals make you ambitious, and they drive you crazy. The more goal-oriented a person is, the crazier he becomes – because ambition is nothing but ego. You can go on inventing new goals; there will always be the horizon beyond. And with those new goals your ego can go on and on having new trips.The mystic and the world of the mystic is a totally different dimension. What I am saying has nothing to do with goal orientation – that is the way of the mind. I am teaching you the way of no-mind.Digvijay, I know your tremendous interest in the evolutionary process. I am perfectly aware that you have devoted your whole life in that search. And you will be shocked when you hear me say that you have been wasting your life – wasting because the present is being sacrificed for the future. And unless you drop this idea of an ultimate goal you will never be able to come down to the earth, to the present, to the moment. And without that there is no meditation, and without meditation there is no godliness.The immediate is the ultimate – I teach you the immediate, living moment to moment, without carrying the past. Buddha says, “Not hoarding the past, not accumulating the past”; I would like to add, not projecting into the future either. If the past and the future disappear, what is left? – a great silence, a profound presence of something utterly unknown. A mystery overwhelms you. And that mystery is immediate. I will not say ultimate, because ultimate means you can postpone for tomorrow. Immediate shakes you, shocks you into awareness right now.A goal is possible if we divide life into means and ends. That’s how it has been down the ages. But life is one, it cannot be divided. It is indivisible, whole; it is an organic unity. Nothing is a means, nothing is an end. The whole of life is one. You cannot categorize means and ends.But the moment you think about evolution, goal, you have to divide life, then something becomes a means and something else becomes the end. Adolf Hitler believed in evolution, hence he could convince the intelligentsia of Germany, which is one of the most sophisticated intelligentsia of the world. In the name of evolution he could preach his Nazi philosophy: that superman is the goal, that man has to be sacrificed for the superman. It appealed, it looked logical.Who is the superman? And who is going to become the superman? – of course, the Nordics, the Germans. It enhanced the German ego tremendously. “Even if the whole humanity has to be destroyed, it is worth destroying because the great goal of super-humanity is looming large on the horizon. Everything can be sacrificed for it.” That’s how he could convince his country to drag the whole world into a world war.Sri Aurobindo also talks in the same language – the language of evolution. Not the superman but the supermind is the goal. And you have to sacrifice your present for that supermind; again the same idea of sacrifice. Man has remained dominated by the idea of sacrifice. Sacrifice! Sacrifice! Sacrifice! Be a martyr! That’s the only way to create a golden future.My effort is just the opposite. Avoid Adolf Hitlers and Sri Aurobindos. No sacrifice. Don’t try to be a martyr. There is no other goal than this moment, and existence is as perfect as is ever possible. Existence is as perfect as it ever will be. Existence is perfection.But because of the idea of a goal, we start comparing: then man is higher than the monkeys and the monkeys are higher than the dogs, and so on and so forth. But who is going to decide? Have you ever asked the monkeys? As far as I know, they still laugh at Charles Darwin, because they can’t believe this poor man is higher than the monkeys. Have you ever fought with any monkey? Fight with a monkey barehanded and you will know who is more powerful. Can you jump like the monkeys on the trees? And then you will know whose body is more athletic. Monkeys live on the trees and you live on the earth: you are the fallen monkeys! But Charles Darwin never asked the monkeys.Man himself goes on deciding. So if Germans decide then Germans are the highest race, obviously. And if Indians decide then they are the Aryans, the real Aryans, the pure blood. And if Jews decide then they are the chosen people of God. But who is going to decide? And if man decides then man is higher than all the animals. In fact, there is nobody higher and nobody lower. All these categories are stupid – there is no hierarchy.Existence is absolutely communist. Everybody is equal, participating in the same life, breathing the same air, getting warmed by the same sun, dancing under the same sky. Even trees are not lower than you, even rocks are not lower than you. The very language of lower and higher is utterly wrong. But the word evolution brings that language in; it becomes the “in” thing. Then you have to make a hierarchy: then you are above animals and below angels. And then the whole journey starts: how to go higher and higher and higher? And there is no roof, there is no ceiling; you can go on projecting.But if you ask the bees they won’t think that you are higher than them. The intelligentsia of the bees must be watching a thousand and one stupidities of human beings – because the bees are the most organized phenomenon in existence. Man and his society must look like chaos compared to the society of the bees. Everything is so organized – even Adolf Hitler would have felt a little inferior. And so willingly, so voluntarily – the bees are not forced, they are not living in a concentration camp. Willingly, joyously, they are part of an organization, so deeply involved with the organization that they have lost their individuality totally; they live as an organic part, they are not separate. Or if you watch the society of the ants, it is far more organized, systematic; it has a tremendous order.Now, how are you going to decide who is higher? This chaotic society of man? In three thousand years man has fought five thousand wars – constantly killing each other, murdering, butchering, in the name of politics, in the name of religion… And this man you think is the highest evolved being on the earth? There are people like Arthur Koestler who think that something in the very beginning has gone wrong in the human mind, some nuts and bolts are missing – man is born crazy.If you watch man, it appears so. His whole life seems to be that of violence, struggle, destruction. No other animal is so destructive. No other animal kills its own species; the tigers don’t kill other tigers and the dogs don’t kill other dogs. Even if they fight, their fights are mock fights; they fight only to decide who is powerful. Once it is decided, the fight stops – because to attack somebody who is weaker than you is not only wrong, it is utterly destructive and stupid too.Two dogs will fight: they will show their teeth, they will bark, they will jump at each other, but they are simply watching who is more powerful. Once they have taken note who is more powerful, one dog will stop barking, will put his tail between his legs, and it is finished! He has given the sign: “I am weaker and you are stronger.” And there is no shame, he is not ashamed – what can he do if he is weaker and the other is stronger? How is he responsible for that? One tree is taller, another tree is not taller. Do you think the rosebushes are feeling ashamed because the mango trees and the neem trees and other trees are going so high? The roses are not worried at all: “So what? You are taller and we are not taller – that’s the way you are, this is the way we are.”See the sanity of the point: except human beings nobody is so insane as to fight with someone who is weaker. Once it is decided… And you don’t have even that much consciousness as dogs and tigers have: they can see, it is so apparent that the other is stronger. Then what is the point of fighting at all? The game is finished – the other is the winner. Hence no destruction happens, hence no killing happens. And animals don’t kill even other animals unless they are hungry – except man. Only man goes hunting.And Digvijay is a former prince: he must know what hunting is, he must have animal heads in his palace, trophies. The more tigers and lions you have killed, the greater you are. And for what? Just to exhibit! Whenever I have visited the palace of a king, I have felt very sorry for the king. He seems to be utterly insensitive; showing these dead heads and dead bodies and skins of animals, he thinks he is exhibiting his power, his vitality. He is simply exhibiting his utter stupidity, inhumanity.Animals kill only when they are hungry; then it can be forgiven. No animal ever kills without hunger; no animal ever kills as a play. Killing somebody as a game, can you think this hunter is more evolved than other beings? Just destroying a life for sheer play – and the play is also unjust, because you are sitting in a treetop and the animal is on the ground; and from high on the top, where the animal cannot reach, you shoot him. The animal has no weapons to protect himself, and you think you are being very brave? You are simply showing your cowardliness.If we look at man it does not appear at all that he is the most evolved animal on the earth – just the opposite. No other animal goes insane except man. Yes, a few animals go insane, but they only go into insanity when they are put into zoos, not in their wild state. And a zoo is a human phenomenon.Just think of yourself: if the elephants created a zoo and put you into a zoo – how long would you remain sane? It would be impossible for you to remain sane; it would be just natural to go insane. Animals don’t become homosexual – unless they are put in a zoo. In a zoo they turn homosexual; in a zoo they are bound to, because they can’t get their females. In a zoo they are confined in such small spaces; those small spaces are bound to drive them crazy.You must have seen tigers walking up and down in their cages, because they used to live and run for miles. The whole wild world was theirs, and now just a small cage, and surrounded by the tourists and the visitors and foolish people looking at them… Just think of yourself being in a zoo made by the elephants or the tigers or the monkeys, and all kinds of monkeys looking at you, day in, day out, the whole situation unnatural.Now scientists say that there is a certain territory that is needed by every animal, a certain space; if that is not given to that animal, it is bound to go insane. Wild animals need an area of miles and miles to remain free and to remain sane. Yes, in a zoo they go insane, they go crazy. They attack even their own species; they become destructive. Sometimes they have even been known to commit suicide, but never in their natural state. It is only man who commits suicide, goes insane, becomes sexually perverted – and still man goes on thinking that he is the highest peak!As far as I am concerned, I don’t believe in hierarchy. The monkey is a monkey, the man is a man. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower. The rocks are rocks and the trees are trees. And we all participate in one existence. Yes, there are great changes happening, but it is not evolution; evolution means we are going higher. Changes are there, certainly; life is constantly moving, it is a river. But change does not mean evolution, remember. You can change without your being evolving – and that’s what is happening.And that change, constant change, gives you grounds to impose your theory of evolution on it. Things are changing, life is always in a flux; nothing is permanent, all is fluid. Man has not been like this before, and man will never again be like this. Everything is in a process, but the process is not goal-oriented; it is not moving toward a certain goal. It is a very playful process.Children playing, you cannot say that they are evolving; children playing, you cannot say they are achieving something. They are not achieving anything. That’s exactly the concept of leela in the East. Leela means play – the world is the play of existence, and in play there is no question of evolution.The idea of evolution is really Western; the East has never believed in evolution. The East believes in playfulness. In playfulness there is no evolution at all. Nothing is a means and nothing is taken as an end. It is a dance of energies, not moving in any particular direction, not meant to achieve something: the joy is in the play itself, the value is intrinsic, not extrinsic. When you start thinking of evolution, the value is extrinsic; the value depends on what you are going to achieve, what you are going to become.If a man becomes a great scientist, a Nobel Prize winner, he has evolved, but the man who remains a woodcutter, he has not evolved. Why? What is there so significant in doing mathematics? And what is there so insignificant in chopping wood? One likes to chop wood, another likes to play with figures, arithmetic, geometry or something else – these are likes, different likes. One loves to swim, somebody else loves to philosophize… There is nothing higher and nothing lower.But we have made a society on a hierarchical pattern. The brahmin is at the top – the brahmin means the professor, the academician, the Nobel Prize winner, the famous doctor, the famous engineer, the scholar. That is the meaning of the brahmin – he is the highest. Why? Why is not the woodcutter the highest? If the woodcutter enjoys his chopping of wood more than the professor enjoys his teaching, who is higher? The professor may be simply dragging, repeating every time, every year, the same thing.I used to know a professor who was repeating the same lectures for at least thirty years. I had heard it, and his other students had told me that exactly the same lectures, word for word… So one day, when the professor was asleep in the afternoon, I went to his house. I looked into his books, found the book in which he had collected all the lectures, and stole it.You cannot believe what happened to the professor! He didn’t turn up the next day. I inquired after him; he said, “I am shattered, my life is finished – somebody has stolen my book, and I cannot speak without it. I have been using the same notes for thirty years! Now I cannot again make new notes.”I could see the poor man; he was just functioning like a gramophone record. There was no need of him. I gave him the book and I said, “Why do you bother to come to the university at all? You can simply send this book, one of us can read it, and others can take notes. Why do you bother in your old age to come to the university again and again? This book will do! You can die in peace. This book is enough. You don’t have to live at all – there is no need.”Now, this professor is a brahmin; he is the highest because the head is thought to be the highest. It is on the top, maybe that’s why the idea has arisen that the head and the head people are the topmost people. The bosses are called “heads” and the servants are called “hands.” Why? Just because physically the head is on top…?We have created hierarchy in society. The lowest are those poor people who are chopping wood or cleaning the roads. Why are they the lowest? – because they are doing the most essential things. The professors can be discarded, the society can exist without them; but the society cannot exist without the street cleaners, the toilet cleaners, the woodchoppers – the society cannot exist without them. They are far more essential, far more fundamental, but they are the lowest.The whole idea is wrong. There is no hierarchy. The professor is doing his work, and the woodcutter is doing his work, and both are needed. Neither is there a hierarchy between men and other animals, nor is there a hierarchy between men and men. I am against the whole idea of hierarchy.And that’s my vision of a new commune. In the new commune there is going to be nobody higher and nobody lower. In this place there is nobody higher, nobody lower. There are toilet cleaners and there are professors, therapists, and they are all the same – they are all doing some useful work, some essential work. The vice-chancellor here, in this commune, is on the same ground as the woodchopper. The great therapist has no more prestige, power, than the toilet cleaner. Hence, there is no problem. A PhD can choose toilet cleaning – one PhD is doing that; another PhD is just cleaning the streets.If there is no hierarchy, there is no problem; otherwise, the PhD will think, “How can I do this work, this menial job? I am not a hand, I am a head.” In this commune there are no heads, no hands – people, whole people, respected, loved, for whatsoever they are doing, or whatsoever they can do, or whatsoever they like doing.This whole existence is a commune. Godliness is the center and we are all its circumference.There is no evolution, Digvijay, no ultimate goal. It is a play. Enjoy it, celebrate it! If this idea of ultimate goal and evolution can drop from your mind, I know your potential; you can become one of the great sannyasins. You can be a new man. But you are going crazy because of this idea; your whole life is being devoted to it. And if it is fundamentally wrong then you will repent one day. Forget all about it! Start meditating more and more about your own inner being. Don’t be worried what is going to happen; rather, be involved with what is already happening. Godliness is a presence, godliness is a being, not a becoming and so is this whole existence.The day we drop the idea of evolution and ultimate goal, the world will be freed from its bondage of future. It is the future that is keeping us in bondage, and the past – and both are in conspiracy against man.Future and past dropped, you attain to freedom – freedom, Buddha says, which has no bounds.The second question:Osho,How do you know so many jokes?First, in none of my past lives have I been an Englishman. Secondly, in many of my past lives I have been a Jew.Sir Reginald, riding in a New York taxi, was challenged by the driver to solve a riddle: “This person I am thinking of has the same father that I have and the same mother, but it is not my sister and it is not my brother. Who is it?”The Britisher thought for a moment, and then gave up. “It is me,” the cabdriver told him.“By Jove! That’s jolly good. I must try that on the chaps at my club!”A month later he was sitting in London with his cigar-smoking cronies. He said, “Gentlemen, this individual I have in mind is not my brother and not my sister, yet this person has the same parents as I have – who is it?”After several thoughtful minutes, all the members conceded defeat. “Who is it?” one of them inquired. “Come, Reggie, give us the answer.”Reggie slapped his knees in triumph. “It is a taxicab driver in New York City!” he roared.And the second story:Morton and Fogel were discussing humor over lunch. “Do Jews react differently when they hear a joke?” asked Morton.“What a question!” replied Fogel. “If you tell an Englishman a joke he will laugh at it three times: once when you tell it, again when you explain it and a third time when he understands the point. Tell a German the same joke and he will laugh twice: both times to be polite. There won’t be a third time because he will never get the point. Tell the same joke to an American: he will laugh once, immediately, because he will get it right away. But,” said Fogel, “when you tell the joke to a Jew…”“Yes?” asked Morton.“When you tell the same joke to a Jew, he won’t laugh at all. Instead he will say, ‘It is an old joke – and besides, you told it all wrong!’”The third question:Osho,I heard you say that being a sannyasin means to be ready to live a very lonely life. But since I'm a sannyasin I feel that I can't be lonely anymore, as you are always around. Do I understand you wrong?You do not understand me at all. It is not a question of understanding right or wrong – you don’t understand me at all.I have not told you that a sannyasin has to be ready to live a lonely life. What I had told you was: a sannyasin knows how to live alone. And to be lonely is totally different from being alone. Not only different, they are opposites. They are as far away from each other as the sky and the earth; the distance is infinite between them.To be lonely means a negative state: you are hankering for the other, you are longing for company, you are missing the crowd. You cannot tolerate yourself; you feel yourself intolerable. You are bored with yourself – that’s what being lonely means – utterly bored.To be alone is totally different: it is utterly ecstatic. To be alone means a positive state. You are not missing the other, you are enjoying yourself. You are not bored by yourself, you are intrigued. A great challenge comes from your innermost core. You start a journey of interiority. When there are others you are occupied with them, your consciousness remains focused on them. When you are alone, your consciousness moves inward. When you are with others you have to be an extrovert. When you are alone you become an introvert – your consciousness turning upon itself, showering upon itself. When you are with others your light shows their faces; when you are alone your light shows your own original face.You have not understood me. I had not told you that to be a sannyasin means “…to be ready to live a very lonely life.” From where did you get this idea of living a very lonely life? Certainly one has to be able to live alone, but to live alone does not mean that you cannot relate; on the contrary, a man who can live alone becomes so full of joy, becomes so brimful, that he has to relate. He becomes a raincloud – he has to shower. He becomes a flower so full of fragrance that he has to open its petals and allow its fragrance to be released to the winds.A person who knows how to be alone becomes so full of song that he has to sing it. And where can you sing a song? You can sing a song only in love, in relating, in sharing with people. But you can share only if you have in the first place.The problem is that people don’t have any joy in their being and they are bent upon sharing it. Now, two miserable people bent upon sharing their joys with each other – what is going to happen? The misery will not be doubled, it will be multiplied.That’s what people are doing to each other: husbands to wives and wives to husbands, and parents to children and children to parents, and friends to friends. In fact enemies are not so inimical as friends finally prove: torturing each other, unloading their miseries on each other, throwing their dirt on each other. They are stinking – what can they do? When they come close to you, you have to suffer their stink. And you have to suffer if you want them to suffer your stink. So it is a bargain.You cannot live alone, they cannot live alone – you have to be together. Even if it stinks, at least there is the consolation: “I am not alone.”A man who knows how to be alone knows how to be meditative. Aloneness means meditation – just relishing your own being, celebrating your own being.Walt Whitman says: “I celebrate myself, I sing myself.” That is aloneness. This man Whitman is really a mystic, not just a poet. He should be counted with the ancient rishis of the Upanishads. America has not given birth to many great mystics; Whitman is really one of the most precious gifts of America to the world. He says: “I celebrate myself, I sing myself.” That’s what a mystic has always been supposed to do, that’s what a mystic’s function is: to celebrate himself. But how will you celebrate? You will have to invite others. You will have to ask others to come and participate.Meditation gives you the insight of your own inner treasure, and in love you share it. That’s what I mean when I say that a sannyasin has to be ready to be alone – so that one day he can be ready to love. Only a man who knows the beauties of solitude can love. But just a slight difference and you can miss the whole point.Now, the difference between aloneness and loneliness is not much; as far as language is concerned there is no difference at all, they are synonyms. In the dictionaries you will find aloneness described as loneliness, loneliness as aloneness – but that is only in the dictionaries, not in life itself. In life itself it is totally different.Don’t live through language, don’t become too obsessed with language, because language is only utilitarian. It can mislead you – it misleads. It can’t help it; it has been invented by people who know nothing. I am saying “aloneness” and your mind hears “loneliness.” Once you translate aloneness as loneliness you are millions of miles away – not only miles but millions of light-years away from me.Potter saw a store with a sign reading: “Hans Schmidt’s Chinese Laundry.” Being curious he entered and was greeted by a Chinese who identified himself as Hans Schmidt.“How come you have a name like that?” asked Potter.“When I land in America I stand in immigration line behind German,” explained the oriental. “When they ask German his name, he say, ‘Hans Schmidt.’ When official ask me my name I say, ‘Sam Ting.’”It is very easy to misunderstand.P. F. C. Perkins refused to go and fight in Korea. He was told that if he would not bear arms, the provost marshal would shoot him. “Are you a conscientious objector?” asked the first sergeant.“I ain’t objectin’ to nothin’,” said Perkins, “but I had the gonorrhea and the diarrhea both, and if this ‘Korea’ is anything like it – go ahead and shoot!”I said something, you heard totally something else.A London chap sees a good-looking girl sitting alone at another table and says, “Would you care for a cigarette?”She said, “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”He waited for a few moments and then said, “Would you care for a drink?”“Sorry, I don’t drink.”He waited another ten minutes and asked, “Would you care to have dinner with me?”“I am sorry,” she replied, “I don’t eat dinner.”“Well, for heaven’s sake! If you don’t smoke or drink or eat dinner, what in heaven’s name do you do about sex?”“Oh, along about six I have a cup of tea and a biscuit.”Change that word loneliness; drop it completely from your mind. Learn what aloneness is – and aloneness is a beautiful phenomenon, the most beautiful. Then my presence will not disturb your aloneness, my presence will enhance it. My presence, my remembrance, feeling me around yourself, engulfing you, will enhance it, will make it richer, will make it more crystal-clear. And not only my presence but the presence of my sannyasins will also be absolutely non-disturbing to aloneness.In fact, aloneness cannot be disturbed at all. It is such a crystallized state of consciousness, nothing can distract you away from it, and everything helps to make it stronger. Have you watched this paradoxical phenomenon? For example, right now we are sitting here in silence: the chirping of the birds – is it disturbing the silence or enriching it? The crow – is he disturbing your silence, or helping and giving it a contrast? If you are really silent, then even in the marketplace you will be surprised that your silence deepens. If your silence is disturbed by the marketplace, that simply means it was not silence in the first place. It was just forced, cultivated, practiced, plastic – it was not true.If true silence is there, nothing can disturb it. Each disturbance comes to enhance it. It is as if in a dark night you are walking on a street and a car passes by with full headlights on. For a moment you are dazed by the light, and then the car is gone by. Do you think the darkness is less than before? It is deeper than before, it is denser than before. The car and its headlights have not disturbed it at all; rather, they helped tremendously.And this is how it is with aloneness: your aloneness will not be disturbed by the commune, and certainly not by me – because I am not a noise. I am a melody, a music – a music that cannot be heard by the ears but can only be heard by the heart.It is good that you have started feeling me. It is good that you say, “…since I am a sannyasin I feel that I can’t be lonely anymore, as you are always around.”Yes, you cannot be lonely anymore, but you will be more alone now that I am always with you. And aloneness is a precious treasure, the door to the kingdom of God. But forget that word loneliness; it is ugly, it is pathological.And a man who seeks friendship, love, companionship, out of loneliness is not going to find it. In fact, whomsoever he will associate with, he will feel cheated and he will make the other feel cheated. He will feel tired and bored, and he will make the other feel tired and bored. He will feel sucked and he will make the other feel sucked, because both will be sucking on each other’s energies. And they don’t have much in the first place. Their streams are running very thin; they are like summer streams in a desert. You cannot take any water out of them. But if you seek friendship and love and companionship out of aloneness, you are a flooded river, a river in the rains. You can share as much as you want. And the more you share, the more you will have.This is the inner economics: the more you give, the more you get from existence. Once you have known the knack of it you become a spendthrift, you are no longer a miser.A spiritual person cannot be a miser, and a miser cannot be a spiritual person.The fourth question:Osho,What do you have to say about the new Indian government of prime minister Chowdhry Charan Singh?I have nothing to say about such rubbish things, but because you have asked, just to be polite to you and to your question, just to pay my respects for your question, I will tell you three stories.First:A man took a cab to the palace of the prime minister where he asked the driver to wait for him.The driver refused, saying he did not have time. “But you will wait for me,” said the passenger. “I am the new prime minister.”“In that case,” replied the driver, “I will wait – you won’t be in there long!”And the second:Work schedule of the Indian cabinet:Monday: Conference with leading personalities.Tuesday: Formation of new cabinet.Wednesday: First meeting of the new cabinet.Thursday: First announcements of new cabinet.Friday: Withdrawal of announcements.Saturday: Resignation of new cabinet.Sunday: Holiday.Monday: See above.And the third:It is a historical fact that Diogenes went all around the known world, lamp in hand, trying to find an honest man.When he got to New Delhi, they stole his lamp.The fifth question:Osho,Sex and death seem to be the main attractions for me. What can you say about these poles to help me go beyond?Sex and death are really one energy. Sex is one side of the coin, death the other side. Hence, anybody who is interested in sex is bound to be interested in death – although he would like to avoid it. Anybody who is interested in death is bound to be interested in sex – although he would like to avoid it. Why? – because the popular conception is that sex and death are opposites. They are not. And because of this popular conception there have existed two kinds of cultures in the world: sex-oriented and death-oriented.For example, India has remained for centuries a death-oriented culture. Because it is death-oriented it represses sex. Thinking that sex is against, it represses sex, it avoids sex; it pretends sex does not exist. You can talk about death with no problem, but you cannot talk about sex.Just the other day a sannyasin had asked, “I was almost caught and imprisoned by the police because I was saying good-bye to my girlfriend and we kissed each other in front of the police station.” It was very difficult to get rid of the police. They caught hold of them; they had to wait there for two hours. Somehow they persuaded them, apologized.The sannyasin had asked, “I am puzzled. What wrong had I done there? I was saying good-bye to my girlfriend, she was leaving; we may see each other, we may not, because who knows about tomorrow? She will be away for six months, and who knows what is going to happen in these six months? So what was wrong with my kissing the girl and her kissing me, just a good-bye? Why is it objectionable? People are pissing on the streets and nobody objects!”Now, that sannyasin does not know that since Morarji Desai became prime minister of this country pissing has become a holy thing. You can piss anywhere – that is something sacred. In fact it is a sacred duty. Do as much as you can, because it is not pissing: it is the water of life. You are nourishing the earth; you are doing a great public service.I have heard:When Morarji Desai went to America, he was very puzzled because in the parties, in the gatherings, in meetings, ladies would always keep to the other side of the room. Finally, he had to ask; he was curious why ladies wouldn’t come close to him. He was informed, “We are sorry to say, but ladies are afraid that you may feel thirsty any time, and if you do your thing in public it will be embarrassing. So they keep to the other side. In case something like that happens, they can escape; at least they can turn their backs toward you.”In India, kissing is something like a sin, a crime. And in a public place, and that too before a police station! India is a death-oriented culture. You can talk about death; the dead bodies of beggars can lie by the side of the road and nobody will pay any attention. People will go on passing. It is accepted; death is accepted. In fact, not only accepted, but magnified – to create fear in people so that they become religious.If death is magnified, it really scares you. And out of fear you can start going to the temple, to the mosque, to the priest, because death is coming – sooner or later you will have to die. Some arrangements have to be made, arrangements for that long journey. Who knows what will be needed? The priests pretend that they know.And all the so-called saints of India will be talking about death. They will bring up the subject of death again and again and again. Their whole business depends on death; if people forget about death, people start forgetting about God, people start forgetting about temples, people start forgetting about saints. So saints cannot leave you alone; they will go on bringing the subject of death into your mind so they can go on keeping you trembling. Your fear is the secret of their trade: if you are afraid, you will remain slaves to them. If you become unafraid, then you will get out of their folds; then you cannot be exploited. Death is not bad for them, it is good. It helps their business.But sex… That is a danger for them. India is not a sex-oriented country. Kissing, hugging, love, the very phenomenon of love, makes you more earthbound, makes you less afraid of death. Lovers are the people who are the least afraid of death. When you are in love you don’t care about death. If it comes, it comes. So what? If you are in love, you can die smilingly. With a kiss on your lips you can say good-bye. You loved, you lived; there is nothing to repent. Your life has not been a waste. You bloomed! You danced in the sun, in the wind, in the rain – what more can you expect? Immense was the gift of life: love was its gift. You are grateful. Why should you go to the priest? You may go to the poet, you may go to the painter, you may go to the musician, but you will not go to the priest.That’s why you will be surprised: in my commune you will find musicians and you will find poets and you will find dancers and you will find singers, but you will not find any priest at all. The priest seems to be the center of all religious activity, and he is missing here, absolutely missing – because my approach is that first you have to know what love is, you have to go deep into love. Dive as deep as possible into love!If you can dive really deeply into love you will be surprised that you have arrived at death. That’s my own experience – I am not propounding a theory, I am simply stating my own existential state, my own existential experience. I am only stating a fact: if you love deeply you are bound to come to the phenomenon of death. And when you come through love to death, even death is beautiful, because love makes everything beautiful. When you come through love to death, love glorifies death, love beautifies death; even death becomes a blessing. Those who have known love will know death as the ultimate in orgasm.Now there are sex-oriented cultures, for example, America. There, death is taboo; you should not talk about death. If you start talking about death, people will avoid you. You will not be invited to parties anymore. You are not supposed to talk about death; death has not to be mentioned. Death is still one of the unmentionables. That’s why even if somebody dies we have euphemisms, words to cover up the fact of death. We say, “He has passed away.” We don’t say, “He has died.” “Passed away,” as if he has gone on a long journey…We say, “He has become God’s beloved.” We don’t say he has died. We don’t know about God, we don’t know what it means to become God’s beloved, because we have never been beloved to anybody. Even if God wants to hug you, the police will catch hold of him. If he kisses you, even you will feel a little disturbed – God? And kissing me? Is he really a God or just a fraud? How can God kiss? Kissing has never been thought a spiritual activity. Even in public places it is prohibited, and he is doing it on a universal plane – not only public but universal, at the very center of the cosmos! But we have these ways of avoiding death; it has to be somehow avoided. The word itself is taboo.It is because of Sigmund Freud that the taboo against the word sex was removed – the whole credit goes to this man. He is one of the greatest benefactors of humanity. Although he himself was not enlightened, he has done a great service, a pioneer work: he removed one great taboo. Now you can talk about sex without feeling ashamed, without feeling guilty.Another Freud is needed – a Freud who will remove the taboo against death. The West is sex-oriented, the East is death-oriented; hence in the East people are repressive of sex and in the West people are repressive of death. Both are wrong because sex and death are two sides of the same coin. If you repress one, you cannot experience the other in its totality, because to experience the one in its totality is to experience the other too, and both have to be experienced. Life is an opportunity to experience sex and death. If you experience these two and if you can come to your own authentic experience that they both are one, you have transcended. Knowing that both are one is transcendence.You ask me: “What can you say about these poles to help me go beyond?” Experience both. But right now death is not there; right now you have to experience love, sex – all the delicacies of love, intricacies of love, complexities of love, all the nuances of love. Right now, go deep into love. And then when death comes you will be able to go deep into death too.In fact, while making love, at the highest peak of orgasm a small death happens, because mind disappears, ego disappears, time disappears, as if the clock suddenly stops. You are transported into another world. You are not a body anymore, not a mind anymore, not an ego anymore. You are pure existence. That’s the beauty of orgasm. To know orgasm is to experience a little bit of death, a small death.First go deeply into love so you can have a few tastes of death. Then death will come one day – then go dancingly into it, because you know it is going to be the greatest orgasm that you have ever known, that it is going to be the deepest of love. And that’s how one transcends – knowing that both are one. That very knowing is transcendence.The last question:Osho,I want to become a sannyasin, but gradually. Is it okay with you? Or is a sudden jump a necessity?You remind me of a story:During World War I, RAF Captain Bainsby shot down the German ace Baron von Ribstein over English territory. The next day Bainsby visited the baron in the hospital.“Old chap,” said the Britisher, “is there anything I can do for you?”“Yes,” replied Von Ribstein. “They are amputating my right arm. Would you drop it over Germany?” Captain Bainsby did as he was requested and a week later returned for a visit.“My friend,” said the baron, “they are taking off my right leg. Would you drop it over the fatherland?”Bainsby fulfilled the request and went back to see his air nemesis once again.“Captain,” said Von Ribstein, “they are going to remove my left leg. Once more, can I get you to drop it behind the German lines?”“Of course, old bean,” replied Bainsby. “But I say, you are not trying to escape, are you?”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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He is the charioteer.He has tamed his horses,pride and the senses.Even the gods admire him.Yielding like the earth,joyous and clear like the lake,still as the stone at the door,he is free from life and death.His thoughts are still.His words are still.His work is stillness.He sees his freedom and is freed.The master surrenders his beliefs.He sees beyond the end and the beginning.He cuts all ties.He gives up all his desires.He resists all temptation.And he rises.And wherever he lives,in the city or the country,in the valley or in the hills,there is great joy.Even in the empty foresthe finds joybecause he wants nothing.Man is a seed of great potential: man is the seed of buddhahood. Each man is born to be a buddha. Man is not born to be a slave but to be a master. But there are very few who actualize their potential. And the reason millions can’t realize their potential is that they take it for granted that they already have it.Life is only an opportunity to grow, to be, to bloom. Life in itself is empty; unless you are creative you will not be able to fill it with fulfillment. You have a song in your heart to be sung and you have a dance to be danced, but the dance is invisible, and the song – even you have not heard it yet. It is deep down, hidden in the innermost core of your being; it has to be brought to the surface, it has to be expressed.That’s what is meant by “self-actualization.” Rare is the person who transforms his life into a growth, who transforms his life into a long journey of self-actualization, who becomes what he was meant to be. In the East we have called that man the buddha, in the West we have called that man the christ. The word christ exactly means what the word buddha means: one who has come home.We are all wanderers in search of the home, but the search is very unconscious – groping in the dark, not exactly aware what we are groping for, who we are, where we are going. We go on like driftwood, we go on remaining accidental.And it becomes possible because millions of people around you are in the same boat, and when you see that millions are doing the same things that you are doing, then you must be right – because millions can’t be wrong. That is your logic, and that logic is fundamentally erroneous: millions can’t be right.It is very rare that a person is right; it is very rare that a person realizes the truth. Millions live lives of lies, lives of pretension. Their existences are only superficial; they live on the circumference, utterly unaware of the center. And the center contains all: the center is the kingdom of God.The first step toward buddhahood, toward the realization of your infinite potential, is to recognize that up to now you have been wasting your life, that up to now you have remained utterly unconscious.Start becoming conscious; that is the only way to arrive. It is arduous, it is hard. To remain accidental is easy; it needs no intelligence, hence it is easy. Any idiot can do it – all the idiots are already doing it. It is easy to be accidental because you never feel responsible for anything that happens. You can always throw the responsibility onto something else: fate, God, society, economic structure, the state, the church, your mother, your father, your parents… You can go on throwing the responsibility onto somebody else; hence it is easy.To be conscious means to take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders. To be responsible is the beginning of buddhahood.When I use the word responsible I am not using it in the ordinary connotation of being dutiful. I am using it in its real, essential meaning: the capacity to respond – that’s my meaning. And the capacity to respond is possible only if you are conscious. If you are fast asleep, how can you respond? If you are asleep, the birds will go on singing but you will not hear, and the flowers will go on blooming and you will never be able to sense the beauty, the fragrance, the joy, that they are showering on existence.To be responsible means to be alert, conscious. To be responsible means to be mindful. Act with as much awareness as you can find possible. Even small things – walking on the street, eating your food, taking your bath – should not be done mechanically. Do them with full awareness.Slowly, slowly small acts become luminous, and by and by those luminous acts go on gathering inside you, and finally the explosion… The seed has exploded, the potential has become actual. You are no longer a seed but a lotus flower, a golden lotus flower, a one-thousand-petaled lotus flower. And that is the moment of great benediction; Buddha calls it nirvana. One has arrived. Now there is no more to achieve, nowhere to go. You can rest, you can relax – the journey is over. Tremendous joy arises in that moment, great ecstasy is born.But one has to begin from the beginning.After a three-day drinking bout, Tooley and Bragan registered at a hotel and asked for twin beds. However, in the darkness they both got into the same bed.“Hey!” yelled Tooley. “I think a homo has crept in bed with me.”“There’s a queer in my bed, too,” called Bragan.“Let’s throw the fairies out,” called back the first.A terrific wrestling match ensued and finally Tooley went sailing out of the bed. “How did you make out?” he called from the floor.“I threw my guy out,” said the other Irishman. “How about you?”“He threw me out.”“Well, that makes us even. Get into bed with me.”This is how man is: in darkness, utterly unconscious; doing things, not knowing why; simply doing because there is an unconscious urge to do. Now, this is not only a mystic hypothesis about man. Sigmund Freud, Gustav Jung, Alfred Adler and others, the modern researchers into the psyche of man, have also come across the same fact.Freud says man lives unconsciously, although the mind is so cunning that it can find reasons, motives. At least it can create a facade as if you are living a conscious life – and that is very dangerous because you can start believing in your own facade. Then your life is gone, then you will not be able to use this tremendously valuable opportunity.People go on doing unconscious things – although they suffer, although they are immensely miserable, still they go on doing the same things which bring misery to them. They don’t know what else to do. They are not there, they are not present; hence they can’t do anything. They are trapped in the unconscious instincts.Hennessy, loaded to the gills, was lurking on a dark and deserted street corner. Soon a man came walking by, and Hennessy sprang out of the shadows, a gun in his hand.“Stay where you are!” he slobbered. Then he pulled a bottle out of his pocket. “Here,” Hennessy ordered, “take a drink of this.”Too terrified to resist, the poor schnook took the bottle and drank deeply. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “That stuff tastes awful!”“I know,” gurgled the crocked Irishman. “Now you hold the gun and force me to drink some.”The stuff that you are drinking, that stuff that you call your life, is really awful! But you go on forcing yourself, doing the same repetitive acts again and again – not knowing what else to do, not knowing where else to go, not knowing that there are other alternatives possible, that there are alternative life-styles possible. And the greatest alternative is the religious dimension.The religious dimension simply means the dimension of being conscious, of being alert, of living a life with self-remembrance. Let me add that by self-remembrance I don’t mean self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is a false phenomenon; it is another name of ego. Self-remembering is a totally different phenomenon; it is the cessation of the ego. In self-consciousness there is no consciousness, there is only self; in self-remembering there is no self, only remembering.Buddha’s whole methodology is that of self-remembering: sammasati. It has been translated as right-mindfulness or right awareness. What is right awareness? Can awareness also be wrong? Yes, there is a possibility: if awareness becomes too focused on the object it is wrong awareness. Awareness has to be aware of itself, then it is right awareness.When you look at a tree, at a mountain, at a star, you can be conscious – conscious of the tree, conscious of the mountain, conscious of the star – but you are not conscious of the one who is conscious of all these things. This is wrong awareness, focused on the object. You have to unfocus it from the object, you have to help it turn inward. You have to bring it to your own interiority, you have to fill your subjectivity with its light.When one is full of light, not showing other things in the light but only showing the light itself, then it is right awareness and that is the door to nirvana, to godliness – to self-actualization.By birth you are only given an opportunity. There is no inner necessity that you will really become, that your potential will be realized, that you will really attain to beinghood. Only the opportunity is given, then it is up to you. You will have to find the way, you will have to find the master, you will have to find the right situation. It is a great challenge.Life is a great challenge to know oneself. If this challenge is accepted, you really become man for the first time; otherwise you go on existing on a subhuman level.And it is not only the worldly people who are living an unconscious life. The so-called religious are not in any way different.Father Duffy was sent to a small Eskimo village in the coldest part of Alaska. Several months later, the bishop paid him a visit. “How do you like it up here among the Eskimos?”“Just fine,” replied the priest.“And what about the weather?” asked the bishop.“Ah, as long as I have my rosary and my vodka I don’t care how cold it is.”“I am glad to hear it. Say, I could go for a bit of vodka myself right now.”“Absolutely,” said Father Duffy. “Rosary! Would you bring us two vodkas?”The worldly, the otherworldly, are not really different. There is only one difference that makes a difference and that is of awareness, alertness. And the awareness can be practiced anywhere: you need not go to the mountains, you need not go to the monasteries, you need not renounce the world.In fact, in the world it is easier to practice awareness than anywhere else. This is my own experience, and not only my personal experience but my observation of thousands of sannyasins, too. The easiest way to become aware is to be in the world and practice it, because the world gives you so many opportunities. A monastery cannot give you so many opportunities. Living in a mountain cave, what opportunities do you have to be alert? You will be more and more sleepy there, more and more dull. Intelligence will not be required, hence you will lose all sharpness of intelligence. And awareness will not be required; there will be no challenge for it. It is only in challenges that life grows; the greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity. And the world is really full of challenges. Hence, to my sannyasins I say: “Never renounce.”Rejoice in the world. In the past we have renounced too much and the result has been nil. How many buddhas have we produced in the past? They can be counted on the fingers. Only rarely, very rarely, a man became a Buddha, Christ or Krishna. Out of millions and millions of seeds only one seed sprouted? That is not much. It has been a sheer waste of great human potential, and the reason has been the escapist attitude of the religions.I affirm life, I rejoice in life. And I would like you all to be deeply, intensely, passionately, in life, with only one condition: alertness, watchfulness, witnessing. And I know difficulty arises, because you will be living with millions of sleepy people – and sleep is contagious; just as awareness is. Awareness, too, is contagious; hence the significance of being with a master.The master cannot give you the truth. Nobody can give the truth to anybody else; it is nontransferable. The master cannot take you to the ultimate goal, because you will have to arrive there alone, nobody can accompany you. You cannot reach there by imitating the master, because the more you imitate somebody, the falser you become. How can you arrive at truth by becoming false?Then what is the function of a master? Then what is the use of searching for a master? Then why be a disciple at all? Still, there is a reason, and the reason is that awareness is as contagious as sleepiness. If you sit with a few people who are all feeling sleepy you will start feeling sleepy.A famous Sufi story says:There was a fruit seller. He had a very cunning fox who used to watch his shop. Whenever he had to go out he would tell the fox, “Be alert. Sit in my place and just watch. Watch every activity that goes on around here. Don’t allow anybody to steal anything. If somebody tries to steal, make noises – I will run out of the house immediately.”One day Mulla Nasruddin was passing. He heard the shopkeeper talking to the fox, saying all these things, “Be alert, watch every activity that is going on around, and if you see that something is against us or somebody is trying to steal the fruits, make a noise immediately and I will come out.”Mulla Nasruddin was very tempted. The shopkeeper went in. Nasruddin sat in front of the shop and just started pretending he was falling asleep; with closed eyes he started dozing.For a moment the poor fox thought, “What to do? Should I make a noise? But sleep is not an activity – in fact it is just the opposite – and the master has said that if some activity goes on around… This is not activity: this man is falling asleep, and what can a man who is asleep do, what harm?” But the fox was not aware that Mulla was trying a Sufi strategy! By pretending to be falling asleep, by dozing with closed eyes, slowly, slowly he managed to make the fox fall asleep. Then he stole the fruits.When the master came back, the fruits were gone and the fox was snoring! He shook the fox and asked, “What is the matter? Didn’t I tell you if any activity happens you have to make a noise so that I can come? But I never heard any noise.”The fox said, “But there was no activity happening. Just one man came; he sat in front of the shop and started dozing. Now, sleep is not an activity, is it? Sleep is inactivity.”Simple logic! A poor fox and simple logic.“Then what happened to you?” the owner asked.The fox said, “That I don’t know, what happened to me. But the more I watched the man dozing, somehow I started dozing myself and it was impossible to remain awake. I don’t know when I fell asleep.”If a few people are dozing and you are sitting with them, you can see the point: the vibe of sleep reaches to you. And similar is the case – although a little difficult because sleep is downhill and awakening is uphill. It is a little harder task. But to be with a man who is awake, who is a buddha, is bound to make you alert – just being with the master.We are continuously affected by the people around us. We may be absolutely oblivious of the fact that whatsoever we think has been given by others to us; whatsoever we feel, even that, too, has been given to us by others. The child learns by imitation. Even our emotions may be just borrowed, not only our thoughts; our sentiments may be just borrowed.People even can die just because of a borrowed idea. What is a motherland? – an idea which we go on stuffing in the heads of small children. And we go on telling them that to die for the motherland is to be a great man, is to be a martyr; to die for the motherland is the greatest virtue.In the past they used to say the same thing about religions, churches: “To die for the church, to die for your religion, is the sure way to enter paradise. Instantly you are uplifted into paradise if you die for your religion.” Kill others for your religion and it is not sin; die for your own religion and it is not suicide. Killing is not murder, committing suicide is not suicide! Once these ideas have been implanted in your being, imprinted in your being, they start functioning from there.Three boys, a Catholic, a Jew, and a black kid, were sitting on a curb. A priest and a rabbi saw the boys.The Catholic priest recognized one of the kids as a member of his parish, so he said, “Sonny, what are the two biggest things in your life?”He said, “Father, the two biggest things in my life are the Catholic church and my priest.”The rabbi looked down and recognized the Jewish kid from his congregation. He said, “Son, what are the two biggest things in your life?”“Rabbi, the two biggest things in my life are my congregation and my rabbi.”Both members of the clergy left smugly satisfied. Then the little colored kid looked at his two buddies and said, “Say, ain’t neither one of you little mama’s boys never had no girls nor watermelon yet?”We learn from others. It may be your idea of God, it may be the priest, the rabbi – or the watermelon! It is all the same: we learn from others.In the close intimacy with a master, two things happen: one is his contagious awareness, his contagious love, his contagious compassion; and second, a great unlearning. Whatsoever you have learned from sleepy people, whether it is about the watermelon or about the rabbi – there is not much difference between watermelons and rabbis! What you have learned from the established church and the state and the educational system, which are all serving vested interests, which are all serving the past, the dead past, which are not in your service… Remember, they are to exploit you, they are to reduce you to machines – efficient, but machines are machines, whether efficient or inefficient. Their function is to make you slaves of the society – and the society is ill, the society is insane, the society is pathological.Two things happen in the affinity of the master: the first, his contagious awareness; and the second: a process of unlearning. He starts destroying all that you have learned. He cannot give you the truth, I repeat, but he can take away the lies. And that is one of the most essential things; without it, the truth can never happen to you. Truth is going to happen to you in your aloneness, but before it can happen all the blocks have to be removed: the blocks of lies that have been placed in the way of truth.The master can take away your lies. His function is negative in that way, and positive in being contagious. His vibe can touch and wake you up. He can be a sunray entering through the window in your bedroom, falling on your face, and telling you, “It is morning, now get up!” making it very difficult for you to sleep. Yes, the master can make it difficult for you to sleep, and difficult for you to imitate, and difficult for you to learn from those who are really your enemies and not your friends.If these two things are possible, your life starts moving, you are no longer stuck. Your seed has fallen into the right soil: now in the right time the sprout will come. Soon there will be spring and you will see your own flowers. And the flowers of consciousness are the greatest flowers there are.The sutras:He is the charioteer.He has tamed his horses,pride and the senses.Even the gods admire him.The moment your potential becomes actual, the moment you are a realized soul, even gods admire you. Even gods are far behind, because even gods have not yet become buddhas. They are also living unconscious lives – maybe living in heaven. What you call angels in Christianity are called gods in Buddhism. Even the angels living in heaven are not buddhas; they are as asleep as you are. The only difference is in their situation: they are in paradise and you are on earth. But the difference is not in their psychology; as far as their inner being is concerned, it is as dark as yours.Hindus have never been able to forgive Buddha, because he said that even gods admire a buddha, even gods worship a buddha.The story is told that when Buddha became a buddha, when Gautama Siddhartha became enlightened, became a buddha, gods came from paradise to worship him. They touched his feet and they showered celestial flowers and they played celestial music. Hindus have never been able to forgive Buddhists for this story – gods worshipping a man? But see the point: the gods are not worshipping a man, the gods are worshipping awareness, the gods are worshipping buddhahood. The gods are not worshipping Gautama Siddhartha the man, but the flame that has happened in his heart. That flame is eternal light, that flame is divine. And even the gods are yet far, far away from it; they have to attain it.The idea of a buddha is higher than the idea of gods. Buddhism is the only religion of the world which has given man such dignity; no other religion has dignified man so highly. Buddhism is the religion of man.A Buddhist poet, Chandidas, has said: “Sabar upar manus satya, tahar upar nahin – the truth of man is the highest truth, there is no higher truth than that.”But the truth of man does not mean the body of man, the bones and the blood and the marrow, no. The truth of man means the flame which is not yet lit in you. Once it is lit you are transported into a totally different world. You have become part of the whole, you are no longer separate. The way to reach to this actualization is: He is the charioteer. He becomes a conscious master. His body is a chariot, he drives it where he wants to, not vice versa. The unconscious man is driven by his body.Just watch yourself: your body goes on driving you. Just a moment before you were not hungry, and you pass by the side of a restaurant, and the smell of food, and suddenly you start feeling hungry. The body is deceiving you, because just a moment before you were not hungry at all, there was no hunger. This hunger is the body driving you toward food. You were not even thinking of food just a moment ago, and the smells coming from the bakery – and suddenly a great desire, a great hunger, has arisen in you. It is the body driving you; you are not the charioteer. The chariot has become the master. This is the ordinary situation.He has tamed his horses… Senses are called “the horses.” In the ancient days in India there were chariots with five horses. Great kings used to move in chariots with five horses. Those who were the greatest, those who were called chakravartins – the world rulers – used to move in chariots with seven horses. Five horses represent the five senses… And your five senses are continuously influencing you. A man who wants to be really conscious has to start by becoming alert of these things.If you take your dinner at a particular time every day, and you see the clock and it is time… The clock may have stopped, the clock may not be right, the clock may be one hour ahead, but if it is time, immediately there is hunger. Now, this hunger is false, created by the senses, created by the body – and you are going to be driven by these senses your whole life?All over the world, seekers of truth have become aware of this phenomenon and they have reacted in two ways; one is right, the other is wrong. The wrong way is to start fighting with your senses and your body. By fighting you will never win. By fighting you will become weaker, you will be dissipating energy. By fighting you will become repressive – and that which is repressed will have to be repressed again and again; that which is repressed will take revenge sooner or later. Whenever it will find any opportunity to take possession of you, it is bound to take possession of you – and with a vengeance!You can fast for three days, you can force your body to fast, but if it is repression, the fourth day the body will take revenge – you will eat too much, for a few days you will eat too much. In fact, if you had lost any weight in those three days, you will gain more weight within a week. The body has taken revenge, the body has taught you a lesson.Fighting is not the way – not the way of the buddhas. Fighting is stupid; it is your own body, you need not fight with it, you have just to be more watchful of it. If some watchfulness starts crystallizing in you, you will be surprised that the body starts following you. It no longer commands you, it no longer orders you: it becomes obedient to you.When the master has arrived, the servants immediately fall in line. But the master is asleep, that’s why the servants are pretending to be the masters.He is the charioteer. He has tamed his horses… They have not to be killed or destroyed but tamed. They are beautiful animals! If tamed they can be of tremendous value, they can be of great service to you.A buddha is not one who destroys his senses, but is one who makes his senses more clear, more clean, more sensitive – but he remains the master. A buddha sees far more than you see, his eyes are far more receptive, because there is no smoke in his eyes, no clouds in his consciousness.He sees the same green trees, but the trees are far greener for him than they are for you. He smells the same perfume but it is far more for him than it is for you. He sees the same beauty, but it gives him great ecstasy. It may not give you any ecstasy at all; you may bypass it. You may not even see the nazunia flower by the side of the road. What to say of the nazunia – you may not even see a roseflower. You are so occupied, your senses are so full of information; they are not empty and available. Your senses are not very sensitive.The buddha does not kill them, but many saints have been doing that stupidity. There have been Christian saints in Russia – a long tradition – who used to cut off their genital organs; the nuns used to cut off their breasts. Ridiculous, stupid! What more stupidity can you expect than this? How can you be a master by cutting off your genital organs? – because sexuality is not there, sexuality is in the head. And, of course, you cannot cut off your head. And even if you cut it off, it is not going to make any difference; you will be born again with a far filthier head!Now we know – scientific research has proved it beyond doubt – that sexuality has nothing to do with the genital organs; it is not there. The genital organs are triggered by the head: in the brain there are centers. Pavlov and B. F. Skinner’s work has been of tremendous value in this field. I don’t agree with their behaviorist approach, but what they have researched can be used by the mystics, can be used by the seekers of truth, by the explorers of their inner being, in a very valuable way.Skinner has found that in the brain there are centers – centers for food, centers for sex, centers for everything. If you touch with an electrode the sex center in the brain, immediately you have an orgasm. A great joy arises in you as if you have made love to a woman. Skinner was experimenting with rats; he fixed an electrode in the sex center in the brain of the rat and he taught the rat how to push a button if he wants an orgasm. He was surprised what the rat did; he had never thought that rats are so sexual. The rat completely forgot about food, about everything. Even if there was danger, even if a cat was brought, the rat was unafraid. Who cares? He was continuously pushing the button, continuously… Six thousand times! Until the rat fell utterly exhausted, almost dead, he went on pushing, because each push and there was an orgasm.Now sooner or later this is going to happen to you too! It will be far easier, far more comfortable – because to have a woman or to have a man is such a conflict. You can just have a small, matchbox-sized computer in your pocket – nobody will ever know what you are doing! You can go on moving your rosary, and with the other hand you can push the button, and people will think that the ecstasy is happening because of the rosary. And your face will glow… But if it becomes possible you will be in the same situation as the rat: you will die by pushing your button too much, you will forget everything else.Genital organs have nothing to do with sex; everything is contained in the brain. Your hunger has nothing to do with your stomach; that too is contained in the brain. That’s why at the right time, looking at the clock, suddenly there is hunger. And the smell of the bakery does not go into the stomach, remember, it goes into the brain. It triggers a certain center in your brain, it pushes a button in the brain, and suddenly you are hungry. Now, destroying your body is not going to help, starving your body is not going to help. Even committing suicide is not going to help. Only one thing can help, and that is awareness.If you become aware… Awareness is not a part of the brain. Awareness is behind the brain, awareness is capable of seeing the brain.You will be surprised to know that whatsoever modern psychological methods have been able to discover was discovered thousands of years before by the mystics in the East. Buddha was perfectly aware of the brain centers, Patanjali was perfectly aware of the brain centers. And the only way is to find something which is beyond the brain and move to that beyond and remain there. There is your mastery; from there you are the charioteer, from there all the horses are in your hands. And then they are beautiful! Senses are not ugly – nothing is ugly. Even sex has its own beauty, its own sacredness, its own holiness. But if you are rooted and centered in your beyond, in your consciousness, then everything has a different meaning, a different context. Then eating has its own spirituality.The Upanishads say: “Annam brahma – food is God.” The man who had said this must have tasted godliness in food. And the tantrikas in the East have been saying it for centuries, that sex has the greatest potential to realize samadhi. It is the closest point – the sexual orgasm is the closest to the spiritual orgasm, hence you can learn much from it. In sexual orgasm time disappears, ego disappears, mind disappears. In sexual orgasm, for a moment the whole world stops.The same happens in the spiritual orgasm on a far bigger scale. The sexual is momentary and the spiritual is eternal, but the sexual gives you a glimpse of the spiritual.Senses have to be tamed, not to be destroyed, remember. …pride and the senses. Even the gods admire him. Tame the senses, tame the pride. If the pride masters you, it is ego; if you are the master, then it is only self-respect. And every person of integrity has self-respect. Self-respect is not egoistic, not at all. Self-respect simply means, “I love myself, I respect myself, and I will not allow anybody to humiliate me. I will not humiliate anybody and I will not allow anybody to humiliate me. I will not create slavery for anybody and I will not be a slave to anybody either.”That is pride tamed. Then it has become a servant and it is beautiful.Yielding like the earth,joyous and clear like the lake,still as the stone at the door,he is free from life and death.The man who has become awakened becomes: Yielding like the earth… He loses all rigidity. He is not like a rock; he is like soft earth. And only the soft earth can be fertile, can be creative. The rock remains impotent; it creates nothing, nothing grows on it, nothing can grow in it. The rock remains utterly empty. But the yielding earth – soft, humble, surrendering, receptive, womblike – can give birth to new experiences, can give birth to new visions, new songs, new poetries. The awakened person is not rigid. In the words of Lao Tzu, he is not like the rock but like water: “His way is the way of water – the watercourse way.”…joyous and clear like the lake… The man who is awakened, who is alert, becomes clear: all his confusions are gone. Not that he has been able to find solutions, no, but because all his questions have disappeared. Not that he has found the answers – there is no answer to be found. Life is a mystery and remains a mystery; life cannot be demystified. And because he knows the mystery of life and now there are no longer any questions and no longer any conflicting answers, he is very clear, he is clarity itself, and he is joyous.Why is he joyous? – because now he knows that the whole kingdom of God is his. Now he knows that he is not an outsider here, that he belongs to existence and the existence belongs to him. He has become part of this infinite celebration that goes on and on. He is a song in this celebration, a dance in this celebration.…still as the stone at the door… Yielding like the earth and still like the rock, silent, unmoving …he is free from life and death. And he is not only free from death, remember: the moment you are free from death you are free from this life also – this so-called life. Then there is another life. Buddha does not name it, he will not give it any definition; he simply leaves it there. He leaves the sentence incomplete, because he knows anything said will destroy the beauty of it. Anything said will give it a limitation, and it is unlimited. Anything said is bound to be inadequate.So he says only one thing: he is free from this life and this death. The life that you have known and the death that happens every day – this life and this death both disappear for the awakened one. Time disappears, and life and death are two sides of time. Then he is eternity. He becomes one with the whole; you cannot find him as a separate entity anywhere.Where is Gautama the Buddha now? Now he is in the air you breathe and in the water you drink and in the birds that go on singing and in the trees and in the clouds. Where is Buddha now? He has become the universe. The dewdrop has become the ocean, but the dewdrop has disappeared as a dewdrop. Now there is no life and death for the dewdrop; it exists no more – how can there be a life for it? It exists no more, so how can it die? It has gone beyond the duality of life and death.His thoughts are still.His words are still.This is a tremendously important statement. His thoughts are still. That is simple and can be understood, because a man who is alert need not think.Thinking is needed because we cannot see. If a blind man wants to go out of this hall he will have to think; he will have to ask somebody; he will have to plan where to move, where the steps are, where the door is, and he will grope with his stick. But if a man has eyes he need not ask, he need not think. He simply gets up; he simply starts moving toward the door. He goes out of the door, not thinking about it at all. But the blind man cannot afford not to think. And this is how the sleepy man has to think – the sleepy man is blind.The man with awareness has inner eyes, has insight. He can see, and because he can see he need not think. Seeing is enough. Thinking is a poor substitute for seeing. His thoughts are still. But even more important is the statement: His words are still. It is a contradiction in terms: “His words” means he speaks. Buddha spoke; otherwise we would not have these tremendously significant sutras. For forty-two years he was speaking continuously – day in, day out, year in, year out; morning, afternoon, evening he was speaking. But he says: His words are still.If you are really attuned, if you are really silent in the presence of the master, you will see: His words are still. His words carry a silence around them, his words are not noisy. His words have a melody, a rhythm, a music, and at the very core of his words is utter silence. If you can penetrate his words you will come across infinite silence.But to penetrate the words of a Buddha, the way is not analysis, the way is not argument, the way is not discussing. The way is falling en rapport with him, becoming attuned with him, being in a synchronicity with him. It happens: a moment comes between the disciple and the master when the very heart of the master and the heart of the disciple beat in the same rhythm, when the breathing of the master and the breathing of the disciple are in the same rhythm. When the master breathes out, the disciple breathes out; when the master breathes in, the disciple breathes in. Everything becomes so attuned.In that attunement, in that at-onement, one enters the very core of the master’s words. And there you will not find any sound, any noise; there you will find absolute silence. And to taste it is to understand the master. The meaning of the word is not important, remember, but the silence of the word. The meaning can be understood by anybody who understands language, that is not difficult; but the silence can be understood only by the disciple, not by the student.The student listens to the word, understands its meaning, and that’s that. He will understand the philosophy of Buddha, but he will not understand Buddha himself. He will understand his theories, but he will miss his being.The disciple may not be able to say what his master’s teaching is, he may not be able to reproduce his philosophy, he may be at a loss. If you ask him, “What is the teaching of your master?” he may become dumb. But he understands the master – not what he says but what he is.There is a very beautiful story:When Buddha died, all the enlightened disciples gathered together to write down the message of the Buddha, because now the master was gone and the treasure had to be collected for the coming generations.There were great enlightened disciples, but nobody could exactly reproduce it. A few of them were absolutely silent; when they were asked they shrugged their shoulders. A few said, “It is impossible, it can’t be done.” A few others said, “We would not like to commit any mistakes, and mistakes are bound to happen, because what we have seen in the man is impossible to express in language.” In fact, not a single enlightened disciple was ready to compile the philosophy of Buddha.Then Ananda was approached. He was the only one who had lived with Buddha for forty-two years and was not yet enlightened. He had remembered all, everything; he had the whole collection, word for word. His memory must have been just extraordinary. But there was a problem. The problem was: can you believe in the words of an unenlightened person about an enlightened person?Those who are enlightened are not ready to say anything; the one who is ready to reproduce the whole philosophy, word for word, from the beginning to the end, from the first statement that Buddha made to the last… But he is not enlightened. Can you rely on his memory? Can you rely on his interpretation? Now, this is really an insoluble problem: those who know, those who can be relied upon, are not ready to say anything, and the one who is ready to say cannot be relied upon – he is not enlightened himself.Then the whole gathering told Ananda, “Do one thing – don’t waste a single moment. Bring your total energies and become as alert as possible. If you can become enlightened before your death, then something is possible. We will not collect your statements unless you are enlightened. Remember – you are the only one who remembers absolutely – but we cannot trust it.”How can you trust a blind man’s report about someone who had eyes and was talking about colors, light, rainbows, flowers? How can you believe in the report of a blind man? It is absurd, it cannot be believed.So the congregation said to Ananda, “You are the only hope. If you can become enlightened we will be able to accept whatsoever you say, but we will not be able to accept it unless you become enlightened.”Ananda had lived for forty-two years with Buddha, but because Buddha was so close to him he had started taking him for granted. It happens. It happens here too. Many of you who are close to me can start taking me for granted. Ananda was very close, the closest one; he was not much concerned about his enlightenment. Whenever he was asked he said, “I am not worried about it. Buddha is going to take care of me. I have been serving him for forty-two years – is he not compassionate enough to help drag me out of the darkness? He will do it. And what is the hurry? Why be in such haste? It can happen tomorrow, it can happen the day after tomorrow. Buddha is there.”And for forty-two years he had been postponing and believing deep down in his heart: “Buddha will do it. Although he says nobody can make anybody else enlightened, I know he can do it. I know miracles have been happening around him. And at least, if not for anybody else, for me he is going to make an exception. I have served him so much. And then he is always there. If today I miss, tomorrow; if tomorrow I miss, the day after tomorrow. Where is he going? He is always there.”The day Buddha died, he said to Ananda, “Ananda, now I will not be here tomorrow. So make haste, hurry! Now, no more postponing.”And it happened that after Buddha’s death, when the congregation prayed to Ananda, for twenty-four hours he sat with closed eyes. This was for the first time in his whole life. In fact, there was so much happening around Buddha that it was impossible to close the eyes. The whole day so many things were happening and Ananda was too occupied. Now Buddha was gone and nothing was happening anymore, there was nothing to see. He closed his eyes and for twenty-four hours, for the first time, he sat in silence.He became enlightened within twenty-four hours. This had not happened in forty-two years; it happened in twenty-four hours. When he became enlightened, when all the enlightened disciples recognized his aura, his light, his luminousness, then they said: “Now Ananda can be allowed to come in the assembly. He can relate and we will compile.”That’s how all the Buddhist sutras have been compiled.But only an enlightened person can be trusted. Why? – because he can see. And he can see into the words and find the silence which is the real message. If you listen to the meaning, you are a student; if you listen to the silence, you are a disciple. And if you completely forget who is talking and who is listening, you become one with the master – you are a devotee.These are the three stages: the student, the disciple and the devotee. The student understands the meaning of the words, the disciple understands the silence of the words, and the devotee becomes the silence itself. His thoughts are still. His words are still.His work is stillness.His whole work is stillness, he creates stillness. He creates devices to create stillness.He sees his freedom and is freed.The master surrenders his beliefs.Once you become enlightened all that you have believed before becomes ridiculous, irrelevant, absurd, nonsense. It is like the belief of the blind man in light. Whatsoever he had believed before, whatsoever he had thought in his blindness that light is… Once his eyes open he will have to drop all his beliefs about light. Not a single word of those beliefs is going to be true. It is impossible for the blind man to conceive what light is. What to say about light? – the blind man cannot even conceive anything about darkness either, because to see darkness you need eyes as much as to see light. The blind man knows nothing of darkness and nothing of light.Once you become awakened all your beliefs in gods, heaven, hell, karma, reincarnation, this and that, they all become simply rubbish. The master surrenders his beliefs.He sees beyond the end and the beginning.Now there is no need to believe – he can see beyond the beginning and beyond the end. He can see the whole through and through. Seeing is the goal.In India we don’t have a word equivalent to philosophy. We have a totally different word for it, which is darshan. Ordinarily it is translated as philosophy; it is not. Philosophy means something of the mind; darshan simply means insight, vision, seeing. In the East we have called the greatest ones, the seers. We have not called them prophets, we have not called them philosophers, we have called them seers – they have seen. The East has always believed in seeing, not in thinking.To translate darshan into English is very difficult. To call it philosophy is to be unfair; it destroys the whole beauty of the word darshan. So I translate it with philosia. Philosophy means love for knowledge: sophia means knowledge, philo means love. Philosia means love for seeing – sia means seeing. Once you have seen, all beliefs wither away like dry leaves falling from the trees.He cuts all ties.He gives up all his desires.He resists all temptation.And he rises.Now a totally new law starts functioning: the law of levitation. Ordinarily things fall downward, but the man of awakening rises upward. Everything in him starts rising upward, soaring upward. He has to cut all ties, because those ties are with the earth. He has to give up all desires, because those desires are the ties that keep him tethered to the earth.He resists all temptation. Many times the old mind will try to assert itself. Many, many times the mind will make efforts to bring you back to the earth.Kahlil Gibran says: “When a river comes closer to the sea, it waits for a moment, looks backward – all those joys, the mountains, the virgin snows where it originated, the forests, the solitude of the forests, the birds, their songs, the people, the plains, thousands of experiences, the long journey… And now the moment has come to disappear into the ocean. The whole past pulls backward. The whole past says, ‘Wait! You will be lost forever. You will never be the same. Without your banks, how can you be? You will lose your definition.’”Exactly the same happens when you come closer to buddhahood: when all is being lost, all ties, all desires, great temptations arise. There is no Devil to tempt you; it is your own mind, your own past experiences. Your whole loaded past tries to pull you backward, but now nothing can pull you backward. The call has been heard, the invitation has arrived.He cuts all ties.He gives up all his desires.He resists all temptation.And he rises.And wherever he lives,in the city or the country,in the valley or in the hills,there is great joy.And it is not only that he is joyous: wherever he is he brings a climate of joy. Joy surrounds him.It is said that wherever Buddha would move, trees would bloom out of season, rivers would start flowing in the summer season when there was no water. Wherever Buddha would move there would be peace, silence, love, compassion, all around. This is really so; not that trees will bloom out of season – these are metaphors – but whenever there is a buddha something mysterious starts happening. People start blooming out of season, joy spreads, great waves of joy.When you enter the buddhafield you enter a totally different world: the world of blessings, the world of benedictions.Even in the empty foresthe finds joybecause he wants nothing.And he is everywhere joyous, because the only thing that destroys your natural capacity of rejoicing is your desiring mind. The desiring mind makes you a beggar. Once all desires have been dropped you are the emperor. Joy is a natural state of your being.Just let there be no desire and see. When there is no desire there is no mind. When there is no desire there is no turmoil. When there is no desire there is no past, no future. When there is no desire you are utterly contented herenow. And to be contented herenow is joy.And whenever such a man moves, wherever he moves, he brings his climate with him. A buddha is in the season of spring all the year round. And fortunate are those who come in some way close to him, blessed are those who become associated with him, because they also share his joy, his benediction, his wisdom, his love, his light.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Last autumn you sent me a taped answer to a question. The gist of your answer was that I was trying too hard at spiritual pursuits. I stopped almost everything for nine months and got good results from following your advice.Now I am attending a sannyasin group again, but I feel that becoming a sannyasin would be doing what you told me not to do – trying too hard. I have already been initiated into many groups and feel that this may be symptomatic of trying too hard. Should I just relax and enjoy you the way we are now?That’s exactly what sannyas is: relaxing and enjoying whatsoever is. It is not an initiation like other initiations you have been through – it is a totally different phenomenon. It is not a serious affair at all, it is basically playfulness. It is for the first time on the earth that we are trying to bring playfulness to religion.Religion has always been of a long face, sad, serious, somber. Because of that seriousness, millions of people have remained aloof from religion. Those who were alive could not become religious because religion meant a kind of suicide to them – and it was so. Only those who were already dead or dying, those who were ill, pathological, suicidal were interested in the old religions.The old religions were not dancing, singing, celebrating; they were anti-life, anti-earth, anti-body. They were purely negative; they had nothing to affirm. Their God was based on negativity. Go on negating: the more you negate life, the more religious you were thought to be.I am bringing a totally new vision of religion to the earth: I am introducing you to a religion that can laugh, a religion that can love, a religion that can live the ordinary life with extraordinary awareness.Religion is not a question of changing life patterns, of changing things and situations. Religion changes you, not your situation. It does not change things: it changes the way you look at things. It changes your eyes, your vision; it gives you an insight. Then God is not something against life: then godliness is the intrinsic core of life. Then spirit is not anti-matter but the highest form of matter, the purest fragrance of matter.If you avoid sannyas, that will be being serious. You have not understood that this is not the same kind of initiation. You have been into many schools, sects and you have gathered much knowledge about initiation and the mysteries – but this is not that kind of initiation. It is just the opposite: it is getting initiated into life, into ordinary life. Once your ordinary life becomes suffused with your meditativeness you are a sannyasin. It is not a question of changing only your clothes – that is only symbolic – the real sannyasin is bringing meditation into the ordinary affairs of life, bringing meditation to the marketplace. Eating, walking, sleeping, one can remain continuously in a state of meditation. It is nothing special that you are doing, but doing the same things with a new way, with a new method, with new art. Sannyas changes your outlook.You listened to my advice and for nine months, you say you stopped almost everything and got good results from following the advice. But somewhere deep down you are still serious; otherwise you would have taken a jump into sannyas – nonseriously. Even to ask about it is to show your seriousness. You could not accept it playfully, with laughter.Sannyas is just a play – leela. That concept is not known in the West; the West has missed much because of not knowing that concept. In the West, religion has no idea that God is not a creator but a player, that existence is not his creation but his play of energies. Just like the ocean waves roaring, shattering on the banks and the rocks, eternally, just a play of energy, so is God. These millions of forms are not created by God, those are just because of his overflowing energy.God is not a person at all. You cannot worship God. You can live in a godly way but you cannot worship God – there is nobody to worship. All your worship is sheer stupidity, all your images of God are your own creation. There is no God as such, but there is godliness, certainly – in the flowers, in the birds, in the stars, in the eyes of the people, when a song arises in the heart and poetry surrounds you… All this is God. Let us say “godliness” rather than using the word God – that word gives you the idea of a person, and God is not a person but a presence.Sannyas is not like becoming a Hindu or a Christian or a Mohammedan. In fact, it is dropping out of all these trips – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, all these trips. Sannyas is simply dropping out of all ideologies. Ideologies are bound to be serious; no ideology can have laughter as its spirit, because ideologies have to fight with each other, argue with each other, and argument cannot be done with laughter. Argument has to be serious. Argument is basically egoistic, how can it laugh? The ego knows no laughter at all.Once it happened…A great philosopher and thinker, Keshav Chandra Sen, went to see Ramakrishna. He wanted to defeat Ramakrishna, and, certainly, he was capable of great argument. He argued against God, against religion, against the whole nonsense that Ramakrishna was doing. He was trying to prove that Ramakrishna was a fool, that there is no God, that nobody has ever proved the existence of God. He talked and talked, and slowly, slowly he started feeling a little weird because Ramakrishna would only laugh. He would listen to the argument and laugh – and not only laugh, he would jump, hug Keshav Chandra Sen, kiss him and say, “Beautiful! I have never heard this argument! It is really intelligent, clever.”Keshav Chandra Sen started feeling very embarrassed. A crowd had gathered seeing that Keshav Chandra, a great philosopher, was going to Ramakrishna; many people had come to listen, hearing that something was going to transpire there. Even they started feeling that the whole journey had been futile. “This is a strange thing that is happening!”And Ramakrishna danced and laughed and he said, “Even if there had been any doubt in my mind about God, you have destroyed it. How can there be such intelligence without God? You are proof, Keshav Chandra – I believe in you.”And Keshav Chandra has written in his memoirs: “Ramakrishna’s laughter defeated me – defeated me forever. I forgot all arguments. It looked so foolish! And he had not argued against me, he had not even said a single word against me. He simply kissed me, hugged me, laughed, danced. He appreciated me as nobody has ever appreciated – and I was talking against him! He said, ‘Keshav Chandra, your presence, such intelligence, such genius, is enough proof that God is!’ He said this to me” – Keshav Chandra writes – “but really his presence, his laughter, his dance, his hugging and kissing, proved to me that God is; otherwise, how is such a phenomenon as Ramakrishna possible?”The uneducated Ramakrishna, the villager Ramakrishna, proved far more profound than the very sophisticated, educated Keshav Chandra. What happened? Something tremendously beautiful happened. Ramakrishna is really religious; he knows what religion is, he knows what godliness is: to take life in a dancing way, to take life singing, to accept life in all its manifoldness, without any judgment – to love it for what it is.A sannyasin means one who is not trying to solve the mystery of life but is diving deep into the mystery itself. Living the mystery is sannyas, not solving the mystery. If you start solving it you become serious. If you start living it you become more and more playful.See the difference between sannyas and other initiations. There is a qualitative difference. It is not initiation in the old sense, just as it is not a learning in the old sense – it is an unlearning, and so I can say it is uninitiation. It will bring you out of all your initiations, because if you have been to so many schools and sects and ideologies, many things must be still hanging around inside you. You need a good cleaning, you need a thorough cleaning, you need a good bath – and sannyas will give you a shower, it will cleanse your soul. It will give you back the innocence of a child, the laughter of a child, eyes full of wonder and awe.Don’t hesitate. Take the jump. It is a jump, because you cannot come to it through thinking. It is a jump because it is not a conclusion of your mind. To others it will look like madness – in fact all love is mad and all love is blind, at least to those who don’t know what love is. To unlovers love is blind; to lovers, love is the only possible eye which can see to the very core of existence. To those who don’t know the taste of religion, sannyas is madness; but to those who know, everything else is madness except sannyas. This is entering into sanity. I don’t see anything saner than laughter, saner than love, saner than celebration.But you are still thinking in serious terms: initiation is a great word. You are still obsessed with your old ideas, still afraid that you may start trying too hard. In fact, you are still trying.First I had suggested to you not to try too hard. Now you are trying too hard on the opposite end, on the polar opposite: trying too hard not to try hard! It is the same thing. Become a sannyasin and forget all this nonsense. Then one transcends both trying and non-trying. A great laughter is waiting for you. And the moment the beyond starts laughing inside you, giggling inside you, then you know for the first time what it means to be a christ, what it means to be a buddha.But Christians say Christ never laughed – this is their idea about Christ. This is not true about the real Christ – I know the man! It is impossible to conceive that he never laughed. He enjoyed good food, you know, both dining and wining; he enjoyed beautiful company. And if you want beautiful company you have to find it not in the scholars but in the gamblers; if you really want good company you will have to move to those who live on the fringes of your so-called society – the fringe people, the outsiders, the gamblers, the drunkards, the prostitutes – because your society has become so dull and dead. The established society is almost a cemetery; you don’t meet people there, you meet only dead bodies, corpses – walking, talking, moving, doing things… It is a miracle!One day a small boy asked me, “Do you believe in ghosts?”I said, “Believe? – I am surrounded by ghosts!”He understood the point immediately. He said, “So… So you mean the people in the streets and the market are all ghosts?”I said, “Yes, they are all ghosts. They are all living a post-mortem existence. They have died long ago. In fact, they died before they were ever born.”The society kills and kills slowly, skillfully. You never become aware because it is done so slowly, that’s why. A child is slowly poisoned.In the East, in the past, there used to be a certain kind of woman detective. Those woman detectives were called vishkanyas – poisoned girls. Certain beautiful girls were poisoned very slowly from the very beginning, with the mother’s milk – it is an historical fact – but the poison was given in such small doses, homeopathic doses that it would not kill them immediately; but slowly, slowly their whole system would become poisoned. Poison would flow in their blood, their breath would become poison. By the time they were youths, they would be ready to be used by the kings, and they were so beautiful that it was very easy to allure anybody with them. They were sent to the enemy king who was bound to fall in the trap of the beautiful woman, and once the woman kissed the man that was the end of him. Just the kiss was enough to kill; it was a kiss of death.To make love to such a woman will be the end – you will die like a few spiders die. There are a few spiders who die while making love – because the girlfriend starts eating them while they are getting higher and higher, and they are in such ecstasy – you know spiders – trembling, and they have completely forgotten the world. They are no longer material, they are spiritual. But women are women; they are very materialistic. The moment the spider gets into his orgasmic spasms, the girlfriend starts eating him. By the time he comes back, he is no more. He was thinking he was coming – he was really going!Those poisoned girls were trained… But the miracle was that so much poison didn’t kill them. It was given in such mild doses, very slowly.A scientist was experimenting with frogs: he threw a frog into boiling water – of course, the frog jumped immediately out of it. Then he gave the frog just ordinary water, normal temperature; the frog enjoyed the bucket, sat at the bottom, relaxed, and the scientist started heating it up slowly, slowly, very slowly. Within hours it was boiling, but the frog didn’t jump out of it. He died. He never became aware, the thing happened so slowly.And that’s what is happening in society. It takes almost twenty-five years to kill a child totally, to poison a child totally. By the time he comes from the university he is dead, he is finished; now he will live a post-mortem existence.I can see a grain of truth in the hippie idea: don’t trust a man beyond thirty. There is some truth in it. By the time a man is thirty he is no longer alive – if he is still alive he will become a buddha, he will be a christ, he will be a krishna. But by that time people die – and they die so unconsciously that they go on living as if they are alive.Sannyas means giving you your life back. It is a process of deprogramming you, unconditioning you, unpoisoning you. You cannot logically decide to be a sannyasin, because that very mind is a problem, and you are trying to decide with that very mind. Sannyas has to be a jump. It happens from the heart, not from the head.You are still thinking from the head. Please, get down from the head. At least let one thing happen from the heart – not logically but illogically, not in a prosaic way but in a poetic way. Sannyas has to be a love affair: nonserious, full of laughter. Enter it, and you will be surprised that this is not some other initiation. This will bring out all your initiations and all your philosophy and all your systems of thought.Sannyas is relaxing in life, trusting in life, resting in life. Nowhere to go, nothing to achieve, then the whole energy is available to dance and sing and celebrate.The second question:Osho,What does it mean to be a disciple?It is one of the most delicate mysteries. No definition is possible of a disciple, but a few hints can be given, just fingers pointing to the moon. Don’t cling to the fingers – look at the moon and forget the fingers.A disciple is a rare phenomenon. It is very easy to be a student because the student is searching knowledge. The student can only meet the teacher, he can never meet the master. The reality of the master will remain hidden to the student. The student functions from the head. He functions logically, rationally. He gathers knowledge, he becomes more and more knowledgeable. Finally in his own turn he will become a teacher, but all that he knows is borrowed, nothing is really his own.His existence is pseudo; it is a carbon-copy existence. He has not known his original face. He knows about God, but he does not know godliness itself. He knows about love, but he has never dared to love himself. He knows much about poetry, but he has not tasted the spirit of poetry itself. He may talk about beauty, he may write treatises on beauty, but he has no vision, no experience, no existential intimacy with beauty. He has never danced with a roseflower. The sunrise happens there outside, but nothing happens inside his heart. That darkness inside him remains the same as it was before.He talks only about concepts, he knows nothing of truth – because truth cannot be known through words, scriptures. A student is interested only in words, scriptures, theories, systems of thought, philosophies, ideologies.A disciple is a totally different phenomenon. A disciple is not a student; he is not interested in knowing about God, love, truth – he is interested in becoming godliness, in becoming truth, in becoming love. Remember the difference. Knowing about is one thing, becoming is totally different. The student is taking no risk; the disciple is going into the uncharted sea. The student is miserly, he is a hoarder; only then he can gather knowledge. He is greedy; he accumulates knowledge as the greedy person accumulates wealth – knowledge is his wealth. The disciple is not interested in hoarding; he wants to experience, he wants to taste, and for that he is ready to risk all.The disciple will be able to find the master. The relationship between a student and a teacher is that of the head, and a relationship between a disciple and a master is that of the heart – it is a love relationship, mad in the eyes of the world, utterly mad. In fact, no love is as total as the love that happens between the master and the disciple. The love that happened between John and Jesus, the love that happened between Sariputta and Buddha, Gautama and Mahavira, Arjuna and Krishna, Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu – these are the real love stories, the highest pinnacles of love.The disciple starts melting into the master. The disciple destroys all distance between himself and the master; the disciple yields, the disciple surrenders, the disciple effaces himself. He becomes a nonentity, he becomes a nothingness. And in that nothingness his heart opens. In that absence his ego has disappeared and the master can penetrate into his being.The disciple is receptive, vulnerable, unguarded; he drops all armor. He drops all defense measures. He is ready to die. If the master says, “Die!” he will not wait for a single moment. The master is his soul, his very being; his devotion is unconditional and absolute. And to know absolute devotion is to know godliness. To know absolute surrender is to know the secret-most mystery of life.The word disciple is also beautiful – it means one who is ready to learn. Hence the word discipline – discipline means creating a space for learning. And disciple means being ready to learn. Who can be ready to learn? Only one who is ready to drop all his prejudices. If you come as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan, you can’t be a disciple. If you simply come as a human being, with no a priori prejudice, with no belief, only then can you become a disciple.A disciple is the rarest flowering of human consciousness, because beyond the disciple there is only one peak more – the master. And one who has been totally a disciple, one day becomes a master. Disciplehood is a process of becoming a master. But one should not start with the idea of becoming a master; otherwise one is going to miss, because then it is again an ego trip. One should come simply to evaporate.You have lived through the ego, and your life has been just a misery and nothing else. Enough is enough! One day the realization comes, “I have wasted a great opportunity by constantly listening to my own ego. It has been driving me onto unnecessary paths which lead nowhere, and it has been creating a thousand and one miseries.” The day one realizes, “The ego is the root cause of my misery,” one starts searching for a place where the ego can be dropped. The master is an excuse to drop the ego.You can drop your ego only if, you come across a person who catches hold of your heart so tremendously that his being becomes more important than your own being, that you can sacrifice all that you have for him.Just a few days ago, I received a letter from Gunakar in Germany. In German newspapers a statement of Teertha’s has been given too much importance and has been criticized – and it can be criticized, manipulated, because what has happened in Jonestown has become the talk of the world. Somebody, a journalist from Germany, had asked Teertha, “If your master asks you to shoot yourself, to kill yourself, what are you going to do?” And Teertha said, “There is no question of thinking at all. I will kill myself immediately.”Now, this statement can be manipulated in such a way to say that the place that I am creating is going to be another Jonestown. Teertha has said it out of his heart; he has not been political, diplomatic; otherwise he would have avoided such a statement. He had simply said what a disciple is bound to say.The disciple is ready. In fact, to say that he is ready to die is something less than the truth. The disciple has already died into the master; it is not going to happen in the future, it has already happened. It has happened the day the disciple accepted the master as his master: since then he has been no more, only the master lives in him.Slowly, slowly the presence of the master overfloods the disciple. And the presence of the master is not really the presence of the master himself: the master is overflooded with existence. The master is only a vehicle, a passage, a messenger; it is existence flowing through the master. When the disciple surrenders to the master totally, he is really surrendering to existence in the guise of the master. Existence he cannot see yet, but the master he can see, and in the master he can see something godly. The master becomes the first proof of existence to him. Surrendering to the master is surrendering to the visible existence.And, slowly, slowly as the surrender deepens, the visible disappears into the invisible. The master disappears. When the disciple reaches into the innermost heart of the master, he does not find the master there but existence itself, life itself – indefinable, inexpressible.Your question is significant. You ask: “What does it mean to be a disciple?” It means death and it means resurrection. It means dying into the master and being reborn through the master.The third question:Osho,Who are you? Are you the Christ come back?Do you think I am crazy or something? I am myself. Why should I be Christ or somebody else? Christ is Christ. He is not Krishna and he is not Buddha and he is not Zarathustra. Buddha is Buddha; he is not Yagnavalka, he is not Lao Tzu. And Socrates is Socrates; he is not Mahavira and he is not Patanjali.I am myself. Why should I be Christ? In fact nothing in existence is ever repeated. Existence is so creative, it always creates new people. And it is not true only about Christ, Buddha and me – it is true about you too. There has never been another individual like you, and there will never be. You are absolutely unique. Existence never repeats, remember it; hence you are incomparable, neither higher nor lower. That’s why I say there is no hierarchy in existence. Each is superb and each is unique and each is alone. But such questions continuously go on arising. There are reasons for such questions.You must have been taught from your childhood about the second coming of Christ. Now you have fallen in love with me, and you would like somehow to reconcile your childhood mind with your new experiences that are happening. You would like to bridge what has been told to you and what is happening to you. If somehow it can be bridged you will feel a little at rest. If it cannot be bridged then there will remain a little tension inside you. You will have to decide this way or that.You cannot serve two masters – that is the problem, that’s why these questions arise. Now the problem is, “What to do? Should I remain with Christ?” But you don’t know anything about Christ except what has been told to you. Christ is only a myth to you. He was a reality to John, to Luke, he was a reality to Matthew. He is not a reality to you. I am a reality to you; I will not be a reality to your children. You will teach your children about me, and one day if they come across a master the problem will arise: now what to do? To choose the past or to choose the present? That is the problem.You are hesitating. You are afraid that if you choose me you will be betraying Jesus. No, I am not Christ. But by choosing me you will not be betraying Jesus, you will be fulfilling him. I am not Buddha, but by choosing me you will not be betraying Buddha; you will be making him as happy as possible, because by choosing me you will be choosing the essential core of religion. It is not a question of Christ, Buddha or me; these are only forms. Don’t be too attached to forms: remember the essential core.A man in a restaurant calls for the waiter and exclaims, “Waiter! There’s a fly walking on my soup.”The waiter falls on his knees, raises his hands and cries, “Jesus is back on earth!”And I know that Jesus has promised that he will be coming back, but I don’t think that he can be so mad as to fulfill the promise. Remember what you have done with him! And if he still comes after what you have done with him he will be really crazy. It is impossible; he cannot come. He may have promised but he cannot fulfill it. If he fulfills it you will crucify him again; you cannot do otherwise. That’s how you have been treating all the awakened people all over the world. You cannot tolerate them when they are alive, and when they are dead you worship them: this has been your tradition. When they are alive they are dangerous; you would like to kill them, destroy them in some way or other. When they are dead they are very consoling; then you will carry their corpses for centuries.Remember, Jesus was not crucified by criminals, sinners. He was crucified by the rabbis, the priests, the politicians – the respected people. What was he doing to these so-called respectable people? He was becoming a danger to their very life-style. He was creating great guilt in their being; his very presence was a thorn in their flesh: if he was right, then they were all wrong.And this was difficult, almost impossible for them to accept – that this son of a carpenter, absolutely uneducated, unsophisticated, too young to be wise enough… He was only thirty when he started preaching, and they could not tolerate him for even three years. By his thirty-third year he was crucified; his ministry lasted only for three years.Buddha was far more fortunate: he was able to work for forty-two years. But Buddha was in a totally different kind of land – not that the Hindus were behaving in any way differently from the Jews, but Hindus have their own cunning ways of destroying truth. The Jews were more straightforward: seeing the danger, they killed the man. Hindus are far more cunning, bound to be because they are the most ancient race on the earth, the most experienced race on the earth. And Buddha was not a new buddha they had to encounter; they had encountered many buddhas, they had encountered twenty-four Jaina tirthankaras. They had seen Krishna and Rama and Parasuram and Patanjali and Kapil and Kanad and thousands of others. They have become very clever and cunning about how to prevent these people from affecting people, from influencing people.There was no need to kill; they knew far better methods to kill, without killing. They started interpreting Buddha’s words, Buddha’s sayings, in such a way that they lost all their significance. There was no need to kill Buddha; this was an easier way: interpret Buddha according to old scriptures, as if he is simply repeating the old scriptures. Their method was, “He is not saying anything new. It is written in the Upanishads, it is written in the Vedas – so what? We have already got all this; he is not original.”And he was utterly original. It is not written in the Upanishads, and it is not written in the Vedas, because in the first place it can’t be written at all. Yes, the people who wrote the Upanishads must have known it, but it is not written.Hindus were very clever. They started writing commentaries on Buddha and they distorted his whole philosophy. They created so much philosophical argument, so much noise, that Buddha’s still, small voice was lost, utterly lost. And the day he died, Hindus created thirty-two schools of Buddhist philosophy; each word was interpreted in thirty-two ways. They created so much confusion that the whole point was lost.In fact, if they had crucified Buddha it would have been far better. Jesus was killed, but Jews have not commented on Jesus at all. Once they killed him they thought, “Now it is finished and that is that!” They forgot all about Jesus, they never mentioned even his name in their scriptures. They never thought of writing any commentary on his statements. They thought they had killed him and sooner or later people were going to forget all about him and there was no problem left.In a way, Jesus’ sayings have been saved far more accurately than Buddha’s sayings, because the brahmins, the clever and cunning brahmins who gathered around Buddha, distorted everything that he was saying. It was distorted so much that if Buddha comes back he will not be able to believe his own eyes what has happened.But these people never come back. A buddha can only be here once. Once a person has become a buddha or a christ, he evaporates and becomes a fragrance of the universe. He cannot materialize again.Jesus may have promised because he had to leave his disciples so early. Nothing was ready: the disciples were not ready – not even a single disciple had yet become enlightened. And they were at a loss what to do without the master. They had just come close to him; just three years’ time is not much. They had not yet imbibed his spirit. To console them, to help them, to keep them integrated so they didn’t start falling apart, he must have promised. He must have said, “Don’t be worried, I will be coming back again soon.”This promise was only a device. Remember, devices are neither true not false, they are only devices. It was a device to keep the spirit in the disciples flowing, to keep them integrated, to keep them confident, centered, rooted. It was simply a device. And it has helped, the device has worked; otherwise there would have been no Christians at all. Those poor disciples would have dispersed and slowly, slowly would have forgotten all about Jesus. That’s what rabbis and the priests were thinking was going to happen.But Jesus was far more insightful. He gave them a promise: “Wait! Don’t be worried, I will be coming back. I cannot leave you, I will never leave you.”And this promise has helped in another way too: because this promise has been there, the Christian mystic has been able to remember Christ far more concentratedly than a Jaina can remember Mahavira – because there is no promise. Mahavira has not said, “I will come back,” he has not said, “I will help you,” he has not said, “I will be available to you after I am gone.” In fact he has said, “You have to depend only on yourself.” It is true, but it is going to be hard for the disciples.And remember, Gurdjieff used to say that a man like Buddha or Christ can lie. And I agree with Gurdjieff perfectly. If they see that the lie is going to serve the truth, they will not be worried. They will not feel ashamed or guilty; they will use the lie in the service of truth. The lie becomes a device. Buddha calls it upaya – a device.Christian mystics have been able to remember Jesus far more deeply because this confidence that he will be helpful, that he is around, that whenever he is called he will be coming back… Not that he will come, not that he is around, not that he is going to help, but this very idea that his help is available makes you centered. So in a way, without helping you, he has helped. The lie becomes true; the lie is no longer a lie, it becomes truth.But don’t take such promises seriously. There is no need for me to be a Christ just to console you. You have to drop your old ideas; otherwise it is going to be a real problem for me. Here are Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists, Parsis, Sikhs, and if the Sikhs say, “Are you Nanak?” and the Jainas say, “Are you the Jaina?” and the Buddhists say, “Are you the Buddha?” it will become troublesome. I cannot be all these people.This is a gathering not of one religion, this is a gathering of all the religions of the world. This is a true human gathering, this is a true international gathering, a universal brotherhood.Don’t pay much attention to such promises, they are devices. But now they are of no more use to you. I am available here alive – what is the point of thinking of a device which was invented two thousand years earlier? I am inventing devices every day for you, and while I am alive, please use them. It will be far more beneficial and easy to be benefited by them.They met at a party. He was overwhelmed by her great beauty and vivacity. “I suppose that you have more invitations than you can possibly accept,” he said.“I cannot go out very often,” she answered somewhat evasively, “because I work. But when I don’t want to go out with a man, I simply tell him that I live in the suburbs.”“What a clever idea,” he said, laughing. “And where do you live?”“In the suburbs,” she answered sweetly.Be very alert. Jesus certainly said, “I will come.” It was just to wipe the tears flowing from his disciples’ eyes, it was out of compassion. But a man who has attained to godliness cannot come back. It is impossible; in the very nature of things it is impossible – because he cannot enter the body again. To enter the body, you need a certain desire, a tremendous desire. And the man who has attained godliness has no desires left. It is through the door of desire that a man enters the body. If all desires are gone, then there is no way to enter the body, to enter the womb.Hence, in the East, we know that once a buddha is gone he is gone forever. You can try to understand his teachings, but far better will be if you can find a buddha alive somewhere. And it never happens that if you search you will not find a buddha somewhere. If you really search you are bound to find a buddha somewhere or other. Somewhere or other in the darkness of the world there are always a few flames; they are always there because existence is still hopeful, because existence is still compassionate, because existence cares for you.If you can come across a living buddha, a living christ, forget all about the past buddhas and past christs. He contains all, and yet he cannot be identified with anyone in particular. He himself is a buddha, he himself is a christ in his own right.So I don’t claim that I am Christ, I don’t claim that I am Buddha. I simply claim that I have arrived, that I am at home. And I have thrown my doors open. If you are really a seeker, a lover of truth, don’t miss this opportunity.The fourth question:Osho,When you arrived in your car this morning I heard a belly laugh come from heaven. Would that be a friend of yours?I also heard the laughter. It did not come from heaven – the ghost of Jugal Kishore Birla was just standing by the side of Shiva. He played a trick on Charlie who is my engineer and mechanic for the Benz. He tricked Charlie: he connected the battery in a wrong way. Now, a German engineer, especially a mechanic for Mercedes Benz, a trained expert, highly intelligent, connected the battery wrongly? How is this possible? The ghost of Jugal Kishore Birla tricked him, so something got burned, and I had to come in Jugal Kishore Birla’s car – an Ambassador.Certainly he was waiting here by the side of Shiva. Shiva may even have felt it, because he was looking all around; he must have felt something. And Chetana, you heard rightly.Jugal Kishore Birla was the manufacturer of the Ambassador cars. He has died; we had met a few times. He was a Hindu chauvinist, and he wanted me to become an ambassador to the world for Hinduism. For that purpose he had met me a few times; that’s how we became friendly. He said to me, “I can help you with as much money as you want.” In fact he was the richest man in India.I said, “I can take more money than you have, but with one condition.”He said, “What is that condition?”I said, “I will take it unconditionally. You cannot make any conditions on me. I can take all that you have.”He said, “Unconditionally? But one condition I have to make; that’s why I am ready to give all my support.”I said, “Please, don’t mention it.”But he still mentioned. He said, “My condition is very simple: can’t you become a messenger to the world for Hinduism? Hinduism needs somebody to propagate it in such a contemporary and modern way that it appeals to the world mind.”I said, “Then I cannot accept a single pai from you.”He said to me, “This is strange – because even Mahatma Gandhi had accepted my conditions.”I told him, “That’s why I never call Mahatma Gandhi ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi. I call him the so-called Mahatma Gandhi; otherwise how can anybody accept your conditions? If he knows, he will not accept any conditions from anybody just for money. I know what the world needs. It is not Hinduism, it is not Christianity, it is not Islam. Enough of all this nonsense! The world needs a purely religious consciousness, with no adjectives attached to it.”But he was a good man in a way. When he was old, he tried many times: whenever I would go to Delhi he would invite me to his palace and he would again bring up the subject in some way or other. I said to him, “You have done enough service to humanity; now there is no need for any more service. You have made this Ambassador car – this is really something wonderful! All the parts of it make noise except the horn. What more service do you want to do to humanity?”So naturally when I said something about him just a few days ago, he must have got very angry. He tricked Charlie. This is very rare – an Indian ghost befooling an alive German!He was here, Chetana, you heard him rightly. But please don’t start hearing the laughter of ghosts; otherwise you will be in trouble. Ghosts are always there; because you don’t hear them you remain oblivious to their presence. So Chetana, don’t grow this capacity any more; it is dangerous. It is enough to hear me; there is no need for you to hear other heavenly voices. There are a few mystics here too who go on hearing heavenly voices. Every day I receive letters saying, “I hear this and I heard that.” I am teaching you to be silent and I am teaching you not to hear anything. And all those voices are in your head; they don’t come from heaven. It is really a very distant call – it won’t work, particularly in the rainy season, and not in India.Remember one thing: all that is heard, all that is read, is trivia. Only your silence – that hears, that silence in which the sounds come – that silence is significant. Shift your consciousness from every object to subjectivity, from what you hear to the one who hears, from what you see to the one who sees.But Chetana has joked, so I am not worried about her. And I love such small jokes: they keep the idea of playfulness alive. They keep my idea of religion alive.The last question:Osho,Why are there so many religions in the world?Why are there so many languages in the world? – because there are so many people, so many ways to express. And it is not bad, it is good; the world is richer because of it. So many languages make the world tremendously rich. It gives variety, like so many flowers in the garden and so many birds.Just think: only one flower all over the world, the marigold, and the whole world will look ugly; or the rose – just one flower all over the world. And what will you do with those roses? Then nobody will write anymore poetry about roses. And if you will compare your woman’s face with a roseflower she will become angry, she will threaten you with a divorce. Roses will lose all meaning; they are beautiful because there are millions of other flowers too.I don’t think that the world needs one religion. The world needs religious consciousness, and then that consciousness can flow into as many streams as possible. In fact, my own idea of religion is that there should be as many religions as there are people – each person having his own religion.It is difficult to have your own language; each person cannot have his own language, otherwise nobody will understand it.Mulla Nasruddin had applied for a job. The manager looked at him and did not feel that he was even qualified to apply for it. He asked him, “Can you read and write?”Mulla Nasruddin said, “I cannot read, but I can write.”The manager was surprised; this is a rare situation – he could have never conceived of a man who cannot read but can write. He said, “Then write!” He gave him a paper and Mulla immediately started writing on it. He went fast – one page, two pages, three pages.The manager said, “Now stop! Please read what you have written, because I cannot read it.”Nasruddin said, “That I have told you before – I can only write! I can’t read.”If you speak a language that only you understand, it will be impossible to communicate with people. But a religion – you can have your own, because religion need not be communicated. Religion is not a dialogue between you and other people; religion is a dialogue between you and existence. So any language will do, or no language, or any invented languages – Esperanto, or anything.All these religions should be taken as different languages, then fanaticism loses its danger. Then it is beautiful! There are churches and temples and mosques and gurdwaras – if we think these are all different languages, there is no problem. You don’t see people fighting about which language is the true language – Hindi, Marathi, English, German, French. Which language is the true language? Nobody will ask such a question, because all languages are arbitrary, made-up. They are not true or false, they are useful.An Englishman, a Frenchman and a German were arguing about the respective merits of their languages. The Frenchman said, “French is the language of love, the language of romance, the most beautiful and pure language in the world.”The German announced, “German is the most vigorous language, the language of philosophers, the language of Goethe, the language most adaptable to the modern world of science and technology.”When the Englishman’s turn came he said, “I don’t understand what you fellows are talking about. Take this” – and he held up a table knife. “You in France call it un couteau, you Germans call it ein Messer. We in England simply call it a knife, which, all said and done, is precisely what it is.”This is how religions have been arguing. Exactly like this has been the argument between religions: who is right? Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Jainas – these are only different languages to express the same phenomenon. If once this is understood then there is no problem; I would like many more religions to evolve.In fact in a better world every person will have his own religion, because religion is your way of expressing the inexpressible. It is like aesthetics: if you love roses and I don’t love roses, there is no problem. We don’t fight it out; we don’t take swords and we don’t go on a crusade: “Who is right? – because this man says lotuses are beautiful, and I say roses are beautiful. Now it has to be decided on a battlefield.”How will you decide? You can kill me, but that won’t make any difference. Even dying, I will go on saying lotuses are the most beautiful flowers; my death will not make a change in my vision. You can kill a Hindu, you can kill a Mohammedan: that does not change anything at all.But this is what, down the ages, people have been doing to each other – fighting ridiculously. Somebody calls God “Allah” – he is wrong. Why? Somebody calls God “Ram” – he is wrong. Why? – because you call him “God.” God, Ram, Allah, are all names, invented names for something which has no name of its own, which is a nameless experience.There are so many religions because there are so many people, different types of people. Different people have different likings, different people have different approaches toward reality, and reality is multidimensional.Hence, my emphasis is: we need a religious consciousness, a universal upsurge of religious consciousness. Of course it will take many forms, but forms don’t matter; as far as the spirit is alive, forms don’t matter. And each form is beautiful. There are so many people; each has a different face, a different beauty. Each person’s fingerprints are different from every other person’s in the world – but this does not create any trouble. Each person’s footprints toward the door to godliness are going to be different.Once we understand it, a great brotherhood is possible. Otherwise this nonsense of religious fanaticism – “Only I am right” – has been very destructive. It has destroyed religion itself; it has condemned religion and religious people. That’s why there are so many irreligious people, antireligious people. It is what religion has done to humanity up to now that has created antireligious people – atheists, godless people, God-denying people. The responsibility is of the priests, rabbis, popes, pundits, shankaracharyas – they are the responsible people. They have made religion so ugly, so inhuman, so violent, so stupid, that any rational person feels a little ashamed of being part of any religious movement.We have to destroy the ugly heritage of the past. We have to clean the space for the future. All are accepted: the Bible has its own beauty, so has the Koran, so has the Gita. And if you are religious you will enjoy the Bible as much as you will enjoy the Koran and the Gita, because you will know only languages are different. And the difference of languages creates different beauty. Sing the Koran, and you will see the difference. The Bible cannot be beautiful that way; the Koran has a singing quality to it. You can sing the Koran; even if you don’t understand the meaning, the very music of it will be a transforming force. In fact, the Koran does not have much meaning; it has great poetry but not much meaning.Many Mohammedan friends, many Mohammedan sannyasins, ask me when I am going to speak on the Koran. I have thought many times. Many times I have taken the Koran into my hand, looked here and there, and postponed it again – because the Koran has not much meaning. It has poetry, it has a totally different beauty. It is a piece of art.If you want meaning then the Gita has more meaning, but not that much poetry; then the Bible has more meaning, but not that much poetry. The Bible has its own beauty. It is so simple, the simplest scripture in the world, and because it is simple it has innocence, purity. Jesus speaks in the language of a villager: the parables and the metaphors are all primitive. But because they are primitive they have a purity, they are unpolluted – unpolluted by the modern mind. They are straight; they go direct to the heart like an arrow. But if you want meaning then you should look into the Vedas, which are full of philosophy. They have their own beauty – the beauty of intellectuality.Each scripture has something to contribute to the world, and no scripture can do everything. But because you don’t understand different languages, the problem arises. It will be good to have a few encounters with different religions.That’s why I go on speaking, sometimes on Buddhism, sometimes on Hinduism, sometimes on Christianity, sometimes on Judaism, on Hasids, on Zen, on Sufis – for a certain reason: to give you different visions, so your own eyes can become rich, so that you can understand different languages also a little bit.Foster, in Tokyo on business, knew no Japanese. Even so, he persuaded an attractive girl, who spoke no English, to come to his hotel room. All during their lovemaking, the Oriental kept shouting “Machigai ana!” with great feeling.Foster felt proud that he could get the girl so aroused to keep yelling, “Machigai ana!” Foster must have been thinking that this is something like “Fantastic! Far out!”The next afternoon he played golf with a Japanese industrial tycoon. When the Oriental made a hole-in-one, Foster attempted to make a good impression and exclaimed “Machigai ana! Machigai ana!”“What do you mean,” snapped the tycoon, “the wrong hole?”It is good to know a little bit of other languages too. It will be a great help to you to have a few glimpses of the Koran, the Bible, the Gita, The Dhammapada. That will make you more liberal, more human.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Better than a thousand hollow wordsis one word that brings peace.Better than a thousand hollow versesis one verse that brings peace.Better than a hundred hollow linesis the one line of the law, bringing peace.It is better to conquer yourselfthan to win a thousand battles.Then the victory is yours.It cannot be taken from you,not by angels or by demons,heaven or hell.Better than a hundred years of worship,better than a thousand offerings,better than giving up a thousand worldly waysin order to win merit,better even than tending in the foresta sacred flame for a hundred years –is one moment’s reverencefor the man who has conquered himself.To revere such a man,a master old in virtue and holiness,is to have victory over life itself,and beauty, strength and happiness.A famous story:One night the great German philosopher, Professor Von Kochenbach, saw two doors in a dream, one of which led directly to love and paradise, and the other to an auditorium where a lecture was being given on love and paradise. There was no hesitation on Von Kochenbach’s part – he darted in to hear the lecture.The story is significant. It is fictitious, but not so fictitious really. It represents the human mind: it is more interested in knowledge than in wisdom, it is more interested in information than transformation. It is more interested to know about God, beauty, truth, love, than experience God, beauty, truth, love.The human mind is obsessed with words, theories, systems of thought, but is completely oblivious of the existential that surrounds you. And it is the existential which can liberate, not knowledge about it.The story represents everybody’s mind. But I was in for a surprise yesterday. I was reading a book by Silvano Arieti, MD, and James Silvano Arieti, PhD. In their book, Love Can Be Found, they quote this story. I was hoping, obviously, that they would laugh at the story and criticize the whole standpoint. But I was in for a surprise: they defended the story; they say the professor did the right thing. Rather than entering directly into the door of love and paradise, entering into the auditorium where a lecture was being delivered on love and paradise – of course by some other professor – they say the professor did the right thing. Why? Their reasoning is that unless you know about love, how can you know love? Unless you know about paradise first, how can you immediately enter paradise?On the surface it looks logical: first one has to become acquainted with what paradise is, only then can one enter paradise. First you have to have a map; knowledge provides you with a map, Logical, still stupid; logical only in appearance, but deep down utterly unintelligent.Love needs no information about it, because it is not something outside you, it is the very core of your being. You have already got it, you have only to allow it to flow. Paradise is not somewhere else, so that you need a map to reach there. You are in paradise, you have only fallen asleep. All that is needed is an awakening.An awakening can be immediate, awakening can be sudden – in fact, awakening can only be sudden. When you wake somebody up, it is not that slowly, slowly, in parts, gradually, he wakes up. It is not that now he is ten percent awake, now twenty, now thirty, now forty, now ninety-nine, now ninety-nine point nine, and then a hundred percent – no. When you shake a sleepy person, he awakes immediately. One is either asleep or one is awake; there is no place in between. Hence Buddha says enlightenment is a sudden experience; it is not gradual, it is not that you arrive in steps. Enlightenment cannot be divided into parts; it is an indivisible, organic unity. Either you have it or you don’t have it.But man has remained clinging to words – words which are hollow, words which carry no meaning, words which have no significance, words which have been uttered by people as ignorant as you are. Maybe they were educated, but education does not dispel ignorance. Knowing about light is not going to dispel darkness. You can know all that is available in the world about light; you can have a library in your room consisting only of books on light, yet that whole library will not be able to dispel darkness. To dispel darkness you will need a small candle – that will do the miracle.Looking into the Encyclopedia Britannica, I was happy to note that it has no articles on love. That’s a great insight! In fact, nothing can be written about love. One can love, one can be in love, one can even become love, but nothing can be written about love. The experience is so subtle and the words are so gross.It is because of words that humanity has been divided. A few people believe in a few hollow words – they call themselves Hindus; others believe in a few other hollow words – they call themselves Jews; still others call themselves Christians and Mohammedans, and so on, so forth. And they all believe in hollow words. It is not that you have experienced anything. Your being a Hindu or a Jew or a Mohammedan is not based on your own experience – it is borrowed. And anything borrowed is futile.But man has suffered much because of words. A few people believe in the Talmud, a few people believe in the Tao Te Ching, a few people believe in The Dhammapada… And they have been fighting, quarreling, criticizing – not only that, but killing each other. The whole of history is full of blood: in the name of God, in the name of love, in the name of brotherhood, in the name of humanity.Mistress Rosenbaum became stranded one evening in a very “exclusive” resort section of Cape Cod. “Exclusive” meant that Jews were excluded. She entered the town hotel and said to the desk clerk, “I would like a room.”“Sorry,” he replied. “The hotel is full.”“Then why does the sign say ‘Rooms Available’?”“We don’t admit Jews.”“But Jesus himself was a Jew.”“How do you know that Jesus Christ was Jewish?”“He went into his father’s business. And, moreover, it so happened that I converted to Catholicism. Ask me any question and I will prove it.”“All right,” said the desk clerk. “How was Jesus born?”“By virgin birth. The mama’s name was Mary and the papa’s name was the Holy Spirit.”“Okay, where was Jesus born?”“In a stable.”“That’s right. And why was he born in a stable?”“Because,” Mrs. Rosenbaum snapped, “bastards like you would not rent a room for the night to a Jewish woman!”But these bastards are everywhere. They have become the priests and the rabbis and the pundits and the shankaracharyas and the popes. These people are clever, cunning with words. They are logic choppers, they can split hairs; they can argue endlessly about useless things, about such stupid things that later on you laugh at the whole thing, for centuries.In the Middle Ages, Christian priests – Catholics, Protestants and others – were in a big debate, great discussion was going on for centuries about how many angels can stand on the point of a needle. It was a great theological debate; it had stirred the whole of Europe, as if something tremendously important was involved in it. How does it matter? But such stupid things have been dominating humanity for centuries.In Buddha’s time it was one of the greatest problems in India, discussed by all the sects, whether there is one hell or three or seven or seven hundred. Hindus believe in one hell, Jainas were talking about seven hells; and a disciple of Mahavira, Goshalak, who betrayed the master, started talking about seven hundred hells.Somebody asked Goshalak, “Why do you say that your philosophy is superior, higher than Mahavira’s?”He said, “You can see: he knows only about seven hells and I know about seven hundred. He has gone only up to seven and I have traveled the whole way. And just as there are seven hundred hells, there are exactly seven hundred heavens. His knowledge is very limited, he does not know the whole truth.”Now, you can go on talking about such things. Some other fool can say that there are seven hundred and one…A French professor and an American were talking. The French professor said, “There are one hundred positions in which love can be made.”The American said, “There are a hundred and one.”Now great argument ensued. The American asked, “You relate your hundred positions, then I will relate my hundred and one positions.”The French professor described in detail one hundred positions. The hundredth was hanging on a chandelier and doing it in the ear of the woman!Now was the turn of the American. He said, “The first position is: the woman lies down on her back with the man on top of her.”The French professor said, “My God! I never thought about it! So you are right – there are a hundred and one. You need not now relate the whole thing; there are a hundred and one. This one I never heard, never thought of even, never could have imagined. You Americans are something!”These professors, these scholars, they have dominated humanity, and they have distracted humanity from simple existence, from simple life. They have made your minds very sophisticated, clever, cunning, knowledgeable, but they have destroyed your innocence and wonder. And it is innocence and wonder that become the bridge to the immediate – and the immediate is also the ultimate.Buddha says:Better than a thousand hollow wordsis one word that brings peace.Better than a thousand hollow words… Your scriptures are full of hollow words, your minds are full of hollow words. You go on talking, not even becoming aware of what you are saying. When you use the word God, do you know what it means? How can you know if you have not known godliness? The word is empty, the word itself cannot have any significance; the significance has to come from your experience.When you know godliness and you utter the word God, it is luminous, it is full of light, it is a diamond. But when you know nothing of godliness, but only the word God taught by others, it is an ordinary pebble with no color, with no luminosity, with no light in it. You can go on carrying it; it is simply a weight, a burden. You can drag it. It will not become your wings, it will not make you light, and it will not help you in any way to arrive closer to godliness. In fact it will hinder you, obstruct you, because the more you think you know about God, just by knowing the word God, the less you will inquire into the reality of godliness. The more you become knowledgeable, the less is the possibility of your ever going on the adventure of searching out the truth of godliness. When you already know, what is the point of inquiring, what is the point of investigating? You have killed the question. You have not solved it, you have not got the answer; you have taken it from others. But others’ answers can’t be your answers.Buddha knows, but when he speaks, his words cannot carry his experience. When they leave his heart they are full of light, they are full of dance. When they reach to you they are dull, dead. You can accumulate those words, you can think that you have a great treasure, but you have nothing at all. All that you have are empty words.Buddha wants you to become aware of this phenomenon, because this is of great importance. Unless you are free of empty, hollow words, you will not start the journey of inquiry. Unless you drop your so-called knowledge, unless you discard all your information, unless you become again innocent like a child, ignorant like a child, your inquiry is going to be futile, superficial.Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace. And what is the criterion? Which word is luminous? Which word is really full of fragrance? The word that brings peace. And that word never comes from the outside – it is the still, small voice of your own heart. It is heard at the deepest recesses of your being: it is the sound of your own being, it is the song of your own life.It is not to be found in the scriptures and it is not to be found in learned discourses. It is to be found only if you go in; it is to be found only in meditation, in deep silence. When all borrowed knowledge has left you and you are alone, when all the scriptures have been burned and you are left alone, when you don’t know a thing, when you function from a state of not-knowing, then it is heard, because then all the clamor of knowledge and the noise is gone: you can hear the still, small voice. And then a single word… It is a single word: it is the sound of om.The moment you enter into your being you will be surprised to find that there is a constant sound that appears like “om.” Mohammedans have heard it as amin – it is om; Christians have heard it as “amen”; it is the same sound. Hence the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Hindu, the Jaina, the Buddhist, they all end their prayers with om. The prayer is bound to end in om; the prayer makes you more and more silent. Finally there is nothing but om. All Hindu scriptures end with om, shantih shantih shantih – om, peace, peace, peace. This is the word om.And the criterion to judge whether you have really heard it or you have pretended to hear it or you have imagined hearing it is that it brings peace. Suddenly you are full of peace – a peace that you had never known before.Peace is something far superior to happiness, because happiness is always followed by unhappiness; it is always a mixture of polar opposites: happiness-unhappiness. They are like day and night, they follow each other.If you are a pessimist you can count nights, if you are an optimist you can count the days; that is the only difference in people. There are a few people who say, “There are two days and one night between two days” – those are the optimists. And then there are people who say, “There are two nights and only one day sandwiched in between” – they are the pessimists.But in reality both are wrong. Each night has its day and each day has its night; they are equal. All polar opposites are equal; that’s how existence remains balanced. If you have happiness today, wait – tomorrow the unhappiness will come. If you are unhappy today, don’t be worried – happiness will be just around the corner.In Indian villages mothers don’t allow their children to laugh too much, because, they say, “If you laugh too much then you will have to cry, you will have to weep.” And there is great wisdom in it – a primitive wisdom, unsophisticated, but it has some truth in it. Mothers in Indian villages will stop the child if he is giggling too much and laughing too much. They will say, “Stop, stop right now! Otherwise soon you will be crying and weeping and tears will come.” It is bound to be so because nature balances.Peace is something far higher than happiness. Buddha does not call it bliss just for this reason: if you call it bliss, which it is… But he avoids the word bliss because the moment you call it bliss people immediately understand happiness. Bliss gives them the idea of absolute happiness, great happiness, tremendous happiness, incredible happiness, but the difference between happiness and bliss in people’s minds is only of quantity, as if bliss is the ocean and happiness is just a dewdrop. But the difference is only of quantity – and the difference of quantity is not a real difference, it is not a difference that makes a difference. Only qualitative differences are real differences.Hence Buddha has chosen the word peace instead of bliss. He says peace – peace gives you a totally different direction to inquire, to search. Peace means no happiness, no unhappiness.Happiness is also a state of noise, a state of tension, excitement. Have you observed? – you cannot remain happy for a long, long time, because it starts getting on your nerves; you start feeling tired of it, bored with it. Yes, to a certain extent you can tolerate it; beyond that it becomes impossible. How long can you go on hugging your woman? Yes, for a few moments it is beautiful, ecstatic, but how long? One minute, two minutes, thirty minutes, sixty minutes, one day, two days? How long? Next time, try, and you will be able to note the point where happiness turns into unhappiness.When you want to get hold of a woman you are so allured, attracted. And women know it intuitively, hence they do everything to escape from your hands. They remain elusive, they don’t become too readily available. They are aware – intuitively aware, not intellectually – intuitively aware of the phenomenon that all this attraction will soon be gone and all this great love will soon die. Everything dies; everything that is born is bound to die. They are far more intelligent that way – they avoid, they escape. They allow you only a certain amount of intimacy, and then they are again far away. That keeps the game going; otherwise every game will be finished too soon. Any happiness is only for the time being. Beyond that it turns into the opposite; it becomes sour, bitter.Peace means going beyond the excitement of both happiness and unhappiness. There are people who are attracted to unhappiness too; modern psychology calls them masochists. They enjoy torturing themselves. In the past these same masochists became great mahatmas, great sages, saints. Psychologically understood, with the modern insight into human mind, your so-called saints will look – almost ninety percent of them – masochistic, or maybe ninety-nine percent even. If looked at deeply, you will find these are people who enjoy torturing themselves. These are people who go on long fasts, lie down on a bed of thorns, stand in the hot sun or in the cold, sit naked in the Himalayan snows. These are the masochists.And the other side of it is sadism. There are people who enjoy torturing others. And in fact the whole humanity – almost the whole humanity, except the buddhas – can be divided into these two camps. These are the real two religions of the world: masochism and sadism. The masochists become religious and the sadists become politicians. Alexander the Great, Tamerlane, Nadirshah, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, all these people enjoy torturing others. To torture others is as pathological as to torture oneself.The person who wants happiness is bound to be sadistic. Analyze your happiness, on what it depends. If you have a bigger house than your neighbor you are happy. In fact, you are torturing your neighbor by having a bigger house: it is a very subtle torture.I used to stay in one of the most beautiful palaces in Kolkata. It was a beauty, a very old Victorian colonial palace, and it was the best house in Kolkata. The man was very proud of it, and whenever I would stay with him he was continuously talking about the house, and the garden, and this and that – but his whole talk was around the house.Once it happened, I stayed with him for three days and he didn’t mention the house at all.I asked, “What has happened? Have you become a sannyasin or something? Have you renounced the world? You are not talking about the house!”He looked with sad eyes toward me and said, “Can’t you see the new house that has come up in the neighborhood?”I had seen the house. A new marble house had come up, and certainly it was bigger and far more beautiful. And he said, “Since this house has come up all my joy is lost. I am living in such misery, you cannot conceive.”I said, “But you are living in the same house! It is the same house, and you were so happy. And you are still in the same house. Why should you be so miserable? What does it have to do with the neighbor? And if it is because of the neighbor that you are feeling so miserable, then remember one thing: when you used to feel so happy about the house, it was also not about the house – it was about the neighbors, because they were living in small houses. And if you are so tortured by the neighbor’s house, remember, the neighbor must have been in a long, long torture because of your house. It is just to take revenge that he has made the new house.”The new house-owner invited me for dinner. He asked my host also to come, but my host simply said, “No, I cannot – I am too busy.” And he was not busy at all! And when the man had gone I said to him, “You are not busy.”He said, “I am not busy, but I cannot go into that house – unless I have made a bigger house than that. Yes, wait! It will take two, three years for me to make a bigger house, but it is a question of prestige. Once I have made a bigger house I will invite that man for dinner.”This is how people are living.If you watch your own mind, you enjoy things because others don’t have them. You enjoy them not having them, you don’t enjoy your having them.Such is the pathology of man: one is a sadist, he enjoys others being in a state of misery; and the other turns into a masochist. Seeing that it is not good to enjoy others’ misery, seeing that it is a sin, seeing that he will have to suffer in hell for it, becoming aware that this is not virtuous, he turns into a masochist, he starts torturing himself. But the torture continues.Peace means a state of inner health, a state of inner wholeness, where you are not torturing others, not torturing yourself, where you are neither interested in happiness nor in unhappiness. You are simply interested in being absolutely silent, calm, quiet, collected, integrated.Yes, when the mind is dropped… And “mind” means your whole past and all that you know and all that you have accumulated. Mind is your subtle treasure, your subtle possession. When all that mind has been left far behind and you have entered into a state of no-mind, a great peace descends. It is silence, it is full of bliss, but Buddha avoids the word. I don’t avoid it.Buddha had to avoid it, because in Buddha’s days bliss was talked about too much. The Upanishads were talking about it, Mahavira was talking about it, the whole Hindu tradition was talking about it. Sat-chit-anand – God is truth, consciousness, bliss, but the ultimate quality is bliss. Too much talk about bliss. Buddha must have felt that it was better not to use that word. That word had become too orthodox, too conventional, too conformist. And because it had been used so much it had lost its meaning, its savor, its salt, it had lost its beauty. But now it can be revived again; now nobody is talking about bliss.But whether you call it peace or bliss is irrelevant. Just understand one thing: that it takes you beyond all dualities. Day and night, summer and winter, life and death, pain and pleasure – it takes you beyond all dualities – love and hate. It takes you beyond all dual phenomena. It takes you to the one.Hence Buddha says: “One word.” It is a simple, melodious, harmonious state of your inner health, inner sanity. One word is enough, far more significant. Better than a thousand hollow words…Better than a thousand hollow versesis one verse that brings peace.There are poets and poets. There are two kinds of poets in the world. One is the poet who is a dreamer, who is very clever in imagination, in fantasy. He creates works of art, he creates sculpture, music, poetry, but all that remains dream stuff. It may entertain you for the time being, but it cannot give you any insight into reality. It may be a consolation, a solace, a lullaby; it may have a tranquilizing effect on you. Yes, that’s exactly what it does. All that is called aesthetics, art, has a tranquilizing effect on you.Listening to classical music you fall into a totally different kind of state. Everything becomes tranquil, still, but it is momentary; it is only a dream world that the musician creates around you. Listening to poetry or looking at great sculpture, for a moment you are dazed, stunned. The mind stops as if you are transported for a moment to some other world, but again you are back in the same old world, in the same old rut.But there are different kinds of poets, painters, sculptors too: the buddhas. A single verse from them may transform you forever. Listening to a buddha is listening to divine music. Listening to a buddha is listening to existence itself. A buddha is existence visible, a buddha is existence available. A buddha is a window into existence, an invitation from the beyond. Shakespeare, Milton, Kalidas, Bhavabhuti, and thousands of others are the dreamers, great dreamers; beautiful are their dreams, but they are not the poets who can transform your being. Mohammed can do it, Christ can do it, Krishna can do it, Buddha can do it, Kabir, Nanak, Farid, yes, these people can do it.What is the difference between the poetry of a Kabir and a Shakespeare? As far as poetry is concerned, Shakespeare is far more poetic, remember, than Kabir. Kabir knows nothing of the art. Shakespeare is very sophisticated; but still a single verse from Kabir is far more valuable than all the collected works of Shakespeare – because a single word from Kabir comes from insight, not from fantasy. That is the difference.Kabir has clarity, he has eyes which can see into the beyond. Shakespeare is as blind as you are. Of course, he is very efficient in bringing his fantasy into words. That’s art, worthy of respect, but at the most it can entertain you. It can keep you occupied beautifully, but there is no possibility of transformation happening through it. Even Shakespeare is not a transformed being, how can he transform you?Only a buddha, only one who is awakened, can wake you up. Shakespeare is as fast asleep as you are, or maybe even deeper asleep than you are, because he is having such beautiful dreams. His sleep is bound to be deep, because he is not only having dreams, he is singing his dreams. He is bringing his dreams to expression – and still his sleep is not broken.A buddha is one who is awakened. Only one who is awake can wake you up. Better than a thousand hollow verses is one verse that brings peace. And how will you know that you are around a buddha? His very presence will bring transcendental peace to you.So a buddha from the past cannot be of much help, because his words will again be hollow words; he will not be present in them. It will only be a beautiful cage, a golden cage studded with diamonds, but the bird has left the cage long ago.A buddha is significant only when he is alive, because only his aliveness can trigger a process in you which will lead you ultimately to awakening.Better than a hundred hollow linesis one line of the law, bringing peace.By law, Buddha does not mean any moral, social, political law. By law Buddha means dhamma: Aes dhammo sanantano – the ultimate law, the eternal law, the law that makes this universe a cosmos instead of a chaos, the law that runs the whole universe in such tremendous harmony.Better than a hundred hollow lines… “Lines” is not really a good translation. The original word is sutra: sutra literally means thread. And in the East the greatest statements of the masters have been called sutras, threads, for a certain reason. A man is born as a heap of flowers, just as a heap. Unless threads are used and the thread runs through the flowers, the heap will remain a heap and will never become a garland.And you can be offered to existence only when you have become a garland. A heap is a chaos, a garland is a cosmos – although in the garland you also only see the flowers, the thread is invisible.The sayings of the masters are called sutras, threads, because they can make out of you a garland. And only when you are a garland can you become an offering to existence, only when you have become a cosmos, a harmony, a song.Right now you are just gibberish. You can write down… Sit in a room, close the door and start writing on a paper whatsoever comes to your mind. Don’t edit it, don’t delete anything, don’t add anything, because you are not going to show it to anybody. Keep a matchbox by the side so once you have written it you can burn it immediately, so that you can be authentic. Just write whatsoever comes to your mind and you will be surprised: just a ten-minute exercise and you will understand what I mean when I say that you are just gibberish.It is really a great revelation to see how your mind goes on jumping from here to there, from one thing to another thing, accidentally, for no reason at all. What nonsense thoughts go on running inside you, with no relevance, no consistency. Just a sheer waste, a leak of energy!The sayings of the buddhas are called sutras. Here the translator has used the word line for sutra. Linguistically it is okay, but these are not linguistic matters. That is one of the great problems: to translate statements of Buddha, Christ, Krishna, is really almost an impossible job. And those who translate them are not awakened people themselves; they are great orientalists, linguists, grammarians. They know the original language, but they only know the language – and language is not the real point, it is only the garment.So remember: Better than a hundred hollow lines… means: Better than a hundred hollow sutras… Logical, philosophical, proposed by great philosophers and thinkers, but they are hollow because they don’t contain the experience.…is one line of the law…, a single sutra of the law. Who can assert the sutra of the law? Only one who has become awakened, only one who has become one with the ultimate law, only one who has himself become the dhamma. Not a religious person but one who himself has become religion itself. And how will you judge? – the same criterion continues: it brings peace.Why are you here with me? Be here only if my presence brings peace to you. Be here only if listening to me a chord starts vibrating in you which brings peace. Be here only if your love for me helps you to transcend the world of dualities; otherwise being here is of no use.My presence cannot be for all; it can be only for the chosen few, only for those who have really come thirsty, inquiring, who really want to risk all to know godliness, who are ready to die for truth, who are ready to become sacrifices.It is better to conquer yourselfthan to win a thousand battles.And in peace is victory. When peace surrounds you within and without, you are overflowing with peace, you have come home, you have conquered yourself, you are a master.It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. One buddha is far more significant and valuable than a million Adolf Hitlers. And this victory is something which is a real victory, because all other victories will be taken away from you. Alexander the Great dies like any beggar dies; he cannot take anything with him. He has conquered the whole world, and now going as a beggar…It is said there are three instances in Alexander’s life which are significant. One is the meeting with the great mystic, Diogenes. Diogenes was laying naked on the bank of a river taking a sunbath. It was early morning, and the early sun and the beautiful riverbank and the cool sand… And Alexander was passing by; he was coming to India.Somebody told him, “Diogenes is just close by and you have always been inquiring about Diogenes” – because he had heard many stories about the man. He was really a man worth calling a man. Even Alexander, deep down, was jealous of Diogenes.He went to see him. He was impressed by his beauty – naked, undecorated, with no ornaments. And he himself was full of ornaments, decorated in every possible way, but he looked very poor before Diogenes. And he said to Diogenes, “I feel jealous of you. I look poor compared to you – and you have nothing! What is your richness?”And Diogenes said, “I don’t desire anything – desirelessness is my treasure. I am a master because I don’t possess anything – nonpossessiveness is my mastery, and I have conquered the world because I have conquered myself. And my victory is going with me, and your victory will be taken away by death.”And the second story: When he was going back from India… His teacher had told him, “When you come back from India, bring a sannyasin, because that is the greatest contribution of India to the world.”The phenomenon of a sannyasin is uniquely Indian. Nowhere else has the idea of transcending the world totally captured the minds of people as it has in this country.Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander. Aristotle had asked him, “Bring a sannyasin when you come back. I would like to see what a sannyasin is like, what it is all about.”After conquering India, when he was going back he remembered. He inquired where to find a sannyasin. People said, “Sannyasins are many but real sannyasins are very few. We know one.”In Alexandrian reports his name is given as Dandamesh – it may be a Greek form of some Indian name. Alexander went to see the man – again the same beauty as Diogenes, the same peace. Whenever awakening happens it brings something similar. Around every buddha you will find the same spring, the same fragrance, the same peace.Again, as he entered into the energy field of Dandamesh, he was tremendously affected, as if he had entered into a perfumed garden. He immediately remembered Diogenes. He asked Dandamesh, “I have come to invite you – come with me. You will be our royal guest, every comfort will be provided for, but you have to come with me to Athens.”Dandamesh said, “I have dropped all coming, all going.” He was talking of something else; Alexander could not understand immediately. He was saying that, “Now there is no more coming in the world and no more going out of the world. I have dropped all; I have transcended all coming and going.” What in the East we call avagaman – coming and going; coming into the womb and then going into death.Alexander said, “But this is a commandment – I command you! You have to follow. This is the order from the great Alexander!”Dandamesh laughed. The same laughter. Again Alexander remembered Diogenes – the same laughter. Dandamesh said, “Nobody can command me, not even death.”Alexander said, “You don’t understand – I am a dangerous man!” He pulled out his sword and he said, “Either you will come with me or I will cut off your head.”Dandamesh said, “Do it, cut off the head – because what you are going to do now, I have done years before. When the head falls, you will see it falling on the earth and I will also see it falling on the earth.”Alexander said, “How will you see it? You will be dead!”Dandamesh said, “That is the point: I cannot die anymore, I have become a witness. I will witness my death as much as you will witness. It will happen between us two – you will be seeing, I will be seeing. And my purpose in the body is fulfilled: I have attained. There is no need for the body to exist anymore. Cut off the head!”Alexander had to put his sword back in the sheath – you cannot kill such a man.And the third story is: When Alexander was dying he remembered both Diogenes and Dandamesh, and he remembered their laughter, their peace, their joy.And he remembered that they had something that goes beyond death, “And I have nothing.”He wept, tears came to his eyes, and he said to his ministers, “When I die and you carry my body to the cemetery, let my hands hang out of the casket.”The ministers asked, “But this is not the tradition! Why? Why such a strange request?”Alexander said, “I would like people to see that I came empty-handed and I am going empty-handed, and all my life has been a waste. Let my hands hang out of the casket so everybody can see – even Alexander the Great is going empty-handed.”These stories are worth meditating on.Buddha says: It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.Then the victory is yours.No other victory is yours. It can’t be taken from you – that’s why it is yours.It cannot be taken from you,not by angels or by demons,heaven or hell.Nobody can take it away from you. Remember, only that which cannot be taken away from you is yours. Anything that can be taken away from you is not yours. Don’t cling to it, because the clinging will bring misery to you. Do not be possessive of anything that can be taken away from you because your possessiveness will create anguish for you. Abide with only that which is really yours, which nobody can take away from you. It cannot be stolen, you cannot be robbed of it, you cannot go bankrupt as far as it is concerned. Even death cannot take it.Krishna says: “Nainam chhindanti shastrani” – you cannot cut it with weapons, swords cannot penetrate it, arrows cannot reach to it, bullets are absolutely powerless as far as it is concerned. “Nainam dahati pavakah” – neither fire can burn it.When on a funeral pyre your body will be burned, you will not be burned – if you have known yourself, if you have understood what this consciousness is within you. If you have conquered your consciousness, then the body will be burned, turned to ashes, but you will not be burned, you will not even be touched. You will remain forever – you are eternal. But this eternity can be known only when you become a master on your own.Don’t waste your time in mastering others, in conquering power, prestige, in conquering the world. Conquer yourself. The only thing worth conquering is your own being.Better than a hundred years of worship,better than a thousand offerings,better than giving up a thousand worldly waysin order to win merit,better even than tending in the foresta sacred flame for a hundred years –is one moment’s reverencefor the man who has conquered himself.A tremendously significant sutra. Meditate over it slowly. Better than a hundred years of worship… is a single …moment’s reverence for the man who has conquered himself. Why? – because in the temples you will be worshipping just stones. And by worshipping the stones – either in the temple or in Kaaba – by worshipping statues and pictures, by worshipping dead scriptures, following rituals and formalities, you will not have any taste of buddhahood.But …one moment’s reverence for the man who has conquered himself is far more valuable. Why? – because the moment you bow down to the man who has conquered himself, the moment you bow down to a buddha, something of the buddha, something of his vibe penetrates you, stirs your asleep heart, penetrates your being like a ray of light into the dark night of your soul, brings you the first glimpse of the divine.It is not possible in the temples, in the mosques, in the churches, in the synagogues, in the gurdwaras. It is possible if you are in the vicinity of a Nanak, but not in a gurdwara. It is possible if you are in a love affair with Jesus, but not in a church. It is possible if you have surrendered to a buddha, if you have said to a buddha, “Buddham sharanam gachchhami – I go to the feet of the buddha, I surrender myself.” But it is not possible in a Buddhist temple; before the statue of Buddha it is not possible. You will have to find a living buddha – there is no other way. There is no shortcut.…better than a thousand offerings, better than giving up a thousand worldly ways…is one moment’s reverence for the man who has conquered himself. Why do you worship in the first place? Why do you offer flowers, food to the statues? Why do you renounce …a thousand worldly ways…? – because of greed and fear. Either it is fear or it is greed, or maybe it is both, because greed and fear are not different – two aspects of the same coin. Greed is fear hidden, fear is greed hidden.And not only are worldly people greedy, the so-called otherworldly are also as greedy or maybe they are even more greedy. Their greed is such that it cannot be satisfied by this world. Their greed is such that they desire heavenly pleasures: only paradise can satisfy them, this world is not enough. And that’s what your so-called saints go on teaching to you. They say, “Why are you wasting your time in momentary pleasures? Follow us! We will show you the way to find pleasures which will last forever.”But this is pure greed. The worldly man seems to be less greedy because he is satisfied with the momentary, and the otherworldly is so greedy that he wants something permanent which lasts forever. The worldly is greedy, the otherworldly is greedy.Your priests are very greedy people, your monks are very greedy people.One day a Protestant minister came into Bonatelli’s barbershop and got a haircut. When Bonatelli was finished, the minister reached for his wallet, but the barber shook his head and smiled. “Put-a your wallet away, Reverend,” said the Italian. “I never charge a man of the cloth.”The minister thanked him and left, but he soon returned and presented the pious barber with a Bible.A few hours later, Father Rourke entered the Italian’s shop and he, too, got a haircut. Once again the barber refused to accept any payment. “Forget it, Father,” he said. “I no take-a money from a priest.”Father Rourke left shortly thereafter and returned with a crucifix which he presented to Bonatelli as a token of his appreciation.Toward evening a rabbi entered the shop. He also got a haircut. When the rabbi reached into his pocket, the barber waved the money aside. “That’s okay, Rabbi,” said Bonatelli. “I no accept-a pay from men who do-a da Lord-a’s work.”So the rabbi left, and came back with another rabbi!People live through greed or through fear. A few people are afraid of hell, hence they are worshipping; and a few people are greedy for heaven, hence they are worshipping.A Sufi story says:Jesus came into a town. He saw a few people sitting very sad, in deep agony; he had never seen such a lot of sad people. He asked, “What has happened to you? What calamity has fallen upon you?”And they said, “We are afraid of hell, we are trembling. We don’t know how we can save ourselves from hell – that is our fear, that is our constant agony. We cannot sleep, we cannot rest, unless we have found a way.”Jesus walked away from those people. Just a little further ahead he found another group sitting under a tree, very sad, in great anxiety, just as the first lot. Jesus was very puzzled. He asked, “What is the matter? What is happening in this town? Why are you looking so sad? Why do you look so tense? You will go mad if you remain in this state any longer! What has happened to you?”They said, “Nothing has happened to us. We are afraid that we may lose heaven, we may not be able to enter it. And we have to get it, whatsoever the cost. That is our anxiety and that is our tension.”Jesus left those people also.Sufis say: why did Jesus leave these people? – because these are the religious people! He should have taught them the way to avoid hell, and how to enter heaven, but he simply turned away from them.He found a third group in a garden, a small group of people who were dancing, singing, rejoicing. He asked, “What ceremony is going on? What festival are you having?”They said, “No special ceremony – just our gratefulness to existence, gratefulness for what it has given to us. We were not worthy of it.”Jesus said, “To you I will talk, with you I will stay. You are my people.”This story is not related to Christians, but the Sufis have a few beautiful stories about Jesus. In fact, they understand Jesus far more deeply than the so-called orthodox church. This is a beautiful story. It says neither those who are living through fear nor those who are living through greed are going to enter into the kingdom of God, but only those who are living in tremendous joy, thankfulness and gratitude.And where will you learn gratitude? If you have not seen a buddha, you will not know what gratitude is. Where will you learn to celebrate if you have not come across a buddha? A buddha is celebration, a buddha is a festival, an ongoing festivity, a dance that goes on and on, that knows no ending, a song that continues forever.If you have come across a buddha, then a moment’s reverence, says Buddha, is enough.Drop all your fear, drop all your greed. Learn how to be a disciple. Learn how to imbibe the spirit of someone who has reached his innermost center, who does not live anymore on the circumference, who has become enlightened, whose being is a light.Learn to open your eyes toward that light. Learn to say: “Buddham sharanam gachchhami, sangham sharanam gachchhami, dhammam sharanam gachchhami.” Three surrenders: one surrender to the one who has become awakened; the second surrender is to the company who lives in the company of the awakened – because the perfume of the awakened one starts filtering into the company, the blessed company that lives with the awakened one; and the third surrender is to the law, the ultimate law, through which the sleepy one has become awakened and the other sleepy ones are becoming awakened.These three surrenders… And a single moment’s reverence is more valuable than a hundred years of worship, than a thousand offerings.…better than giving up a thousand worldly ways in order to win merit, better even than tending in the forest a sacred flame for a hundred years – is one moment’s reverence for the man who has conquered himself.To revere such a man,a master old in virtue and holiness,is to have victory over life itself,and beauty, strength and happiness.To revere such a person is to know the secretmost phenomenon in existence. Bowing down to a buddha a miracle happens: something starts flowing from the buddha to the heart of the disciple, an invisible river, a river of light.…a master old in virtue and holiness… What does this sutra mean: …old in virtue and holiness…? There is a paradox: holiness is as new as the dewdrops in the early morning sun on the lotus leaf, and holiness is as ancient as the Himalayas. It is both, because it is eternal. It is from the beginning to the end, but it is new, too, every moment new, renewing itself. It is not a dead thing just sitting there; it is an alive process. It is not a stagnant pool, it is a river rushing toward the ocean. So it is new every moment; hence every buddha is young forever.Have you ever seen any statue of Buddha as an old man of eighty-two years? No. Have you ever seen any statue of Mahavira as old, or Rama, or Krishna as old? There are no statues of Buddha, Krishna, or Mahavira as old, although they all lived to a very old age, all passed the age of eighty. Why don’t we have their statues as old men? To represent the eternal youth of truth, the eternal freshness of truth.And, still what they say is the ancientmost: “Aes dhammo sanantano…” So ancient that in fact there has never been a beginning. Sanantano means beginningless – forever it has been.To represent this there is told another phenomenon: Lao Tzu is said to have been born old. Buddha died when he was eighty-two and Lao Tzu was born when he was eighty-two. He was born eighty-two years old; he lived in his mother’s womb for eighty-two years. A beautiful story. Not that he really lived – because one has to think of the woman also! – but it says something. It says that truth is so ancient, it is always old.These stories are beautiful.It is said that when Zarathustra was born… He is the only child in the whole history of humanity about whom such a story is told. When he was born – every child cries when he is born – Zarathustra laughed. Beautiful! Not that he could have really done it. No child can do it – it is physiologically impossible – the child has to cry. Through crying he clears his chest and the breathing system. He cannot laugh, he cannot even breathe; first he has to cry.If the child does not cry for a few seconds, a few minutes, that means he is not going to live at all. Then he has to be forced. The doctor hangs him upside down and gives him a good slap on the bottom to help him cry. If he cries, that means he is going to live. If he cries, that clears the chest – because much mucus gathers in the chest while he is in the mother’s womb. He does not breathe in the mother’s womb so the whole breathing system remains clogged with mucus. So each child physiologically has to cry; through crying he gets rid of the mucus. Laughter is not possible.But it is very symbolic that Zarathustra laughed. What does it symbolize? It symbolizes that this whole life is just illusory, only worth laughing at. It is ridiculous! He knows from the very beginning it is ridiculous. The real life is something totally different.To revere such a man, a master old in virtue and holiness, is to have victory over life itself… By revering a buddha, by respecting a buddha, by trusting a buddha, you are conquering life itself. And you will attain to beauty, strength and happiness. In that surrender you will become beautiful, because the ego is gone and the ego is ugly. And you will become strong, because the ego is gone – the ego is always weak and impotent. And you will become happy for the first time, because for the first time you have seen a glimpse of truth, for the first time you have seen a glimpse of your own being. The buddha is a mirror: when you bow down, you see your original face reflected in the buddha.Let your heart be full of prayerfulness:Buddham sharanam gachchhami. Sangham sharanam gachchhami. Dhammam sharanam gachchhami.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 3 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 3 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,The Western mind is so oriented toward analysis, the left hemisphere of the brain – the Eastern mind just the opposite, the intuitive right hemisphere. The West is fascinated by the East and the East by the West. Equal amounts of both – is this the harmony of wisdom and the transcendence of opposites?The transcendence of opposites is not a quantitative phenomenon, it is a qualitative revolution. It is not a question of equal amounts of both; that will be a very materialistic solution. Quantity means matter. Equal amounts of both will give you only an appearance of synthesis but not a real synthesis – a dead synthesis, not alive, not breathing, not with a heart beating.The real synthesis is a dialogue: not equal amounts of both, but a loving relationship, an I-thou relationship. It is a question of bridging the opposites, not putting them together in one place.Both are important, immensely important. Neither analysis can be discarded nor intuition. Discard analysis and you become outwardly poor, starved, unhealthy. And when one is outwardly poor, starved, unhealthy, how can he go inward? It is impossible.The outward poverty prevents the inward journey. You are so obsessed with food, clothes, shelter, you don’t have time and space to go in, to think about the higher things of life.In the Upanishads there is a beautiful story:Svetketu, a young man, came back from the university full of knowledge. He was a brilliant student, he had topped the university with all the medals and all the degrees that were possible, available. He came back home with great pride. His old father, Uddalak, looked at him and asked him a single question. He said to him, “You have come full of knowledge, but do you know the knower? You have accumulated much information, your consciousness is full of borrowed wisdom – but what is this consciousness? Do you know who you are?”Svetketu said, “But this question was never raised in the university. I have learned the Vedas, I have learned language, philosophy, poetry, literature, history, geography. I have learned all that was available in the university, but this was not a subject at all. You are asking a very strange question; nobody ever asked me in the university. It was not on the syllabus, it was not in my course.”Uddalak said, “Do one thing: be on a fast for two weeks, then I will ask you something.”Svetketu wanted to show his knowledge, just a young man’s desire. He must have dreamed that his father would be very happy. Although the father was saying, “Wait for two weeks and fast,” he started talking about the ultimate, the absolute, the brahman.The father said, “Wait two weeks, then we will discuss about brahman.”Two days’ fast, three days’ fast, four days’ fast, and the father started asking him, “What is brahman?” In the beginning he answered a little bit, recited what he had crammed, displayed. But by the end of the week he was so tired, so exhausted, so hungry, that when his father asked, “What is brahman?” he said, “Stop all this nonsense! I am hungry, I think only of food and you are asking me what brahman is. Right now, except food nothing is brahman.”The father said, “So all your knowledge was just because you were not starved. Because you were taken care of, your body was nourished, it was easy for you to talk about great philosophy. Now is the real question. Now bring your knowledge!”Svetketu said, “I have forgotten all. Only one thing haunts me: hunger, hunger – day in, day out. I cannot sleep, I cannot rest. There is fire in my belly, I am burning, and I don’t know anything at all. I have forgotten all that I have learned.”The father said, “My son, food is the first step toward brahman. Food is brahman – annam brahman.” A tremendously significant statement. India has forgotten it completely. Annam brahman: food is God, the first God.If you drop the analytical mind, science disappears. If you drop the analytical mind, you can’t be affluent; you are bound to be poor and hungry, and you will lose your first contact with godliness.The West is in that contact; nothing is wrong about it. This orientation in analysis is a significant step toward knowing godliness. I am not against it. But one should not stop at it. Food is not an ultimate value, it is a means to an end. And if you have a meditative pilgrimage you start transforming food into prayerfulness.It depends… The painter eats food, but it becomes painting in him. The poet also eats the same food, it becomes poetry in him. The lover also eats the same food, it becomes love in him. The murderer also eats the same food, it becomes murder and destruction in him. Alexander, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ and Krishna, they were not eating different kinds of food; the food was the same, more or less. But in Adolf Hitler it becomes destruction, in Gautam Buddha it becomes compassion. Food is raw energy; it depends on you how you transform it. You are the transformer; you are really significant, not what you eat.Money is not bad in itself. That’s my basic approach toward existence: money is neutral, it depends on you. In the hands of a man of understanding, money is tremendously beautiful. It can become music, it can become art, it can become science, it can become religion. It is not money that is bad, it is the person. The stupid person, if he has money, does not know what to do with it; his money becomes more greed. Money can free you from greed, but the stupid person changes money into more greed. It becomes anger, it becomes sexuality, it becomes lust. The more money the stupid person has, the more stupid he becomes, because he becomes more powerful to do stupid things.With the wise, everything is transformed into wisdom.The analytical mind is not bad, the scientific approach toward reality is not bad – but it is only a means, it can’t be the end. The end is self-knowledge, the end is to know godliness, the end is to know the eternal, the deathless. Aes dhammo sanantano: that is the end, to know the ultimate law which pervades, permeates the whole existence – because by knowing it, one is liberated. Truth liberates.The East has contributed greatly, immensely, toward that ultimate end. But without means, how can you reach the end? And without the end what is the point of having all the means? It is a question of deep dialogue between East and West, it is a question of a marriage, not a quantitative combination of these two different approaches, not half East, half West, not a little bit of science and a little bit of religion. Human life is not that mathematical; it is poetic.What is needed is a dialogue, an I-thou relationship, a love affair between East and West, a deep embrace. It is not a question of equal quantities; the whole West and the whole East meeting and merging into each other – not half East, half West – the whole East and the whole West melting into each other in a deep love relationship. Only then the real synthesis, the transcendence of opposites, will be possible.When two lovers meet in deep orgasmic joy, there is transcendence. The attraction is there: the East feels fascinated by the West, the West is fascinated by the East, but the danger is that the people from the West who are too fascinated with the East will drop being Western, they will become Eastern; and the people who are fascinated by the West will drop being Eastern and will become Western. So nothing has changed; there has been no meeting, there has been no merger, just the same problem again. People have simply changed places: now the Eastern is standing in the Western hemisphere and the Western is standing in the Eastern hemisphere. Now the Westerner is meditating and the Easterner is studying in Oxford, in Cambridge, in Harvard, and becoming a scientist, a physicist. This is not going to help because there is no meeting happening.My effort here is not to change the Western mind into the Eastern, not to change the Eastern mind into the Western, but to let there be a meeting of both – not in part but in totality. And remember, when two wholes meet, it becomes one whole. When two totalities meet, it becomes one totality. That is transcendence. It is urgently needed, because without it there is no hope for humanity, no future for humanity.What we are trying to do is of immense importance for the future of man. It is not an ordinary experiment – in fact there is no other experiment which is more important than this. You may not be aware that you are participating in something which can save the world. Otherwise the division between the Eastern and the Western is going to kill humanity. The East is poor, too poor, and the West is becoming too rich, and the rift is becoming bigger and bigger every day. This rift is bound to create, sooner or later, a Third World War – which will be destructive to both.Before it happens we have to spread a new vision, we have to give birth to a new humanity, a man who is neither Eastern nor Western but simultaneously both together; not in equal amounts, not half Eastern, half Western – fully Western, fully Eastern.The second question:Osho,I want to become a sannyasin, but I cannot because I am already a practicing Catholic. How can I accept two masters? And am I allowed to ask questions before I become a sannyasin?There is no question of accepting two masters. It is not a question of masters, it is a question of surrender. If you are surrendered to Christ, you are surrendered to me. If you are surrendered to me, you are surrendered to Christ, to Buddha, to Mahavira, to Krishna. The question is of surrender. You are taking the question from the wrong end. If you know how to surrender, then all the masters are one. Then you will find Christ in Buddha, and Buddha in Christ.The surrendered heart becomes so deeply harmonious that it can see that Krishna and Christ are not different. Certainly their language is different – Krishna speaks Sanskrit, Christ speaks Aramaic. Certainly they use different metaphors, different parables. They are different fingers but pointing to the same moon. If you can see the moon, will you be worried about the fingers? If you can see the moon, will you be obsessed with the finger – whether the finger is that of Krishna or Christ or Buddha or Lao Tzu? What does it matter? Once the moon is known, the fingers are forgotten. To become too obsessed with the finger is a state of pathology. The Hindu is ill, the Mohammedan is ill, the Christian is ill. They have become too fascinated, obsessed with the fingers.There is only one moon, but it is reflected in a thousand and one lakes. Don’t become too attached to the reflection in the lakes, don’t become too attached to the lake. The lake has nothing to do with the moon; even if the lake disappears, the moon remains. The lake may become disturbed, the reflection may be lost, but the moon is there.Yes, there are different lakes, and they have different kinds of water. One lake is salty, another lake is sweet; one lake has a bluish tinge to its color, another lake is a little green – and so on, so forth. One lake is very deep. The other is very shallow. But these differences don’t make any difference to the moon reflected in those lakes.If you are really a practicing Catholic you will not hesitate even for a single moment in becoming a sannyasin. Because you are hesitating, let me say to you: you are not a practicing Catholic. And what do you mean by “practicing Catholic”? Because you go to church every Sunday? Because you say the Lord’s Prayer every night? Because you read the Bible every day for a certain period of time? What do you mean by being a practicing Catholic? Then why are you here? For what? If you have found the answer, you need not be here. If you have not found the answer, remember, you have still to inquire, still to journey…I am offering my hand and you say, “How can I hold two masters’ hands?” Do you think you are holding Christ’s hand? Look again! Your hands are empty. If you cannot hold the hand of a living master, how can you hold the hand of a master gone for two thousand years? You cannot even be certain whether he ever existed or not. There are people who think that it is only a story, that there has never been an historical person like Christ. There are people, great scholars, who think that this is only an ancient folk drama, this whole story of Jesus has never been a reality.How are you going to drop these doubts? And if you look into the story, it will create a thousand and one doubts in you. Jesus walking on water – can you really believe it? And when I say “really” I mean really. Can you really believe somebody walking on water? Can you really believe Jesus touching blind people’s eyes and giving them sight? Can you really believe Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life from death? Do you believe Jesus is born out of a virgin mother? Is it possible? Do you believe that Jesus came back from death after three days, resurrected?Look deep down: you will have a thousand and one doubts. In fact, it is so difficult to believe even a living master, how to believe in a dead master? And around dead masters stories are bound to be created by the disciples, out of their foolishness. They think that by creating these stories they will help the message to spread. And for a time being it may be so – there were days when Jesus became important only because he was born out of a virgin mother. Buddha was not born out of a virgin mother, Mahavira was not born out of a virgin mother, Krishna was not born… So it was something rare, unique; nobody else could claim it, it impressed people. But as people became more and more educated, as intelligence grew, as people became thinkers more and more, the same thing became the problem. Now one hesitates even to mention it.Resurrection helped Christianity to spread all over the world, because Jesus was the only one who came back from death: of course, he has firsthand knowledge about what happens after death. Buddha, Mahavira, they are alive and talking about death and beyond, but they don’t have any authentic experience. Jesus has. This helped Christianity to spread all over the world. But now the same thing has become a disadvantage. Now to talk about resurrection is to be laughed at.What do you mean that you are a practicing Catholic? If you were really a practicing Catholic, there are only two alternatives: you either would not have been here, there would have been no need; or, if you had felt the presence of christ-consciousness here, then there would have been no hesitation on your part in becoming a sannyasin. That will be really be becoming a Catholic, that will be becoming a christ.Don’t be a Christian; that is not enough. Unless you are a christ, nothing has happened. Try to be a christ, not to be a Christian. The Christian is only a believer, and the believer is always blind. The christ has eyes. And remember, when I use the word Christ, I don’t mean only Jesus. Christ is a state of ultimate consciousness: in the East we call it the state of being a buddha, the state of being a jina. These are the same words. Jesus is only one of the christs – Buddha is another, Lao Tzu is another, and there have been so many, and there will be so many. It is a long procession of lights.And there is always a living christ somewhere or other. You can call him a buddha, you can call him a christ; it simply depends what language you are using. But don’t be a fanatic, don’t be sectarian; that creates stupidity, that does not help in growing, it does not help in attaining more consciousness.As an experiment, two scientists decided to mate a male human with a female gorilla. They agreed only someone really stupid would submit to such an act, so they went down to the docks and grabbed Fanelli who had just gotten off the boat. “We will give you five thousand dollars to go to bed with a gorilla,” proposed one of the scientists. “Will you do it?”“Okay, I do it,” agreed Fanelli. “But on three conditions.”“What are they?” asked the men of science.“First-a, I am-a only gonna do it-a once,” said the Italian. “Second-a, nobody can-a watch. And-a third-a, if a kid is born, it is-a gotta be raised a Catholic.”Enough of Catholics, enough of Protestants, enough of Hindus and Mohammedans! Now be finished with all that nonsense. Let a new humanity emerge, where Jews and Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists will not be constantly fighting, quarreling, trying to destroy each other, trying to impose their own ideas upon others; where man will be free to choose. You don’t seem to be free to choose. Your being a Catholic seems to be like chains on your feet, your being a Catholic seems to be like a prison wall around you. You are not free.You say, “I want to be a sannyasin…” Then who is preventing you? You want to be a sannyasin, yet your being a Catholic prevents you. It is a wall, it is not a bridge.True religion is always a bridge and never a wall.McGuinty sat in the confessional. “Father,” he said to the priest, “I don’t feel I need forgiveness for my various adulteries.”“Why not?” asked the astonished priest.“Well,” said McGuinty, “The only married women I have relations with are all Jewish!”“Oh, you are right, my son!” said the priest. “That’s the only way to screw the Jews.”You are allowed to do something to a Jew which you are not allowed to do to a Christian. You are allowed to do happily, welcomingly, something to a Mohammedan which you are not allowed to do to a Hindu. What kind of religiousness is this? What kind of humanity have we created? It is neurotic, it is psychotic. We need a healthier human being.My sannyasin is not getting involved in a sect; this is not a sect because we don’t have any ideology. I don’t preach any ideology. Even atheists are here and they are sannyasins and they don’t believe in God. And I don’t make it a basic requirement. There are no basic requirements, except your longing for truth – but that is not a thing that makes you sectarian. In fact, the inquiry for truth, the longing for truth, makes you absolutely nonsectarian.And a religious person is nonsectarian. He is simply religious – not Christian, not Hindu. He cannot afford to be Hindu or Christian. How can he afford to be so limited? He cannot afford to get involved in prejudices; he cannot believe in conclusions already arrived at by others. He is on his own journey: he wants to know truth with his own eyes, he wants to hear truth with his own ears, he wants to feel life and existence with his own heart. His search is individual.Sannyasins are not part of a sect. This is the meeting of individuals; we have met because we are on the same journey. There is no ideology binding my sannyasins with each other; it is just because of the same inquiry for truth that accidentally we have met on the same road. We are fellow-travelers. Nothing binds one sannyasin to another sannyasin; there is no bondage of belief, tradition, scripture. And in fact sannyasins are not connected with each other at all directly – their connection is with me.One sannyasin is connected with me, another sannyasin is connected with me, hence they are connected with each other via me. There is no other organization. I am functioning only as a center and they are all connected with me, hence they feel connected with each other.That’s how a commune arises, a sangha is born. A commune can be alive only when the buddha is present, when the christ is present. Once the christ is gone, the commune disappears and becomes a community. The commune disappears and becomes a sect. I would not like my sannyasins to become a sect ever.You also ask: “And am I allowed to ask questions before I become a sannyasin?” You have already asked a question, and I have already answered it. Yes, you are absolutely welcome. In fact, after becoming a sannyasin it becomes more and more difficult to ask questions – they look so stupid. The longer you are here, the less you ask. And those who have been here longest have completely forgotten to ask anything. Don’t be worried about that. You can ask questions just for questions’ sake; you need not be a sannyasin.And in fact I am more interested in questions which come from non-sannyasins, because then I can seduce them.The Russian rabbit fled across the border at Brest and did not stop until a Polish rabbit assured him he was in Poland. “Why are you running?” asked the Polish rabbit.“Because they are castrating all the camels in Russia,” said the Russian bunny.“But you are not a camel, you are a rabbit!”“Yes – but they castrate first and ask questions afterward.”The third question:Osho,In rebirthing, a part of me happened that had been knowledge, but was not known. First there was pain and fear, then an explosion in me that felt like a wild animal, followed by tremendous relief and joy. I felt that a dark cloud I have carried a long time passed out of me. Yet still I know nothing of who I am. Please comment.“Who am I?” is not really a question, hence it can never be answered, neither by others nor by yourself. Then what is it? It is a koan. “Who am I?” is utterly absurd. By asking it, don’t hope that one day you will get the answer. If you go on asking, “Who am I? Who am I?” – if you make it a meditation, as Raman Maharshi used to say to his disciples… He used to give only one simple meditation: just sit and repeat, first loudly, then not so loudly, then just in your throat; then even the throat is not to be used, just deep down in your heart let it resound: “Who am I? Who am I?” Go on asking…And people used to think that if they followed the instructions rightly, one day they would suddenly know the answer. That is not true; you will never come to the answer. But by asking it, first all the answers that you had before, ideas about yourself, will disappear and then finally when nothing is left, the question will disappear too.“Who am I?” is like a thorn. It can pull out the thorn that is in your foot. You can use this thorn; you can use this thorn to pull out the thorn that is already hurting you in the foot. When both the thorns are out, you can throw both of them away. You need not keep the second one because it has been such a blessing to you, it pulled out the first. You need not put it in the place of the first just out of reverence, gratitude.“Who am I?” is just a subtle device; it is as absurd as Zen koans.Zen masters say to the disciples, “Go and meditate: what is the sound of one hand clapping?” Now, one hand cannot clap. The master knows it, the disciple knows it – that one hand cannot clap – but the master insists, “Meditate on it. Go crazy meditating – ask and ask and ask, and let the question go deeper and deeper. Let it sink in your heart, in your very soul.”When the master says, the disciple has to do it. Sometimes ten years, sometimes twenty years pass, and the disciple goes on asking this absurd question, knowing perfectly well that one hand cannot clap. And the master says, “If you come across some answers, bring them to me.” And sometimes the disciple invents answers, because he gets tired of the question. Sometimes he hopes, “Maybe this is the answer,” and he brings it to the master. He says, “The sound of running water, that is one hand clapping.”And the master hits him with the staff on his head and says, “You fool! This is not the answer. Go back” – because the sound of running water is not one hand clapping, the sound is because of the rocks. Remove the rocks and the sound will disappear, so there are two things clashing, not one thing.Then he goes and he meditates. And while he is meditating he hears the distant call of a cuckoo, and he thinks “This is it! This must be – so beautiful, so tremendously otherworldly. This is the celestial music; this must be the real thing.” And he comes running, and is beaten again.Zen masters are really experts in beating – not only beating: sometimes throwing you out of the window, sometimes closing the door in your face. They can do anything to wake you up, their compassion is such. And you are again given a good beating, and the master shouts that you are utterly stupid: “This is not it. Go and meditate again.” And so on, so forth, it continues, continues, many answers. And no answer is ever accepted; no answer can ever be accepted.Sometimes it happens, even before the disciple has said what answer he has got, the master starts beating him – because it is not a question of what answer he brings; that is utterly irrelevant. Whatsoever answer he has brought is going to be wrong. All answers are wrong.But one day he comes and the master hugs him, because he can see in his eyes, the way he walks, the grace that surrounds him, the climate that he has brought with himself, the silence: no question, no answer. Not that he has brought any answer; on the contrary, this time he has come even without the question, he has forgotten the question itself. He is not asking any more. He comes utterly silent, not even a ripple in his mind. And the master recognizes it immediately.Sometimes it has happened that the disciple has not turned up and the master has to seek and search for the disciple, because he felt deep down in his heart that the question had disappeared. And now the disciple is feeling, “Why bother the master unnecessarily? What is the point? There is no answer, no question.” And the silence is such, and it is so tremendous, that he does not want to come out of it.And the master comes and says to him, “Now that you have the answer, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you turn up? I have been waiting for you.”Once it happened…When Rinzai was taking leave of his master – because the master had said, “Go for a three-year pilgrimage, go to all the temples and all the monasteries” – and before he was leaving, he started beating him.Rinzai said, “But I have not said anything, I have not done anything. What kind of farewell is this? I am going for a three-year pilgrimage on foot” – in those ancient days it was dangerous – “I may come back, I may not come back.”The master said, “That’s why. I may not have another chance to beat you. I am suspicious. You are just on the verge of that great silence descending. Just the last part of the question, not even ‘Who am I?’ but only the question mark is there. And any day it will disappear, and then nobody knows whether you will come or you may not come. And I am an old man; where will I come and search and seek you? This is my last opportunity to beat you – I cannot miss it!”And yes, it was so; it was the last opportunity. Rinzai came back after three years, but he was enlightened. He came back and slapped the master and said, “You rascal! You were right. Just once I also want to hit you. You have been beating me at least for twenty years. Just for once…!”The master laughed and he said, “You are entitled. You can do it whenever you feel like doing it, but just remember that I am a very old man.”You say: “Yet still I know nothing of who I am.” Nobody has ever known. Then what is the difference between a buddha and you? You also don’t know who you are, the buddha also does not know who he is – then what is the difference? He is not bothered by it. He laughs at it, he takes it for granted that life is a mystery. There is no question and there is no answer.Life is not a question–answer game. It is not a puzzle to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived.“Pa, I wanna go to college,” said Leon.“Do you know what is what?”“Huh?”“Do you know what is what? Go into the bathroom and think for a few minutes, and if you find out what is what, I send you to college.”Leon went into the bathroom, thought a few minutes, came out and said, “Pa, I don’t know what is what.”“Sure you don’t know what is what. Go out and get yourself a job and when you find out what is what, I send you to college.”Leon left, went to a nearby bar, and began drinking. He met Alice, a blonde sitting at the bar. Soon they wound up at her apartment. After a few drinks she said, “Excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable.”Alice returned a few moments later, completely nude. Leon looked at her and said, “What is this?”“What is what?”“If I knew what’s what, I would be in college, not here.”Now you tell me what is what. This is a koan. This Leon’s pa must have been a Zen master: “What is what.”Now you are asking, “Who am I?” You are yourself, you are you. To ask, “Who am I?” means you are asking for some identity, whether “I am A or B or C or D.” You are simply yourself! You cannot be A, you cannot be B, you cannot be C. You are just yourself, you are nothing else. So there is no way to answer it.Then why is this question given to you? This question is given to you so that it can destroy; it is like a hammer, it can destroy all your old identities. For example, you think, “My name is Ram, so I am Ram.” When you ask, “Who am I?” the question will arise, “What about Ram? I am Ram!” But you can see that that is only a name; it is not your reality, it is a name given from the outside. Your parents had to call you something: they called you Ram. They could have called you Rahim, they could have given you any name, and any name would have been as relevant as Ram, because you are a nameless reality. So asking, “Who am I?” you will forget this identity with Ram.Then deep down somebody says, “I am a Jaina,” “I am a Hindu,” “I am a Jew.” That too is an accidental identity – accidents of birth – you are not it. How can you be a Jew? What does it mean to be a Jew or a Hindu? Just that you have been brought up by Hindus or Jews, that’s all. If a Jewish child is taken away from his home and is brought up by Hindus he will never come to know, will never dream that he is a Jew. Although born of Jewish parents he will never become aware of it unless he is told. He will think that he is a Hindu. He may even fight for Hinduism with a Jew, he may kill a Jew for the sake of Hinduism, not knowing at all that he himself is a Jew.Now in India there are millions of Christians. They think they are Christians, but they have always lived here; their parents were Hindus, their parents’ parents were Hindus. For centuries they have been Hindus. Now they have been bribed, persuaded, convinced, converted, and they have become Christians. They can kill Hindus; if the need arises they can fight.There are millions of Mohammedans in India; they have all been converted forcibly. At least Christians have been persuaded sophisticatedly – but millions of Hindus have been forced at the point of daggers. The choice was: “You can live as a Mohammedan or you have to die.” And who wants to die? Lust for life is so deep that it is better to live, even if you have to live as a Mohammedan it’s okay. Now those millions of Mohammedans who live in India basically have the blood of Hindus. But they can kill Hindus – they have been killing – and they are being killed by Hindus. Hindus are killing their own children; now they are called Mohammedans. Just change the label… And such a great change happens just by changing the label.When you ask, “Who am I?” you will come across that point. You will see that you are neither a Mohammedan nor a Hindu nor a Christian; these are accidents of birth, upbringing. If you have been born in Russia you would not have been either Hindu, Christian or Mohammedan; you would have been a Communist, a practicing Communist – just as you are a practicing Catholic now. You would have denied God, you would have denied prayer, you would have denied all of religion – because the state is powerful, and nobody wants to go against the state; it is dangerous.The state has never been as powerful as it is in Russia today. The individual has never been reduced to such impotence as he has been in Communist countries. He cannot pray according to his own choice, he cannot go to the church or to the temple according to his own will; the state decides everything. If the state says, “This is so,” this is so. You cannot defy the state, otherwise the consequences are great. You will be thrown into imprisonment or sent to Siberia or you may be simply killed. Or, even more dangerous, you may be forced to live in a mental hospital where you will be given electric shocks, insulin shocks; you can be declared to be mad. If you are not Communist in Russia you can be declared insane. And you are absolutely helpless; if the doctors say you are insane, you are insane. There is no way to fight with them.Mulla Nasruddin was dying, on his deathbed, almost in a coma. The doctor came to see him. The doctor was drunk; he took his pulse but could not find any pulse because he was holding the hand in the wrong way. He looked at Nasruddin’s face and said to his wife, “I’m sorry to say it, but your husband is dead.”At that very moment, Nasruddin opened his eyes and said, “What! I am alive!”The wife said, “You keep quiet. He knows better, he is a doctor, an MD, PhD, FRCS. You have some nerve to deny an authority! Keep quiet!”That’s how it is in Russia: if the psychologist says you are insane, you are insane. You know you are not, but you are utterly helpless; the monster of the state is so huge, and you are caught in the teeth of the monster. If you were born in Russia you would not be Catholic, you would not be Protestant, you would not be Hindu, you would not be Mohammedan.When you meditate on “Who am I?” you will come across this point, and it will dissolve. And the deeper you go… Then deeper questions will come: first sociological, theological, then biological. You have a man’s body or a woman’s body: the question will arise, “Am I a man or a woman?” The consciousness is neither. The consciousness cannot be male or female. The consciousness is simply consciousness; it is just the capacity of being a witness. Soon you will pass that barrier too: you will forget that you are man or woman.And so on, so forth. When all the old identities are dropped, nothing remains, only the question resounds in the silence: “Who am I?” The question cannot go on, on its own; it needs some answers, otherwise it cannot persist. A point comes when asking becomes absurd: the question also evaporates. That is the moment which is called self-knowing – atmagyan. That is the moment when, without receiving any answer, you simply know, you feel, who you are.Go on inquiring. A few dark clouds have disappeared from your being: feel grateful. There are many more; they all have to disappear. These are all dark clouds – Catholic, Protestant, Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist, Communist. These are all dark clouds – Indian, Chinese, Japanese, German, English. These are all dark clouds – white, black, man, woman, beautiful, ugly, intelligent, stupid. These are all dark clouds! Anything that you can become identified with is a dark cloud.Let them all go. The beginning has happened. But don’t be in a hurry and don’t wait for any answer – there is none. When all questions and all answers have been left behind and you are alone, totally alone, absolutely silent, knowing nothing, no content, no object to know – that purity of consciousness, that pure sky of consciousness, that’s what you are.The last question:Osho,What is the relationship between mastery over the self and control?They are contraries. Mastery over the self has no self in it; it is utterly selfless. Mastery is there, but there is no self to master; there is nothing to master or to be mastered, there is only pure consciousness. In that purity you are part of existence; in that purity you are the lord of existence itself. But there is no self.When we say “self-mastery” we are using the wrong language. But nothing can be done because all language is wrong at those heights; in those moments of plenitude no word is adequate. In control there is self. In control there is more self than ever. The uncontrolled person has not that much self, that much ego – how can he have? He knows his weaknesses.That’s why you will come across a very strange phenomenon: your so-called saints are more egoistic than the sinners. The sinners are more human, more humble; the saints are almost inhuman because of their control – they think they are suprahuman. Because they can control their instincts, they can go on long fasts, they can remain sexually starved for years or for their whole life, they can remain awake for days together, not a single moment’s sleep – because they can have such control over the body, over the mind, it naturally gives them a great ego. It feeds their idea that, “I am somebody special.” It nourishes their disease.The sinner is more humble. He has to be; he knows he cannot control anything. When anger comes he becomes angry. When love comes he becomes love. When sadness comes he becomes sad. He has no control over his emotions. When he is hungry he is ready to do anything to get food; even if he has to steal he will do it. He will find every possible way.A famous Sufi story:Mulla Nasruddin and two other saints went for a pilgrimage to Mecca. They were passing through a village, it was the last phase of their journey. Their money was almost finished; just a little bit was left. They purchased a certain sweet called halva, but it was not enough for all three and they were too hungry. What to do? – and they were not even ready to divide it because then it will not fulfill anybody’s hunger.So everybody started bragging about himself: “I am more important to existence, so my life has to be saved.”The first saint said, “I have been fasting, I have been praying for so many years; nobody here present is more religious and holy than I am. And God wants me to be saved, so the halva has to be given to me.”The second saint said, “Yes, I know, you are a man of great austerities, but I am a great scholar. I have studied all the scriptures, my whole life I have devoted in the service of knowledge. And the world does not need people who can fast. What can you do? – you can only fast. You can fast in heaven! The world needs knowledge. The world is so ignorant that it cannot afford to miss me. The halva has to be given to me.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “I am not an ascetic, so I cannot claim any self-control. I am not a great knowledgeable person either, so that too I cannot claim. I am an ordinary sinner, and I have heard that God is always compassionate to the sinners. The halva belongs to me.”They could not come to any conclusion. Finally they decided, “We should all sleep without eating the halva, and let God decide himself. So whosoever is given the best dream by God, in the morning that dream will be decisive.”In the morning the saint said, “Nobody can compete with me anymore. Give me the halva – because in the dream I kissed God’s feet. That is the ultimate that one can hope – what greater experience can there be?”The pundit, the scholar, the knowledgeable person laughed and he said, “That is nothing – because God hugged me and kissed me! You kissed his feet? He kissed me and hugged me! Where is the halva? It belongs to me.”They looked at Nasruddin and asked, “What dream did you have?”Nasruddin said, “I am a poor sinner, my dream was very ordinary – very ordinary, not worth even telling. But because you insist and because we have agreed, I will tell you. In my sleep God appeared and he said, ‘You fool! What are you doing? Eat the halva!’ So I have eaten it – because how can I deny his order? There is no halva left now.”Self-control gives you the subtlest ego. Self-control has more self in it than anything else. But self-mastery is a totally different phenomenon; it has no self in it. Control is cultivated, practiced; with great effort you have to manage it. It is a long struggle, then you arrive at it. Mastery is not a cultivated thing, it is not to be practiced. Mastery is nothing but understanding. It is not control at all.For example, you can control anger, you can repress it, you can sit on top of it. Nobody will ever know what you have done, and you will always be praised by people: that in such a situation where anybody would have become angry, you remained so calm and collected and cool. But you know that all that calmness and coolness was on the surface: deep down you were boiling, deep down there was fire, but you repressed it in the unconscious, you forced it deep down into your unconscious and you sat upon it like a volcano, and you are still sitting on it.The man of control is the man of repression. He goes on repressing. Because he goes on repressing, he goes on accumulating all that is wrong. His whole life becomes a junkyard. Sooner or later, and it is going to be sooner than later, the volcano explodes – because there is only a certain limit you can contain. You repress anger, you repress sex, you repress all kinds of desires, longings – how long can you go on repressing? You can contain only so much, then one day it is more than you can control: it explodes.Your so-called saints, men of self-control, can be provoked very easily. Just scratch a little, just scratch, and you will be surprised: the animal comes up immediately. Their saintliness is not even skin-deep; they are carrying many demons in them, they are somehow managing. And their life is a life of misery, because it is a life of constant struggle. They are neurotic people and they are on the verge of insanity, always on the verge. Any small thing can just prove the last straw on the camel. They are not religious in my vision of life.The religious man controls nothing, the religious man represses nothing. The religious man understands, tries to understand, not to control. He becomes more meditative: he watches his anger, his sex, his greed, his jealousy, his possessiveness. He watches all these poisonous things that surround you. He simply watches, tries to understand what anger is, and in that very understanding he transcends. He becomes a witness, and in his witnessing the anger melts as if the sun has risen and the snow has started melting.Understanding brings a certain warmth; it is a sunrise inside you and the ice starts melting around you. It is like a flame inside you and darkness starts disappearing.The man of understanding, meditation, is not a man of control – just the opposite. He is a watcher. And if you want to watch, you have to be absolutely non-judgmental. The man who controls is judgmental, continuously condemning, “This is wrong”; continuously praising, “This is good, this is evil, this will lead to hell, this will lead to heaven.” He is constantly judging, condemning, praising, choosing. The man of control lives in choice, and the man of understanding lives in choicelessness.It is choiceless awareness that brings real transformation. And because nothing is repressed, no ego arises, no self arises. And because understanding is a subjective, interior phenomenon, nobody knows about it, nobody can see it except you. And ego comes from the outside, from other people, what they say about you: it is their opinion about you which creates the ego. They say you are intelligent, they say you are so saintly, they say you are so pious – and naturally you feel great. Ego is from the outside. It is given to you by others. Of course, they say one thing in front of you and they say something else, just the opposite, behind your back.Sigmund Freud used to say that if for even twenty-four hours we decide that every person on the earth will say only the truth, only the truth, then all friendship will disappear, all love affairs will dissolve, all marriages will go down the drain. If a decision is taken that the whole humanity will practice only truth and nothing else only for twenty-four hours… When a guest knocks on your door you will not say, “Come in, welcome, I was just waiting for you. How long it has been that I have not seen you! How long I have suffered. Where have you been? You make my heart throb with joy.” You will say the truth that you are feeling. You will say, “So this son-of-a-bitch has come again! Now, how to get rid of this bastard?” That is deep inside; that you are controlling. You will say it to somebody else behind the man’s back.Watch yourself, what you say to people to their face and what you say behind their back. What you say behind the back is far truer, closer to your feeling, than what you say to the face. But ego depends on what people say to you, and it is very fragile – so fragile that on each ego is written: Handle with Care.Pieracki, a Polack, Odum, a black, and Alvarez, a Mexican, were out of work and living together. Pieracki came home one night and announced he had got a job. “Hey, fellas, wake me up tomorrow at six,” he said. “I have to be at work by six-thirty!”While Pieracki slept, Odum said to Alvarez, “He got a job because he is white. We can’t get one because I am black and you are brown.”So during the night they put shoeblack all over Pieracki. Then they agreed to wake him late.Next morning when Pieracki arrived at work, the foreman said, “Who are you?”“You hired me yesterday,” he replied. “You told me to be here at six-thirty!”“I hired a white man – you’re black!”“I’m not!”“Yes, you are! Go and look in the mirror!”The Polack rushed over to the mirror, looked at himself and exclaimed, “My God! They woke up the wrong man!”Your ego depends on mirrors. And every relationship functions as a mirror, every person you meet functions as a mirror, and this ego goes on controlling.And why does it control in the first place? It controls because the society appreciates control, because the society gives you more ego if you control. If you follow the ideas of the society, their morality, their puritanism, their ideas of holiness, it praises you more and more. More and more people come to pay respect to you; your ego goes higher and higher, soars higher.But remember: ego will never bring you any transformation. Ego is the most unconscious phenomenon that is happening in you; it will make you more and more unconscious. And the person who lives through the ego is almost drunk with it; he is not in his senses.Fernando was getting married. There was a big wedding feast and the wine flowed like water. Things were going fine until Fernando couldn’t find his beautiful bride. After looking over the guests, he found his pal, Luis, was also missing.Fernando started searching the premises. He looked into the bridal chamber and discovered Luis making love to his bride. Fernando closed the door softly, and crept down the stairs to his guests.“Queek! Queek! Everybody come look!” he shouted. “Luis ees so drunk he theenk he ees me!”The ego keeps you in an almost drunken state. You don’t know who you are because you believe what others say about you. And you don’t know who others are because you believe what others say about others. This is a very make-believe illusory world in which we live.Wake up! Become more conscious. By becoming conscious you will become a master of your own being. Mastery knows nothing of self, and the self knows nothing of mastery. Let that be absolutely clear to you.My teaching is not for self-control, self-discipline. My teaching is for self-awareness, self-transformation. I would like you to become as vast as the sky – because that’s what really you are.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Better than a hundred years of mischiefis one day spent in contemplation.Better than a hundred years of ignoranceis one day spent in reflection.Better than a hundred years of idlenessis one day spent in determination.Better to live one day wonderinghow all things arise and pass away.Better to live one hour seeingthe one life beyond the way.Better to live one moment in the momentof the way beyond the way.Gautama the Buddha has raised the most important question for all those who are capable of inquiring into truth, into life, into existence. The most important question of all questions is: What is true happiness? And is there a possibility to achieve it? Is true happiness possible at all, or is all momentary? Is life only a dream, or is there something substantial in it too? Does life begin with birth and end with death, or is there something that transcends birth and death? Without the eternal there is no possibility of true happiness. With the momentary, happiness will remain fleeting: one moment it is here, the other moment gone, and you are left in great despair and darkness.That’s how it is in ordinary life, in the life of the unawakened. There are moments of bliss and there are moments of misery; it is all mixed, hodgepodge. You cannot keep those moments of happiness that come to you. They come on their own and they disappear on their own, you are not the master. You cannot avoid the moments of misery; they too have their own persistence. They come on their own and they go on their own, you are simply a victim. And between the two, happiness and unhappiness, you are torn apart. You are never left at ease.This being torn apart into all kinds of dualities… The duality of happiness and unhappiness is the most fundamental and the most symptomatic, but there are a thousand and one dualities: the duality of love and hate, the duality of life and death, day and night, summer and winter, youth and old age, and so on, so forth. But the fundamental duality, the duality that represents all other dualities, is that of happiness and unhappiness. And you are torn apart, pulled into different, polar opposite directions. You cannot be at ease: you are in a dis-ease.According to the buddhas man is a dis-ease. Is this dis-ease absolute – or can it be transcended?Hence the basic and the most fundamental question is: What is true happiness? Certainly the happiness that we know is not true; it is dream stuff and it always turns into its own opposite. What looks like happiness one moment turns into unhappiness the next.Happiness turning into unhappiness simply shows that the two are not separate, they may be two aspects of the same coin. And if you have one side of the coin, the other is always there hidden behind it, waiting for its opportunity to assert – and you know it. When you are happy, deep down somewhere is the lurking fear that it is not going to last, that sooner or later it will be gone, that the night is descending, that any moment you will be engulfed in darkness, that this light is just imaginary – it can’t help you, it can’t take you to the other shore.Your happiness is not really happiness but only a hidden unhappiness. Your love is not love but only a mask for your hate. Your compassion is nothing but your anger – cultivated, sophisticated, educated, cultured, civilized, but your compassion is nothing other than anger. Your sensitivity is not real sensitivity but only a mental exercise, a certain attitude and approach practiced.Remember: the whole of humanity is being brought up with the idea that virtue can be practiced, that goodness can be practiced, that one can learn how to be happy, that one can manage to be happy, that it is within your power to create a certain character which brings happiness. And that is all wrong, utterly wrong.The first thing to be understood about happiness is that it cannot be practiced. It has only to be allowed, because it is not something that you create. Whatsoever you create is going to remain something smaller than you, tinier than you. What you create cannot be bigger than you. The painting cannot be bigger than the painter himself and the poetry cannot be bigger than the poet. Your song is bound to be something smaller than you.If you practice happiness you will be always there at the back, with all your stupidities, with all your ego trips, with all your ignorance, with all your chaos of the mind. With this chaotic mind you cannot create a cosmos, you cannot create grace. Grace always descends from the beyond; it has to be received as a gift in tremendous trust, in total surrender. True happiness happens in a state of let-go.But we have been told to achieve, to be ambitious. Our whole mind has been cultivated to be that of an achiever. All education, culture, religion, depends on this basic idea that man has to be ambitious; only the ambitious man will be able to attain fulfillment. It has never happened, it will never happen, but such is the foolishness of humanity, so deep is the ignorance, that we go on believing in this nonsense.No ambitious person has ever been happy; in fact, the ambitious person is the unhappiest in the world. But we go on training children to be ambitious: “Be the first, be at the top, and you will be happy!” And have you ever seen anybody at the top and happy together? Was Alexander happy when he became a world conqueror? He was one of the unhappiest men who has ever lived on the earth. Seeing the blissfulness of Diogenes he became jealous. Becoming jealous of a beggar…?Diogenes was a beggar; he had nothing, not even a begging bowl. At least Buddha had a begging bowl with him and three robes. Diogenes was naked and had no begging bowl. In the beginning he used to carry a begging bowl; he must have got the idea from the East. He’s a man exactly like Buddha, Mahavira – more like Mahavira. Mahavira also lived naked with no begging bowl; his hands were his begging bowl.Diogenes was going to the river one day with his begging bowl. He was thirsty, it was hot, and he wanted to drink water. And then on the way, just when he was on the bank, a dog passed him by, running, panting, jumped into the river, had a good bath, drank to his heart’s content. The idea arose in Diogenes’ mind: “This dog is freer than me – he does not have to carry a begging bowl. And if he can manage, why can’t I manage without a begging bowl? This is my only possession, and I have to keep an eye on it because it can be stolen. Even in the night once or twice I have to feel whether it is still there or gone.”He threw the begging bowl into the river, bowed down to the dog, thanked him for the great message that he had brought for him from existence.This man, who had nothing, created jealousy in Alexander’s mind. How miserable he must have been! He confessed to Diogenes that, “If ever again existence gives me birth, I will ask it, ‘This time, please don’t make me Alexander – make me Diogenes.’”Diogenes laughed uproariously, and he called the dog, because they had become friends by now, they had started living together; he called the dog and he said, “Look, listen, what nonsense he is talking about! Next life he wants to be Diogenes! Why next life? Why postpone? Who knows about the next life? Even the next day is uncertain, the next moment is not certain – what to say about the next life! If you really want to be a Diogenes, you can be right this moment, herenow. Throw your clothes into the river! Forget all about conquering the world. That is sheer stupidity and you know it.”“And you have confessed that you are miserable, and you have confessed that Diogenes is in a far better, more blissful state. So why not be a Diogenes right now? Lie down on the bank of the river where I am taking my sunbath. This bank is big enough for both of us.”Alexander could not accept the invitation, of course. He said, “Thank you for your invitation. Right now I cannot do it, but next life…”Diogenes asked him, “Where are you going? And what will you do even if you have conquered the world?”Alexander said, “Then I will rest.”Diogenes said, “This seems to be absolutely absurd because I am resting right now.”If Alexander is not happy, if Adolf Hitler is not happy, if the Rockefellers and Carnegies are not happy, if the people who have all the money of the world are not happy, if the people who have all the power in the world are not happy…Have you seen Jimmy Carter’s photographs? The whole smile has disappeared now; now those teeth are not showing. He had really a beautiful smile, but where has it all gone? He must have been far happier than he is now. Every day his face is becoming more and more sad; more and more anxiety, anguish, is being shown.Just this morning I looked in the latest Time. His face seems to have become so old within just these two years, as if he has aged twenty years. He must be suffering from nightmares. Where are all those hopes that he would be happy when he becomes the president?Just watch people who have succeeded in the world and you will drop the idea of success. Nothing fails like success. Although you have been told that nothing succeeds like success, I say to you that nothing fails like success. Happiness has nothing to do with success, happiness has nothing to do with ambition, happiness has nothing to do with money, power, prestige. It is a totally different dimension.Happiness has something to do with your consciousness, not with your character. Let me remind you: character is again cultivation. You can become a saint and still you will not be happy, if your sainthood is nothing but a practiced sainthood. And that’s how people become saints, Catholics, Jainas, Hindus. How do they become saints? They practice inch by inch, in detail, when to get up, what to eat, what not to eat, when to go to bed…These people even come here sometimes and ask me why I don’t give a certain discipline to my sannyasins. I give them consciousness, not character. I don’t believe in character at all. My trust is in consciousness. If a person becomes more conscious, naturally his character is transformed. But that transformation is totally different: it is not managed by the mind – it is natural, it is spontaneous. And whenever your character is natural and spontaneous it has a beauty of its own; otherwise you can go on changing… You can drop your anger, but where will you drop it? You will have to drop it within your own unconscious. You can change one side of your life, but whatsoever you throw in will start expressing itself from some other corner. It is bound to be so. You can block a stream with a rock; it will start flowing from somewhere else, you cannot destroy it. Anger is there because you are unconscious, greed is there because you are unconscious, possessiveness and jealousy are there because you are unconscious.So I am not interested in changing your anger; that will be like pruning the leaves of a tree and hoping that the tree will disappear one day. It is not going to be so; on the contrary, the more you prune the tree the thicker will be the foliage.Hence your so-called saints are the unholiest persons in the world, pretenders, pseudo. Yes, if you look from the outside they look very holy – too holy, saccharin, too sweet, sickeningly sweet, nauseating. You can only go and pay your respect to them and escape. You can’t live with your saints for even twenty-four hours – they will bore you to death! The closer you are to them, the more puzzled, perplexed, confused you will be, because you will start seeing that from one side they have forced anger: it has entered into another side of their life.Ordinary people are angry once in a while, and their anger is very fleeting, very momentary. Then again they are laughing, again they are friendly; they don’t carry wounds too long. But the anger of your so-called saints becomes almost a permanent affair; they are simply angry, not at anything in particular. They have repressed anger so much that now they are simply angry, in a state of rage. Their eyes will show it, their noses will show it, their faces will show it, their very way of life will show it.Lu Ting ate at a Greek restaurant because Papadopoulos, the owner, made really good fried rice. Each evening he would come in he would order “flied lice.”This always caused Papadopoulos to fall down with laughter. Sometimes he would have two or three friends standing nearby just to hear Lu Ting order his “flied lice.”Eventually the Chinese’s pride was so hurt that he took a special diction lesson just to be able to say “fried rice” correctly.The next time he went to the restaurant he said very plainly, “Fried rice, please.”Unable to believe his ears, Papadopoulos asked, “What did you say?”Lu Ting shouted, “You heard what I said, you fluckin’ Gleek!”It won’t make much difference – from “flied lice” now it is “fluckin’ Gleek”! You close one door, another immediately opens. This is not the way of transformation.To change your character is easy; the real work consists in changing your consciousness, in becoming conscious – more conscious, more intensely and passionately conscious, more and more totally conscious. When you are conscious it is impossible to be angry, it is impossible to be greedy, it is impossible to be jealous, it is impossible to be ambitious.When all anger, greed, ambition, jealousy, possessiveness, lust, disappear, the energy involved in them is released. That energy becomes your bliss. Now it is not coming from outside; now it is happening inside your being, in your innermost recesses of being.And when this energy is available you become a receptive field, you become a magnetic field. You attract the beyond – you can call it “God.” Buddha never calls it “God,” he calls it “the beyond”; that is his name for God. When you become a magnetic field, when all the energy that is unnecessarily being wasted by you in your unconsciousness gathers, pools inside you, when you become a lake of energy, you start attracting the stars, you start attracting the beyond, you start attracting godliness itself.And the meeting of your consciousness with the beyond is the point of bliss, true happiness. It knows nothing of unhappiness, it is pure happiness. It knows nothing of death, it is pure life. It knows nothing of darkness, it is pure light, and to know it is the goal. Gautama the Buddha went in search of this and one day, after six years’ struggle, he attained to it.You can also attain to it, but let me remind you: by saying that you can attain to it I am not creating a desire to attain it. I am simply stating a fact: that if you become a pool of immense energy, undistracted by any worldly thing, it happens. It is more a happening than a doing. And it is better to call it bliss than happiness, because happiness gives you the feeling that it is something similar to that which you know as happiness. What you know as happiness is nothing but a relative state.Benson went to Krantz’s clothing store to buy himself a suit. He found just the style he wanted, so he took the jacket off the hanger and tried it on.Krantz came up to him. “Yes, sir. It looks wonderful on you.”“It may look wonderful,” said Benson, “but it fits terribly. The shoulders pinch.”“Put on the pants,” said Krantz. “They are so tight, you will forget all about the shoulders!”One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin walking on the road in great despair, almost ready to burst out crying. I asked him, “What is the matter? Why are you so miserable?”He said, “My shoes are very small – I need two sizes bigger – and they hurt like hell.”I said, “Nasruddin, then why don’t you change them?”He said, “That I cannot do.”I asked him, “Why can’t you? You have the money.”He said, “I have the money, but there is much more involved in it. The whole day I suffer from these shoes, and when in the evening I go home, I throw these shoes away and I fall on my bed… It is such a relief, as if one has come to paradise! And that is the only joy in my life! I cannot change these shoes: in twenty-four hours that is the only moment of joy. If I change these shoes, that moment will also disappear. Then there is nothing left.”What you call happiness is just a question of relativity. What buddhas call happiness is something absolute.An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian were trying to define true happiness.“True happiness,” said the Englishman, “is when you return home tired after work and find a gin and tonic waiting for you.”“You English have no romance,” countered the Frenchman. “True happiness is when you go on a business trip, find a pretty girl who entertains you, and then you part without regrets.”“You are both wrong,” concluded the Russian. “Real true happiness is when you are home in bed at four o’clock in the morning and there is a hammering at the front door and there stand members of the secret police who say to you, ‘Igor Zhvkovski, you are under arrest,’ and you are able to reply, ‘Sorry, Igor Zhvkovski lives next door!’”Your happiness is a relative phenomenon. What Buddha calls happiness is something absolute, unrelated to anybody else. It is not in comparison with somebody else; it is simply yours, it is inner. And it is a happening: the beyond descending in you, the ocean falling into the dewdrop. And when the ocean falls in the dewdrop, the dewdrop disappears, its boundaries disappear. It becomes as unbounded as the ocean itself; it becomes oceanic.Bliss is an oceanic state, when you disappear as an ego, bounded, small, and become huge, enormous, as huge and enormous as the universe itself.The sutras:Better than a hundred years of mischiefis one day spent in contemplation.As far as Buddha is concerned whatsoever you are doing is mischief. Why? Even if you are doing some religious ritual it is mischief. Even if you are doing something that you think is public service it is mischief. In fact, the public servants are the most mischievous people in the world. If the public servants disappear from the world, the world will be a far better place to live. The social reformers and the political revolutionaries and the religious missionaries are the real mischief-mongers. They don’t allow you to live in peace, they go on dragging you from one stupidity into another. Of course they keep you occupied – that is their attraction.You are afraid of being unoccupied because whenever you are unoccupied you have to face yourself, and that you want to avoid, because you have repressed so many uglinesses in you that to look inside is to look into hell. You don’t want to look in. You are continuously escaping from yourself, so any escape is good.Somebody says, “Become a public servant. Let service be your motto!” and you say, “Okay, so I will serve people.” Whether they want to be served or not, is not the point. Even if they don’t want to be served you have to serve them against themselves. Whether they want your truth or not, is not the point. It has to be given, it has to be forced down their throats!That has been done by the religious people: at the point of the sword people have been converted from one religion to another religion against their will. They don’t want to go to paradise, at least not to your paradise, but you are bent upon sending them to paradise – your compassion is such that you are ready to kill them or be killed.A missionary was teaching in a small school and he was saying that every Christian child should make it a point that at least one act of public service should be done per week. One small boy asked, “For example, what kind of things should we do?”The missionary gave a few examples. He said, “For example, some old woman wants to cross the street and the traffic is too much – hold her hand, help her to cross the street.” And so on, so forth.Next Sunday he inquired, “How many of you did some act of public service?”Three boys – the strongest and the biggest in the class – stood up. They said, “We did one act of public service.”The missionary was very happy. “So you say…” He asked the first boy, “What did you do?”He said, “I helped an old woman, very old woman, to cross the street.”He patted the boy and he said, “You are a good boy. Go on doing such good acts.” He asked the next boy, “What did you do?”He said, “I also helped a very old woman to cross the street.”The missionary was a little puzzled that both could find two very old women, but there are many old women – it is possible. He patted the second boy also, but not so heartily. With a little suspicion he said, “Good. Go on doing.”Then he asked the third.The third said, “I also helped a very, very old woman to cross the street.”Now it was too much! Such a coincidence can’t be, that three very, very old women wanted to cross the street. And he asked, “What day, what time?” It was the same day and the same time and the same street! So he said, “Please explain – how could you find three such very, very old women?”They said, “They were not three – it was only one woman, very, very old. We all three helped her.”He said, “That too is good, but were three persons needed?”They said, “Three? Although she was old, she made so much fuss because she never wanted to go to the other side! But we did manage. When one has to do some public act, some public service, one has to do it. She was shouting and cursing and calling the policeman, but we were determined to do it and we did it!”As far as Buddha is concerned, whatsoever you do is mischief because whatsoever you do is done out of unconsciousness. His definition of mischief is: any act done unconsciously. And any act done consciously is virtue.Your life is almost a vicious circle: one mischief leads to another and that one leads to still another. Mischief grows out of mischief – only mischief can grow out of mischief. And you go on living and moving in circles and you don’t know what else to do. You do good, at least you think you are doing good, but the good never happens; otherwise the world would have been overflowing with good.So many people are doing good: parents doing good to children, and where are the good children? Husbands are doing good to wives – and wives are really after husbands to transform them, to change them, to make them saints. But where are those husbands and where are those wives and where are those children? Everybody is trying to do good according to his own idea – and he himself is living in deep darkness.But the idea “I am doing good” helps your ego to be strengthened, although you go on moving in the same circle – because intelligence is needed to be original, to do something new. You know only a few things, a few tricks, and the older you get, the more difficult it becomes to learn new things.They say you can’t teach new tricks to old dogs…Kramanakis immigrated to New York. He got a job through relatives who taught him to say “Apple pie and coffee” in English so he could order in a restaurant. The next day, Kramanakis walked into a diner.“What’ll you have?” asked the waitress.“Apple-a pie anna coffee,” said the immigrant.Since that was all he could say he was forced to eat apple pie and coffee every day for a month. When he complained to his cousins, they taught him to say “ham sandwich.”Armed with the new addition to his vocabulary he said to the waitress, “Ham sandwich.”“White or rye?” asked the girl.“Apple-a pie anna coffee,” said the Greek.Just watch your life: “Apple-a pie anna coffee, apple-a pie anna coffee…” You go on doing, repeating, the same thing, every day, day in, day out, year in, year out. Your whole life is a very small circle: the same anger, the same greed, the same fight, the same words, the same reasons, the same motives. Is this the way to grow? Is this the way to become conscious? Is this the way to know your original face? Are you hoping that moving in these small circles continuously, mechanically, robotlike, you will attain to bliss?Drop all such hopes!Rabbi Glucksman was seated next to a Baptist minister on a flight to New York. The stewardess approached them and said, “May I serve you a cocktail?”“I will take a whisky sour,” said the rabbi.“And you, reverend?” asked the hostess.“Young lady,” said the clergyman, “before I let liquor touch my lips I would just as soon commit adultery.”“Miss,” said Rabbi Glucksman, “as long as there is a choice, I will have what he is having.”Not only do you go on moving in the same small circles, you repeat, you imitate other people and their stupidities. You are constantly repeating, you are constantly looking around at what is being done by whom. You don’t live a life from within; you are imitators. Your whole interest is exhibition: how to show that you are better than others, how to show that you are richer than others, how to show that you are more intelligent than others. In fact, it is only the unintelligent person who ever compares himself with others. The really intelligent never compares, because each individual is unique and comparison is impossible.Mrs. Zimmer hired an interior designer to have the house redecorated.“All right,” said the decorator, “how would you like it done? Modern?”“Me, modern? No!” said Mrs. Zimmer.“How about French?”“French? Where would I come to a French house?”“Perhaps Italian Provincial?”“God forbid!”“Well, madam, what period do you want?”“What period? I want my friends to walk in, take one look, and drop dead, period!”People are living just to impress. They must be really very poor inside, because only people suffering from an inferiority complex want to impress others. A really superior person never compares himself with anybody else. He knows he is incomparable; not only that, he knows others are also as incomparable as he is. He is neither superior nor inferior.This tremendous revolution is possible only with one secret key, and that is becoming more alert. The more alert you are, the less you repeat. The more alert you are, the more you find new ways of doing things, new styles of living your life. The more alert you are, the more creative you are, and only creative people know what happiness is. What you create is not the point, just being creative. It may be poetry, it may be music, it may be sculpture, it can be anything, but just the process of being creative brings you to the point where you meet God.All the religions of the world say God is the creator. If he is really the creator, then the only way to meet him will be to become a creator in some measure. Of course you can’t be a creator like God, but you can be a small creator in your own way. When the poet is creating, when the painter is creating, in those moments of creativity they are one with God. Those are the moments when they know what godliness is. But poets and painters and sculptors are only in those heights for moments, only for moments do they know those plenitudes.Only the mystic, the buddha, the master, lives on that height twenty-four hours a day, because his creativity is subtle; his creativity is not visible, his creativity is invisible. He creates consciousness. First he creates consciousness in himself, then he starts creating consciousness in others.That’s how the master and the disciple gather together, that’s how a buddhafield is created. That’s how thousands of seekers surround a buddha – because he creates something that cannot be seen but can only be felt by those into whom the buddha has penetrated, in whose heart he has stirred something dormant and has made it dynamic. A buddha creates consciousness first in himself and then in those who are ready and available and trusting and surrendered.Better than a hundred years of mischief is one day spent in contemplation. Contemplation is not the right word, but how to translate Eastern insight into Western languages is a problem. Contemplation means thinking of one subject concentratedly. That is not what Buddha means when he uses the word dhyana. Dhyana means a state of no-mind, a state of no-thought; it is just the opposite of contemplation. Contemplation cannot be the right word to translate it. But I can understand the problem, the difficulty of the translators – there are no other words. Dhyana is one of those words which cannot be translated.It was very intelligent of Chinese translators that they left the word unchanged. Dhyana became ch’an in China; they never translated it. It took a little different form because dhyana is Sanskrit. Buddha used not Sanskrit but a local language of Bihar, Pali. In Pali dhyana is jhan; in Chinese it became ch’an, left untranslated because Chinese translators came to understand that it cannot be translated; better to describe it rather than translate it. And so it happened in Japan: when it reached Japan, ch’an became Zen; first jhan and then ch’an and then Zen – but it was left untranslated.The best thing will be for Western languages also to leave a few words untranslated, because you don’t have any equivalent, and whatsoever words you have, have their own connotations.Dhyana is not contemplation; contemplation is the purest form of thinking. Dhyana is going beyond thought, beyond the purest even, coming to a state where all thought ceases. You are utterly conscious, but there is no content to your consciousness.Buddha says: Better than a hundred years of mischief is one day spent in contemplation. Just one day is enough; if a person can remain in dhyana for twenty-four hours that’s enough – he will become a buddha. But it is immensely difficult to remain twenty-four hours in dhyana.Mahavira has said: “Even if one can remain for forty-eight minutes” – and my calculation is also exactly the same – “if one can remain in a state of no-mind continuously for forty-eight minutes, that’s enough to become enlightened.”But the ordinary mind cannot remain alert even for a few seconds, what to say of minutes! Try: just sit silently, keep a watch close by, and you will be surprised that even seconds are not without thoughts. Only once in a while for a split second there is no thought. But the moment you see there is no thought, this thought arises: you say, “Aha!” – finished! You say, “There is no thought!” and the mind has played a trick upon you, it has come from the back door. And if you listen silently you will see the mind laughing – it has deceived you. No-thought is still a thought, the idea of no-thought is still a thought.Better than a hundred years of ignoranceis one day spent in reflection.By “ignorance” Buddha does not mean absence of knowledge. Because the knowledgeable person is not the goal, so ignorance has to be understood in a new way – with Buddha’s meaning, with his color, with his fragrance. We call a person ignorant because he is uneducated: he cannot read, he cannot write, he does not know the three R’s, he is not informed at all, he is very primitive. We call him ignorant. And we call him, the man who has a BS, MS, PhD… And you know the meaning? BS means bullshit, MS means more of same, PhD means piled high and deep. We call that man a man of knowledge. These are the people who fill our universities. And if you really want to see their faces, go and attend some convocation. Then you will see all the buffoons parading in black gowns, in strange hats. These people are thought to be knowledgeable.When Buddha says “ignorant” he simply means a person who does not know himself. It is not a question of becoming more informed or less informed, educated or uneducated. Kabir is not ignorant although he is uneducated. Kabir has said: “Masi kagad chhuyo nahin – I have never touched paper or ink.” And that is how it is: he never touched paper or ink, he was not able to read or write.When somebody asked Kabir, “You can’t read – you have not read the Vedas, Upanishads, Gita, and all the great scriptures?” Kabir laughed and said, “Likha-likhi ki hai nahin – the truth has nothing to do with the scriptures because it has never been written and cannot be written. It is not written anywhere! It is unexpressed, so what is the point of reading the scriptures? The scriptures themselves say: ‘I have heard that it cannot be expressed.’ Then what is the point?”But Kabir is not ignorant. Buddha will recognize Kabir as a buddha. Kabir is a buddha, so is Farid, so is Raidas, so is Mohammed, so is Christ. Christ is also absolutely uneducated; Mohammed is also absolutely uneducated, uninformed.Then ignorance has a totally different meaning: not absence of the so-called knowledge but absence of self-knowledge. Not knowing oneself is ignorance. Then you can know all: you can become a walking Encyclopedia Britannica, but that won’t help. If you know yourself, then you are a man of wisdom.Better than a hundred years of ignorance is one day spent in reflection. Reflection has to be understood literally. Again, in English reflection has the meaning of contemplation, thinking. Buddha literally means reflection – as the moon is reflected in the lake, your face is reflected in a mirror. Be so silent, without any waves, without even a ripple; let your consciousness become a lake, utterly silent, undisturbed, so that the whole sky, the whole firmament, can be reflected in you. Being in a state of no-mind you become a mirror, you start reflecting that which is.And that’s what God is…this total existence with its immense beauty and benediction. If you are a mirror, it will be reflected in you, and that will make you wise, that will make you a master, that will make you the awakened one.But people go on believing what others have said. Beliefs are not going to help you. Beliefs are poisonous; they keep you blind. Because of your beliefs you never inquire on your own. And your beliefs are false, they are not really trust; a belief can only be superficial. You can believe in the Gita or the Koran or the Bible, but deep down the doubt persists; it is not so easy to uproot doubt.Doubt is uprooted only when you know. How can it be uprooted if Jesus knows? How can it be uprooted if Mohammed knows? He may know, but who knows whether he is right or wrong, and who knows that he is not deceived, and who knows he’s not deceiving others? What guarantee is there? What is the proof that Buddha is right? Except that Buddha says, “I have attained,” there is no other proof. But that is going in circles, that is the question itself: “How to believe that Buddha is right?” And we have only one proof: Buddha says, “I have arrived.” But how to believe that what he says is right?Deep down the doubt will persist; your belief will be only a cover-up. It is like you have a wound oozing with pus, stinking, and you cover it with roses, but deep down in the roses the pus is accumulating. The roses will not be able to transform it. They can hide it for a few moments; their fragrance may not let others know the stink that is arising out of the wound, but for how long? Sooner or later they will be stinking too! Rather than roses changing your pus, your pus will change the roses. And that’s what happens: belief never transforms your doubt, your doubt transforms your belief.The young rabbi finally decided that he must talk to the richest member of his congregation, no matter how much it hurt.“Why,” asked the rabbi, “must you fall asleep when I am preaching?”“Let me explain something,” answered the millionaire. “Would I fall asleep if I did not trust you?”That’s what has happened to millions of people: they have fallen asleep because they trust; there is no need to be awake. Buddha knows – what is the need for you to be awake? Christ knows – it is enough for you to be a Christian, there is no need to be a Christ.But I say to you, unless you are a Christ nothing is going to happen. By being a Christian you are simply deceiving yourself and others, and you are wasting precious time, because in the same time you can become Christ himself. Don’t remain satisfied by being Christians or Hindus or Jainas or Buddhists. Become a Buddha, become a Christ, become a Mohammed, become a Mahavira! Less than that is not going to help, less than that is not liberation.And that is possible through reflection. If you become a no-mind, the whole that surrounds you will be reflected in you. And when you know, only then will you know, and that knowing disperses all doubts. When all doubts have gone from within your heart, all darkness has disappeared and you are full of light, then life has been lived, life has been known. That is bliss. The beyond has reached to you, you have reached the beyond. Now existence is within you and you are within existence.Better than a hundred years of idlenessis one day spent in determination.Again there is some possibility of misunderstanding because of the translation. Buddha does not mean by “determination” what is meant in English by the word. He means decisiveness, not determination. Determination gives you a feeling of will, willpower. Determination gives you the idea of deciding through the mind. Decisiveness is a totally different phenomenon: it is of the heart. Not that you have decided by the mind, but your heart feels a kind of commitment – it is a love affair.In love you don’t determine. You don’t say to your woman “I have determined to love you.” Or do you? If you say to some woman, “I have pulled all my energy together; I have created a great determination in myself that I am going to love you,” that woman will never see you again because love and determination means love is false. Love has a decisiveness about it, a commitment, an involvement, but not determination. It has no will; in fact, even if you want to determine against it you cannot. It is a mad, mad thing.So is religion: it is not a question of determination, it is a question of falling in love with this tremendous beauty of existence. It is falling in love with this mysterious world.Better to live one day wonderinghow all things arise and pass away.If you can wonder you are going to fall into love. Each child is born wondering and sooner or later we destroy his wonder. By the time a child is four we have killed, massacred his wonder. And the method that we use to kill his wonder is to start stuffing him with information.D. H. Lawrence, one of the great men of insight of this age, was walking in a garden with a small child. And as small children ask, the child asked, “Can you tell me one thing – why are the trees green?”Now, such questions can be asked only either by children or by mystics, either by children or by buddhas. What kind of question is this? You will never ask it, because it will look so foolish to ask why the trees are green. And in fact you already know why they are green; you know, because it is chlorophyll that makes them green.D. H. Lawrence also knew about chlorophyll. He could have said it to the child, and children trust very easily… If you say, “It is because of this,” they will say, “Okay.” And in fact, they don’t much care about the answer; by the time you are answering them they have become interested in some other question. They are intrigued by something else – a butterfly, a flower, a cloud floating in the sky. They have already bypassed the question.When a child asks he does not ask to be answered, remember. When a child asks he is simply talking out loud to himself, he is thinking out loud, he is wondering out loud, that’s all. When he says, “Why are the trees green?” he is not saying it inside, he is thinking aloud. It is not really a question. He is puzzled by the mystery, he is wondering why the trees are green, he is not waiting for any answer; it is pure wonder, he is intrigued.D. H. Lawrence is a great poet, a great novelist – almost on the verge of being a mystic. Had he been in India, had he been in the East, he would have become a buddha. About these two persons I feel very certain they would have become buddhas if they had been in the East: Friedrich Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence. About these two persons I feel absolutely certain. They were so much on the verge, just one more step…Lawrence looked at the trees, stood there in silence with closed eyes for a few seconds, then told the child, “The trees are green because they are green.” And the child was satisfied. But Lawrence continued to think, “What kind of answer is this that I have given to the child? – the trees are green because they are green. It is a tautology. It is illogical!” But it is tremendously significant. Lawrence is saying that life is a mystery to be lived, a reality to be experienced, not a question to be answered, not a problem to be solved. It is so.That’s how Buddha used to say it to his disciples: his word is tathata, suchness. If you had asked him the same thing he would have said, “Such is the case. Trees are green. It is so.” Nothing more can be said about it – because the more said, the more you become informed, knowledgeable, the less is the possibility to know. “It is so” does not close the door to you, it simply opens the door of the mystery.Buddha says: Better to live one day wondering how all things arise and pass away. If you can attain again your childhood wonder you will be my sannyasins. I am not here to help you to know more, I am here to help you to wonder more. And the only way to wonder more is to take away all your knowledge. Your knowledge is a disturbance in your wondering. It does not allow you to wonder, because before you wonder it immediately supplies you with an answer. It is because of scientific knowledge that man has lost his immense quality, his great quality of wonder. And that is the greatest treasure a man has. No animal wonders; it is only man who is given the gift to wonder.Real religion is rooted in wondering and real religion helps you to wonder more and more and more. A moment comes in the life of the mystic when he becomes simply wonder. Each small thing fills him with tremendous wonder: a pebble on the shore, a seashell, the cry of a distant cuckoo, a lonely star in the evening, anything… A child giggling, a woman crying tears of joy, anything… Just the wind passing through the pine trees, the sound of running water, anything – and he is full of wonder. Existence comes to him as wonder, existence comes to him as mystery.If you sit by the side of a mystic, don’t sit to learn more from him. Sit to drop all knowledge. Sit by the side of a mystic to be filled by his wonder, to become a child again. Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of God.” Again he says: “Unless you are like small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” He is talking about the same wonder.Better to live one hour seeingthe one life beyond the way.Each sutra is so tremendously significant. Meditate on each word. And Buddha is progressing very slowly so that you can absorb the spirit. First he says dhyana, a state of no-mind. Then he says the mirrorlike quality of your consciousness, which is a by-product of dhyana. Then he says decisiveness – a love affair, your heart falling in tune with existence. Then he says wondering. And now he says seeing.The eyes that can see grow in wonder – not in knowledge, not through scripture, but through innocence. Become mystified with existence.Our whole education is based on demystifying existence. The pedagogue believes that one day we will have destroyed the whole mystery of existence because we will have gathered all the answers for all the questions. This is the most irreligious belief there is – and your education creates irreligion. Your education, even if it is called religious education, is not religious because it demystifies existence, it supplies you with answers.Real religion takes away all the answers, makes your questions bigger and bigger, and finally transforms your questions into wonder, into a quest. And in wonder, if you can live in wonder, you will attain to that insight, those eyes, which can see.This seeing has been called in the East, darshan: seeing with innocence, looking with innocence. Then just a nazunia flower by the side of the hedge is enough, and you are transported into another world. Then you will dance when the clouds are raining, you will dance in the rain and you will know something of buddhahood. Then you will dance in the full-moon night and you will know something of buddhahood. Then you will dance around a rosebush because the roses have bloomed, and you will know something of buddhahood. Your life will become a constant singing, dancing, celebration.Better to live one hour seeing the one life beyond the way. Then one hour is enough, there is no need to live for millions and millions of lives, because it is not a question of length, how long you live. The West is too concerned with length. Make people live longer: a hundred years, a hundred and fifty years, two hundred years, three hundred years. And it is possible, because there are a few people who live…In the Kashmir valley there is a small tribe: they live very easily up to a hundred and fifty. And in Russia there are many people who have gone beyond a hundred and fifty. There are a few people who are a hundred and eighty and one person who is two hundred years old. Now scientists are continuously searching: what are the secrets? Why do these people live so long? What do they eat? What do they drink? What is their pattern of life? Why do they live so long? And sooner or later they will find the secrets and man will live three hundred years, four hundred years, five hundred years. You are very fortunate that they have not found the secrets yet! Just think of yourself living three hundred years – seventy is enough to make one fed up with life!And remember, suicide is not allowed yet anywhere. To commit suicide is the greatest crime, if you are caught before committing it. Of course if you have committed, then it is finished; nobody can catch hold of you. They cannot punish your ghost! Just think of yourself living seven hundred years… Within seventy years all is finished, life is so futile. To live for seven hundred years will be sheer torture and they won’t allow you to die.Now there are many people hanging between life and death, particularly in America and in Europe – more in America. They are not alive, because they cannot move, they cannot do anything, they cannot even think, they cannot eat. Everything is being done by others; they are just lying down on the beds, on oxygen. They may not even have their own heart – maybe a plastic heart pumping their blood. They may not have kidneys; machines may be doing their work.Now, these people are called alive. They are neither alive nor dead – and it is better to be this way or that. Hanging in between, they are in a kind of limbo. But the West is very interested, mind as such is very interested, in lengthening life. But those who know are not interested in long life; they are interested in intensifying life, in making it more intense, total.That’s why Buddha says: Better than a hundred years of mischief is one day spent in dhyana. Better than a hundred years of ignorance is one day spent in mirrorlike reflection. Better to live one day wondering how all things arise and pass away. Better to live one hour seeing the one life beyond the way.If you can allow wonder to happen, then sooner or later out of your wonder will grow eyes, new eyes – not these eyes which can see only objects but eyes which can see the invisible, that life which is beyond. Call it divine life, eternal life, or whatsoever name you prefer.Better to live one moment…See, Buddha is going continuously to make it shorter and shorter: from a hundred years to one moment.Better to live one moment in the momentof the way beyond the way.It is enough to live in a single moment, but totally herenow – no past, no future. Your whole energy diving deep in the herenow is enough to have a taste of godliness, to have a taste of truth; a truth which is of the way and yet beyond the way.Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal law. If one can live in wonder, seeing, totally in the moment, one has come home. Bliss happens, descends, you are overflooded with bliss and benediction. It is not your creation, it comes as a gift from the beyond.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Can intellectual activity be creative?Intellect is something pseudo, something false. It is a substitute for intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon, the real thing.Intelligence needs tremendous courage, intelligence needs an adventurous life. Intelligence needs for you to always go into the unknown, into the uncharted sea. Then intelligence grows, it becomes sharpened. It grows only when it encounters the unknown every moment. People are afraid of the unknown, people feel insecure with the unknown. They don’t want to go beyond the familiar. Hence they have created a false, plastic substitute for intelligence; they call it intellect.Intellect is only a mental game; it cannot be creative. Intellect is imaginative, but not creative. Intelligence is creative. Intelligence creates because intelligence makes you capable of participating with existence. Existence is the source of all creativity. You can be creative only when you are en rapport with existence, when you are rooted in the very existence, when you are part of divine energy. You cannot be creative on your own; you can be creative only as a medium of existence.When the poet creates he is only a medium, a hollow bamboo on the lips of existence. And suddenly the hollow bamboo is no longer a hollow bamboo – it becomes a flute. The emptiness of the bamboo becomes full of song, dance, celebration.Creativity means you have to disappear, you have to allow existence to be, you have to get out of the way. Intellect is egoistic; intelligence is humble, egoless. The difference is subtle; because both words come from the same root, hence one can easily be deceived. Beware, be alert! Intellect is not intelligence. Intelligence is creative, intellect is only a pretender. In the name of creativity it goes on producing rubbish.You can go and look in the universities and see what kind of creative work goes on there. Thousands of treatises are being written; PhD’s, DPhil’s, DLitt’s, great degrees are conferred on people. Nobody ever comes to know what happens to their PhD theses; they go on becoming rubbish heaps in the libraries. Nobody ever reads them, nobody is ever inspired by them. Yes, a few people read them; they are the same type of people who are going to write another thesis. The would-be PhD’s will be of course reading them.But your universities don’t create Shakespeares, Miltons, Dostoevskys, Tolstoys, Rabindranaths, Kahlil Gibrans. Your universities create just junk, utterly useless. This is intellectual activity that goes on in the universities. Intelligence creates a Picasso, a Van Gogh, a Mozart, a Beethoven.Intelligence is a totally different dimension. It has nothing to do with the head; it has something to do with the heart. Intellect is in the head; intelligence is a state of heart-wakefulness. When your heart is awake, when your heart is dancing in deep gratitude, when your heart is in tune with existence, in harmony with existence, out of that harmony is creativity.There is no possibility of any intellectual creativity. It can produce rubbish, it is productive: it can manufacture, but it cannot create. And what is the difference between manufacturing and creating? Manufacturing is a mechanical activity. Computers can do it – they are already doing it, and doing it in a far more efficient way than man has ever done, in a far more reliable way than you can hope for from man. Intelligence creates, it does not manufacture.Manufacturing means a repetitive exercise: what has already been done, you go on doing again and again. Creativity means bringing the new into existence, making a way for the unknown to penetrate the known, making a way for the sky to come to the earth.When there is a Beethoven or a Michelangelo or a Kalidas, the skies open, flowers shower from the beyond. I am not telling you anything about Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Mahavira, Zarathustra, Mohammed, for a certain reason: because what they create is so subtle that you will not be able to catch hold of it. What Michelangelo creates is gross; what Van Gogh creates can be seen, is visible. What a buddha creates is absolutely invisible. It needs a totally different kind of receptivity to understand.To understand a buddha you have to be intelligent. Not only that Buddha’s creation is of tremendous intelligence, but it is so superb, it is so supramental, that even to understand it you will have to be intelligent. Intellect won’t help even in understanding.Only two kinds of people create: the poets and the mystics. The poets create in the gross world and the mystics create in the subtle world. The poets create in the outer world: a painting, a poem, a song, music, a dance; and the mystic creates in the inner world. The poet’s creativity is objective and the mystic’s creativity is subjective, totally of the interior. First you have to understand the poet, only then can you one day understand – at least hope to one day understand – the mystic. The mystic is the highest flower of creativity. But you may not see anything that the mystic is doing.Buddha has never painted a single picture, has never taken the brush in his hands, has not composed a single poem, has not sung a single song, nobody has ever seen him dancing. If you watch him he is just sitting silently; his whole being is silence. Yes, a grace surrounds him, a grace of infinite beauty, of exquisite beauty, but you will need to be very vulnerable to feel it. You will have to be very open, not argumentative. You cannot be a spectator with a buddha; you have to be a participant, because it is a mystery to be participated in. Then you will see what he is creating. He is creating consciousness, and consciousness is the purest form, the highest form possible, of the expression of existence.A song is beautiful, a dance is beautiful, because something of the divine is present in it. But in a buddha the whole of God is present. That’s why we have called Buddha “Bhagwan,” we have called Mahavira “Bhagwan” – the whole of God is present.But students won’t be able to see it. Disciples will be able to decipher a little bit, and devotees will be able to drink out of it.Intellectual activity can make you experts in certain things, useful, efficient. But intellect is a groping in the dark; it has no eyes, because it is not yet meditative. Intellect is borrowed, it has no insight of its own.The subject was lovemaking. For weeks Arthur had successfully answered all the questions asked him on the television quiz show. He was now eligible for the jackpot prize of one hundred thousand dollars. For this one question he was allowed to call an expert. Arthur of course chose a world-famous professor of sexology from France.The jackpot question was, “If you had been king during the first fifty years of the Assyrian empire, which three parts of your bride’s anatomy would you have been expected to kiss on your wedding night?”The first two answers came quickly. Arthur replied, “Her lips and her neck.”Now, stumped for the answer to the third part of the question, Arthur turned frantically to his expert. The Frenchman threw up his hands and groaned, “Alors, mon ami, do not ask me. I have been wrong twice already.”The expert, the knowledgeable, the intellectual, has no insight of his own. He depends on borrowed knowledge, on tradition, on convention. He carries libraries in his head, a great burden, but he has no vision. He knows much without knowing anything at all.And because life is not the same ever – it is constantly changing, it is new moment to moment – the expert always lags behind, his response is always inadequate. He can only react, he cannot respond, because he is not spontaneous. He has already arrived to conclusions; he is carrying ready-made answers, and the questions that life raises are always new.Moreover, life is not a logical phenomenon. And the intellectual lives through logic; hence he never fits with life and life never fits with him. Of course life is not at a loss; the intellectual himself is at a loss. He is always feeling like an outsider – not that life has expelled him; he himself has decided to remain outside life. If you cling too much to logic you will never be able to be part of the living process that this existence is.Life is more than logic: life is paradox, life is mystery.Gannaway and O’Casey arranged to fight a duel with pistols. Gannaway was quite fat, and when he saw his lean adversary facing him he objected. “Debar!” he said, “I am twice as large as he is, so I ought to stand twice as far away from him as he is from me.”Absolutely logical, but how can you do it?“Be aisy now,” replied his second. “I will soon put that right.” And taking a piece of chalk from his pocket he drew two lines down the fat man’s coat leaving a space between them.“Now,” he said, turning to O’Casey, “fire away, and remember that any hits outside that chalk line don’t count.”Perfectly mathematical, perfectly logical – but life is not so logical, life is not so mathematical. And people go on living in their intellects very logically. Logic gives them a feeling as if they know, but it is a big “as if,” and one tends to forget it completely. Whatsoever you go on doing through intellect is only inference. It is not an experience of truth, but just an inference based on your logic – and your logic is your invention.Cudahy, grogged to the gills, stood watching the Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Unconsciously he dropped his lit cigarette into an old mattress that was lying at the curb.Just then the gray-haired members of the Women’s Nursing Corps came strutting by. At the same time, the smoldering mattress began giving off a dreadful smell.Cudahy sniffed a couple of times and declared to a nearby cop, “Officer, they are marching those nurses too fast!”Intellect may arrive at certain inferences, but intellect is an unconscious phenomenon. You are almost behaving sleepily.Intelligence is awakening, and unless you are fully awake, whatsoever you decide is going to be wrong somewhere or other. It is bound to be so, it is doomed to be wrong, because it is a conclusion arrived at by an unconscious mind.To bring intelligence into activity you don’t need more information, you need more meditation. You need to become more silent, you need to become more thoughtless. You need to become less mind and more heart. You need to become aware of the magic that surrounds you: magic that is life, magic that is godliness, magic that is in the green trees and the red flowers, magic that is in people’s eyes. Magic is happening everywhere! All is miraculous, but because of your intellect you remain closed inside yourself, clinging to your stupid conclusions arrived at in unconsciousness or given to you by others who are as unconscious as you are.Intelligence is certainly creative because intelligence brings your totality into functioning – not just the small part, the head. Intelligence vibrates your whole being; each cell of your being, each fiber of your life starts dancing, and falls in a subtle harmony with the total.That’s what creativity is: to pulsate in absolute harmony with the total. That’s how one becomes a Buddha, Christ, Zarathustra. These are the real creative people.Something like this is happening right now, here. If you are a disciple you will be able to feel something of it. If you are a devotee you will be able to drink out of this source that has become available to you. And then creativity will come to you, things will start happening on their own. Your heart will start pouring songs of joy, your hands will start transforming things. You will touch mud and it will become a lotus. You will be able to become an alchemist. But it is possible only through great awakening of intelligence, great awakening of the heart.The second question:Osho,Everyone wants to love and to be loved. Why? “First sight of love, last sight of wisdom.” Is it true?Love is prayerfulness groping toward godliness. Love is poetry born out of the sheer joy of being. Love is song, dance, celebration: a song of gratitude, a dance of thankfulness, celebration for no reason at all, for this tremendous gift that goes on showering on us, for this whole universe, from the dust to the divine. Love is not what you understand it to be, hence the question.You ask, “Everyone wants to love and to be loved. Why?” – because love is religion at its highest; love is the suprememost religion. Love is the search for godliness – of course, an unconscious search in the beginning, stumbling, groping in the dark. The direction may not be right, but the intention is absolutely right.Love is not the ordinary thing that you understand by it; it is not just a biological attraction between a man and a woman. It is that too, but that is only the beginning, just the first step. Even there, if you look deep down, it is not really an attraction between man and woman, it is an attraction between masculine energy and feminine energy. It is not an attraction between A and B; far deeper mysteries are involved even in ordinary love affairs.Hence nobody can define love. Thousands of definitions have been tried, all have failed. Love remains indefinable, very elusive, very mercurial. The more you want to grasp of it, the more difficult it becomes, the farther away it goes. You cannot catch hold of it, you cannot manage to know what exactly it is, you cannot control it. Love remains unknowable. Man wants to know, because knowledge gives power. You would like to be powerful over love, but that is impossible; love is far bigger than you. You cannot possess it, you can only be possessed by it. Hence those people who want to possess love never come to know anything of it.Only those who are courageous enough, only those who are gamblers, who can risk their very life and be possessed by some unknown energy, are able to know what love is.Love is the first step toward godliness. Hence it appears mad to those who are hung up in their heads, who don’t understand the whole mystery of love, who try to understand it through the mind… It can be understood only through the heart. Remember: all that is great is available to the heart. The heart is the door to all great values of life, to all ultimate values, and the head is only a useful mechanism, a gadget – good in the marketplace but utterly useless in a temple. And love is a temple, it is not a marketplace. If you drive love into the marketplace it is reduced into ugly sexuality.That’s what people have done: rather than raising love to godliness, they have reduced love into ugly, animalistic sexuality. And the strange thing is, the same people – the priests, the politicians, the puritans – the same people who have reduced love into an ugly phenomenon, are against sex, are enemies of sex. And they are the people who have destroyed a tremendously potential power!Love is a lotus hidden in the mud. The lotus is born out of mud, but you don’t condemn the lotus because it is born out of mud; you don’t call the lotus muddy, you don’t call the lotus dirty. Love is born out of sex, and then prayerfulness is born out of love, and then godliness is born out of prayerfulness. Higher and higher and higher one goes on soaring.But the priests and the puritans have reduced the whole phenomenon into sexuality. And once love becomes sex it becomes ugly, one starts feeling guilty about it. And it is because of that guilt that this saying, this proverb exists: First sight of love, last sight of wisdom. If you ask me, I will change it a little bit. I will say: First sight of love, first sight of wisdom.But it depends how you look at it. If you look at the potential of it, at the highest possibility that it can reach, then love becomes a ladder. If you look only at the mud and you are utterly blind to the future of the mud, then certainly love becomes something ugly and great antagonism arises in you. But to be antagonistic to love is to be antagonistic to godliness.On returning from his honeymoon, Michael phoned his father at the office.“Good to hear from you, son. Tell me, how is married life?”“Dad, I am really upset. I think I married a nun.”“A nun?” asked the startled father. “What do you mean?”“Ah, you know, Dad, none in the morning and none at night.”“Oh, that!” groaned the older man. “Come for dinner Saturday and I will introduce you to the mother superior.”Once love is reduced to sexuality only, of course then the first sight of love is the last sight of wisdom. But it depends on you: why reduce it to sexuality? Why not change the baser metal into gold? Why not learn the alchemy of love? That’s what I am teaching here.And the priests, who don’t know anything about love – because they have never loved, they have renounced the world of love – go on making great systems of thought against it.The priest stood before a hushed crowd of attentive villagers and spoke to them, “You must not use-a the pill.”A lovely signorina stepped forward and said, “Look, you no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules!”These are the people who don’t play the game but they make the rules. For centuries the priests have been making rules. It is the priesthood all over the world that has condemned a great potential source, in fact the only source, of energy. Once it is condemned, you are condemned; your whole life will become meaningless. Once sex energy is not allowed to grow to its natural heights you are going to live a miserable life.Love is the greatest gift of existence. Learn the art of it. Learn the song of it, the celebration of it. It is an absolute need: just as the body cannot survive without food, the soul cannot survive without love. Love is the nourishment of the soul, it is the beginning of all that is great, it is the door of the divine.The third question:Osho,I know that God is love, but then why am I so afraid of him?You don’t know that God is love. You have heard me saying again and again that God is love; hence you have started repeating it. It is parrotlike. I know God is love, hence it is impossible to be afraid of God. How can you be afraid of love?Fear and love cannot exist together; their coexistence is impossible. In fact, the same energy that becomes fear becomes love. If it becomes fear, there is no more energy available to become love; if it becomes love, fear disappears. It is the same energy. The same energy in a chaotic state is called fear; and when it becomes a cosmos, when it is in deep accord, it is called love. You still don’t know that God is love.You say, “I know that God is love…” You have heard, but you don’t know. This is information as far as you are concerned; it is not yet knowing, it is not your own authentic experience. And remember always that unless something becomes your own authentic experience, it is not going to transform you; hence the problem.You say, “I know that God is love, but then why am I so afraid of him?” You are bound to be afraid of him because you don’t know that God is love. You have been told by the priests for centuries that God is constantly watching you, that God wants you to be this way and not that way, that these are the Ten Commandments of God, follow them. And if you don’t follow them, God has prepared for you a great hell. A father preparing hellfire for his own children? – impossible even to conceive.The priests have made God so ugly just to dominate people, because people can be dominated only through fear. Remember this: the whole trade secret of the priests, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Jaina, Buddhist – their philosophies differ but their trade secret is the same. That trade secret is: always keep people afraid, trembling. If people are afraid, they are ready to submit. If people are afraid, they are ready to be slaves. If people are afraid, they cannot gather courage to rebel. Fear keeps them impotent; fear is a psychological process of castration. For centuries it has been done: fear has been the greatest weapon in the hands of the priests and they have used it very liberally.The Goldbergs’ son, Jake, refused to take school seriously. He never did homework and was constantly playing hooky.The principal suggested they send him to a Yeshiva. The Goldbergs did, but after a few weeks he was expelled.The Goldbergs knew that Catholic parochial schools were very strict, so they decided to send Jake to one. They enrolled him in Christ the King School for Boys, and warned their son to behave and to do his lessons, because this was his last chance. If he was thrown out now he would be sent to a school for delinquents.After a week of parochial school, Jake came home with terrific grades. Miraculously he had been converted into a well-behaved, serious student.“How come you changed all of a sudden?” asked Goldberg.“Well,” he answered, “when I saw a man hanging on a cross in every room, I figured I had better not be a wise guy anymore.”Make people afraid, keep them always trembling! Let them know that God is dictatorial, a very angry God, jealous, absolutely unable to forgive if you disobey. Disobedience is the greatest sin in the eyes of the priests; hence Adam and Eve were expelled. They had not done much of a sin. What had they really done? Nothing much to talk about, but priests have been talking about it for centuries. And God was so angry that not only Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, paradise, with them the whole humanity!You are suffering because Adam and Eve disobeyed. You have not done anything wrong; you are suffering for their sin because you are descendants. The sin is so great, not only are those persons punished, but for thousands and thousands of years their descendants have to be punished too.And what was the sin really? Why is so much fuss made about it? It was so innocent, it was so natural, that I cannot conceive how Adam and Eve could have avoided it. If anybody is responsible for it, God himself is responsible. There were millions of trees in the Garden of Eden and there was only one tree which God did not want Adam and Eve to eat from – only one tree, the forbidden. And the reason it was forbidden also seems to be very ugly. The reason is, if you eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, you will become like God and God is very jealous. Look at the reason the tree was prohibited. The reason is that if you eat from the tree, from this tree, the tree of knowledge, you will become immortal, like gods. You will know as much as God knows – and that is intolerable! So God has protected that tree especially for himself – he must be eating from the tree of knowledge – and prohibited Adam and Eve.Now, this is exactly what every father does. He smokes and he prohibits his children: “Don’t smoke. It is bad. It is bad for you!” But because the father looks so beautiful smoking, the children become enchanted. They would also like to be like their father, and he looks so manly when he is puffing on his cigar, he looks so proud! He never looks so proud as when he is puffing on his cigar, resting in his chair, reading the newspaper. The children become attracted. When the father is not there they also sit on the same chair, spread the same newspaper, although they cannot read, and start puffing. And it gives them great joy because it gives them great ego.In fact, to prohibit is to invite. To say to children, “Don’t do it!” is to ask for trouble.I used to live with a family. There was a problem: the father was a smoker, a chain-smoker – a very well-known professor in a university. And he was afraid: he asked me what to do.I said, “Do one thing…” He had only one son growing up and he was afraid that sooner or later the son would start smoking. I said, “If you listen to me, the best way is to give the son cigarettes, offer him the cigarettes yourself and tell him to smoke as much as he wants.”He said, “What are you saying? Are you mad or are you joking?”I said, “Then leave it to me. I will manage it.”I offered the son a cigarette. He said, “But you don’t smoke.”I said, “That is another matter – don’t worry about me. But you learn! It is one of the most beautiful things in life!”He again asked, “But then why don’t you smoke?”I said, “You leave me out of it – I am not a very intelligent person. Look at your father! And if I am stupid, are you going to be stupid?”I had great difficulty in convincing him because the question he was again and again asking was, “You tell me to smoke, but why don’t you smoke?”I said, “Try, then you will know!”So he tried, and he knew, and he threw the cigarette away. And he said, “Now I know why you don’t smoke. Then why did you insist? Then why did you try to convince me? It is nauseating, sickening!” He coughed and tears came to his eyes – and that was that, and it was finished.And I told his father never to say to the child, “Don’t smoke.”Remember the ancient story of Adam and Eve. If I had been God I would have taken Adam and Eve to the tree of knowledge and would have forced them to eat to the point that they should have started vomiting, and that would have been the end of the whole story. But God told them not to eat from this tree. That was an invitation; no serpent was needed.The serpent was an invention of the priests so that God could be avoided; the responsibility could be thrown onto the poor serpent. The serpent was simply poor; the serpent had nothing to do with it, the serpent was absolutely innocent. Have you ever seen any serpent persuading any woman to do anything? And why should the serpent be interested? If he wanted to eat, nobody was prohibiting him. Why should he seduce Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge? What was he going to gain if Eve and Adam became knowledgeable? No, the serpent was an invention so that the responsibility could be thrown onto him.But if you go deep into the story it is simple: God is responsible. First you force an order on people, and just your forcing creates a resistance in them, creates a great urge to disobey. Then disobedience is sin; the greatest sin is disobedience. And then you have to create hell and all kinds of punishment, and you have to keep people afraid.The story was invented by the priests to make man afraid. The priests never wanted man to become intelligent, because intelligent people are dangerous – dangerous to the status quo, to the establishment, dangerous to the vested interests. The priests wanted the people to remain utterly ignorant, unintelligent. For centuries they did not allow people to read the scriptures. In many religions women are still not allowed to read the scriptures even in this century.Still a very deep conspiracy goes on. The conspiracy is that all the scriptures are in languages which are dead; nobody understands them, only the priests. Priests remained powerful for centuries because they were the only ones who knew the languages. The scriptures were in ancient Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Latin – ancient languages which are no longer spoken. There is even suspicion that there are a few languages which were never spoken. For example, Sanskrit seems to be one of the languages which has never been a spoken language. It has always been the language of the scholars, not of the people; of the pundits, not of the masses.In India there were two languages: one was called Prakrit; Prakrit means “the natural,” that which is spoken by the people. And Sanskrit literally means “the refined,” “the aristocratic,” which is spoken only by the scholars and academicians in the universities. All the great scriptures were written in Sanskrit.It was left to Mahavira and Buddha to speak for the first time in the language of the people – and the brahmins of India have never been able to forgive those two persons for that sin. To speak in the language of the people means the power of the priests is gone. If people become knowers, if they know what is written in the scriptures, they will not be so easily befooled. In fact, you can worship the Vedas only if you don’t understand them. If you understand them, ninety-nine percent is just rubbish. One percent is pure gold, certainly, but ninety-nine percent is pure rubbish. But if you don’t understand them, all is gold. In darkness, anything can be given to you with the words, “It is gold – worship it!” And for centuries the Vedas have been worshipped.Priests wanted you to worship the scriptures, not to understand them because if you understand the scriptures, sooner or later, one thing is going to become clear to you: that the scripture is not the real source. Sooner or later, you are bound to stumble upon the truth: “Krishna is speaking from a meditative state, Christ is speaking from a meditative state. What he is saying is secondary, from where he is speaking is primary. Unless I reach to that state of consciousness I will not be able to understand the words, because those words in themselves are empty; the meaning can only come through experience.” Scriptures were prohibited; it was a sin… Only the brahmins, the priests, the highest caste, were allowed to read them – all over the world.The conspiracy still continues. Still prayers are done in dead languages, you don’t know what you are saying. How can you feel anything when you don’t know what you are saying? How can it come out of your feeling and out of your heart? Your prayer becomes just like a gramophone record: “His Master’s Voice” – a repetition. And you hope that by repeating dead rituals you will arrive somewhere. You will simply waste your life.And then great fear arises: “I don’t know from where I come, who I am, where I am going. All around is darkness and darkness, infinite darkness, and not a single light in life.” Then you have to go to the priest and bow down to him. You have to ask for guidance.This is the trade secret: keep people afraid. And you can keep people afraid only if you keep them ignorant. Let them remain trembling, then they will always be ready to touch your feet, ready to obey you because you represent God, and disobeying you is dangerous, very dangerous. They will be thrown into hell for eternity.Greenberg, shabbily dressed and carrying two paper bags, was stopped by a customs inspector.“What have you got in those bags?” the official asked.“I got twenty-five thousand dollars here, which I am bringing to Israel to donate.”“C’mon,” sneered the official, “you don’t look like you got the price of a meal; how could you be donating twenty-five thousand dollars to the state of Israel?”“Well, you see, I had a job in a men’s room, and when the men came in I said to them, ‘Give to help Israel or I will cut off your balls.’”“All right, so you got twenty-five thousand dollars in one bag, but what is in the other bag?”“Some men did not want to donate.”That’s what priests have been doing: destroying your guts, destroying your courage, destroying your self-respect, destroying your self-trust.You say, “I know that God is love, but then why am I so afraid of him?” You are still surrounded by the nonsense that priests have stuffed your head with; you are full of that rubbish. It takes time to get rid of it, it really takes a long time, because it has been going on for centuries. It has been such a long, long ugly history that it is a rare phenomenon to find a person who can escape out of it.My whole effort here is to help you to escape out of it. I am against the whole business of priesthood. I want you to stand face-to-face with God without any priests, without any priesthood. God is yours, you are God’s; there is no need of any mediator. The function of the master is not to become a mediator between you and God. Just the contrary: the function of the master is to withdraw all that comes in between you and God. He himself at the last point withdraws; between you and your God he stands no more. He stands only to a certain extent, while other things are being removed. When everything else is removed, he removes himself; that is the last thing the master does.And the moment the master removes himself, he no longer stands between you and God, that is the moment you know that the whole existence is love. It is the stuff called love that the universe is made of.Jesus says: “God is love.” I say to you love is God. When Jesus says: “God is love,” it is possible God may be many more things too; love is only one attribute. When I say love is God, I say love is the only quality. There is nothing else in God except love; in fact it is another name of love. You can drop the name “God,” nothing will be lost. Let love be your God.But you will have to get rid of the priests. You will have to get rid of your so-called religions, churches, temples, rituals, scriptures. There is much garbage which has to be got rid of. It is a great work, because you have been told that this is very precious. The garbage has been imposed upon you as if it is gold and, because it has been told to you so many times, you have become conditioned.People become conditioned to seeing certain things. When there is a certain conditioning, you look at things through that conditioning and it appears like that.Two men were sitting under a tree; one was a Hindu, another was a Mohammedan. Birds were singing, it was a beautiful spring morning. They both listened for a time, then the Hindu said, “Can you hear? All the birds are resounding the sound om. I can hear it. I have been practicing om for thirty years, and now I have become capable of deciphering it very easily. All the birds are resounding with the same sound: the soundless sound, the ancient sound of the Hindus, omkar.”The Mohammedan laughed and he said, “Nonsense! I have also been practicing my prayers. The birds are not saying om, they are saying amin.”Mohammedan prayers, Christian prayers, end with amin; Christians call it amen, Mohammedans call it amin. Hindu prayers end with om. There is certainly a truth somewhere, partially expressed by all the three. When the mind becomes absolutely silent a certain sound is heard. If you are a Hindu you will interpret it as om, if you are a Mohammedan as amin, if you are a Christian as amen, but nobody can say for certain what it is. In fact it can be interpreted in so many ways; it is your interpretation that is imposed on it.If you ask a real mystic, one who is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian, he will say, “Sit silently by my side and listen. There is no need to interpret it at all, because whatsoever we say about it will be our imposition, it will be our idea imposed on the sound. Just listen, sit silently – I am listening to it, you listen also. I know it, you will know it. There is no need to say anything about it.”It is said, once it happened…A great mystic, Farid, met Kabir, another great mystic. For two days they sat silently together. Yes, sometimes they laughed, giggled for no reason at all, and sometimes they hugged each other and kissed, but not a single word was spoken. Almost a thousand people had gathered – the disciples of both – with great expectations that something will be communicated, and nobody wanted to miss such a great opportunity. Kabir saying something to Farid is bound to be something rare, or Farid saying something to Kabir is bound to be something which is only heard once in a century.But two days passed, and the disciples became fed up and bored. And the more they were bored, the more the mystics were giggling and laughing and hugging and kissing. And then the time of departure came; Farid had to leave. Kabir went out of the town to give him a farewell, just to say good-bye. They again hugged, they again giggled, and then they departed.The disciples of Farid followed Farid and the disciples of Kabir followed Kabir back home. When they were alone the disciples of Farid asked, “What went wrong? You are continuously talking to us – what happened? Why did you become dumb? For two days why didn’t you speak, and what was all that giggling?”Farid said, “There was no need to say anything, because I hear the same thing that he hears, I see the same thing that he sees, so what is the point of saying anything to him? It would have been absolutely foolish on my part. When I can see he hears the same, sees the same, is the same, we are encountering the same reality, what is the point of saying it?”Then they asked, “Then why did you giggle?”And he said, “We giggled because of you, because you were getting so bored! We were laughing at you. You had come to hear us talk; you were foolish, you missed a great opportunity. Two masters were there, utterly silent; two pools of silent energy, two doors open simultaneously to existence – and you missed. And you wanted some words, some noise. You could have sat in silence, you could have become part of our silence. You could have fallen en rapport with us. You didn’t do that – you were bored, you were fed up, you were yawning. And just seeing you we giggled, we laughed at what kind of fools we have gathered!”Nothing can be said; when you know, there is no way to express it. But if you want to express, then the word that comes closest to God is love. Even that is just approximate, but very close. And the word God has become associated with the wrong people, with the wrong notions. In fact, many people feel offended the moment you utter the word God. I have no attachment to that word; you can drop it.But remember love; I cannot tell you to drop that, because without love you will never reach God. Without God you can love, and God is bound to come in whether you know or not, whether you believe in God or not. Belief is not a requirement: love is an absolute necessity, a must. You have heard me say God is love. Experience it, and then all fear will disappear. And start dropping the priests and the centuries of wrong conditioning. They have made you afraid.In fact, priests are the enemies of God, because the more people are afraid of God, the less is the possibility of their ever knowing God – because fear is a wall, not a bridge. Love is a bridge, not a wall. Of course, fear helps the priests to live and exploit you, but it deprives you of God. Priests are in the service of the Devil. If there is somebody like the Devil, then priests are in his service; they are not in the service of God.That’s why there are so many religions, yet the earth remains irreligious, utterly irreligious; so many temples and so many churches and mosques, and yet you don’t see the fragrance of religion. You don’t see people’s faces full of grace, their eyes full of silence, their feet dancing, their lives showing that godliness is. They may say that they believe in God, but their life says something else, totally different. Their life shows absolute irreligiousness; dishonesty, inauthenticity, insincerity, hate, anger, greed – nothing of prayer, nothing of love, nothing of compassion, nothing of meditativeness.Meditate, love and forget the priests, drive them out of your being. You are suffering from hang-ups.The fourth question:Osho,What is the definition of a pessimist?A pessimist is an optimist who has become frustrated with his optimism. He hoped too much and failed, he dreamed too much and could not achieve anything substantial.The pessimist is an optimist standing on his head; they are not different fellows – that’s what I want to make clear to you. Unless you have been an optimist you can never be a pessimist. First you have to become an optimist.Each child is brought up with great optimism. All parents think that they have great children. Ask any mother: she thinks she has the most unique child; the most superior, rare, incomparable. Each mother brags about her child. Parents bring up children with great optimism that they are going to be Alexander the Greats or Jesus Christs or Gautam Buddhas.But slowly, slowly life proves just the contrary. Slowly, slowly, the child becomes aware of his ordinariness. He becomes aware that these great dreams, that these great ambitions, cannot be fulfilled. And by the time one is coming closer to forty, forty-two, pessimism starts settling: gloom, darkness…Now medical science is aware that most heart attacks happen nearabout forty to forty-four, between those four years. Most people go mad between those four years, forty to forty-four. Psychologists, psychoanalysts, are aware that that is the most dangerous time. If you can remain sane beyond forty-four, that means you will remain sane. But many people fall flat.And don’t think that if you are sane even beyond forty-four… That does not mean that you are very intelligent. It may only be that you are very dull and it takes a long time for you to understand. It may only be that you are very insensitive. It may only be that you are foolhardy, that you don’t listen to life, what life is saying, that you go on hoping.But sooner or later, a person starts feeling that life has gone down the drain. Optimism turns sour and becomes pessimism. Optimism, that hopefulness, turns upside-down; a hopelessness settles in. Then everything looks dark and dismal. First you used to count the roses, now you start counting the thorns. First you used to say, “How beautiful this roseflower and what a miracle! It grows among thousands of thorns.” You were poetic, you had some aesthetic sense; you still believed that life was going to be a fulfillment.But soon the day comes when the roses start fading away and you start counting the thorns, and you cannot believe in the roses anymore. You start saying, “It is impossible! The rose must be a dream, the rose must be maya, illusion, hallucination. How is it possible among thousands of thorns, how is a rose possible?” It looks contradictory, it looks illogical, it cannot happen in the nature of things. You start counting nights; before, you used to count days.The optimist says, “There are two days, and between two days just a small night to rest.” And the pessimist counts the nights; he says, “There are two long nights – nightmares, ugly dreams, tortures – and just a small day sandwiched between the two.” Life is the same: you can count the days or you can count the nights. If you count the days you are an optimist, if you count the nights you are a pessimist, but there is really no difference.The optimist can become a pessimist, the pessimist can become an optimist. They are not contraries; they are two points on the same spectrum.One has to go beyond both. A sannyasin has to go beyond both: neither hope nor hopelessness. No need to count days, no need to count nights. Be a watcher! No need to count thorns, no need to count roses. Be a watcher.I don’t teach you optimism. In the West it is very fashionable nowadays; it is called “positive thinking.” That is a new name for optimism; the old name has become a little too out of fashion, out-of-date. The new name is positive thinking. I don’t teach you positive thinking, because positive thinking carries the negative in its wake.I teach you transcendence, neither positive nor negative. Be a watcher: witness both. When there is day, witness the day, and when there is night, witness the night – and don’t get identified with either. You are neither the day nor the night; you are the transcendental consciousness. Become more and more centered there in that transcendence.True religion is not positive, nor is it negative. It is neither via negativa nor via positiva; it is via transcendence.One September morning after Labor Day, Levin and Ostrow met for lunch. They had not seen each other for several months.“I have just lived through a summer I never thought I would see,” said Levin. “June was a disaster – never have I seen a June like that. When July came, I realized that June was terrific, because with July I went right into the cellar. July was so bad…”“For heaven’s sake!” interrupted Ostrow. “Why are you coming to me with these piddling matters? You wanna hear real trouble? I got it. Yesterday my only son came home, told me he is gonna marry another fella. My boy is a homosexual! What could be worse than that?”“I will tell you,” said Levin, “August!”Just wait! There are people who are continuously looking for the negative; and if you look for the negative you will find it, because the negative is there in the same proportion as the positive. If you look for the positive, you will find the positive. But by finding the positive you cannot destroy the negative; the negative is there, side by side. They are always together like negative and positive poles of electricity. You can’t have electricity with one pole, you will need both.Life needs both: thorns and roses, days and nights, happiness–unhappiness, birth–death.Be a witness to it all and you will know something that is beyond birth, beyond death; something that is beyond darkness and beyond light; something that is beyond happiness, beyond unhappiness. Buddha has called it peace, nirvana.The last question:Osho,I cannot trust anybody. Why?I will just tell you a story. Meditate over it.The hired boy gets the youngest girl in the farmer’s family to go out into the hayloft with him. She comes back and tells her sister, “Say, the hired boy sure knows some good tricks!”The sister goes out to the hayloft too, and comes back saying the same, followed by the mother, and finally the farmer himself who has heard his wife’s remark that, “The hired boy certainly knows some tricks.”When the boy sees the farmer coming, he thinks fast and begins doing cartwheels and acrobatic tricks all over the walls of the barn. The farmer watches him and then goes back and tells his assembled wife and daughters, “Guess you are right. That boy sure knows some fancy tricks.”“God almighty!” cry the wife and daughters. “Did he fuck you too?”Meditate over it. If you can’t trust anybody that means you must be deceiving others. It is not a question of others, it is a question of you. You must be deceiving, and if you are deceiving, how can you trust? You can trust only if you allow others to trust you.It is better to be deceived than to deceive, because if you deceive, you lose the greatest treasure of your life: you lose the capacity to trust. And let me repeat: the capacity to trust is the greatest treasure of life, because without it neither love is possible, nor prayerfulness is possible, nor godliness is possible.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Be quick to do good.If you are slow,the mind, delighting in mischief,will catch you.Turn away from mischief.Again and again, turn away,before sorrow befalls you.Set your heart on doing good.Do it over and over again,and you will be filled with joy.A fool is happyuntil his mischief turns against him.And a good man may sufferuntil his goodness flowers.Do not make light of your failings,saying, “What are they to me?”A jug fills drop by drop.So the fool becomes brimful of folly.Do not belittle your virtues,saying, “They are nothing.”A jug fills drop by drop.So the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.Once I was staying in Varanasi. A professor of the Hindu university came to see me. He asked me, “Do you believe in hell?”I said, “I don’t need to believe in hell, because hell is. Belief is needed when you don’t see something as existent. Hell is so existential, hell is so much, so much present, there is no need to believe in it.”He said, “Where is it?”I told him, “You live in it! You are born in it, you breathe in it, you will die in it – if you don’t make great effort to get out of it.”Man is oblivious of the hell because he is born in it. It is all over the place; he is surrounded by it. Like a fish in the ocean, man lives in hell. The fish also never becomes aware of the ocean unless she is thrown out of the ocean by some accident or is caught by someone. Once separated from the ocean, for the first time the fish comes to know that she has been in the ocean all along.Unless you know something of paradise you will never become aware that you have been living in hell – not only living in hell but creating it, helping it to be there, feeding it, strengthening it. You are its creator and you live in the world you create, and you can’t live in any other world. The only place to live is the place that you create around yourself. And that which you create around yourself first has to exist at the center of your being; only then can it become the circumference.The hell exists first at the center of your being, then it spreads, becomes the circumference. First it exists in you, as you, then it becomes your relationship, your world.Hell is not something geographical; it is something psychological. Hell is another name of a diseased mind, of a mind in anguish, turmoil, of a mind suffering nightmares, of a mind living basically in unconsciousness. The unconscious mind is what hell is all about, and the conscious mind is going beyond the hell.Don’t believe in the old children’s stories that hell is somewhere else; that too is a strategy of the mind to postpone. The mind always tries to postpone; it uses all methods, ways, and means to postpone things. It says, “Yes, hell is deep down below the earth, far, far away. You need not worry, it happens only after death. Right now, there is no question about it, no need to waste time about it. At the time of death, you can decide where to go. If you remember God you will go to heaven, if you don’t remember God you will go to hell.”And then you are living as if hell is somewhere else. It is herenow. All is herenow, both hell and heaven.A buddha lives in heaven. He walks along with you, he sits amidst you. He lives on this earth, in this very body, but for him it is a totally different experience. This very body the buddha, this very earth the lotus paradise – that is his experience. That is the experience of all the buddhas, of all the awakened ones.But for you it is just a dream, a fiction, a mythology. For you: this very body the hell, this very earth the fire of hell. You can’t see the lotus paradise – you don’t have the eyes to see it. Those eyes have to be created; those eyes are not given by birth. Only the potential is there; you have to grow them, you have to endeavor to achieve them, you have to become them. The seed is there but you have to find the right soil. And the basic strategy of the mind is to keep you deluded, to tell you that hell and heaven are all beyond, somewhere else.The function of the master is to bring you here and now again and again. The mind tries to slip away. There are two possibilities for the mind to get away from the herenow: either to move into the past, into memories – the golden past and those golden days of Rama and Krishna, those beautiful days – or to move into the future, into some utopia, when there will be a classless society on the earth or there will be a paradise somewhere far away beyond the clouds. But it keeps you away from the present moment. And the present moment is the only reality there is; there is no other moment. It is always present.The past is no more, the future not yet. Whatsoever is, is the present. And mind takes you away from it in a thousand and one ways. It is always going on trips. The mind can only exist either in the past or in the future; the mind cannot exist in the present. Let this sink deep in your heart: the mind cannot exist in the present. If you are utterly herenow, the mind disappears and with the disappearance of the mind, there is no hell.The disappearance of the mind is what paradise is: to live in the present, without the mind. It does not mean to live in the present absentmindedly. When I say “without the mind” I don’t mean absentmindedly – just the contrary! To live consciously is to live without mind, to live without thoughts, but with great alertness. And you can live with great alertness only when thoughts have been dropped, because the energy involved in the thoughts is released, is available. You become overflowing with energy. Then you have a tremendous vitality, intensity, passion. Your life is not lukewarm; your life is such a flame that just to be for a single moment is enough. A single moment of that conscious intensity is longer than eternity itself.These sutras of Buddha are simple but immensely helpful for the seeker.Be quick to do good.Mind will tell you continuously, “Postpone it. There is always tomorrow. Why be in such a hurry? You can do it tomorrow.” And tomorrow never comes. The person who postpones any good act for tomorrow is postponing it forever; he will never be able to do it. If you postpone it today, you are learning a habit of postponing. Today you say, “Tomorrow.” You are creating a pattern of life, a style of life. Tomorrow will come as today again and the habit will say, “We will do it tomorrow.”I have heard an ancient parable:A man worshipped God for many, many years, and one day God appeared to him.He asked only for one thing. He said, “Give me something – that’s why I have been worshipping you – something which can fulfill all my wishes. Whatsoever I ask should be fulfilled, immediately.”God gave him a seashell, a beautiful seashell, and he said, “Ask anything from this seashell and immediately, instantly, it will be fulfilled.”He tried – it was so. He was immensely happy. He asked for a big palace and it was there. He asked for beautiful women and they were there, and he asked for good food and it was there. Since that day he lived in absolute luxury.But one day everything got disturbed. A sannyasin, a wandering monk, stayed with the man. The wandering monk said to him, “I have heard about your secret, but that is nothing. I have also worshipped God, far longer than you, and you are a householder, I am a monk – of course he was more gracious to me. He has also given me a big seashell. Look at this seashell. This is double the size of your seashell.”It was. And the monk said, “Whatsoever you ask, the seashell gives you double. If you ask for one palace it makes two palaces for you. It always gives you double.”Man’s greed is such that the man became greedy. Now, one seashell was enough; he could have asked twice or thrice, there was no problem. But a greedy man is blind – greed is blind. He became infatuated.He told the monk, “You are a monk, you have renounced the world, give your seashell to me and you can have my small seashell. For your purposes that is enough. I am a householder.”So the seashells were exchanged. Early in the morning, after taking the bath, the man worshipped and asked the seashell to give him one lakh rupees. The seashell said, “Why one lakh? I can give you two lakhs!”The man was immensely happy. He said, “Good, give me two lakhs.”The seashell said, “Why two lakhs? I can give you four lakhs.”Now the man was a little puzzled, disturbed. He said, “Okay, give me four lakhs.”The seashell said, “I will give you eight lakhs.”And so on, so forth it went on – but nothing was given! Promises and promises… And whatsoever he asked, the promise was doubled. He rushed to catch hold of the monk because in the morning, early morning, he was to leave. He had already left.This is a beautiful parable. That’s how mind functions: the seashell of the monk – tricky. It always goes on giving you great promises, but tomorrow, not today. And tomorrow never comes. And, slowly, slowly, hoping becomes your very life, just hoping and waiting. And death comes, and no hope is ever fulfilled.Mind is very afraid of doing good. Why is mind afraid of doing good? – for two reasons. One: to do good is non-nourishing to the mind; mind is nourished by doing evil, by doing bad. For example, if you say no, mind is strengthened; if you say yes, mind is not strengthened. Hence mind is never interested in saying yes to anything. Mind is basically atheistic. It enjoys saying no; no is its power. Negativity is its food; it eats negativity. Positivity is its death.Try to say no and you start feeling powerful. Whenever you say no, whenever you can manage to say no, you feel powerful. Whenever you have to say yes you feel humiliated, as if something has been done against yourself. To say a total yes is to destroy the mind totally, and to remain in a total no is to remain in the mind, in the ego.The ego is another name of the mind. The ego is the center of the mind; non-ego is the center of your being. At the very core of being there is no idea of “I,” but in the center of the mind, I, I, I… The only noise that goes on is that of the ego. The more you say no, the more you can feel your ego. “No” defines your ego.Watch, and you will see the facticity of what I am saying. I am not propounding any theory; it is a simple statement of a fact of life. Observe – it is not a question of believing or not believing – observe and you will know. Say yes, feel yes, and suddenly there is no ego.The greatest good is saying yes to existence and life. That’s what religion is. And the greatest no is saying no to God, to life, to existence; that gives you great power, but power to the ego.In fact, the ego is so cunning, the mind is so clever, that even religious people are deceived by it. Religious people go on saying no to life. They try to say yes to God, but the mind persuades them, “How can you say yes to God unless and until you have said no to life? Say no to life!”That’s how the idea of renunciation arose: “Say no to your wife, your husband, your children. Say no to your family, say no to your society, say no to the world. Turn your back toward the world and escape into the Himalayas. Only then can you say yes to God.”The cunning mind goes on deceiving even the so-called religious. Even the so-called saints and mahatmas are nothing but playthings in the hands of the ego. Ego is very subtle, very cunning; clever are its ways. Unless you are very intelligent you will not be able to get out of its clutches. You will get out from one point and it will catch hold of you from another point. You will throw it away from the front door, it will come from the back door.The so-called saint feels greatly satisfied as far as the ego is concerned: he is a saint, he is holy. “Holier-than-thou” is written all over his face. You will not find greater egoists anywhere than you will find in the monasteries. The popes and the shankaracharyas, the priests, those who have renounced everything, naturally they feel great, egoistic. They have renounced the world – what have you done? They have renounced money, power, prestige. But all this renunciation is nothing but a very clever game of the mind.The truly religious person is one who says yes to life because life is God’s, who says yes to the earth because the earth is part of heaven, who says yes to the body because the body is only a shelter for the soul. And a beautiful shelter it is, a beautiful home it is, a beautiful servant it is. The really religious person knows how to say yes to all. His yes brings transcendence, his yes brings egolessness, his yes brings a state of no-mind.Look at it from another angle: if you say no, mind has immediately much to do. If you say no, you will have to find arguments to support your no. No means arguments, no means logic. The more you say no, the more you have to be argumentative. If you say yes, there is no need for any argument. Yes is a full point; no is only a beginning of a logical process. The person who says no becomes more and more argumentative. The person who knows how to say yes to life, love, existence, becomes less and less argumentative.And to be less and less argumentative is to be more harmonious; to be more and more argumentative is to be more and more quarrelsome, violent. Argument simply means your mind is in a discord; no argument means the mind has attained a deep harmony. And out of that deep harmony is good; out of inner discord is evil. You do bad because you are divided. Whenever you are undivided, good starts happening through you. Not that you have to do it – it starts happening.Buddha says: Be quick to do good. Why “be quick” – do it immediately? Mind will say, “Tomorrow. Wait. Let us think about it.” And thinking never comes to any conclusion, remember; thinking has never come to any conclusion. Ten thousand years of philosophizing and there is not a single conclusion in philosophy. They have not arrived at any truth; they are still continuing. The same arguments go on being repeated in different forms and different ways, and philosophy goes on moving in a vicious circle. The philosopher remains inconclusive, and to remain inconclusive your whole life means not to live at all.Life is possible only out of decisiveness, out of commitment, involvement; otherwise you are always a spectator, you never participate in anything. How can you participate unless logically you prove to yourself, to your heart’s content, that this is so?It is said about Immanuel Kant, a great philosopher, that a woman had told him she would be immensely happy if he would accept her as his wife. She had to gather much courage to say this, because Immanuel Kant was not a romantic person at all, very unromantic, absolutely unromantic. His life was not a life of spontaneity; he is an example of a mechanical life. His whole life he followed a certain routine religiously.At ten o’clock in the night he would go to bed; that meant exactly ten, not one minute before, not one minute after. His servant… He had only one servant. Who else would agree to live with such a person? – only a servant. His family deserted him; he was so mechanical, such a drain, such a drag on the whole family. The servant used to simply tell him the time – not, “Now go to sleep”; he would simply come and declare, “It is ten o’clock,” and that was it. He would immediately jump into bed. Even if there were visitors, he would not even say good-bye to them. He would get into bed, under his blanket, and the servant would declare to the visitors, “Now please go. He has gone to sleep.”At exactly five o’clock he had to be dragged out of bed. Sometimes it was too cold and he was too tired, but the routine had to be followed – even if he was ill, the routine had to be followed. The servant was told that maybe sometimes he would feel weak, tempted to sleep a little longer, but he was not to listen. He had to be dragged out, even against his will. Even if he was saying, “No, I want to sleep,” the servant had to pull him out. It sometimes used to be a fight, a quarrel. The servant had to beat him to bring him out of bed – that was his duty.The woman must have been rare! But you can always find crazy people everywhere. She must have been crazy to fall in love with this man. This man was not a man but a machine. And do you know what Immanuel Kant did? He listened to her and he said, “I will think it over.” And he thought for three years! – all the pros and all the cons. He wrote a long, long treatise on the advantages and disadvantages of being married. And finally he arrived at a very poor conclusion, almost not a conclusion at all. There was one point more in favor, and that was the point that by being married you will know what marriage is – good or bad – that you will know. That much is more in favor.So he went, knocked on the woman’s door. The father opened the door and asked, “Why have you come?”He said, “I have decided, because one point more is in favor. There are three hundred points in all: three hundred against, three hundred and one for, so I have decided to marry.”The father laughed. He said, “It is too late. She is already married – and not only married, she has a child too! You came a little late.”But that’s how philosophers function. I even wonder that he could reach a conclusion within three years. It is a miracle: philosophers never come to any conclusion. It must have been a very non-philosophic moment in which he arrived at the conclusion.Ten thousand years of history is enough proof: philosophy remains inconclusive. Philosophy knows only how to question – no answers. Each answer in its turn becomes ten more questions.The mind is very happy to argue, to think. The mind is very unhappy to conclude, because once you conclude, mind is not needed. Conclusion means the death of the mind. If you have concluded about the ultimate truth, the mind has to commit suicide.The mind is very much afraid of saying yes and the mind is very much afraid of doing good, because good can be done only in a state of egolessness. Good is a by-product of a state of no-mind. Try to understand it – and when I say try to understand it I am not saying try to think it over. I am simply saying listen from the heart, with a loving heart.These sutras can be understood only by the heart. They have come out of the greatest heart that has lived on the earth, and they can be understood only by the heart.Be quick to do good. The mind is always quick in doing bad. If you want to be angry the mind never says, “Tomorrow,” it says, “Do it right now.” If you want to donate, if you want to give something to a poor man, the mind says, “Wait! First inquire whether he is really poor or he has a bank balance. And first look… He looks so healthy, why give to him?”Mind is miserly in sharing anything; sharing is very difficult for the mind. It hoards, it collects; it becomes, slowly, slowly, a junkyard. It can’t leave anything – useful, useless, it goes on collecting. Who knows, whatsoever is useless today may become useful tomorrow.To do good means to share, to love, to serve, to be compassionate. And these are things which the miserly mind cannot do. But it will not say, “I don’t want to do it,” because that will not be very diplomatic. The diplomatic way is “tomorrow” – postpone. Mind is a bureaucrat, and not an ordinary bureaucrat but a Russian bureaucrat.I have heard…At a disarmament conference in Geneva, an American delegate, stretching his legs under the table, accidentally bumped the knee of a Russian lady interpreter sitting directly across from him. He smiled an apology.The lady neither spoke nor smiled. She turned to the communist diplomat next to her and asked him something. The diplomat turned to his superior and whispered something to him. The chief then got up, left the table and went to the phone center. The meeting was recessed.Two and a half hours later it was resumed. The ranking diplomat returned to the table, spoke to his assistant, who whispered something to the lady interpreter, who looked across at the American delegate and said, “Your place or mine?”This is direct from the Kremlin! This is how bureaucracy works, and this is how mind functions. It says, “Wait, let me think it over.” And then it goes on and on to no end, and meanwhile it keeps promising you, “Wait! Tomorrow you can do it.”But see: the same mind when it is a question of doing something wrong never tells you to postpone. It says, “Do it right now. Who knows about tomorrow? This man has insulted you – hit him back, hit him hard! If a brick is thrown at you, answer with a rock!”Gurdjieff remembers that when he was nine years old his grandfather was dying and his grandfather called him. He loved the boy very much and he told the boy, “I don’t have much to give to you, but departing from the world I would like to give you something. I can only give you one piece of advice that has helped me; it was given to me by my father, and he was also dying when he gave it to me. I am dying. You are too young, you may not be able to understand it right now, but remember, a day will come when you will understand. Whenever you find yourself capable of following my advice, follow it, and you will never be in misery. You can avoid the hell of life.”And what was the advice? Just this sutra – not exactly in these words. He said to Gurdjieff, “Remember one thing: if you want to do any bad thing, postpone it for tomorrow; and if you want to do something good, do it immediately – because postponement is a way of not doing. And bad has not to be done, and good has to be done. For example,” the old man said, “if somebody insults you and you feel angry, enraged, tell him that you will come after twenty-four hours and answer him.”Gurdjieff remembers, “That advice transformed my whole life. Although I was very young, only nine years old, I tried it just out of curiosity. Some boy would insult me or would hurt me or would say something nasty, and I would remember my old dying grandfather and I would tell the boy, ‘I will have to wait; I have promised an old man. After twenty-four hours I will answer you.’”“And it always happened,” Gurdjieff remembers, “that either I would come to conclude that he was right, that whatsoever he had said looked nasty but it was true about me. He was saying, ‘You are a thief,’ and that is true, I am a thief. He was saying, ‘You are insincere,’ and that is true: I am insincere.” So he would go and thank the boy: “You pointed out something true about me. You brought up a true facet of my being which was not clear to me. You made me more conscious about myself. I am immensely grateful.”Or, after twenty-four hours’ thinking, he would come to conclude “That man or that boy is absolutely wrong. It has nothing to do with me.” Then there was no point in answering; he would not go back to the boy. If something is utterly wrong, why become enraged? This is a big world, there are millions of people; you cannot go answering everybody, otherwise your whole life will be wasted. And there is no need either.This is half of the story. If you can postpone the bad for tomorrow you will be able to do the good immediately. And you will never repent – because if you do bad immediately, you will repent tomorrow; if you do good today you will never repent, there is no question of repentance. This is a simple secret of transforming the hell that you live in into a lotus paradise.Be quick to do good.If you are slow,the mind, delighting in mischief,will catch you.Don’t be slow, be quick because mind is very quick; it moves faster than anything else. It moves faster than light! Physicists say nothing moves faster than light and of course, it seems impossible to move faster than light. Light moves one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in one second – in one second! But physicists have no idea of the mind yet. They don’t yet have such sophisticated instruments to measure the speed of the mind.Mind moves faster than light. You have to be very alert, otherwise mind is bound to ditch you somewhere. Before you become alert, mind will have already taken you somewhere far away. Mind is always ready to go on a trip, because it is only in trips that it feels alive.Meditation simply means sitting silently, doing nothing, not even thinking, and the mind disappears. Because you are not on any trip, the mind is no longer needed. Mind is a guide for great journeys. If you are going somewhere, mind is very happy; in your going somewhere the mind can feel enhanced. But if you are not going anywhere, just sitting silently, doing nothing, the mind feels very sad.And it will happen almost always to meditators that when the mind feels sad, it starts creating boredom for you; that is a strategy of the mind. The mind is saying, “Come on! Let us go somewhere, let us do something. Why are you sitting? Just sitting doing nothing brings boredom!”It is a trick of the mind. Otherwise, just sitting doing nothing will bring you more freshness. That’s the experience of all the awakened ones – but not yours. This is my experience. In my room, what am I doing? Sitting silently, doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Nothing has to be done really – the grass grows by itself. Life goes on by itself, life flows on by itself. You need not push the river.But in the beginning mind will create boredom; boredom is the mind’s trick. The mind is saying, “Look, if you don’t follow me you will feel bored. If you don’t follow me you will feel utterly meaningless. If you don’t follow me you won’t have anything to enjoy. Come, come with me and I will take you to great entertainment.”Mind is always bribing you with entertainment: put on the radio, put on the TV, go to the movie or at least to the club, gossip – do something. Boredom is a punishment from the mind to you if you are not doing anything. And the greatest problem for the meditator is boredom.But if you can sit absolutely unconcerned about boredom – let the boredom be there – if you don’t get disturbed by the boredom, within three to nine months’ time the boredom will disappear. And instead of boredom there will come such a bubbling joy, such freshness, that you have never known before. And it is not entertainment because there is nothing: you are simply sitting in an absolute void. And out of that void, the plenitude, out of that void, a new kind of fulfillment…Be quick and do good. If you are slow, the mind, delighting in mischief, will catch you. The mind delights in mischief. Why? – because that is the only way it can live. They say that you cannot write a story about a really good man because there will be nothing to write. A story can be written only about a bad man. It is not accidental that Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, are not even mentioned in your history books. No ancient history mentions them. Why? There is nothing to mention! They never killed anybody, they never did any nuisance; they were as if they were not. They were so good as if they never existed!One of the names of Buddha is “Tathagata.” Tathagata means: coming like a breeze, going like a breeze – thus came, thus gone – without disturbing anything, not even a dead leaf. A silent breeze slowly coming with no footsteps and then disappearing. Neither does the coming create any noise nor the going. It is as if you have drawn a line in water; you have not even made it and it has disappeared. It is like birds flying in the sky: they don’t leave any footprints.But history is full of Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah, Alexander, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong. If you do more mischief there is more possibility of your name remaining in history. If you really want to be part of history, if you want to create history, do mischief. Politicians will remain in history because they are the greatest mischief-mongers.Mind is constantly in search of mischief; any opportunity and it cannot miss it. Even if there is no opportunity it will try to create an opportunity.A doorbell rings at a whorehouse. The madam opens the door and sees a man there with no arms or legs.“What are you doing at a place like this?” asks the madam.The cripple looks at her and says, “I rang the doorbell, didn’t I?”No hands, no legs, but still he is ready to go to the whorehouse!Berquist hid in the closet when Frank, the husband of his girlfriend, returned unexpectedly. While hanging up his coat, Frank spotted the Swede’s balls between other garments.“What the hell are those?” he asked his wife.“Oh…eh…Christmas bells,” she replied.“Let us hear their peal,” said the husband. He gave them a terrific whack with his fist.A voice gasped, “Yingle, yangle! You sonofabitch!”Just look at people’s lives. Watch yourself, watch others. Become a watcher, and you will be surprised: everybody is in search of some opportunity. And opportunities are there. People are waiting only for opportunities. If they are not doing some evil, that does not mean that they are good people; it may only be that the opportunity is missing. That is my own observation.When a politician is not in power he is a very good man, a public servant, humble; always ready to bow down and touch your feet; open hospitals and schools. And once he is in power, he is not even ready to recognize you and all that public service disappears. Once he is in power, he has opportunity; now he will do things that he always wanted to do but could not.This has happened in this country in such a crystal-clear way as it has not happened anywhere else. Before independence, all these politicians who have become a nuisance to the country were great public servants, great servants of the country, freedom-fighters. They sacrificed much, they lived simple, humble, poor lives, for the freedom of the country. Their lives were an example to be followed, they were ideals; they were worshipped by the people.And then came power, and within seconds the whole thing changed. They became power-hungry, they became power-possessed. Their faces changed, their masks disappeared. Now the opportunity was there.Lord Acton has said: “Power corrupts.” I agree and I don’t agree. Yes, superficially it seems that power corrupts, but if you go deep into its analysis it is not power that corrupts – the person has always been corrupted. Power only gives opportunity; power cannot corrupt. If you are corrupted, then power gives you an opportunity to do that which you always wanted to do but were not able to do.People think it is money that corrupts people. No, money simply gives opportunity. Poor people look so good; it is not so. Just let them become rich and then see: all their goodness disappears. In fact the newly rich people are far more dangerous than those who are born rich, because those who are born rich are accustomed to riches.It is said about the prime minister of a king that he accumulated great wealth illegally, behind the king’s back; that he became the richest man in the country. Then the king came to know about it.He called the prime minister and he said, “You have served me well so I cannot punish you because of your services and your devotion, but you have been cheating and you have been accumulating illegal wealth. I will not punish you, please resign and leave my country and go wherever you want to go.”The prime minister said, “Before I leave I would like to suggest one thing. Now I have all that I need, in fact more than I need, if you appoint another man your prime minister, he will have to accumulate wealth again. He will harm you more. Now I need not harm you at all.”And it is said the king understood the point. He didn’t throw the man out. He said, “That’s right, you have already done whatsoever you could, so why bring in a new person? And he will go through the whole process again, that is true.”Let a poor man become rich and then see what happens: all his simplicity is gone, all his humbleness is gone.A man had a talking dog. One day when he was thirsty he went into a bar with his dog and made a bet with the bartender that if his dog could talk he would get a free beer.The bartender agreed, knowing that there was no such thing as a talking dog. He asked the dog what kind of beer his master liked.“Budweiser,” replied the dog, and the startled bartender paid up with the beer.Then the three of them – the man, the bartender, and the dog – got caught up in an animated conversation. The dog ate peanuts while the men drank. At one point the bartender said that he had a headache but had run out of aspirins.“Does your dog run errands?” he asked.“Sure,” replied the man. So the bartender gave the dog five dollars and sent him off to the store for some aspirins.The dog didn’t come back. The men waited and waited but as no dog came, his owner went out looking for him. He walked the city until he spied the dog in a dark back alley humping another dog.“My God!” exclaimed the owner. “What the hell are you doing? This is the first time you have ever done this kind of thing!”“I know,” panted the still humping dog. “I have always wanted to, but I have never had the money before!”It is not power that corrupts. Power brings your corrupted unconscious to the surface, power brings your intrinsic evil into action. Power exposes you, power does not corrupt you. Power is a good thing in a way: it exposes people. It is like an X-ray: it shows your reality, your naked truth.…the mind, delighting in mischief, will catch you. Remember it: the mind is very quick. If you don’t do good immediately – the moment the idea of good arises in you, if you don’t do it immediately, the mind is going to deceive you, to take you astray, to convince you to do something else.Feingold immigrated to America and after many years of hard work became a very wealthy man. Now on his deathbed, with his wife Sarah standing by, he started to dispose of his worldly possessions.“My Cadillac with the push-button-motorcycle-cop-detector I leave to my son, Sam.”“Better you should leave it to Joe,” said his wife. “He is a better driver.”“All right,” he whispered. “My Rolls Royce I bequeath to my daughter, Linda.”“You better give it to your nephew, Willie,” Sarah interrupted. “He is a very conservative driver.”“All right, give it to Willie. My twelve-cylinder Jaguar I give to my niece, Sally.”“Personally, I think Judy should get it.”Feingold raised his head and shouted, “Sarah, please! Who is dying, you or me?”If you wait, the mind is going to give you suggestions, “Do this, do that.” Do the good immediately. Why wait? And who knows? – the next moment will never come; this may be the last moment. Act as if this is going to be the last moment. Act with that urgency, because death can take you over at any moment. Don’t listen to the mind. Mind can go on and on postponing things and, before mind allows you to do anything, death may have knocked you down. Do good, because doing good immediately brings joy.Turn away from mischief.Again and again, turn away,before sorrow befalls you.If you do mischief, sorrow is going to follow you like a shadow. It is not that there is a God sitting somewhere who punishes you when you do something wrong; the wrong itself is the punishment, it carries its punishment intrinsically.That’s the whole idea behind the theory of karma. There is no need for any God to judge, to punish, to reward. And just think: if there was a God to judge every person and every person’s every act and then dispose accordingly – punishments to a few, rewards to others – that kind of God would have gone mad long ago!No, there is no God disposing rewards and punishments; that idea is childish. There is a law, not a God, a law like gravitation. If you don’t walk rightly, if you are too much drunk, you are bound to fall somewhere. Not that God orders, “Fall!” – the law of gravitation is enough. If you don’t walk rightly you are bound to fall. The law of gravitation takes care of it. If you walk alert, consciously, you don’t suffer.Exactly like that, karma is a scientific law: the law of action. Whatsoever you do has its intrinsic reward or punishment. When you are angry, it is not that you will suffer in your next life. When you are angry, while you are angry, you are suffering; there is no need for another life to give you punishment. While you are angry you are in a fire, you are poisoning your whole body, you are poisoning your whole system. Anger is poison. It may hurt the other, it may not – it depends on the other – but it is certainly going to hurt you.If you insult a buddha it is not going to hurt him, but before you can insult a buddha you will have to go through much inner turmoil.A man came and spat on Buddha’s face. Buddha wiped his face and asked the man, “Do you want to say something more, or is this all?”Ananda, his disciple, became furious, naturally. This man comes, Buddha has not done anything to him, and he spits on the master. Inconceivable! Ananda said to Buddha, “Bhagwan, just give me permission so that I can show this man. He needs to be punished!”Buddha said, “Ananda, you have become a sannyasin, but you go on forgetting it. And that poor man has suffered too much already. Just look at his face, look at his eyes, bloodshot. Look at his body, trembling. And before spitting on me, do you think he would have been celebrating and dancing and singing? The whole night he has not slept; the whole night he was in an insane state. Spitting on me is just the outcome of that insanity. Feel compassion for the poor man. What more punishment? Is it not enough? And what harm has he done to me? I just had to wipe it. It’s so simple. And don’t get agitated, otherwise you are behaving foolishly. For his wrong, you are punishing yourself – this is foolishness!”See the point – of tremendous significance. Buddha says, “He has done something wrong. Why are you punishing yourself, Ananda? I can see you are boiling! If I were not here to prevent you, you would kill this man! You are getting insane in the same way he was insane.”That man listened to this whole dialogue. He was puzzled, perplexed; he was not expecting Buddha to behave in such a way. He was thinking he would be furious, angry; that’s what he wanted. Failing in it he felt very humiliated. It was so unexpected, the compassion and the love that Buddha showed.And Buddha said to him, “Go home, take a good rest. You look tired, you have punished yourself enough. Forget all about spitting. It has not harmed me, how can it harm me? This body is made of dust. Sooner or later, it will fall into dust and people will be walking on it, spitting on it, and all kinds of things will happen on this body. People will defecate, urinate… You have not done anything very dangerous. Go home, take a good rest.”The man went home. For the first time he was absolutely puzzled: so unexpected was the response of Buddha, he could not understand it. He cried, he wept. He came back by the evening, he fell at Buddha’s feet, and he said, “Forgive me!”Buddha said, “There is no question of me forgiving you, because I was not angry in the first place. How can I forgive you? But it is good, you look more calm and quiet. I am happy. I cannot forgive you, sorry, because I was not angry in the first place. But I am happy, tremendously happy, seeing that you have become reconciled, seeing that you have attained to a harmonious state, seeing that you are sane again. Go happily, and remember, never do such acts again because that’s how you go on creating hell for yourself.”Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away, before sorrow befalls you. Many, many times the mind will suggest to you, “Do this, do that.” Many, many times you are bound to forget. Many, many times you will not be able to remember what Buddha has said, what I am saying to you. So you will have to remember again and again. Slowly, slowly the remembrance will settle, will become a light in your being. Then you will not be expected to remember; it will be simply there. It will fall on your path as a beam of light. It will show you the way; it will help you to avoid the pitfalls. And once remembering settles deep inside you and mischief becomes impossible, evil becomes impossible, and good becomes natural, spontaneous, you have entered into the lotus paradise.It is not somewhere else; it is here. It is a change of your attitude, of your vision. Nothing else changes in the world, everything remains the same, but you are no longer the same. Not that you are transported to another world – the same world continues, but your vision is no longer the same. You look at the same things in a new way, with a new style. That style is sannyas, that way is sannyas.Set your heart on doing good.Do it over and over again,and you will be filled with joy.Shift your consciousness from the head to the heart. Mind wants to do mischief, it lives out of mischief; and the heart wants to do good, it lives, nourishes through it.Set your heart on doing good. See the difference! Now he is not saying set your mind on doing good. Mind cannot be set on doing good; even if you try to do good through the mind you will do evil, you will do bad. It is not within the capacity of the mind to do good.You can see it happening all over the world. The scientists wanted to do good; that’s why they worked for years, researched, and found the source of atomic energy…Albert Einstein wanted to do good. He wrote a letter to the American president, Roosevelt, saying: “Now atomic energy is available and atomic bombs can be made. And just by making atom bombs America will be so powerful that there will be no need to fight. Just the power will be enough – enemies will become so afraid that Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini will surrender on their own accord.”This is what a logical mind thinks. But life does not follow logic, life does not follow mind. Albert Einstein repented his whole life, because deep down he felt he was responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He had written the letter… And the politicians immediately jumped on the discovery. And once the power reached the politicians’ hands, they didn’t care; then they would not listen to Albert Einstein. Then who cares? – now the power is in their hands.And do you know, in fact, those who specialize in war matters say that Nagasaki and Hiroshima were not needed at all. Japan was going to surrender within a week; it was only a question of one more week. And if you had tolerated the war for years, what was the hurry? But America wanted to show its power to the world.Politicians are very juvenile, childish. In fact, if a person is not juvenile and childish he will not be a politician in the first place. When you have something, you want to show it to the world; otherwise what is the point of having it? One hundred thousand people were killed in Hiroshima within five seconds, for no other reason than to show the world that America had the atom bomb.Albert Einstein lived and died in deep repentance. When he was dying somebody asked, “If God is going to give you another chance, what are you going to do, what are you are going to be? Would you again be a scientist, a physicist, so that you can continue your incomplete work?”Einstein opened his eyes and said, “No, never! Rather than being a physicist I would like to be a plumber. Enough is enough!”Science is a mind endeavor, mind effort; hence science has created great power. But the power is turning against man himself. Science has destroyed the whole ecology, it has destroyed the whole planet. It is destroying man – and in the name of good! And scientists think they are great servants of humanity, they are helping humanity to grow, evolve, to become more and more powerful. They are simply creating a situation in which this planet will become almost impossible to live on. They are creating a situation where the whole humanity can commit suicide. They can destroy this whole planet because the whole effort is out of the mind.We need a science which is rooted in the heart and not in the mind. We need a totally different kind of science which is rooted in meditation and not in concentration. We need a totally new quality to science: the quality of religion.Unless science has the flavor of religion, meditativeness, love, unless it arises out of the heart, it is not going to become a blessing to humanity or to the world. It is going to be a curse – notwithstanding what the scientists think they are doing. They think they are doing great work, great humanitarian work. They are sacrificing their lives for the sake of humanity. And I am not saying that they are insincere people; they are sincere people, but their orientation is wrong.Buddha immediately changes the word. First he uses the word mind. Now he says: Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.Joy is a by-product just as sorrow is a by-product. Sorrow follows like a shadow when you do something wrong and joy follows like a shadow when you do something good. Let these be the criteria. If you are in misery, remember – you must be doing something wrong.But people are very cunning, their minds are very cunning. If you are in misery the mind says, “Others are doing wrong to you, that’s why you are in misery.” It is not so – nobody can make you miserable. Yes, they can kill you, but nobody can make you miserable. You can kill me but you cannot make me miserable. I will die in the same blissful state in which I am living. There will be no difference at all. You can poison me but you cannot poison my consciousness. You can destroy the body – which is going to be destroyed anyway sooner or later – but you cannot destroy me. That is beyond destruction.Nobody can make you miserable and nobody can make you blissful. It all depends on you, it depends totally on you. You are responsible for your misery and you are responsible for your joy. Take this responsibility, accept this responsibility. To accept this responsibility totally, one hundred percent, is to become a religious person, is to be initiated into what I call religion.The politician always throws the responsibility on the other and the religious person takes the responsibility totally upon his own shoulders.A fool is happyuntil his mischief turns against him.And a good man may sufferuntil his goodness flowers.To remind you, Buddha says that sometimes you may see a mischievous person very happy, and vice versa: sometimes you may see a good man very unhappy. But don’t be deceived by the appearances. A fool is happy until his mischief turns against him.It takes a little time. If you sow the seeds, it will take a little time for them to grow and bring fruit. Evil may taste sweet in the beginning but always proves to be poisonous in the end. And the good act may not appear so sweet in the beginning because it takes time for it to flower, it takes a little time for it to release its fragrance, but in the end it is always sweet.Buddha has said: “If you see a mischievous person happy, just wait a little; soon, sooner or later, you will see that he has dug a grave for himself. And if you find a good man in misery, don’t be worried: it is just the uphill task. When you are moving uphill it is a little difficult, arduous; you perspire, you feel tired, but once you have reached the top you can relax and rest.”But fools go on thinking that they are happy because of their mischief. You will be surprised to know that people are very unintelligent in looking into the deep causes of their lives.In a primitive tribe in Africa, even up to now it is believed that the birth of a child has nothing to do with lovemaking, with intercourse – because there is a gap of nine months. For centuries they have been giving birth to children, but they have not yet connected the cause and effect. They think the child is born because of God’s grace or the religious ritual that the priest has done on their behalf. When they came to know for the first time that the whole world thinks differently, they laughed; they thought the whole world foolish. What does lovemaking have to do with childbirth? – because you don’t get a child every time you make love.It looks logical. And you make love today and the child comes after nine months – and those primitive people don’t have any calendar yet, any clock; they cannot count time. Nine months is incalculable; they don’t know how much time has passed, so they have never been able to connect cause with effect.And this is the situation about evil and its absolutely inevitable result, sorrow. You may do evil today, and it is very good and everything looks beautiful, and you can’t see any bad thing resulting out of it. And deep down you know all these buddhas are wrong: where is the law of karma?Many times people have come to me and said, “We see that evil people are prosperous. Why? And we also see that good people are suffering. Why? That is proof enough that there is no God, that is proof enough that there is no law of karma. That is proof enough that might is right, whosoever is powerful is right.” It is not so. Just one needs a little patience. But fools have their own logic – foolishness has its own logic, remember.Gilligan, Frizzoli and Lieberman were telling how they were mistaken for great men.The Irishman said, “I was walking along the street and a fella yelled, ‘Hello, Saint Patrick!’”The Italian said, “That’s nothing. I was standing on a corner, a man passed and said, ‘Hello, Mussolini!’”“That’s nothing,” said the Jew. “As I walked across the park this morning, a policeman yelled at me, ‘Jesus Christ, get off the grass!’”The fool has his own logic. In fact the fool may be more logical – at least appear more logical – than the wise man, because the wise man will be paradoxical.Buddha says: “Remember that it takes a little time for seeds to grow into sprouts, become trees. Wait for the spring, and then the flowers come.”A fool is happy until his mischief turns against him. It always turns against the fool, it is bound to turn. It is a natural law, it cannot be avoided, you cannot escape it.Zimmerman, on a business trip to Tokyo, was having lunch with a Japanese friend.“You Americans don’t know how to make love,” said the Oriental. “In Japan we go to bed with wife, begin to make love; after a few minutes we stop, get up for cup of hot tea. Then go back to bed, make love for ten minutes, then get up and have a bowl of rice. Then make love some more, get up, take bath together. Then we finally finish the act.”Two weeks later, back in Brooklyn, Zimmerman got into bed with his wife and began making love to her. Suddenly he stopped and said, “Let us have a glass of tea.”“Are you crazy?” she said.“Come on,” he insisted. Soon they were back in bed and after a little while he stopped and said, “Now we are gonna have a pastrami sandwich.”“Are you nuts?” exclaimed his spouse.They got back into bed and after a few minutes Zimmerman said, “Now we are gonna take a bath together.”When they finished the Jewish couple went back to the bedroom and wound up their lovemaking.“Well,” said Zimmerman, “what did you think of that?”“Wonderful,” replied his wife. “But where did you learn to screw like a Jap?”You can go on believing that you are very wise but if you are a fool, you are a fool. Your belief is going to be destroyed sooner or later by life itself. Life knows no exceptions. And this is one of the most fundamental laws. Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal law: that the evil person is bound to suffer sooner or later, and it is going to be sooner rather than later; and the good man is going to be blessed by all the blessings of existence.Do not make light of your failings,saying, “What are they to me?”A jug fills drop by drop.So the fool becomes brimful of folly.Don’t make light of your failings. Don’t say, “This is a small thing. Just a small thing can’t be of much consequence.” But drop by drop you can create the whole ocean! The ocean is nothing but an accumulation of drops, so you have to be aware in each single act; in all the details of your life you have to be alert and aware.Do not belittle your virtues,saying, “They are nothing.”A jug fills drop by drop.So the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.Remember, life consists of small things, there are no big things. Small things accumulated become big things. A single act may not look very significant either as evil or as good. A single smile may not look very significant, but a single smile is part of a long process. A single flower is not the garland, certainly, but there will be no garland if there are not single flowers put together.Do not belittle your failures, do not belittle your good acts. Each and every act is significant: if it is bad you are going to suffer; if it is good you are going to enjoy life. And to enjoy life is the only way to know that godliness is. It is only in blissfulness that the proof comes that godliness is. There is no logical proof for godliness, but when you are overflowing with joy, when you can dance with joy, in that dance gratitude arises on its own accord. Thankfulness, prayerfulness, is born, and in that prayerfulness you are reborn. In that prayerfulness not only are you reborn, godliness is born too.Life consists of small things, and you have to transform each small thing through your awareness, watchfulness, alertness, into a beautiful act. Then ordinary things can become extraordinary.A Zen monk was asked, “What did you do before you became enlightened?”He said, “I used to chop wood and carry water from the well.”And then he was asked, “What do you do now you have become enlightened?”He said, “I chop wood and carry water from the well.”The questioner was puzzled. He said, “There seems to be no difference then.”The master said, “The difference is in me. The difference is not in my acts, the difference is in me – but because I have changed, all my acts have changed. Their significance has changed: the prose has become poetry, the stones have become sermons, and matter has completely disappeared. Now there is only godliness and nothing else. Life now is liberation to me, it is nirvana.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What does enlightenment feel like?Enlightenment is not a thought nor a feeling. In fact, enlightenment is not an experience at all. When all experiences have disappeared and the mirror of consciousness is left without any content, utterly empty; no object to see, to think about, to feel; when there is no content around you; the pure witness remains – that is the state of enlightenment.It is difficult, almost impossible, to describe it. If you say it feels blissful, it gives a wrong meaning to it – because bliss is something contrary to misery and enlightenment is not contrary to anything. It is not even silence, because silence has meaning only when there is sound; without the contrast of sound there is no experience of silence. And there is no sound, there is no noise. It is not the experience of one, because what can “one” mean when only one is left? One can have meaning only in comparison with the other, with many. It is not light because it is not darkness. It is not sweet because it is not bitter.No human word is adequate to express it, because all human words are rooted in duality and enlightenment is a transcendence; all duality left behind.That’s why Buddha says it is shunya. When he says it is shunya, void, emptiness, he does not mean that it is emptiness; he simply means it is empty of all content.For example, a room can be called empty if all furniture has been removed, not a single thing is left inside; you will call the room empty. It is empty of all that it used to contain before, but it is also full – full of emptiness, full of roominess, full of itself. But nothing can be said about its fullness, its plenitude, because human language has no word for it. We have been trying for centuries to call it God, to call it nirvana, to call it moksha, but all words somehow fail.It is difficult to translate something from prose to poetry, more difficult to translate from poetry to prose, because prose is on a lower level, poetry is on a higher level. It is difficult to translate from one language to another language, although all languages exist on the same plane. Why is it difficult to translate? – because there are subtle nuances to words. Those nuances are lost in translating, and those are the real things.It is impossible to translate something for which no word exists, to translate something that is transcendental, into the languages which belong to the world of duality. It is like talking about light with a blind man; talking about beautiful music to one who cannot hear, who is deaf; talking to a person who is suffering from a fever and whose taste is lost about sweetness. The taste of sweetness is meaningless; he has lost all taste. But a little bit of meaning is possible because he used to taste before; he can remember.But you cannot even remember when you used to taste godliness; you have completely forgotten the taste. Maybe in your mother’s womb there was some experience similar – maybe not exactly the same, but similar.I cannot tell you what it feels like, but I can show you the way. I can push you into the abyss; that is the only possibility. You can also taste it, and then you will become as dumb as I am, you will become as dumb as all the buddhas have been.Just try to see the point of translating:Rabindranath was given the Nobel Prize for his book Gitanjali. He had written it in his mother tongue, Bengali. It has a different beauty in Bengali. Bengali has a music to it; it is one of the most beautiful languages in the world. It has a certain flavor of the heart. Its very constitution is poetic, the language itself is made of poetry. Hence Gitanjali in its original form is an altogether different experience.Rabindranath himself translated it into English, but he felt very miserable. For years he tried. He knew English perfectly well, but he could see the difference – the difference was vast. While the original was somewhere on Everest, the translation was just on the plains; the difference was vast. In translation something was lost, something which was really precious.He asked a very famous Englishman, C. F. Andrews, to help him. Andrews was enchanted with the beauty of the book, because he knew nothing of the original. That’s why you are enchanted with the words of buddhas, because you don’t know anything of the original. If you knew anything of the original then the words of the buddhas would look just rubbish compared to the original; compared to those virgin peaks of the Himalayas the words will look mundane, of the marketplace. They are of the marketplace, they are meant for the marketplace.Andrews was enchanted. Rabindranath said, “But I have shown you the book to help me.”Andrews suggested only four corrections; they were grammatical. Each language has its own grammar. He said, “Change these four words; they are a bit wrong grammatically.”Rabindranath immediately changed those words. Then he went to England. In a poets’ gathering – a great English poet, Yeats, had called a gathering of the poets, the critics, and the people who love poetry, to listen to Rabindranath’s Gitanjali – Rabindranath read the poetry. They were all fascinated; it was something superb, something rarely known in the West, because it has the same quality as the Upanishads. If you have read Kahlil Gibran… It has the same quality.But Yeats stood up and said, “Everything is perfectly right except that in four places something is wrong.”Those were exactly the four words that were suggested by C. F. Andrews.Rabindranath said, “I am puzzled, surprised, I cannot believe it. These are the words suggested by C. F. Andrews. They are more grammatical. My own originals were these…”Yeats said, “Your original words are right. Although they are not grammatical they have poetry in them, a flow. These words suggested by Andrews are grammatically right” – Andrews had the mind of a schoolmaster – “but they are like rocks in the path of a stream; they don’t help the flow. You be ungrammatical, because poetry can afford to be nongrammatical, but poetry cannot afford not to be flowing. The flow has to be maintained; the greater the flow, the better the poetry.”Even in the ordinary world, from one language to another language, it is such a problem…“Name?” queried the immigration official.“Sneeze,” replied the Chinese proudly.The official looked at him: “Is that your Chinese name?” he asked. “Sneeze?”“No, Amelican name.”“Then, let us have your native name.”“Ah Choo.”Now “Ah Choo” becomes “Sneeze”…In ordinary languages, too, translation is a very difficult phenomenon, one of the most difficult arts; and the greater the poetry, the more difficult it is. The greatest poetry remains untranslated.But to talk about enlightenment is impossible, for so many reasons: no content which can be talked about; nobody as an ego to feel, to say, to describe. The object disappears, and with the object the subject also disappears, remember, because they are part of a duality – object and subject – they are together. If there is no object, the subject disappears immediately. That’s why Buddha says it is a state of anatta, a state of no ego, of no I. No content, no watcher. Then what is left? The whole is left, the total is left. But that total can only be pointed at, not described, not defined.My whole effort here is to help you toward that existential state. But don’t ask how it feels. There is nobody to feel it, there is nothing to feel it; there is nothing to be felt either. An absolute silence… And a silence which is not in contrast to sound; pure love, but a love that knows nothing of hate; fullness, but a fullness which is utterly empty. That’s how words become useless, and mystics’ statements look very paradoxical.Ludwig Wittgenstein has said: “Nothing should be said if the experience is inexpressible – if it cannot be said then it should not be said.” But that too is a problem. The mystic cannot agree, I cannot agree. It cannot be said, yet efforts have to be made. No effort is going to do justice to the experience – all those who have known have been perfectly aware – but still efforts have been made, efforts not really to describe it but efforts to create a longing in you.And the real longing arises not because of the master’s words, but because of the master himself, his presence. If you are in love with the master then his presence starts opening some unknown doors in you. Once in a while a window suddenly opens and you have a glimpse. Once in a while you are transported into other worlds, into other dimensions. The master’s presence has to be tasted; it is the taste of enlightenment. The master’s presence has to be allowed to sink deep into you; that is the only way to know something of it.Jesus says: “Eat me.” The last night, when he is saying good-bye to his disciples, he breaks the bread and says, “This is me. Eat me, digest me. And whenever you eat, and whenever you break bread, remember.” And then he offers wine to his disciples and says, “This is my blood. Drink me, and whenever you drink wine, remember me.”Yes, it is a nourishment of the soul, hence the bread; and yes, it is wine, because it intoxicates you with the divine.Come closer to me. Drop your armor, drop your defenses. Drop your mind. Forget yourself more and more so that you can come closer and closer. In that intimacy something is bound to transpire.The second question:Osho,I have tried my whole life to live a religious life, but then why am I still miserable?The religious life cannot be tried. Whatsoever you have been doing in the name of religion must have been something else. Religion is not an effort, it is a consciousness. It is not a practice, it is awareness. It is not a cultivation; you cannot cultivate it – religious life has nothing to do with character.Character can be cultivated. Character is moral; even an irreligious person can cultivate it. In fact irreligious people have more character than the so-called religious, because the religious person goes on believing that he can bribe God, or at least he can bribe the priest of God, and he will find some way to enter paradise. But the irreligious has to be responsible for his life himself, toward himself. There is no God, no priest, nobody that he is answerable to; he is answerable only to himself. He has more character.Religion has nothing to do with character. In fact, the really religious person is absolutely characterless. But try to understand the word characterless; it does not mean without character, it means with fluid character. He lives moment to moment, responding to new situations, new challenges, with no ready-made answers.The so-called man of character has ready-made answers. He never bothers what the challenge is, he goes on responding in the old, learned ways. Hence he is always falling short and that is his misery. He is never in tune with existence; he cannot be, because he is more interested in keeping his character than in being in tune with existence. What was right yesterday may not be right today, and what is right this moment may not be right the next moment. The man of character has fixed ideas of what is right and what is wrong; his fixation is the problem.That must be keeping you miserable. You are not flexible, you cannot be. The so-called man of character is absolutely inflexible. He is like dry wood. He is not like a green tree which moves with the wind, dances with the wind, bows down to let the wind pass and then stands back.The real religious man is like a green tree – in fact, more like green grass. That’s how Lao Tzu defines the religious man: he is like the grass. Let the wind come, and the grass bows down, falls to the earth, is not in any way fighting with the wind. Why fight it? We are part of one organic unity; the wind is not our enemy. The grass bows down; the wind is gone and the grass is back again dancing. The wind has been a help, it has taken all the dust away. The grass is greener, fresher, it enjoyed the whole play with the wind.But a big tree, egoistic, stiff, rigid, unable to bow down, will fall in the strong wind and will not be able to get back again; it is bound to be miserable. A man of character is always miserable. His only happiness is that he is a man of character, that’s all. And what does character have to do with religion? You may eat something, you may not eat something; you may drink something, you may not drink something else; you may smoke, you may not smoke… Such trivia is thought to be of immense value! And you practice it – and what do you mean by practicing it?It must be a repression – and a man who represses is bound to be miserable, because all that he has repressed is struggling within him to come back, to be powerful again. And even though you have repressed it, it goes on pulling your strings from the unconscious. It will keep you always in a state of conflict, inner turmoil; a civil war continues inside you. You will remain tense, anxious, worried, and always afraid – because you know the enemy is there – that you have repressed and the enemy is trying every moment to take revenge. And there is a point beyond which you cannot repress any more because you cannot contain any more; there is a limit to everything. Then all that you have repressed explodes, like pus oozing out of you.This is what we have been told is the state of a religious man, this repressive character.My approach is totally different. I don’t say that you can practice religion and I don’t say that religion has anything to do with this ordinary, moralistic, puritanical ideology.An unshaven, bedraggled panhandler, with bloodshot eyes and teeth half gone, asked Hogan for a dime. “Do you drink, smoke, or gamble?” asked the Irishman.“Mister,” said the bum, “I don’t touch a drop, or smoke the filthy weed, or bother with evil gambling.”“Okay,” said Hogan. “If you will come home with me I will give you a dollar.”As they entered the house, Mrs. Hogan took her husband aside and hissed, “How dare you bring that terrible-looking specimen into our home!”“Darling,” said Hogan, “I just wanted you to see what a man looks like who does not drink, smoke or gamble.”These people are not religious people.You say, “I have tried my whole life to live a religious life…” You have wasted your life! Don’t waste it any more. Religion is not something to be tried. What do you know of religion?Except in deep meditation, one never comes across religion. It is not written in the Gita and it is not written in the Koran. It is not written anywhere – because it cannot be written. What is written is morality. What is written is, “You should do this, you should not do that” – “shoulds” and “should nots.” Religion has nothing to do with all that.Religion is basically the science of creating consciousness in you. Become more meditative, become more conscious. Out of that consciousness a very flexible, spontaneous character is born, which changes every day with the situation, which is not attached to the past, which is not like something ready-made. On the contrary, it is a responsibility: a moment-to-moment capacity to respond to reality. It is mirrorlike; it reflects whatsoever is the case, and out of that reflection, action is born. That action is religious action.You don’t know anything about religion, how can you practice it? And you ask, “…why am I still miserable?” Whatsoever you have practiced, you must have practiced with greed, to attain something. You must be waiting for some great happiness to shower on you, for God to reward you, and you will become the richest man in the world or the president of a country, or you will become very famous – a great saint, something like that. You have not loved religion, you have been using religion as a means to some other end; otherwise this question never arises.A religious person cannot ask, “Why am I still miserable?” because he knows, “If I am miserable, that means I am not religious.” Misery is a by-product of being unconscious. If you are conscious, misery disappears. Not that it is a reward; it is just a simple outcome of consciousness. Bring a light, a lamp, into the house, and the darkness disappears. It is not a reward from God – not that he sees that you have brought the light, now you have to be rewarded and the darkness has to be removed. No, it is the natural law: aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal law. Bring light and darkness disappears, because darkness has no existence of its own; it is only absence of light.Misery is absence of consciousness. So it is impossible to be conscious and miserable; nobody has ever been able to do it up to now. If you can do it, you will be doing something historical, something unheard of, something incomprehensible. You will be doing a miracle which no buddha has ever been able to do. You cannot do it either; it is impossible, it is not in the nature of things. How can you keep the darkness, too, with the light burning in your room? You can keep the darkness, but you have to put out the light; you cannot keep them both together, no coexistence is possible.If you are miserable, that simply shows you have not understood what religion is and you have been trying something else in the name of religion. You have been trying to be a moralist, a puritan. You have been trying to create character. Why? For what? – because character is praised, because the society respects character. It is an ego trip – very subtle, but an ego trip all the same.And ego creates misery. Your so-called saints are all miserable. I have come across thousands of your saints – Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist, Mohammedan, Christian – and they are all miserable. They are all hoping to be rewarded after death.Real religion is instant: here you become conscious and immediately misery disappears. You need not wait for the other life, you need not wait even for tomorrow.And that’s what Buddha means when he says: Be quick in doing good. The greatest good is to be conscious – because all other goods are born out of it. Being conscious is the source of all goodness, all virtue.The third question:Osho,When I hear you speak on love and meditation, or sex and death, saying they are two sides of the same energy, something in me knows it is true. But, although drawn by both aspects, I feel myself hung up on the idea that I can only approach one side at a time. Is there actually a way to be at the meeting point of these polarities where they can be felt as one?The beginning has to be always from one side, from one aspect; in the beginning you cannot manage to enter from both doors. If a temple has two doors you cannot simultaneously enter from both doors.How will you manage it? But there is no need either to simultaneously enter from both doors; one door is enough. By entering by one door you have reached the inner shrine. The people who have entered from the other door have also reached the same inner shrine. The meeting happens in the innermost experience.Whether you enter from love or from meditation does not matter – you reach the same point. The same point of egolessness is arrived at through love or through meditation. The same point of mind disappearing is arrived at by love and by meditation, and the same point of going beyond time is reached by both. The ultimate result is the same, so you need not worry.You are not to enter from both doors. If you try to enter from both doors you will not be able to enter even from one, because you will take one step in one door, then you will rush to the other; you will take one step in the other door and you will rush back to the first one. And you will be running between those doors outside the temple. But this is absurd, there is no need!If the person entering from the door of love was missing something that the person entering from the door of meditation was gaining, or vice versa, then there would have been a problem – but they both reach to the same point. From both polarities they come to the same middle, and the middle point is the point of transcendence.Don’t be worried that you can only approach one side at a time. Reach to the innermost shrine, then all the sides are yours. Love, and you will know what meditation is; meditate, and you will know what love is.Love is for those whose energy is naturally extrovert, and meditation is for those whose energy is naturally introvert. Meditation means being with yourself in utter joy, enjoying your aloneness. Love means being with the other, enjoying the togetherness. Meditation is like playing on the flute solo; love is like two instruments playing together in deep rhythm – the flute with the tabla. It is a jugalbandi – it is a communion between two instruments going together hand in hand, dancing together.There are people who will find it easier to come to themselves through the other; it is a little longer way, love is a little longer way, remember, but immensely beautiful, because on the way there are beautiful trees and flowers and birds. Meditation is the shortest way possible because you don’t go anywhere; you simply close your eyes and dive deep within your own being – where you already are.Love is coming to yourself through the other, via the other; meditation is coming to yourself directly, immediately. But it is a little dry because there is are no trees on the path, no birds, no sunrise, no sunset, no moon, no stars. It has a beauty of its own: the beauty of the desert. Have you been to the desert? The silence, the eternal silence of the desert… Sands spreading unto eternity… A purity, a cleanliness. Yes, those are the beauties of meditation.It depends on you: there are desert lovers. Many Christian mystics have gone to the desert and have attained to godliness in the desert. Going to the desert is only symbolic of going into meditation.You have to watch yourself, whatsoever appeals to you. In the ultimate reckoning both are the same but on the way they are different – different songs, different music, different taste. But people are different.There are two types of people: the masculine and the feminine. The feminine type will find it easier to move through love. And remember: by “feminine” I don’t mean the female; a man can be a feminine type. Chaitanya was a feminine type, just like Meera; there is no difference in their type. Meera is female, Chaitanya is male, but their type is the same; both are the feminine type, both moved through love. Both needed Krishna; only through Krishna could they reach themselves.And in the same way, by “masculine” I don’t mean the male. Mahavira and the great woman mystic of Kashmir, Lalla, both are exactly the same – both are masculine types. Mahavira lived naked, Lalla also lived naked. She is the only woman mystic who has lived naked. Both were the same type, the meditative type.The male type will find it easier to go into himself directly; the feminine type will find it easier to move through the other. Neither is higher or lower because both reach the same.So, just watch, find out your own type, and move accordingly. And don’t be worried that you cannot manage both aspects together; nobody has ever managed it. Yes, a few people have tried, but they have all failed; nobody has ever succeeded.Of course, there is one way, if you want to know both ways… The only possible way was tried by Ramakrishna: first enter by one aspect, one door, reach the innermost shrine, then come back out and go in again from the other door. That is good as far as scientific experimentation is concerned, just to be certain whether the other also reaches the same place or not. Ramakrishna tried all the religions possible.And once you have reached the inside shrine, things are easier. If it took you years to reach from the first door, from the second door it will take only days, because in fact you have already reached the goal; you are simply trying the other way, whether it also reaches or not.If you are doing some experiments like Ramakrishna, then it is perfectly okay. But then too, even Ramakrishna could not enter two doors together, simultaneously; it is impossible. First you enter one, reach, experience; then, if you are interested… In fact, nobody cares then. Why? For what? You have arrived – and you can see people arriving from the other door also; there is no need for you yourself to go and experiment.There you will meet Meera and Mahavira sitting together. There you will meet Lao Tzu and Krishna and Mohammed and Christ sitting together, sipping tea and gossiping! What else is left?But if you are interested, if you want to really inquire whether the other way also comes to the same place, you will have to come out and move through the other way. And the other way will be easier then because your consciousness is already inside; only your body will be coming out. And you can move through the other and you can see.Ramakrishna did a great experiment: he proved, existentially, that all religions are equal. It had been said before too, but nobody had proved it existentially; it was a logical inference. But Ramakrishna went, practically, into every possible method and reached again and again to the same state.Ramakrishna heralds a new vision, Ramakrishna begins a new phase. After Ramakrishna, in fact, there should not be so many religions. Even if the variety is beautiful, the antagonism should disappear; the Hindu should not be fighting with the Christian. The Christian should not be fighting with the Mohammedan – because this man Ramakrishna arrived to the same experience from all the religions.If you are interested in doing some experiment like Ramakrishna, then it is okay; otherwise there is no need to be worried. Enter from one door and you have entered from all the doors.The fourth question:Osho,When you spoke about good, evil, and their resultant karmas, were you saying that conscious acts are intrinsically blissful and unconscious acts intrinsically painful, or is there something more to it? Also, does it follow that all bliss is a result of consciousness and all suffering the result of unconsciousness?There is nothing more to it. It is a simple phenomenon: consciousness is intrinsically blissful. Bliss is not a result; it is inbuilt in consciousness. It does not come from the outside; it flowers inside consciousness. It is the fragrance of the flowering consciousness. When the rose of consciousness opens, the fragrance is bliss.And when your being closes in unconsciousness, that dead and stale air, that stink, that darkness, is misery. That too is intrinsic, because now the fresh air cannot flow through you; your doors, your windows, are all closed. Now the sunrays cannot reach inside you. You are not available to rain, to wind, to sun. You have become isolated from existence. You have become a monad, windowless. You have become encapsulated, completely closed into your own self, into your own ego. You have disconnected yourself from this immensely beautiful, blissful existence; hence, misery. It is not really a result; it is unconsciousness itself, another name for it.People are living unconsciously, but they don’t see it. They go on saying they are living in misery and they want not to live in misery, but they always throw the responsibility on something else, somebody else. Either it is fate or it is the society, the economic structure, the state, the church, the wife, the husband, the mother – but always somebody else.Religion starts in your life when you take the responsibility on yourself. To take the responsibility for your misery is the beginning of change, because even to accept “I am responsible for whatsoever I am,” is the beginning of consciousness. You are coming out of a state of drunkenness in which you have lived for centuries.Poteen is an Irish illegal brew that can burn holes in steel plate. After a pint of it Flaherty saw so many animals in his room that he put a sign on his house, Flaherty’s Zoo.The local sergeant went to reason with him and was no sooner in than he was offered a glass of the Mountain Dew. When the policeman staggered out thirty minutes later he raised his hand for silence, although there was nobody. “Ish all right, men. The worst is over. He sold me half the elephants.”You are living in a state of drunkenness. You don’t need alcohol – alcohol is circulating in your blood already. You don’t need marijuana, LSD, mescaline, no – you are already stuffed with it. You are born unconscious. But because everybody else is like you, you never become aware of it.Only when awakening starts happening in you, do you become aware, comparatively, that up to now you have lived in a kind of sleep, that you have been a sleepwalker, a somnambulist, that whatsoever you have done up to now has been done unconsciously. And because you were doing things unconsciously and moving blindly in life, like driftwood, with no sense of direction, with no idea where you are going, with no idea who you are, how can you hope to be blissful? You can only be miserable, more or less.When you are a little less miserable you call it happiness. It is not really happiness, but a little less misery than normal. When it is a little too much you enter into anguish. But these are all degrees of your misery, sometimes less, sometimes more, but you have not known happiness yet. Yes, you have known pleasure…Pleasure is when you forget your misery. Misery remains – you forget your misery. You go to the movie, you become so focused on the movie, you become so involved in the story, that you forget yourself, that for two, three hours you are as if you are not. But outside the movie house you are back to your routine self and to your routine misery.The stupidity is that you suffer because of your unconsciousness, and when you want to avoid your suffering you drink alcohol so that you can forget your suffering. It is because of unconsciousness that you are miserable; then you try to become more unconscious so that you need not know that you are miserable. This way you go on, deeper and deeper into the unconscious. And these states of coma you think are very, very great. These are just blank spaces when you become fast asleep, so totally unaware that you cannot remember that you are miserable.And in these unconscious states, created by chemicals, you can believe that you are having some happiness, you can imagine it; it all depends on your imagination. Many people have experimented with LSD, the most evolved psychedelic up to now. And the result of many experiments is that people who hope that they will attain to great bliss come out reporting that they reached paradise and they saw angels and light and color and had beautiful poetic experiences. And the people who go into the experiment with the idea “This is wrong, that this cannot give bliss, that it is bound to give misery,” come back reporting that they have been in hell and they have suffered much – they have suffered hellfire.The reason is clear: whatsoever you imagine starts looking real under the impact of LSD. If you are against it, if you believe that it is evil, you will come across evil. It simply magnifies your imagination, whatsoever the imagination. If it is dark and black, then you fall into a black hole.If it is beautiful then, like Aldous Huxley, because he believed that LSD was the latest religious discovery, that LSD could take people to ecstasy, to samadhi: what Buddha attained after six years and Mahavira attained after twelve years, and Kabir and Nanak etcetera, after years of struggle with the unconsciousness to become conscious, could be attained through LSD very easily – just a very small quantity of LSD has to be taken.He believed that sooner or later we will refine LSD more and more and we will create the ultimate psychedelic he called soma, in remembrance of the old Vedas – because in the Vedas it is said that the seers used to drink a certain juice called “soma raso,” and that juice used to bridge them to God. Huxley says in the future the ultimate psychedelic will be soma. You can inject it yourself into your body and you will be transported to paradise.Now this is sheer foolishness! This is all nonsense. But Huxley is a sincere man. What he is saying is not false; he has experienced it through LSD, because he believed in it. It is his belief projected, it is his imagination magnified.Another person of the same integrity, Rahner, who is against LSD and against all psychedelic trips, came with just the opposite report: that LSD takes you to hell, that it throws you into hellfire, that it creates such tortures that you cannot imagine – even Adolf Hitler could not have dreamed about them. And he is also sincere. Both are right because both have been deceived by their own minds. Man is already unconscious; now these people are trying to make him even more unconscious, as if this much unconsciousness is not enough!As far as buddhas are concerned, as far as I am concerned, consciousness cannot be attained by any chemical. Unconsciousness can be produced by chemicals, because unconsciousness is a very gross, lower phenomenon. Consciousness is the highest peak of growth, of opening, of coming home; it is not possible through chemicals. It is possible only if you go on sharpening your intelligence; if you go on working on your witnessing soul; if you become more and more a witness of all that you do, of all that you think, of all that you feel. If you are miserable – as everybody is – then remember, it simply shows you are unconscious.Don’t fight with misery, it won’t help. You can push misery from here and there; it will remain. Don’t throw responsibility on others. Don’t say, “Because of this wife I am miserable. If I change my wife I will not be miserable.” You can go on changing – no woman of this world is going to make you blissful. If you think, “The husband is the cause of my misery,” you can change…In America people are changing very fast, but misery is growing, not lessening. You can count a person’s misery by knowing how many divorces he has gone through. The more divorces, the more miserable he becomes, because the more divorces, the more hopeless he becomes.In a country like India you can hope. You cannot divorce easily; the major part of the country cannot even conceive of divorce. The only possible way to get rid of your wife is to hope for another life – even then one never knows! You may become so much hooked to each other that in other lives you also may continue. Women particularly go on praying in the temples, “Give me the same husband again – for a hundred lives!” And if their prayers are fulfilled then there is no hope. But at least one can postpone: “After death… This life is finished, nothing can be done. Now this woman or this man is my fate.” So accept it and console yourself. Remain contented. Hope for the best and expect the worst!But in India people seem to be more at ease because they know: “This woman is creating trouble.” This much at least is a great consolation: “This man is creating trouble.” But in America even that hope is not possible – people have changed their husbands and wives so many times.I have heard…A man and a woman were sitting taking their breakfast and their children were playing in the garden – and then a fight broke out among the children.The wife said, “Look! Your children and my children have ganged together and they are beating our children!”One boy, a small boy, was bragging about his daddy, and he was saying, “He is the greatest daddy possible.”The other boy said, “That’s nothing! He has been my daddy before. I know him – we have discarded him. He is very old-fashioned, out of date; you have got a secondhand daddy!”I have heard about one man who changed his wife eight times, hoping that this time he would find a better woman who will not create misery, but each time he was surprised to know that he had found the same kind of woman again.In fact, if the chooser is the same how can you choose something different? You fall in love with the same kind of woman again and again, because you remain the same. Your state of consciousness or unconsciousness remains the same, your mind is the same. Who is going to choose? You fall in love with a certain kind of woman – who walks this way, who has a certain kind of nose and a certain kind of voice and face and figure. You become attracted toward a certain type of woman, a certain type of psychology. When you come closer and live together you find misery. You divorce. Again you start looking. But you are the same person – you will find the same kind of woman again. How can you find another kind of woman? You will not be interested in another kind. The same kind of woman will attract you, will fascinate you, and again you will be in the same trap. Only the name changes, the trap remains the same.Don’t throw your responsibility on others; that’s what keeps you miserable. Take the responsibility on yourself. Remember always, “I am responsible for my life. Nobody else is responsible. So if I am miserable then I have to look into my own consciousness; something is wrong with me, hence I create misery around me.”This is the beginning, a great beginning, the first seed of transformation. You are already becoming conscious if you take the responsibility on your own shoulders. You are already becoming conscious; the first ray has happened.Yes, consciousness is intrinsically blissful and unconsciousness, intrinsically miserable. There is nothing more to it; it is very simple.Laws of life are always very simple. Truth is always very simple. Truth is not occult, truth is not esoteric. Truth is very obvious – and because it is very obvious, people don’t see it. People go on missing the obvious, people go on missing the simple, because they think truth must be very complex. Hence they go on looking for something complex – and truth is not complex. They go on looking far away – and truth is very close by. They go on looking into mysteries, into mystic, occult, esoteric teachings.And there are people who go on exploiting because they know there are people who cannot be satisfied with simple truth. They write rubbish but in such a way that it looks very occult. They write in such a way that you cannot really understand what they are writing. And people think that if they cannot understand then there must be some great mystery in it.Truth is very simple, and because it is very simple you don’t look at it. You will have to learn, you will have to become aware, of the simplicity and obviousness of truth. There is nothing more to it. It is simply this: consciousness is bliss, unconsciousness is misery.The last question:Osho,What do you think about Communism?I don’t think about such things – in fact, I don’t think at all! I am certainly interested in communes, but not in Communism. The moment something becomes an “ism” it becomes dangerous. The idea of a commune is beautiful: people living together in a nonpossessive way, neither possessing things nor possessing persons; people living together, creating together, celebrating together, and still allowing each one his own space; people creating a certain climate of meditativeness, of love, and living in that climate.I am certainly interested in the idea of the commune; it simply means where communion is possible. In the world there is no communion possible. Even communication is not possible, what to say about communion! Communication means a dialogue between two minds – even that is not possible – and communion means a meeting of two hearts. Where communion is possible, there exists a commune.The idea of the family is rotten now. It has worked, it has done its work, it is finished. There is no future for the family. In fact, the family has been one of the causes of calamity. The family makes you identified with a very small group – the mother, the father, the brother, the sister – a very small group becomes your whole world. A man needs to grow more variety.A commune means more variety: not just your father but many uncles, not just your mother but many aunts. A commune means the children will have more people to learn about, more people to love, more people to become accustomed to. They will become richer.Psychologists say that when a child lives with the mother and the father, the small unit of the family, he knows the mother as the representative of all womanhood and the father as the representative of all manhood – which is wrong, utterly wrong. His father does not represent all the types and his mother does not represent all the types either. And he becomes slowly, slowly focused on the mother; the mother becomes womanhood incarnate.Now there will be trouble! His whole life he will be searching for his mother in his wife and he will not find her – and that creates misery. No wife will be a mother to him, and that will be his deep search, unconscious search, because he knows only one woman. That is his idea of a real woman, how a woman should be. And the girl will always be looking for her father, and no husband will be a father to her.This fixation is creating great psychological tension and anxiety in the world. A commune means you will not be so fixed. Look at our little Siddhartha! For days he disappears from his mother; he lives with other sannyasins for days together. He has many friends, grown-up friends; women, men. He comes back very late in the night – two o’clock. So busy! Laxmi called him and asked him, “Siddhartha, this is too much – two o’clock! You have to be in by eleven.” He said, “Is this a rule only for me or for all? Is this rule applicable to grown-ups too?”Now, this is maturity! He is becoming grown-up! And he said, “I have to stay with others for a few days too – they invite me!” Now he is living with many families. He will become aware that his mother is not the only woman in the world; there are many other women. He will become acquainted with many facets of womanhood. His idea of woman will be richer, and there is more possibility that he will be contented with a wife than otherwise. He knows many uncles and fathers. His vision of man is not linear, it is multidimensional; it is bound to be multidimensional.I am interested in the idea of the commune because a commune will help people to get rid of many psychological hang-ups which our upbringing has been giving to us. The upbringing is so rotten, so old-fashioned. For five thousand years there has been no change. Everything else has changed – from the bullock cart we have come to the jet plane – but as far as human life is concerned the same old rotten family remains. With man we are very orthodox; hence we have better machines but not better human beings. We have better everything – just man is not better; and the reason is that about man we are very orthodox and conventional.A commune will change the idea of the family; it will make the family very flexible.Just a few days ago, Bipin came from America and he said, “Strange! I am coming after just a year and all the couples have changed! And I used to think that a few couples were permanent couples – for example, Satya and Chaitanya, Sheela and Chinmaya. Even the permanent ones that I used to think would remain, even they are no longer there! New combinations of people have happened.” He was asking, “What is Osho doing?”I am not doing anything – this is not my work! This is bound to happen in a commune. People will become more flexible, more available to each other, more loving, relate more, be less possessive.I am certainly interested in the idea of a commune, but not in Communism. Communism is ugly. Communism is a great epidemic. The sooner it disappears from the world, the better. It has destroyed great values – the greatest value of freedom has been destroyed. And Communism is anti-religious.If Communism continues there is no hope for buddhas to be born; it won’t allow it. If Gautam Buddha were born in Russia he would be forced to live in a mental asylum. This is not a good prospect! Even Jesus Christ would find himself in more difficulty. They would not crucify him, certainly not, but they would put him in a mental asylum. He would be declared neurotic or psychotic because he hears voices; he talks with the Devil and God. This is neurosis, this is absolutely a madman! He would be given electric shocks, remember, not crucified anymore.If Jesus is planning to come back I want him to be aware of the situation. This time they won’t kill you, they will keep you alive, but they will inject you with chemicals, they will give you electric shocks, and if you are still dangerous they will give you tranquilizers, they will make you very, very sleepy. They can force you to live almost in a coma, to vegetate, which will be far uglier than to crucify a man.When you crucify a man you cannot humiliate him. He can keep his pride, he can keep his head high: “Okay, you crucify me, so you crucify me – but you are not forcing me to change my spirit or my ideas or my vision of life. I am ready to sacrifice.”One can die with dignity – Socrates died with dignity, Jesus died with dignity – but in Russia, if Socrates is born, or Jesus, or Buddha, no dignity will be available. In fact nobody will ever hear about them. They will be forced to live in a mental asylum. Doctors will take care of them, and nobody will ever hear what they wanted to say, what their message was.Two Russian workers were walking along side by side. Their heads were bent low and their faces were sad and drawn. They were not talking to each other. Suddenly one of the Russians spat on the ground and the other immediately did the same. “That’s enough!” said one to the other. “If we continue, they will think we are discussing politics.”I have heard another story…In Russia the Communists were conducting a purge. An old gypsy was brought before the commissar. “How long,” asked the commissar, “have you been in the party?”“Many years, commissar.”“And your father?”“Ah, he was a member too, and my grandfather and my great-grandfather.”“Now listen,” said the commissar dubiously, “back in those days there was no party.”“Ah, that didn’t make any difference,” replied the gypsy. “We were stealing anyway!”Communism is a violent, forced state of affairs. It is transforming the whole country into a concentration camp. It is not allowing people any freedom to be themselves; it is reducing them into numbers. It is destructive of individuality. And I am all for individuality and the freedom of the individual, because if the freedom of the individual disappears, then there is no possibility of inquiring into the reality of godliness. And that is the whole purpose of life.The real destiny of life can only be fulfilled when you know that godliness is, within and without. It is your consciousness and it is this universe.I am against communism, but I am all for communes.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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As the rich merchant with few servantsshuns a dangerous roadand the man who loves life shuns poison,beware the dangers of folly and mischief.For an unwounded hand may handle poison.The innocent come to no harm.But as dust thrown against the wind,mischief is blown back in the faceof the fool who wrongs the pure and harmless.Some are reborn in hell,some in this world,the good in heaven.But the pure are not born at all.Nowhere!Not in the sky,nor in the midst of the sea,nor deep in the mountains,can you hide from your own mischief.Not in the sky,nor in the midst of the ocean,nor deep in the mountains,nowherecan you hide from your own death.Life is not given ready-made – not to humanity at least. That is the dignity of human beings, and the danger too. All other animals are born ready-made, preprogrammed. Their whole life is a simple unfoldment of something built-in. They need not live their lives consciously; their life is unconscious, it is mechanical. It can’t be good, it can’t be bad; it simply is. You cannot call a tree a sinner or a saint, and you cannot call a tiger or cat virtuous or full of vice. Those words are meaningless as far as existence below humanity is concerned. They become immensely significant referred to man.Man has a special situation. He is born like all other animals, with one difference – a difference that really makes a difference. The difference is of tremendous value to understand, because one may go on avoiding it and to avoid it is to avoid your true life. There is every possibility to remain oblivious of it, because it seems more convenient and more comfortable not to be reminded of it. To be reminded of it means a great challenge: a challenge to adventure into the unknown, into that which is not preprogrammed.Godliness is not a built-in possibility; it is an open opportunity. It can happen; it may not happen. It all depends on you – how you live, how much consciousness you bring to your life, how nonmechanical you become.Millions of people don’t want to be reminded of this dimension at all; hence their antagonism against Buddha, Christ, Socrates. These people – Buddha, Christ, Socrates – goad you, they don’t allow you to sleep comfortably. They bring the point again and again to your awareness: “This is not the right way to live, you are missing life. This is not human life that you are living, this is animal life.”And sometimes you can fall even below the animals. No animal can become a Genghis Khan or Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, because animals have no choice. They can’t become Buddhas, they can’t become Genghis Khans either. They remain whatsoever they are; they can’t move anywhere else. They have a life already arranged; they will simply follow its course.Their life is like a movie: when you see it for the first time you are immensely interested, curious what is going to happen next, but in fact nothing is going to happen – the film is already preprogrammed. Next time you don’t feel so interested because you know already what is going to happen next. The third time you are bored, and if you are forced to see it a fourth time you will rebel, and if you have to see it a fifth time you may go mad. The same film… Because now you know everything that is already there, nothing is happening; the film is simply repeating a certain course.Animals are like films: already made, unfolding whatsoever is built-in. Man lives in a world of choice, hence man has to decide what life he wants to live. He can fall below the animals, he can rise above the angels. He can exist accidentally or he can exist with a decisiveness.It is through decisiveness that the soul is born. If you exist accidentally, like driftwood, you live without a soul; your life is not much of a life. It is pseudo, it is lukewarm; it has no intensity; it has no flame; it has no light. You cannot experience the truth. Living accidentally, to know the truth is impossible. One has to be so decisive, so committed, so consciously involved with life, so intensely adventurous, that all is at stake every moment. One has to be creative – not only unfolding, but creative.This is man’s privilege, his prerogative, and also his danger. Very few people will choose the life of choice, commitment, involvement, because it is dangerous, because the sea is uncharted and you don’t have a map. You have a very small boat and the sea is very stormy and who knows whether the other shore exists or not? Why leave the shelter on this shore? Remain here.Buddha says millions of people simply go up and down on this shore, running hither and thither, just creating an appearance as if their life is a pilgrimage – and they are simply running up and down on the same shore. It is not a pilgrimage; it is mere occupation, befooling others and befooling yourself.The pilgrimage begins when you leave this shore, its shelter, its security, its convenience, its comfort, its respectability, power, prestige. You leave your small boat at the mercy of the storms, at the mercy of the ocean, trusting that if this shore exists the other must exist, because one shore cannot exist…With this trust – moving toward the other shore, risking all – real life begins. And real life is religious life. Real life is what I mean by sannyas. Life lived consciously is the only life; life lived unconsciously is mere existence. Animals only exist, they don’t live; only man can live. But not all men live either; only a few buddhas, a few awakened ones.Become alert to what you are doing with your life. Are you really moving consciously, with a sense of direction – taking each step deliberately, in full awareness of why, to where? Or are you just imitating others? If they are running, you are running; if they are after money, you are after money; if they are after power, you are after power. Are you just an imitator? Then your life will be imitation. Are you simply following others? Then your life will be a carbon copy. You will never know your original face.Your original face is the face of God, but that original face has to be discovered with tremendous effort. With great risk one can actualize what is just a seed in you, one can make actual what is only potential. And then man is infinite; otherwise man is very small, ugly.A life lived unconsciously cannot be beautiful, a life lived unconsciously cannot have freedom. And without freedom, how can there be any beauty? Beauty is a shadow of freedom. A life lived unconsciously can only be mediocre, mundane, superficial. Only with consciousness does your life start deepening; it attains a new dimension, the dimension of depth. And the dimension of depth is the dimension of the divine.God is not somewhere else, but in your own depths, in your own ultimate depths. Truth is not to be found somewhere else; it has to be searched and looked for withinward. Truth is not something of the mind; otherwise it would have been very easy to attain it. Mind is a machine.The great Western philosopher, the father of Western philosophy, Aristotle, defines man as a rational being, but his definition cannot be applicable to the millions. It is not even applicable to himself, because he was not a buddha. A very clever man, very logical, but without any consciousness. He lived his own life as unconsciously as anyone can live. He had two wives, and he writes in his book that women have less teeth than men. Having two wives he could have counted any time – but this was a superstition, very prevalent in Greece in those days. The male chauvinist mind cannot allow women to have anything equal to men, not even teeth! He never bothered to count – what kind of rationality is this?In fact, unless you are conscious, you can’t be rational either. To live rationally means to live consciously, to live meditatively. And the moment you can live meditatively, you cannot only live rationally, you can live suprarationally – because life is not only reason, life is far more than that. Reason is only one of its dimensions, and life is multidimensional.Life plus consciousness, and you start becoming a buddha. Existence plus consciousness, and you start attaining life. Consciousness is the whole chemistry, the alchemy. Life plus consciousness, and you are entering the temple of godliness. Existence plus consciousness, and you enter the temple of life. But if you live without consciousness you don’t have life, you don’t have godliness. If you have life you cannot miss godliness for long, because life is the first ray of godliness.But people merely exist, they vegetate; they think they are already alive. This belief prevents them from creating life. When you are born, you are born only as an opportunity, as a space where life can grow. But it is not inevitable – and it is good that it is not inevitable. If it was inevitable, man would have been a machine as all other animals are.It is tremendously significant to remember that existence has bestowed on you a great gift, and the gift is that you are born as a tabula rasa, nothing is written on you – you are born as a clean slate. Now you have to write something on it. You can write something imitating others, borrowed; you can write Vedas on it, Gitas, Korans, Bibles, but you will miss the whole thing. You destroyed a great opportunity.You have to write your own song – not the song of Krishna and not the song of Christ, but your own song! You have to sing your own heart, only then will you be fulfilled. But people are simply repeating like parrots; hence they become very knowledgeable and still remain foolish, still remain ignorant.Saint Augustine divides humanity into two categories; those categories are significant. The first category he calls “knowledgeable ignorance.” There are people who know too much and yet know nothing; their knowledge is all borrowed. Nothing has arisen in them, nothing has happened to them; they are simply repeating others. They may be very clever in repeating it, very efficient in repeating it, but they are functioning like computers. They are not yet human beings: humanity is not yet born in them. Their knowledge knows nothing, it is a pretension.The universities are full of such people, and the world respects these people very much because knowledge is power. They know, that is the prevalent idea, and they are powerful. And in a certain sense the idea is true: a man who knows physics is more powerful than the man who does not know, but as far as his own life is concerned he is as ignorant as anybody else. There is no difference between the villager and the university professor as far as self-knowing is concerned – and that is the real treasure.There is knowledge which knows not, and, Augustine says, there is also an ignorance which knows. What is the ignorance he is talking about, that knows? The ignorance of the innocent. The innocent person has cleaned his mind completely of all borrowed knowledge.Meditation is nothing but a device to clean the mind, to give a shower to your inner being, so that all the dust, the so-called knowledge, is taken away and you are left clean, fresh, young. This is what Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God.”This is what in the East we used to call the phenomenon of the dwij – twice-born. All brahmins are not dwij, but all dwijas are brahmins. All brahmins are not twice-born, but all twice-borns are brahmins. Christ is a brahmin, Mohammed is a brahmin. The brahmin is one who has known brahman, one who has known the ultimate life, but the secret is, you will have to be born again.What does it mean? It means you will have to die to your knowledge – borrowed, imitative, mechanical – and you will have to be again innocent as you were when you were born the first time. But the first childhood is bound to be lost; nobody can protect it. It is in the nature of things that the first childhood will be lost. But the second childhood can be attained, and with the second childhood starts life. Before that you were merely existing. With the second birth you are entering into the real mystery of that which is.Let me remind you: don’t take life for granted. It has to be created, and it can be created only by choosing freely, by choosing on your own. Yes, there is a possibility you may go astray, there is a possibility you may commit errors, mistakes. But that is nothing to be worried about – mistakes and errors and going astray are all part of growth. It is only by committing mistakes that one learns, it is only by going astray that one comes back to the right path.Those who never go astray remain impotent. Those who never commit any mistake because of fear never do anything – because if you do, there is a possibility you may commit some mistake. Afraid of committing mistakes, they never do anything. But without doing anything, how can you grow? You will remain hollow, you will not get any crystallization, you will not have any soul. You will be dead, you will be a corpse – walking, breathing, talking, but you will be a corpse because you will not have the taste of life eternal.The first thing to be remembered is that we are not yet born. One birth happens through the parents, through the mother. The second birth happens when you are in intimate relationship with a master, with a buddha. The second birth happens in a buddhafield: the buddha becomes the womb. The master is the womb for the disciple. The disciple enters the womb of the master, disappears into the master and is born again.It is through this new birth that you start being conscious. You believe that you are conscious… Because you can come back every evening to your home from the office, you think you are conscious. Because you can do certain things, you think you are conscious. Now there are robots, machine-men, which can do all the things that you are doing.Now, there is a possibility that soon there will be planes – they are already in existence, not yet used; soon they will be used – which will not have any pilots, and there will be trains without any drivers. Theoretically they are possible now. The machine will do it all. Then you will be very surprised: you have been doing these things and you were thinking that you are conscious because you do these things. By doing a certain thing one does not become conscious.Consciousness is doing a thing with a new flavor. Doing it, in itself, is not consciousness, but doing it with a witness inside; watching, observing, knowing that you are doing it – that is consciousness, and that is rebirth.Bryant caught a tiny fish which suddenly began to speak. “I am really an elf and if you release me I will grant you and your wife any three wishes.”So the Irishman released the fish, rushed home and told his wife. The couple were anxious to get to town and look at things to wish for, so the wife decided to make a quick dinner out of a can of beans. But she could not find the can opener and said, “I wish I had a can opener.” Kazam! She had a can opener.“You wasted one wish on that stupid can opener,” screamed Bryant. “I wish it was up your ass!”And the sad part of the story is that they had to use the third and last wish to get it out again.This is the way you are living, this is the way the whole of humanity is living: not knowing what you are saying, not knowing what you are doing, not knowing at all – just haphazardly stumbling, groping. And this continues from the beginning to the very end.Your whole life becomes a grammar of unconsciousness, a language of unconsciousness. You look at life through this language, the layer of this language, and everything is misinterpreted, distorted.Business partners Slutsky and Gross were fishing in a small rowboat on a lake in the Catskills. Suddenly a storm came up, the boat capsized, and while Slutsky began to swim, Gross floundered and sputtered helplessly. He was sinking.“Say,” said Slutsky, swimming away, “can you float alone?”“I am drowning,” sputtered Gross, “and he is talking business!”The old language, “Can you float a loan?” – the language of business. He understands only one language. Now, even in such a situation, what is said to him will be understood the way he can understand. We don’t understand what is said; we understand what we can understand. We don’t understand what we see; we see only what we can see.Old man Bernstein lay dying. The entire family had gathered around the deathbed. In a soft, feeble voice, he inquired, “Is Sol here?”“Yes, Papa,” said his eldest son.“Is Lester here?”“Yes, Dad,” answered the boy.“Is Eli here?”“I am right here,” said the youngest son.“If you are all here,” said Bernstein, “who is minding the store?”And now he is dying – the last moments! Even at the moment of death he is thinking of who is minding the store.From birth to death you go on living, groping in darkness with no light – and you could have created the light. You cannot find it in the scriptures; nobody can hand it to you. It is not purchased or sold; it is nontransferable. But you can create it – you can put all your energies together. You can start living consciously from this very moment.For example, you are listening to me. You can listen in a sleepy way: you are here, and I am uttering a few words, and you have ears and your ears function, so those words strike your eardrums and some noise is made, and of course you hear. But this is not listening, it is only hearing. It is not listening.Listening means you are alert, watchful, on your toes, drinking with no mind to distort; with no inner noise, with no chattering, utterly silent; not sleepy, very wakeful, very awake; as if your house is on fire, as if everything can be taken away any moment and this is no time to sleep. When your house is on fire you cannot sleep – or can you? When your house is on fire you cannot be sleepy; you will be alert, very alert.The first statement that Buddha made after he left his palace was, “My house is on fire. Now I cannot live anymore in unconsciousness.” There was nobody except his charioteer. The old man looked at the palace; he didn’t see any flames there, the house was not on fire. He thought, “The prince has gone crazy!” He was an old man, an old servant, of the same age as Buddha’s father. He had seen Buddha from the day he was born; Buddha used to respect the old man.The old man said, “What nonsense you are talking! Although my eyes are becoming weak, I am becoming old, but I don’t see any flames. The house is perfectly okay, there is no fire!”Buddha said, “Yes, I see – you may not see – my house is on fire, because each and every moment death is possible. Now I cannot remain in this sleepy state anymore.”The old man shrugged his shoulders. He said, “You are saying just insane things!”When he had to leave Buddha in the forest and they said good-bye, the old man was crying and he said, “Listen to me, I am just like your father. Where are you going? Have you gone nuts? Such a beautiful palace, such a beautiful wife, so much comfort, so much luxury! Where are you going?”Buddha said, “I am going in search of consciousness.” He didn’t say, “I am going in search of God,” because how can you talk about God if you are not even conscious? The real seeker goes in search of consciousness, not in search of God. If you start your search for God, that is going to remain an unconscious search – because you have heard priests talking about God a greed has arisen in your mind for God.The real seeker, the real sannyasin, has nothing to do with God. His whole effort, his single effort, his one-pointed effort, his concentrated effort, is to become more conscious: how to be so intensely conscious that you become full of light, that your whole mind is a flame of light burning bright, that the torch of your mind is burning from both the ends simultaneously. In that light one knows naturally that godliness is.God is not to be searched for; what is to be searched for is consciousness. Unconscious people can believe in God, but their belief in God is just like their belief in money. They believe in notes, they believe in God, they believe in stone statues, they believe in dead scriptures. They can only believe, remember: only unconscious people believe.The conscious person knows, feels, experiences. He does not believe in God: he lives in godliness, he breathes in godliness, his heart beats in godliness. It is not a question of belief.You don’t believe in the sun when you see the sun rise. You don’t ask people, “Do you believe in the sun?” If you ask, they will laugh at you. You don’t believe in the moon when the moon is full in the night; you never ask anybody. There are not believers in the moon and nonbelievers. It is your experience; there is no need to believe or disbelieve.Exactly like that, in consciousness you have eyes to see godliness, you have eyes to see the truth of existence. Then it is no longer a question of belief – it is your experience, existential experience. A conscious person knows, an unconscious person believes.Why are you a Hindu, why are you a Mohammedan, why are you a Jaina, and why are you a Christian? All beliefs! And the priest lives on your unconsciousness. He goes on giving you more and more beliefs: moral beliefs, beliefs that if you do this you will be rewarded, if you do that you will be punished, belief in hell, belief in heaven. He goes on piling up more and more beliefs. You are drowning in beliefs. Your beliefs have become so heavy on you, like the Himalayas on your chest; they don’t allow you to live.The first step toward consciousness is to discard all beliefs. Don’t be a Hindu, don’t be a Mohammedan, don’t be a Christian. Why be a Christian? I tell you the way to become a christ! And I tell you the way to become a buddha – why be satisfied by being a Buddhist? Why be satisfied with plastic flowers when the real roses can be grown, when you can become a garden of roses? You purchase a few plastic flowers from the market and you go on worshipping those plastic flowers. What you call them – Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu – does not matter; if they are borrowed they are plastic. The real flower has to be grown within your being; it has to blossom there.Those who have known, say – and I vouch for them, I am a witness – that when your consciousness opens up in its totality it is a one-thousand-petaled lotus, a golden lotus, gold with perfume. It is the ultimate miracle. And unless that is attained, don’t rest. Each moment lost is a great loss.The sutras:As the rich merchant with few servantsshuns a dangerous roadand the man who loves life shuns poison,beware the dangers of folly and mischief.Buddha is saying that if you are a merchant with a great treasure and you are coming home from a long, long journey of business – doing business in many, many places you have gathered great treasure and you are coming back home and you have only a few servants with you – you will avoid dangerous roads where robbers can rob you, where you can be killed, where your treasure can be taken away from you.Man has been on a long pilgrimage. You are not new on the earth, you are very ancient pilgrims. All these lives you have gathered much treasure inside you – even you may not be aware of it. You have learned much; you are not conscious, you don’t know what treasures you are carrying within yourself. Because you are unconscious you are continuously moving on dangerous roads where you can be robbed – where you are robbed, robbed every day. The person who is not aware, who is asleep, can be robbed; he will not even give a fight.And the robbers are not outside, the robbers are within you. Anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, possessiveness, these are the robbers, and in the unconscious mind they go on robbing you. How much has anger robbed you of? Look back. How much has your anger destroyed? But you don’t even calculate. You don’t even look back to have an insight into what you have been doing to yourself. How much has your lust exploited you? But you go on doing the same things again and again: the same anger which you have always experienced as poison, which you know perfectly well is only destructive – and each time you have been in it you have repented later on, you have decided, you have promised to yourself many times, not to go into it again. And again and again you go on forgetting the promises given to yourself.A man was saying to his friend, “Last night I went to see a Jewish porno movie, and it was quite an experience.”The friend asked, “What could a dirty Jewish movie be like?”The man said, “It only lasted ten minutes: one minute of sex and nine minutes of guilt.”Just watch your life and you will find it: one minute of anger and how many minutes of guilt? One minute of lust and how many minutes of guilt, or how many hours, or how many days?Brotsky was in Puerto Rico for a business convention. One night, in front of his hotel, he was hailed seductively by a beautiful prostitute. “Hello, Americano,” she said. “You wanna buy what I am selling?”Brotsky went with her. Ten days later, at home in New York, he found that he had caught gonorrhea.The next year, in front of the same hotel, he was hailed by the same girl again. “Hello, Americano. You wanna buy what I am selling?”“Sure,” he said, “What is it this time – cancer?”If you look at your life you will see it is moving in circles. You go on doing the same stupid things, the same stupid things, and you have done them so many times. When are you going to wake up? And again you become intrigued with the same stupidity, again and again you are caught in the same net. Your life has not many new things.Just watch your life for three months, make notes for three months, and then you will be surprised: this is all that you have been repeating again and again. And unless you become awake you are going to repeat the same your whole life – and not only your whole life, you are going to repeat it in many, many lives to come.Harry, who grew up in Philadelphia, was making his first visit to England.One night he spotted a ravishing young redhead in a pub, walked over to her and stated conversationally, “You know, I come from the other side…”“Let’s go right to my flat,” she exclaimed. “This I gotta see!”You get it? Again and again: “This I gotta see!” You become intrigued again and again. You may have known many women, and again another woman, and you are ready to be foolish again. Your life is repetitive – you don’t even make new mistakes!Be a little creative. If you are interested in making mistakes, at least make new mistakes. If you can make it a point that “I will make only new mistakes,” soon they will be finished – because how many new mistakes are there? One day you will simply find that there are no more new mistakes left, and you cannot make any because you have decided not to repeat them.Once should be enough – but why is it not enough? The reason is that while you are making the mistake you are not there; you are doing it unconsciously. If you can make a mistake consciously, totally alert, with full awareness, absolute presence, you will not repeat it again.A man of intelligence is bound to commit mistakes, but he commits a mistake only once, then he is finished with it. He has known and understood it. But people remain immature.Two little colored boys met on the street.“I am five years old. How old are you?”“I dunno.”“Do you ever think of women?”“Naw.”“Then you is four!”Now, this is how age, maturity, is measured, weighed.Maturity means becoming more conscious; there is no other way to become mature. I am not saying don’t commit mistakes, because that will not help. I am not saying avoid mistakes, no. I am saying whatsoever you want to do, do it, but do it very consciously. Bring your full being into it, so once done you can decide whether it is worth doing again or it is utter nonsense, useless; so once done you know whether it is a real diamond or just a colored stone.If it is a real diamond, go after it, dig deep; you may be close to a treasure. And if it is just a colored stone, forget all about it. Don’t carry colored stones; they become a weight and they make your journey more and more difficult. When you want to go uphill you need to be weightless. And the journey toward consciousness is an uphill journey.As the rich merchant with few servants shuns a dangerous road and the man who loves life shuns poison, beware the dangers of folly and mischief. Become aware. Beware means be aware. Beware is a combination of two words: be aware. Be aware of the dangers of folly and mischief. Folly and mischief are two sides of the same coin. Folly means unconsciousness – and out of unconsciousness only mischief is born.For an unwounded hand may handle poison.The innocent come to no harm.If you become aware of folly and mischief… Remember, Buddha is not saying avoid; he is saying beware.Lao Tzu says: “A man of wisdom walks as if at each step there is danger.” “A man of wisdom walks as if in cold winter he is crossing a frozen stream,” that is what Lao Tzu says. Yes, exactly, it is so: the man of wisdom walks alert. Each step is full of dangers, because your mind can assert any moment.Your mind is very ancient, its habits are very deeply ingrained, implanted. Just a little unawareness and the mind is bound to catch hold of you, and it will drag you into some mischief. It lives on mischief. It is bound to drag you into something which you will repent later on. But repentance does not help, it is a sheer waste of time. First you waste time in making a mistake and then you waste time in repenting.A man once came to me, a very rich man. He had a lifelong habit of becoming angry so easily that just a slight provocation was enough, or if there was no provocation he would create it, he would imagine something. And he suffered much because of it: his wife left him, his children deserted him, no servant could stay with him for long. He was living a very isolated life. He had all, but was very poor in a way because he had nobody to love him or to receive his love.He asked me, “How can I get rid of anger? I have decided many times, I have taken vows before great saints that I will not be angry again, but again and again, when the situation arises I forget all about the vow. It comes, and it comes in such a floodlike manner that I am simply taken over by it. What should I do? I have come to you. Please help me to decide so that I can get rid of it.”I said, “Do one thing. The first thing is, drop repenting. The second thing is, never vow again against anger.”He said, “What are you saying? Then my life will be ruined!”I said, “You have been taking vows and you have been repenting – has it helped in any way?”He had to concede that it had not helped. Then I said, “Why not try what I am saying? – because my own understanding is that repentance is not against anger; it is in fact a way of the ego to settle you back in the old position.”When you become angry and later on you remember, your ego feels hurt: “I have again committed the same stupidity.” Now this wounded ego wants to be healed; you have fallen in your own eyes. Your wounded ego says, “Go to the temple or to some saint. Take a vow: ‘Now I will never do such a thing again.’” Taking a vow the ego feels good: “Look how religious I am.” Taking a vow before a saint and before a gathering you feel tremendously strengthened in your ego: “Look, I have decided!” The wound is again healed.You are back in the old situation again: again the ego is enthroned. You will make the same mistake again sooner or later, and now you have learned a way to heal the wounds. Repentance is a way, taking vows is a way.So the first thing I told the man was, “Stop repenting – it is wasting time! Gone is gone, past is past. It is finished. You need not worry about it. Start afresh – don’t repent. Rather than repenting, my suggestion is, go home and be angry – the first thing to do – be angry and be consciously angry. While you are angry, remain alert that you are angry, know what you are doing: that you are throwing things, that you are throwing abuses. Be alert!”The next day he came. He said, “It is impossible! Either I can be angry or I can be alert. If I am alert I cannot be angry; if I am angry I cannot be alert. You have given me an impossible task!”I said, “Now it is for you to decide: if you want to be angry, forget alertness; if you do not want to be angry, then be alert. No repentance, no taking of vows anymore. A simple method.”All the awakened ones have been teaching the simple method.Somebody asked Mahavira, “Who is a real saint and who is a sinner?”Maybe the questioner wanted a ready-made answer that is given in the scriptures, but people like Mahavira speak out of their own being. What he said is tremendously beautiful. The definition that he has given is unique, unique in the whole history of humanity. He said, “Asutta muni – one who is awake is the saint. And sutta amuni – one who is asleep is the sinner.”Simple, but tremendously significant. Wakefulness is the only saintliness there is, and sleepiness, unconsciousness, is the only sin there is; all other sins are born out of it. Cut the root, cut the very root. Don’t go on pruning the leaves.For an unwounded hand may handle poison. And then, when you are aware, alert, watchful, then there is no problem. Then you are like an unwounded hand, you can handle poison. What does it mean?Let me remind you of a situation that happened in Jesus’ life. He took a whip and entered the great temple of Jerusalem. A whip in the hand of Jesus…? This is the meaning of what Buddha is saying: “An unwounded hand can handle poison.” Yes, Jesus can handle a whip, no problem; the whip cannot overpower him. He remains alert, his consciousness is such.The great temple of Jerusalem had become a place of robbers; subtle robbery was going on. There were moneychangers inside the temple and they were exploiting the whole country. Jesus alone entered the temple and upturned their boards – the boards of the moneychangers – threw their money around and created such turmoil that the moneychangers escaped outside the temple. They were many and Jesus was alone, but he was in such a fury, in such a fire!Now, this has been a problem for the Christians: how to explain it? – because their whole effort is to prove that Jesus is a dove, a symbol of peace. How could he take a whip in his hands? How could he be so angry, so enraged, that he upturned the boards of the moneychangers and threw the moneychangers out of the temple? And he must have been afire; otherwise, he was alone – he could have been caught hold of. His energy must have been in a storm; they could not face him. The priests and the business people and the moneychangers all escaped outside shouting, “This man has gone mad!”Christians avoid this story. There is no need to avoid it if you understand this sutra of Buddha: For an unwounded hand may handle poison. The innocent come to no harm. Jesus is so innocent. He is not angry; it is his compassion. He is not violent, he is not destructive; it is his love. The whip in his hand is the whip in the hands of love, compassion.This is why in the East we have Krishna, who can fight in the war even though he has promised not to fight. He forgets all about his promise. People think that he is very diplomatic, political; he is not. That promise was given in a certain moment; now that moment is no longer applicable – the situation has changed. He is not an opportunist, he is not political at all. He is simply honest, sincere, responsible to the situation that is present. It was so in that moment when he promised that he would not enter into war; it is no longer so, the situation has changed. He enters the war with no repentance; he never repented for it. There is no need to repent.A man of awareness acts out of his awareness, hence there is no repentance; his action is total. And one of the beauties of the total action is that it does not create karma; it does not create anything; it doesn’t leave any trace on you. It is like writing on water: even before you have finished writing, it is gone. It is not even writing in sand, because that may remain for a few hours if the wind does not come; it is writing on water.If you go to Hindu temples you will find Rama with a bow and arrow in his hand. Now it has been a problem for the so-called Gandhians to explain; for Mahatma Gandhi it was a problem. If Rama had a spinning wheel in his hand it would have been okay – but a bow and arrow? Gandhi tried to avoid it. He was repeating Rama’s name every day; that was the last name on his lips when he died. When he was shot dead, the last words that came to his lips were, “Hey Ram! Oh Ram!” But how did he manage? What about that bow and arrow? He never encountered the problem honestly, sincerely – because Rama fought the war, must have killed many people, certainly killed Ravana. What about this violence?This sutra will explain: For an unwounded hand may handle poison. The innocent come to no harm. If you can be totally alert, then there is no problem. You can handle poison; then the poison will function as a medicine. In the hands of the wise, poison becomes medicine; in the hands of the fools, even medicine, even nectar, is bound to become poison.The innocent come to no harm. If you function out of innocence – not out of knowledgeability but out of childlike innocence – then you can never come to any harm, because it leaves no trace. You remain free of your actions. You live totally and yet no action burdens you.But as dust thrown against the wind,mischief is blown back in the faceof the fool who wrongs the pure and harmless.Remember, if you function out of unawareness, then your whole life will be …dust thrown against the wind. It comes back into your own eyes. It is spitting at the sky – it falls on your own face.You suffer not because of others, you suffer because of your own foolish actions. And what is a foolish action? – action which arises out of an unconscious state of mind.But as the dust thrown against the wind, mischief is blown back in the face of the fool who wrongs the pure and harmless. And the outcome is even more dangerous for the fool if his mischief and his wrong are against the pure and the harmless. If you are fighting with another fool there is not much problem: he spits on you, you spit on him. Your spit comes back to you, his spit goes back to him; everything is equalized. You harm him, your harm comes back to you; he harms you, his harm goes back to him.But when you harm or do mischief to somebody innocent, then you are really in trouble because your mischief will come back to you a thousandfold. The innocent person will not do any mischief to you; he will simply re-echo, he will simply reflect, he will be a mirror. If you are ugly, your ugliness will be shown – and of course, the purer the mirror, the more clearly your ugliness will be shown.The mind has a great desire to harm the innocent. It is afraid to harm the mischievous because the mischievous can prove too much. The innocent seems to be so innocent that you are tempted to harm him. The innocent seems to be so vulnerable, so delicate, that you think there is no problem: you can do anything to him, he will not even reply. Hence Jesus is crucified, Socrates is poisoned, Buddha is stoned.Remember, there is a great temptation to harm the innocent, because you know he will not return it in the same coin. But the trouble is, he will not return it in the same coin, but the whole of existence takes revenge on his behalf. Because he is not going to take revenge, the whole of existence takes his side. Existence is always on the side of the awakened one. You are bound to suffer much, although Jesus is ready to forgive you. The last words of Jesus were: “Father, forgive all these people because they know not what they are doing.” This was his response. But existence cannot forgive you.Existence follows a very exact law: mischief is bound to create mischief for you, and misery, if you create it for others, is bound to rebound on you. And if it is done against the harmless, against the wise, against the buddhas, then in a thousandfold ways you will suffer.Some are reborn in hell,some in this world,the good in heaven.But the pure are not reborn.Hell and heaven are not geographical, remember. It is just a metaphor to explain something psychological. Hell is the state of the mind which is in deep misery – of course, created by your own doings. All the dust that you have been throwing against the wind falling on yourself, that is hell – all the wrong that you have been doing to people coming back to you. You have to reap the crop because you had sown the seeds. If you sow seeds of poison you will have to reap poison. It is so simple: aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal law.Nobody can be exempted from it, there is nobody who can be an exception, although everybody thinks, “I may be an exception, I may find some way to get out of it.” Certainly you can find ways to get out of human laws, you can find ways to get out of any law, because man-made laws are man-made laws; they can be broken. And you can find intelligent people who can show you how to bypass them. But eternal laws, natural laws, cannot be broken; if you break them you are bound to suffer. That suffering is hell.Whenever you go against the law of life you are in hell, and whenever you go in tune with the law you are in heaven. Heaven means a state of joy. And whenever you are in a limbo, neither here nor there, neither against nor for, in a state of lethargy, in a state of indecision, just hanging in between, then you are in this world. In the Buddhist scriptures this world is called madhyalok – the middle state between heaven and hell.There are three kinds of people in the world: a few who are in heaven, many who are in the middle, and many more who are in hell. And in fact these are not three kinds of people because each person goes through all these three states every day. In the morning you may be in heaven, by the afternoon you are in limbo, by the evening, coming home, you are in hell. You go on changing, shifting. These are psychological states.To go beyond these three is called nirvana, is called buddhahood, is called moksha. If you can go beyond all three – that means if you can go beyond all mind – then you are not only in tune with the law… If you are in tune with the law you are in heaven, if you are against the law you are in hell. If you are indecisive, half-half, fifty-fifty, you are in the middle world, this world. But if you become one with the law, you are no longer separate – not even in tune, because in tune you are separate. If you become one with the law: if you drop your ego and mind totally; if you become immersed in the eternal law; if you become the ocean, your dewdrop disappears in the ocean and becomes it, then you are born no more. Then there is no birth, no death. Then this whole wheel of birth and death stops. Then you are one with the cosmos, then you are godliness.This is the ultimate that has to be attained, this is the ultimate that man is capable of attaining, but also capable of missing. Unless great effort is made with great skill and intelligence, you will not be able to attain it.Nowhere!Not in the sky,nor in the midst of the sea,nor deep in the mountains,can you hide from your own mischief.Remember, there is no way to hide from your mischief. So don’t go on befooling yourself that you will find some way: that you will go to the Ganges and take a dip in the Ganges and all your sins will be washed away. Don’t deceive yourself; the Ganges cannot do that. Don’t think that you will go to Kaaba and you will do hajj, the great pilgrimage, and you will become a hajji – the man who has been to Kaaba – and then all sins are taken away from you, God has forgiven you. Don’t think that by doing a certain ritual – yagna, havan – you will be freed from your mischiefs. Nothing is going to help.Nowhere! Buddha says, Not in the sky, nor in the midst of the sea, nor deep in the mountains, can you hide from your own mischief. It will follow you like your shadow, it will torture you wherever you go. It is better not to do it – but you can avoid doing it only if you become conscious, otherwise you are bound to do it.Not in the sky,nor in the midst of the ocean,nor deep in the mountains,nowherecan you hide from your own death.Mischief is bound to bring its own punishment just as certainly as birth is bound to bring its own death. You cannot avoid death, you cannot avoid the outcome of your deeds. So don’t think in these terms, because all that time wasted in avoiding, hiding, is simply wasted. All that energy can be put into one effort: of becoming aware, of becoming meditative. That is going to help.A man was going to the Ganges. He went to Ramakrishna, he was a follower of Ramakrishna. He asked Ramakrishna, “Paramahansadeva, I am going to the Ganges – bless me. Do you think all my sins will be washed away?”Ramakrishna said, “Yes, certainly, because the Ganges is so pure; whosoever dives deep into it becomes as pure as the Ganges. But there is a problem that you have to remember.”The man said, “What is that problem? Just tell me, I will remember.”Ramakrishna said, “Have you seen the great trees that stand on the banks of the Ganges?”He said, “Yes, I have seen.”Ramakrishna said, “Do you know what the purpose is of those trees?”He said, “That I have never heard and it is not written in the scriptures. What is the purpose of those trees? Tell me.”Ramakrishna said, “The purpose of those trees is that when you dive into the Ganges, your sins have to leave you because of the power of the Ganges. Those sins sit on the top of those tall trees. When you come back out of the Ganges, they jump upon you again! So it is really futile. If you want to go you can go, but avoid one thing: if you dive into the Ganges, don’t come out! Then be gone forever; otherwise those sins won’t leave you. And they will take revenge, they will jump upon you with vengeance.”And this is literally true. The religious people, the so-called religious people, think that they can do a certain ritual and the sin is finished; and they are free to do the sin again! And once you know the trick to finish it, why bother? You can go on doing as many sins as you can – the Ganges is always there. And now there is no need to go to the Ganges either: you can bring the Ganges in pipes to your home, so every day, early morning or evening, you take a bath. Evening will be better, so the whole day’s sins are finished and you are as pure as a lotus flower.Buddha says nothing can help you. There is nowhere to hide from two things: the result of your deeds and death. They are going to happen.Then what should we do? Become conscious, and in becoming conscious both disappear. In becoming conscious your actions automatically go through a transformation. The conscious man cannot do anything wrong, and the conscious man comes to know that, “There is no death for my consciousness. The body will die, the mind will die, but not my innermost being. I am eternal. Amritasya putrah – I am the son of eternity, I belong to the eternal existence.”Consciousness brings these two truths home. First it transforms your world by transforming your actions; secondly it transforms your interiority by making you aware that you are eternal. When you know you are eternal, when you know that you have always been and you will always be, all your values of life immediately start to change. Then whatsoever was important yesterday is no longer important, and whatever was never important before becomes important – because now you think in terms of eternity and not in terms of time.To think in terms of time is politics: to think in terms of eternity is religion.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,It seems to me that being here with you means to let go of everything – not only the misery, fear, sadness and the so-called negative spaces, but also the happy, loving, flowing feelings, the so-called positive spaces that have always been my goal. Osho, is this the way it is?The positive and the negative, night and day, summer and winter, birth and death – they are not separate. If you want to let go of one, you will have to allow the other also to go.That is one of the greatest dilemmas: people want the positive to remain with them – but if the positive remains, the negative remains as its shadow. The positive will not have any meaning without the negative. If you don’t know what darkness is you will not be able to see light at all. If you want to see light you will have to be ready to experience darkness too. You cannot avoid death if you cling to life. It is life that brings death in.Everybody wants to cling to the positive spaces and everybody wants to avoid the negative spaces. That is impossible – it is against the eternal law.If you watch carefully you will see that if the negative is torturing you too much then the positive is only a cover-up. What do you mean when you say that you are happy? You simply mean: “At this moment my unhappiness is covered up.” What do you mean when you say “Now I am relaxed”? It simply means that the tensions have gone deeper into the unconscious; now you are oblivious of them.But sooner or later they will assert, sooner or later they will have their own time. You cannot remain with the positive forever. The negative and positive always balance each other: you will have as much happiness as you are ready to have unhappiness.Hence one of the mysteries: the more affluent a society is, the more miserable it is. There is no country more miserable than America, for the simple reason that America now has the highest peak of happiness; it cannot avoid the lowest depth. The peaks are possible only with valleys – the higher the peak, the deeper the valley.In India people feel very satisfied. The reason is they don’t know the peaks of happiness; hence they don’t know the valleys of unhappiness. They live more or less on neutral ground, neither positive nor negative. This is not true contentment, this is simply absence of positive spaces – hence the negative spaces are also absent.America is really in a mental torture, in a great psychological upheaval. No society has ever been in such a state. Individuals, of course, have been.Gautam Buddha was the son of a king. He had all the joys – that’s why he became aware of the misery of life. It is not accidental that all the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas were kings. Buddha was a king, Rama and Krishna were kings, all the Hindu avatars were kings. There is something in it, something very fundamental. Why have beggars not become tirthankaras, avatars, buddhas? For the simple reason that they don’t know what happiness is – how can they be aware of the misery of life?Buddha says: “Life is dukkha” – pure misery. Only a buddha can say it because he has known the peaks. Knowing the peaks is simultaneously becoming aware of the valleys. If you live intensely, passionately, you will be more aware of death than the person who lives in a lukewarm way, who lives only so-so, who is not intense and passionate in his life. He cannot be very alert about death. The deeper you plunge into life, the greater will be your awareness of death. The positive and the negative continuously balance each other.The Indians have played a trick upon themselves. They have become neutral: “Don’t go to the heights of joy; that is the way to avoid the depths of misery, pain, sorrow.” But this is not true revolution. True revolution is not becoming indifferent, becoming lukewarm, living a very, very dull life. Real revolution happens through transcendence.These two words have to be understood because the difference is very delicate and subtle: indifference and transcendence. Indifference simply means you avoid the positive to avoid the negative. Transcendence means you avoid nothing, neither the positive nor the negative. You live the positive in its totality and you live the negative in its totality, with a new quality – and that quality is that of a witness. You live totally but at the same time you remain silently alert, aware.You know happiness surrounds you but you are not it; you know unhappiness surrounds you but you are not it. You know it is day but you are not it, and you know it is night but you are not it. You know now you are alive but you are not it; then when you will be dying you will know you are not it. This is transcendence.Neti, neti – neither this nor that – is the secret formula of transcendence: neither positive nor negative. But it does not mean not to live the positive and the negative. If you avoid living you will become dull, very dull; you will lose all intelligence.That’s the difference between the old sannyas and my new vision of sannyas. The old sannyas teaches you indifference, neutrality: “Don’t go to the heights so you need not fall into the depths.” Simple mathematics. “Don’t be happy, then you will not be unhappy.” How can you be unhappy if you have never been happy? “Don’t rejoice, then there will be no sorrow, and don’t laugh, then tears will not be possible.” This is simple mathematics, but not the truth of transcendence, not the truth of real sannyas.Real sannyas means: laugh deeply, but remember you are not the laughter; cry and weep deeply, let the tears flow, be total in it, and yet alert, a flame inside watching it all.You are to transcend, not to renounce. If you renounce you miss the point. And when I say, “Let go!” I simply mean don’t cling. I am not saying to you don’t try to be happy. Make every possible effort to be happy, joyous, but remember that sadness will follow. It is natural. Accept it, and when it comes, don’t run away from it, don’t escape from it. That too is beautiful, part of life, part of growth; without it there is no maturity. Go deep into it.Joy has something to contribute to your growth, and sorrow too. Joy brings a freshness, the freshness of the morning dew. Joy brings youth, joy brings a dance to your heart. Sadness also brings many gifts but you escape from sadness; hence you never become aware of the gifts. Sadness brings a silence which no joy can ever bring. Joy is always a little noisy; sadness is utterly silent. Joy is always a little shallow; sadness is deep, it has depth. Joy always makes you forget yourself; it is easier to drown yourself in joy, to be intoxicated with joy. It keeps you unconscious. Sadness brings an awareness because you cannot drown yourself in it. You cannot participate, you have to stand outside – because you don’t want it!The first lessons of witnessing happen in sadness. One learns witnessing in sadness and only then, later on, the same witnessing can be applied to the moments of pleasure. But it is by witnessing that one transcends.And when I say, “Let go of it all, the positive and the negative,” I simply mean don’t cling, don’t be identified. I am not saying, “Renounce!” Live, and yet live above. Walk on the earth, but no, don’t let your feet touch the earth. Yes, there is an art to it.And that’s what sannyas is all about: the art of living in the world without being part of it, the art of living life without being identified with it. That’s what real let-go is.The old sannyas is that of indifference. Exactly that is the word used in the old scriptures: a sannyasin becomes udasin – indifferent to all that is – vairagya. He becomes cold and detached. He escapes from the world of duality. He moves into a monastery or into the Himalayan caves, lives alone, lives without joy, without sadness.He lives a kind of death: he is already in his grave, he lives not. His life is not worth calling life. He has fallen below humanity; he is closer to the animals than to human beings. Hence his search for the caves, forests, jungles, mountains, deserts – he is afraid of being with human beings. He wants to fall below human beings, because human beings are bound to be divided by this great polarity, positive and negative, and he is afraid of it.But the real sannyasin – the sannyasin of my vision – lives in the world, in the thick of it, in the dense world. He renounces nothing. He lives life as totally as possible, because if existence has given life it means there is something to attain through it. Only by living it can it be attained, only by living it is there something to be learned. Transcendence has to be learned; that is the great gift of life.If you become more and more conscious, let-go will happen and yet you will be here and now, and more so than ever before. You will eat and you will taste more. You will love and you will have deeper orgasmic experiences. You will play and your play will have something of the spiritual in it. Your ordinary life will become sacred.Only one thing has to be introduced: witnessing.The second question:Osho,I am feeling more and more that this life is something magical. Is this how you see life? Is this what you mean by the godliness all around us?Yes, that’s precisely what I mean. By “God” I don’t mean a person. By “God” I mean the magic that surrounds you, the mysterious, the miraculous. By “God” I don’t mean anybody who created the world, but creation itself. The very process of creativity is God.Hence you cannot worship God, you cannot pray to God. All prayers are false because they are addressed to a personal God – and there is no personal God. You cannot relate to God, calling him “father,” “mother.” He is not a person; relationship is not possible. Then how to worship, how to pray? You will have to learn new ways of praying and worshipping.To be creative is to worship. To be creative is to participate in the great process of creation – and participating in creativity is participating in existence. For a moment you are transported. When you are painting something you are no longer there; you have become just a creative force. When you are playing music, if you are not just a technician but really a musician, a lover of music, then you disappear – then the ego is no longer there. At least for those few rare, diamondlike moments, immensely precious, some windows open. You are no longer there, not as an ego.God is not a person, he is not an ego. And if you want to meet God you will have to be something similar: a non-ego, a non-person. God is a presence. If you want to have any communion with God you will have to learn how to be just a presence and not a person; alert, fully alert, but without any idea of “I.”The best way to let this “I” disappear is not through austerities, Yoga, fasting – no. It is through creativity. I teach you the yoga of creativity, because to me that is the only yoga. The word yoga means union; when you are creative you are in a state of union with existence. Standing on your head is not going to help much, in fact it is not going to help at all. You can stand on you head for lives – it will do only one thing: it will make you stupid!And I am saying a scientific truth, I am not joking; I am very serious about it. If you stand on your head for a long time you will become stupid, because your brain consists of a very, very delicate nervous system. Those nerves are so thin, they are thinner than hairs. Your small head has millions of nerves; you cannot see them with your naked eyes, they are so thin. If you stand on your head too long the blood rushes toward your head, and in that flood those nerves are going to be destroyed.In fact, scientists say man attained to mind, brain, because he stood upright on two legs. Animals have not attained to mind yet because they still remain parallel to the earth. Their heads are getting too much blood; hence they cannot grow subtle nervous systems. It is only man who has been able to grow a subtle nervous system which can sustain great consciousness, which can sustain great intelligence.It is very rare to come across an intelligent, so-called yogi – I have not come across one yet. The people who distort their bodies and do all kinds of circus tricks and stand on their heads may have good bodies – they can have; so much gymnastics is bound to give you a healthier body, more animal-like – but they don’t have intelligence. I have yet to come across a yogi who is really intelligent, and one of the reasons is that their subtle, delicate nervous systems are too flooded with blood.You cannot sleep in the night without a pillow. Do you know why? – because too much blood goes into the head. It keeps your whole nervous system vibrating. You need pillows. Pillows keep the blood flow less toward the head; you can sleep, you can rest, you can relax.By “yoga” I exactly mean the literal translation: union, communion. When you are painting or playing music or dancing or singing, then you are in a state of yoga.In my commune, this is going to be the yoga: you have to create. And the more you create, the more you become capable of creating. The more you create, the sharper is your intelligence. The more you create, the more you become available to infinite sources of creativity – that is, God. The more you create, the more you become a vehicle – a vehicle for the magic to flow through you.Yes, by “God” I mean the magic that surrounds you. Can’t you feel the magic that surrounds you every moment – this very moment? The birds making sounds… The trees utterly silent, in a state of meditation… And you all here together with me, from faraway countries… A silence pervading. You are utterly tuned with me, breathing with me, your hearts beating with my heart. Can’t you see the magic of the now, of the here, and the beauty of it and the benediction? This is God.God is not found in the temples and the mosques and the gurdwaras and the churches. God is found only in the company of the buddhas, because it is only in the company of the buddhas that you become aware of the magical existence.The third question:Osho,Why are people so much against you?They are not so much against me as they are afraid of me. Out of fear they are against, but the root cause is fear. And why are they afraid? – because they don’t understand. It is misunderstanding. It always happens, it is bound to happen; it is nothing new.I say one thing, they understand something else because their minds are prejudiced. They have been brought up in certain traditions and I am breaking all traditions. They have been brought up to think in certain ways, and my whole effort here is to take you beyond thinking.People are conventional, conformist, traditional. And to me religion is rebellion – rebellion against all conventions, against all conformities, against all traditions. Religion is never a tradition, can never be a tradition. Science can be a tradition but religion never.Science is really a tradition. Withdraw Newton – for a moment think as though Newton was never born – then there can be no Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein is possible only if Newton happens first. Science is a tradition, it is a continuum. Withdraw one brick and the whole edifice falls.But I am possible without there ever having been a Christ. I am possible not because there has been a Mahavira or a Patanjali, not because there has been a Buddha or a Confucius or Lao Tzu. Religion is not a continuum; it is an individual phenomenon, it is an individual flowering. You can become awakened even if you are not aware of anybody ever becoming awakened before. You are not related with the past in the same way as science is related.That’s why scientific truths, once discovered, become the property of everybody else. Albert Einstein worked hard for thirteen years to discover the theory of relativity; now you can read all about it within hours – you need not discover it again. Edison worked for years, for at least three years, to discover the first electric light bulb; now you can go on producing electric light bulbs – you don’t need Edisons to produce them. Ordinary laborers knowing nothing of electricity can do the job – they are doing it.But religious truths are totally different: you have to discover them again and again. What Buddha discovered does not become universal property. It dies with him, it disappears with him; it is an individual flavor. That is the beauty of religion: that it never becomes a commodity in the marketplace. Hence science can be taught in the schools, colleges, universities; religion cannot be taught. Religion cannot be taught at all; you cannot be informed about religion. You have to discover it on your own.Yes, you can get the inspiration, but inspiration is not information. You can be inspired by the presence of a buddha, you can become afire. You can attain to a burning longing to be like a buddha, but you will have to discover everything on your own. And you will not be able to give it to your children as a heritage. All that you can give, all that you can impart, is an intense longing for truth, that’s all – but not truth itself.Hence it is very difficult for the masses to understand what I am saying. It was difficult when Buddha was here, it was difficult when Jesus was here – it will be difficult always because the masses live according to the past. They are fed, continuously brought up, in traditional ways. They have been told what is right, what is wrong; they have been told whether God exists or not, and they have learned all these things. And they have accumulated so much information that their minds are full of knowledge; they think they already know.So when anybody comes and brings a new dispensation into the world, when anybody brings a new revelation, when anybody becomes available to godliness, becomes a vehicle of godliness, the people are disturbed, their prejudices are shattered. Their old conceptions are not strengthened – on the contrary, they start feeling, “If this man is right then we have been wrong all along; not only we but our forefathers and their forefathers.” This goes against their egos. They would rather cling to their own egos than listen to the truth.Then because of their prejudices they go on hearing something which is not said. I say one thing, they immediately interpret it according to their own ideas. They don’t listen in silence; they listen through all kinds of barriers of thoughts.For example, there are Jews, Mohammedans, Hindus, Christians, Jainas, Buddhists, Sikhs – all kinds of people are gathered here. Do you think when I say something the Jew hears the same as the Jaina, the Mohammedan hears the same as the Christian, the Buddhist hears the same as the Hindu? Impossible. The Mohammedan has his own ideas…For example, if I am talking about rebirth, then the Christian, the Jew and the Mohammedan are a little on guard, unconsciously, because they have been told there is only one life; they cannot trust that there are many lives. But when I am talking about rebirth the Hindu is happy, absolutely willing. The Buddhist is willing, the Jaina is willing, absolutely willing. There is no problem in their minds. Not that they are agreeing with me – they are happy because I am agreeing with them. And that’s how it is about each single statement.Words don’t have clear-cut meanings – they can’t have; otherwise each communication will become very scientific. Words have many meanings, many nuances, so when you hear a word you can give it a color of your own. You can hear in your own personal, private way. You have your own private meaning.When I talk about God, the Buddhist listening here will immediately stop listening, it is absolutely automatic. Automatically he will be turned off. God? – he has been told that the whole idea is nonsense. And when Buddha has said that the whole idea is nonsense, it has to be so. And not only Buddha: for twenty-five centuries many other mystics who have attained to the ultimate have been telling him that God is not there. But the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Christian, the Jew, are absolutely willing, immensely happy that yes, I am talking about God – their God. The Jaina and the Buddhist will not be happy; they don’t believe in God.When I talk about the soul, the Jaina will be happy, the Hindu will be happy, the Mohammedan, the Christian, the Jew – everybody except the Buddhist. He does not believe in the soul either. He says there is no individual entity, everything is a flux. Just as the Ganges goes on changing every moment, just as you cannot step in the same river twice, you cannot meet the same individual again. There is nothing permanent, nothing at all. Except change, everything changes. The Buddhist, the moment I talk about soul or God, stops listening. He says, “This is not for me.” Not that he does it consciously – these are unconscious habits, conditionings.It is not so much that people are against me; the reality is they don’t understand what I am talking about, or they understand something totally different which is not being talked about. They are not aware of what I am doing here. They don’t come here, they depend on newspapers. Some third-rate journalist comes and reports something – what can he report about meditation? He has never meditated.Look at the stupidity of the world. You don’t send a journalist to report about a surgeon if he does not know anything about surgery – or do you? If there is going to be a conference of surgeons, you send somebody who is well acquainted with the world of surgery; only he can report. If physicists are meeting, papers are read and discussed and you send somebody, you have to send an expert who knows what physics is. And modern physics is a very, very evolved phenomenon; it needs years of studies. One has to be a physicist. You can’t depend on a general journalist who goes on reporting about mediocre politicians and their stupid speeches. You don’t send the same type of journalist to report when physicists are talking; you have to send a special person or you have to appoint a physicist to report about the conference, because only he will be able to understand.It is said that when Albert Einstein was alive, only twelve persons in the whole world really understood what he was talking about. Now, who is going to report about him? Only one of these twelve may be able to report about Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity in such a way that at least some glimpse becomes possible to the common masses.But when you send a journalist here, you never inquire, you never require that he should be a meditator, that he should know something about meditation, something about Yoga, something about Sufism, Zen, Tao, Tantra. No, these are not the requirements.Any Tom, Harry, Dick is thought to be perfectly capable of reporting about meditation, about Tantra, about Tao, about Zen, about Sufism. And people depend on his reports, and he has never meditated in his life. He has never had a single moment of meditation. He knows nothing of a state of no-thought. He knows nothing of those intervals, those spaces, where mind disappears, ego disappears, time disappears. How can he understand?Just by watching people sitting silently… Will you be able to understand anything if somebody is sitting silently with closed eyes? You can take a picture of the person but you will not be able to take a picture of the inner happening. You can see people dancing, you can see them like Sufis, whirling dervishes; you can see them dancing and you will report that you saw people dancing, jumping, but how are you going to know their inner world?You should participate. You should dance yourself. You should have a taste of it. Only then you may be able to report something of it – only something, not all of it, because it is impossible to report all of it, all of it is inexpressible.When reporting is done by these people, who don’t understand, their report is only sensational. Then the masses read them, and they read even that report according to their own ideas. Then misunderstanding upon misunderstanding happens, layers and layers of misunderstanding. I must be the most misunderstood man in this country at this moment.Carolyn, a curvaceous traveling saleslady, was waiting her turn to register at a motel when she overheard the desk clerk tell Zabroski, the man in front of her, that he had just gotten the last room. She waited for the Pole to leave the desk and then approached him.“There is not another motel within miles and I am dead tired,” she pleaded. “Look – you don’t know me, I don’t know you, they don’t know us, we don’t know them. How’s about me spending the night with you?”“I don’t care,” said Zabroski.They went to his room; he took off his clothes and so did she. “Listen,” she said, “you don’t know me, I don’t know you, they don’t know us, we don’t know them. Let’s have a few drinks. I’ve got a bottle.”After they had gotten a little high, she cuddled up to him and whispered, “You don’t know me, I don’t know you, they don’t know us, we don’t know them – let’s have a party.”“Hey,” said the Pole, “if I don’t know you and you don’t know me and they don’t know us and we don’t know them – who the hell we gonna invite?”Now the word party is creating the trouble. The Pole is going to understand according to his idea of a party. Carolyn has something else in her mind – a real party.What I am saying is totally different from what is being understood by the outsiders. But that is natural and I accept it. I have no grudge, no complaint about it. It’s how it is going to be.I can be understood only by those who are in deep love, who are in deep trust with me. I can be understood only by those who are ready to put their minds aside. In that state of silence, something from me can stir your heart, can trigger a process of understanding.The fourth question:Osho,Where do rebellion and surrender meet?Rebellion and surrender meet in the idea of the ego. Drop the ego and simultaneously surrender happens, and rebellion too.I know what you mean by your question. You mean that rebellion and surrender seem to be polar opposites – how can they meet? How can one be rebellious and surrendered? That’s your question. That’s how mind thinks about rebellion and surrender; through the mind you cannot see them meeting anywhere.A man who is surrendered will look non-rebellious. A man who is rebellious will always be disobeying – how can he surrender? He may die, but he will not surrender.You know only one kind of surrender: the surrender that is forced on you, the surrender that is not done by you but you are made to do it – at the point of a dagger you are forced to surrender. That is not the surrender I am talking about.I am talking of a totally different kind of surrender. You are not forced; you see the ugliness of the ego, you see the misery of the ego, you see the stinking ego, and you use the master as an excuse to drop the ego. The master is always an excuse, remember.When you surrender to me you are not surrendering to anybody in particular because I am not there as a person. And when you surrender I am not accepting your surrender, remember – because there is nothing to surrender, just a false idea of the ego.It is like a man who believes that he is rich and he is not, and he comes to me and he says, “I surrender my whole kingdom to you.” I say, “Okay, I accept.”I accept so that you can get rid of this nonsense. You don’t have it, so it is not going to create any trouble for me.Two hippies were resting under a tree. It was a full-moon night, and they were really high. One looked long at the moon and then said, “I would like to purchase it, and I am ready to pay any price.”The other said, “Forget all about it, because I am not going to sell it.”When you surrender your ego you are not surrendering anything which is real, just an idea. If it was really something, then the master would be burdened by so many egos, he would be killed! He would have to carry a Himalaya of egos; it would be impossible for him to live; even to walk, even to breathe. I have one hundred thousand sannyasins in the world – now, if I have to keep one hundred thousand egos, then Vivek will go mad.She goes mad about other things she has to arrange. So many presents come to me and she wants to dispose of them immediately, because it becomes a burden on her to go on collecting them and to keep track of where they are and to keep them clean. Now she is very worried about my fountain pens. Every day she asks, “When are you going to distribute these?” – because it is becoming a problem for her. I think I must have two hundred or more, and I am waiting so that at least I can give one fountain pen to each sannyasin – I am waiting. Right now it will be a problem for me; whom to give and whom not to give, so I go on telling Vivek, “Wait a little, wait.” And I tell many people, “Go on bringing them!” Now Niranjana is going especially to the West to bring as many fountain pens as possible. But if I have to keep all these egos it will be impossible – Lao Tzu House is too small.I accept your ego happily because there is no problem in accepting it. You are not giving anything to me, I am not taking anything from you. But you are getting rid of an idea, a fantasy, and your getting rid of it is the point. It is not surrender forced on you; it is surrender out of your own understanding.And then rebellion happens on its own accord, because a man without the ego is the most rebellious in the world. Again remember: when I use the word rebellion I don’t mean it in the political sense. A man without an ego cannot have any politics. Politics needs great egoists; the whole game of politics is the game of ego, it is an ego trip.When you are no longer burdened by the ego, when you have been unburdened, when the master has taken your so-called ego away from you, your life will be that of a rebel, of tremendous revolution. You will not be a Hindu and you will not be a Mohammedan and you will not be a Christian and you will not be a Jaina. This is revolution. You will not be a German and you will not be a Japanese and you will not be an Indian. This is revolution. You will not belong to any religion, to any sect, to any society, to any tradition. This is revolution.And because there is no ego, godliness can flow through you; great creativity becomes possible. This is revolution! And you will live now in a total let-go; in fact God will live through you – not you. And God cannot be a slave, and God cannot be reduced to any slavery, and you cannot be reduced to any slavery either now.Rebellion and surrender certainly meet in dropping the ego. But don’t just go on trying to understand these things theoretically. Do something existential so that what I am saying becomes your experience – because only experience liberates.The fifth question:Osho,I hear the Indians bragging too much about their spirituality. What do you say about it?Indians have nothing else to brag about. Forgive them, be compassionate to them. They don’t have money, they don’t have big houses, they don’t have big cars, they don’t have anything of science, technology. It is very difficult for them to maintain their ego; spirituality is their shelter. And spirituality is a commodity. You can brag about it very easily because nobody can prove that you don’t have it, neither can you prove that you have it. It is so invisible that either you accept it or you don’t accept it – but you cannot prove it.And why spirituality, particularly? It sometimes happens that if you are very greedy you will pretend just the opposite, because that is the only way to hide the greed. If you are a very angry person, you may pretend to be very polite, compassionate, loving, because that is the only way to hide your anger. If you are obsessed with sex, you may start talking about brahmacharya – celibacy. The opposite is the way to hide it.The Indian mind is utterly materialistic, and the only way to hide it is to talk about, brag about, spirituality. Yes, there have been a few people in this country – a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Patanjali, a Krishna – who were utterly spiritual. But such people have been everywhere! Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plotinus, in Greece – the same type of people, the same quality, the same fragrance. Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Mencius, in China – the same perfume. Christ, Eckhart, Francis, Bohme – the same dimension. Spiritual people have been everywhere; it is nobody’s possession. But Indians brag about it, I know.I can understand your question, because what you see all around is just the opposite. That’s why they brag about spirituality. Each Indian thinks that just by being an Indian he is Buddha. It is not so easy to be Buddha. And Buddha has nothing to do with being an Indian.In fact, Buddha was not an Indian, he was a Nepalese. He was born on the border of India and Nepal; in fact, now that part is in Nepal. And the statue of Buddha that you see does not look like a Nepalese, does it? It is not a true statue. It does not look like Bahadur. Nepalese are closer to Chinese, Tibetans, Japanese – the Mongol type. Buddha’s statue does not look like a Nepalese at all.The statues were not made at the time of Buddha nor when he died. The statues were made five hundred years later. And you will be surprised to know, they were made in imitation of Alexander the Great. Alexander had come to India by that time, and he had a beautiful face, with Greek features. The statue of the Buddha is Greek! The man himself was Nepalese; the statue is Greek.And all the scriptures that you read about Buddha are not original. Some have been translated from Tibetan, some from Chinese, some from Japanese. The originals were destroyed by the Hindus – and now the same Hindus go on proclaiming that they are the inheritors of Buddha. Buddhists were killed by the Indians.A time came after Buddha’s death, after seven or eight hundred years, when all the Buddhists either were killed or they had to escape out of India. India was completely cleaned of Buddhists. Yes, they were killed, burned alive. Those who were fortunate escaped. In a way that was a blessing because the monks who escaped, escaped to Tibet, to China. Those who were not too afraid escaped to Tibet – Tibet was very close. Those who were very afraid went to China, to Mongolia, to Korea, to Taiwan; they simply never stopped, they went on and on! That’s how the whole of Asia was converted to Buddhism. All the credit goes to the Hindus. And now these same Hindus go on claiming “We have given birth to Buddha.” Feel ashamed.But India is poor and very materialistic. Poor people cannot be otherwise; a poor person is bound to be materialistic, grossly materialistic. But then where to feed one’s ego? India has nothing else to brag about. Spirituality is a good commodity – invisible, unprovable. Anybody can say, “I have experienced God.” You cannot disprove it. Maybe he is right, maybe he is not right, but it is beyond proof this way or that.But don’t be worried about these stupid people who go on talking about spirituality, not knowing even the ABC of it. Yes, they may know something about the Vedas and the Upanishads. They may have crammed a few sutras, they may repeat them parrotlike, but they don’t understand what they are saying – because their lives belie it.“Excuse me, sir,” said the Indian, “but aren’t you the gentleman that fetched my son out of the lake yesterday?”“Why, yes, I am,” said the embarrassed rescuer. “But that’s all right – let’s just say nothing more about it.”“Say nothing about it?” shrieked the Indian. “Indeed, man, where is his cap?”He is not even grateful. He has not come to say thanks to the person: “You have saved the life of my child.” He is worried about the cap…A Mexican, an Italian and an Indian were discussing what they would do if they awoke one morning to discover that they were millionaires. The Mexican said he would build a bullring.The Italian said he would hire thirty hookers – one for each night of the month.The Indian said he would go to sleep again and see if he could make another million.If you watch the Indian mind, it is materialistic. And it is not only today that it is materialistic – it has always been, because twenty-five centuries ago Buddha was telling people not to be materialists, and he was talking to the Indians. And even before Buddha, almost twenty-five centuries before Buddha, Parshvanath was telling Indians not to be materialists.India has given the greatest materialist philosophy to the world: the philosophy of the Charvakas. The Greek philosophy of Epicurus is nothing compared to the philosophy the Charvakas have given to the world. The word charvaka is significant; it comes from charuvak. Charuvak means sweet message, beautiful message. Another name of the philosophy of the Charvakas is lokayat. Lokayat means popular; in which the majority of the people believe.Maybe it is because of the Indian materialism that a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Parshvanath, a Neminatha, were possible. When people are too materialistic, a few intelligent people are bound to get bored by the whole thing. It becomes nauseating, it becomes sickening. Life works in a very strange way: when the society is materialistic, a few avant-garde people start becoming spiritualists.Now the West is very materialist, and a great longing for spirituality is arising there. That’s why you have come here. You don’t see many Indians here. They believe they already know. They believe they have nothing to do – no more research, no more inquiry. And they have become very cunning. Poor people are bound to become cunning.Poverty is the root cause of all sins, of all crimes. So they start learning devious ways. They start becoming hypocrites: they say one thing, they do another. They start learning how to wear masks. You can see it, not only in the ordinary people, but in the so-called leaders and saints, political and religious. You will not find such hypocrites anywhere else.An airplane crossing the Atlantic ran into engine trouble. After dumping all the baggage to lighten the load, the pilot informed the passengers that three people would have to jump in order to save the rest.“We need three volunteers,” announced the pilot.Immediately an Englishman left his seat, shouted, “God save the Queen!” and jumped out.In a little while a Frenchman got up and said, “Long live France!” and took the plunge.Five minutes later an Indian politician in pure snow-white, hand-spun clothes, stood up, screamed, “Long live Mahatma Gandhi!” and threw a Mexican out the door.The last question:Osho,With the threat of nuclear destruction, how can we be joyful and serene?What else can you do? Time is short – dance, sing, be joyous. If there were no nuclear destruction possible, no threat, you could have postponed. You could have said, “Tomorrow we will dance.” But now there may be no tomorrow; you cannot postpone.This is the first time that tomorrow is absolutely doubtful. It has always been doubtful, but this time it is absolutely doubtful. Individually it is always doubtful: tomorrow may never come, even the next breath may not come in. Individually death is always imminent, but this time it is something global, universal. The whole earth may disappear, may explode; not only all human beings, birds, animals, trees, all life on earth may be gone.Now it is up to you. You can cry and weep and you can beat your head against the wall; that will not stop nuclear destruction and its threat. In fact it may bring it closer and faster because sad people, miserable people, are dangerous people. Misery creates destructiveness.But if the whole humanity can start dancing, rejoicing, feasting – seeing that the threat is very close by… The Third World War can start any moment. The foolish politicians have enough atomic energy piled up to destroy this earth not only once but seven hundred times. So many atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, have accumulated that we can kill each person seven hundred times – although a person dies only once. But politicians don’t want to take any chance, so seven hundred times you can be killed. It will not be needed, once will do – because we have heard only one story of resurrection; that was Jesus Christ. And even if Jesus Christ is resurrected and everybody else is gone, what is he going to do? He will have to commit suicide.Rejoice! Because then there is the possibility that if the whole earth can become full of joy it will be less possible to destroy it – because who is going to destroy it? We are the people; it is up to us to decide that we want to live or that we want to commit suicide. If we start a new climate in the world – of rejoicing, of dancing, of singing, of meditation, of prayer – and if people become full of bliss, cheerfulness, laughter… If the world is full of laughter, there is every possibility we can avoid nuclear destruction, because joyous people don’t want to destroy, they want to create.And anyway, you are going to die. Whether the whole earth remains or not does not matter. You are going to die, that much is certain. How does it matter to you whether the world continues after you or not? If it continues, good; if it does not continue, good. How does it matter to you? You will not be here anymore. As far as you are concerned, death is absolutely certain. Still you love, still you sing, you listen to music, so what difference does it make?If destruction has become global, we have to make laughter and dancing also global, in the same proportion, to counteract it. Why be sad? And what are you going to gain by sadness? Is it going to help in any way? It may be just a trick of the mind to keep you sad, it may be just a defense. You must be sad; now you are trying to find more and more rationalizations for remaining sad. And this is a beautiful rationalization: “What are you talking about? Telling people to dance and sing and rejoice, and the world is on the verge of destruction? Tell people to be sad; tell people to cry and weep and forget all laughter and forget all love.” Is that going to help in any way? It will bring the universal suicide closer.But somewhere deep down in you there is a sadness that does not want to leave you, and that sadness is trying to find rationalizations.David came from an orthodox family. One day he announced, “Mama, I am going to marry an Irish girl named Maggie Coyle.”The woman froze in shock. “That’s nice, David,” she said, “but don’t tell your papa. You know he has got a weak heart. And I would not tell your sister, Ida – remember how strongly she feels about religious questions. And don’t mention it to your brother, Louis – he might give you a bust in the mouth. Me, it is all right you told. I’m gonna commit suicide anyway.”Somewhere deep down you must have a suicidal instinct. You are just finding rationalizations.Yes, I know the world is facing danger, but each individual has always faced the danger of death. Still Jesus said: “Rejoice and rejoice. And again I say unto you, rejoice!” And in fact, Jesus was saying to people: “This world is to be destroyed soon. The Day of Judgment is very close by.” It was never so close as it is now. Jesus was wrong! Twenty centuries have passed, and he was saying to people, “In your very life you will see the Day of Judgment.” His prophecy was not fulfilled.In fact he was not a prophet, he was a mystic. He was saying those things for a totally different purpose. He was saying, “The Day of Judgment is very close by – transform yourself! Don’t waste time, don’t postpone.”Now the day of universal death is really close by, so don’t postpone. Rejoice, rejoice; I say unto you, rejoice again and again – because if you can die rejoicing, you will transcend death, you will go beyond death.One who can die blissfully never dies, because in death he comes to know immortality.And if the time is short, then you have to spread this laughter all over the world. Then it is time that we should make people more and more joyous. Tell them that death can take over this earth any moment – the days are numbered – because the politicians are fools, and the fools have so much power now that it is a sheer miracle that the Third World War has not happened yet. It should have happened. Why it has not happened yet is a mystery. Having all these stupid politicians all over the world having all the power… Just pushing a button and the process can be triggered, and within ten minutes the whole earth will be on fire – a fire that can melt steel and rock, a fire that will melt everything. The whole earth can explode.This is good news. You don’t have time to waste. Come on – join the dance.Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

https://oshoworld.com/the-dhammapada-vol-4-07/

All beings tremble before violence.All fear death.All love life.See yourself in others.Then whom can you hurt?What harm can you do?He who seeks happinessby hurting those who seek happinesswill never find happiness.For your brother is like you.He wants to be happy.Never harm himand when you leave this lifeyou too will find happiness.Never speak harsh wordsfor they will rebound upon you.Angry words hurtand the hurt rebounds.Like a broken gongbe still, be silent.Know the stillness of freedomwhere there is no more striving.Like herdsmen driving their cows into the fieldsold age and death will drive you before them.But the fool in his mischief forgetsand he lights the firewherein one day he must burn.He who harms the harmlessor hurts the innocentten times shall he fall –Into torment or infirmity,injury or disease or madness,persecution or fearful accusation,loss of family, loss of fortune.Fire from heaven shall strike his houseand when his body has been struck downhe shall rise in hell.What is the greatest mystery of existence? It is not life, it is not love – it is death.Science tries to understand life; hence it remains partial. Life is only a part of the total mystery, and a very tiny part – superficial, just on the circumference. It has no depth, it is shallow. Hence science remains shallow. It knows much and knows it in great detail, but all its knowing remains superficial – as if you know the ocean only by its waves and you have never dived deep into it, and you don’t know its infinity.Life is finite, momentary. This moment it is there, the next moment gone. It is a breeze, coming and going. It does not abide; hence the claim of science that it knows the truth is not true. It knows only the partial truth, and to claim the partial as the total is one of the absurdities of the scientific approach. What it knows is true, but it is not the whole truth. And the moment you claim that the part is the whole, you falsify even the part.Love is midway. It is exactly in the middle of life and death. It is half life, half death; hence the fear of love. Unless you are ready to die, you cannot know love – although by dying you become more alive. It is through death that love resurrects itself again and again. It is by disappearing that it appears again and again.Love is far more mysterious than life itself, because it has life in it and something more too: life plus death. Fifty percent of love is life, fifty percent is death. And only those who are ready to die will know the life of love. Those who are afraid to die will never enter the mystery of love.Art explores the world of love. Hence art is far truer than science, goes deeper than science. The vision of the artist contains much more than scientific knowledge can ever contain, although the way of art is totally different from the way of science. It has to be different. Science can be objective because it is peripheral. Art cannot be absolutely objective; it is fifty percent objective, fifty percent subjective. It cannot be free from the observer.Science tries to be absolutely free from the observer; the observer should not enter into it, should not participate, should remain absolutely neutral, nonparticipant, a spectator. He should not bring himself into it. That is the scientific outlook.But how can you avoid the knower? If you really want to know, the knower is bound to enter into knowledge.The more perceptive scientists are becoming alert now to the phenomenon that it is impossible to be absolutely impartial: the observer is bound to be reflected by his observations. He cannot be a pure spectator. He will interpret, he will theorize, he will create hypotheses and he will move through his hypotheses. He will choose because the details are infinite. He will have to focus.Who is going to decide where to focus, what to choose, what not to choose, in what direction to move? Because existence is multidimensional and you cannot move in all dimensions simultaneously, you can move only in one dimension, it is bound to be that what you know will be affected by the knower. But this has been the understanding of art from the very beginning.When the scientist looks at a flower he tries to be just an observer. He simply takes note of what he sees; he does not bring his dreams, his visions into his observation. The poet has more freedom, the painter has more freedom. He moves deep into the phenomenon of the flower. He participates in its mystery, he is not separate; for a few moments he becomes one with it. There are moments when the poet dances with the flower – in the wind, in the sun, in the rain. There are moments when the poet becomes the flower, when the observer is the observed. There are moments when the poet not only looks at the flower but looks through the flower, becomes the eyes of the flower. Naturally, he dives deeper than science; he brings far bigger diamonds, far more precious stones.Poetry, painting, sculpture, music come closer to reality because they are ready to participate. But they are only halfway.Religion is concerned basically with death. Death contains all: death contains life, death contains love, and something more which neither life can contain nor love can contain. Death is the culmination of all, the crescendo, the highest peak. Life is the base, death is the peak – love is somewhere in between.The religious mystic tries to explore the mystery of death. In exploring the mystery of death, he inevitably comes to know what life is, what love is. Those are not his goals. His goal is to penetrate death, because there seems to be nothing more mysterious than death. Love has some mystery because of death, and life also has some mystery because of death.If death disappears there will be no mystery in life. That’s why a dead thing has no mystery in it, a corpse has no mystery in it, because it cannot die anymore. You think it has no mystery because life has disappeared? No, it has no mystery because now it cannot die anymore. Death has disappeared, and with death automatically life disappears. Life is only one of the ways of death’s expression.The corpse has no mystery because with the disappearance of death, love is gone. Just one moment before there was great mystery; now there is nothing. You can only go and bury the dead or burn the dead. The full stop has come. The process has stopped. It is death that keeps the process going on. It is death that keeps you aware of something mysterious, miraculous, magical.Religion is founded in the search into death, and to understand death is to understand all. To experience death is to experience all, because in the experience of death, you not only experience life at its highest, love at its deepest; in experiencing death you enter the divine. Death is the door to the divine. Death is the name of the door of God’s temple. The meditator dies voluntarily.There are two kinds of death. One is the ordinary death; everybody dies it. That is not the mystic’s death. The ordinary death happens against you; you go into it very reluctantly. You don’t want to go into it, you cling to life. You don’t become available to it, you don’t become open to it. Hence you go on missing the point.Many times you have died, but each time you died so obsessed with life that you could not see what death is. Your eyes were focused on life, you were clinging to life. You were snatched away, and the only way to snatch you away is to make you unconscious.When the surgeon is going to operate on you he makes you unconscious, he gives you anesthesia. That’s what death has been doing for centuries, from eternity. If you can’t go joyously, dancingly into it, there is a built-in anesthesia: people become unconscious before they die. That’s why you don’t remember your past lives, because you became so deeply unconscious before you died that the chapter became closed.If a person can die conscious, alert, he will remember his past life. That’s how India discovered that there is not only one life; you have lived millions of times. You are not new, you are very ancient pilgrims. But each time you died reluctantly, unconsciously; hence you forgot everything.The mystic dies voluntarily. The mystic dies before the actual death; he dies in meditation. Lovers know a little bit of it because fifty percent of love is death. That’s why love is very close to meditation. Lovers know something of meditativeness; unaware they have stumbled upon it. Lovers know silence, stillness. Lovers know timelessness, but they have stumbled upon it – it has not been their basic search.The mystic goes into it very consciously, deliberately. Meditation is total death, voluntary death. One dies into oneself. Before death comes, the mystic dies. He dies every day. Whenever he meditates he goes into death. He reaches to those heights, those depths, and, slowly, slowly, as meditation becomes natural, he starts living death. Then each moment of his life is also a moment of death. Each moment he dies to the past and remains fresh, because the moment you die to the past you become alive to the present.He dies continuously and remains as fresh as dewdrops or lotus leaves in the early morning sun. His freshness, his youth, his timelessness, depend on the art of dying. And then when actual death comes he has nothing to fear, because he has known this death thousands of times. He is thrilled, enchanted; he dances! Joyously he wants to die. Death does not create fear in him; on the contrary, a tremendous attraction, a great pull.And because he dies joyously he dies without becoming unconscious. He knows the total secret of death and knowing it, he has the master key that can unlock all the doors. He has the key that can open the door of existence.And now he knows that he is not a separate individual. The very idea of separation was stupid. The very idea of separation was there because he was not aware of death. You think yourself separate as an ego because you don’t know what death is. If you know death, the ego will evaporate. And the moment the ego evaporates you start feeling for the whole existence.That is why Buddha teaches nonviolence. It is not a moral teaching, not like Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi’s whole teaching is moral, social, political. It is ordinary; it has no mysticism in it. Buddha’s nonviolence is totally different, qualitatively different. When he teaches nonviolence he means there is nobody other than you. To hurt anybody is to hurt yourself. To destroy anything is to destroy yourself. To be against, inimical, antagonistic to anybody is to be against your own being – because there is only one being that permeates and pervades all.Buddha never uses the word God, but by subtle hints he indicates again and again. This is his way of indicating. His respect for God is so tremendous that he feels to use the word God is to commit a crime. That is my understanding of Buddha. He does not use the word because of deep respect, great reverence. He has been misunderstood – as it happens always. All the buddhas are misunderstood, because the people who try to understand them have no insight, are blind, deaf.Buddha has been thought to be an atheist. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Buddha has been thought to be against God. Nothing can be more untrue. Buddha’s reverence is such that he cannot assert the word God. To assert the word God is to create a separation; as if God is separate from me. The inseparableness is so much, the unity with God is so much, that even the word cannot be uttered.That has been a tradition in ancient Israel: for centuries the name of God was not asserted. Only the highest priest of the great temple of Jerusalem was allowed, and that too in absolute aloneness, and that too only once a year. Nobody else was allowed to use the name of God. Only one day, once in a year, the highest priest, the purest, the most pious, the holiest man among all the Jews, would enter into the shrine, the innermost shrine of the temple. All the doors would be closed. Thousands of people would gather all around the temple just to be present there while the priest asserts the name of God. Nobody would hear it – the priest would whisper it.You cannot shout the name of God; it can only be whispered in silence – and only once. It was a beautiful tradition. It shows reverence. Otherwise, beautiful words like God become contaminated, become profane. They become ugly.Even now, Jews, whenever they use the word God or they write the word God, spell it differently. They don’t use the full spelling G-o-d. They simply use G-d, they leave out the o, just to show that, “We are not competent enough to assert the full name.” The essential part, the middle core of it, the very soul of it, is left out. And that o is beautiful because it is also the symbol zero. It is not only o but zero too, and zero is the innermost core of God.Buddha calls it shunyata – emptiness, void. G and d are just peripheral; it’s okay, one can use them, but the innermost core has to be left unexpressed. It is because of tremendous reverence for God, for existence, that Buddha has never used the word. But hints are there; for the perceptive ones, for the sensitive ones, there are infinite hints. In each sentence there is a hint.The moment you die consciously, in meditation, godliness is born – because you disappear as an ego. Then what is left? A stillness, a tremendously potential stillness, a silence that is pregnant – pregnant with the whole. When you disappear, boundaries disappear. You melt and merge with everybody else.The poet, only once in a while, becomes attuned with the flower, attuned with the sunrise, attuned with a bird on the wing. The mystic becomes one with existence forever. He is the flower and he is the cloud and he is the sun and he is the moon and he is the stars. He starts living in a multidimensional way because the whole life is his. He lives in the tree as greenness, and in the rose as redness. He is on the wings of the bird, he is the roar of the lion and he is the waves of the ocean. He is all…how can he be violent? How can he hurt? How can he be destructive?His whole life becomes creativity. The mystic is utterly creative.The sutras:All beings tremble before violence.All fear death.All love life.Simple statements, but with great meaning.All beings tremble before violence. Even unconscious animals tremble before violence. Even though you may not make them in any way alert that they are being killed, but still, before a sheep is killed, she trembles. Now the scientists have discovered that the same is true about trees. When the woodcutter comes into the garden or into the forest the trees tremble.Now there are sophisticated instruments like cardiographs, to note the trembling of the heart of the tree, which can make a graph of what is happening to the inside of the tree. Even the entry of the woodcutter into the forest… He has not said anything, he has not yet cut a single branch of the tree, but the trembling arises as if some intuitive source makes the tree alert.And scientists have watched a miracle: the same woodcutter with his ax on his shoulder may move through the forest. If he has not cut any tree – if he is just passing by the way, going to some other place – no tree trembles. It seems as if the intention of the woodcutter – just the intention, not any act – is being relayed, broadcast to the trees.And one more thing they have observed. You may not cut the tree; a hunter may come and kill a tiger – but all the trees surrounding the place tremble. Even the death of the tiger is enough to make them sad, to make them afraid. What scientists have just now become aware of, within these last three or four years, the mystics have been aware of for centuries.Buddha says: All beings tremble before violence. Violence is something against nature. The religious person cannot be violent – not that he practices nonviolence, remember. If you practice nonviolence you will become a Gandhian, a phony. The Gandhian is not a religious person. He practices nonviolence, he tries to become nonviolent – he has no understanding. He creates a character, but deep down he has no consciousness which can function as a center of that character.The mystic first creates the consciousness, then the character follows on its own accord. And the moralist creates the character, but consciousness does not follow the character. Character is a very superficial thing. You can find thousands of people in this country who practice nonviolence, the Jainas particularly.The Buddhists have forgotten all that Buddha has said. The day Buddhism had to leave India, it left its nonviolence too. Now Buddhists are all meat-eaters – the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans. Of course they have rationalized it. The rationalization is that, “We eat the meat only of those animals who have died a natural death.” So in China, in Japan or in Buddhist countries, you will find written on shops’ boards, “Here only that meat is served which has been taken from animals who have died a natural death.” Now, not so many animals are dying a natural death that they can supply the whole of Asia. But that’s enough – people are cunning.But in India the Jainas are still practicing nonviolence. But because they practice it, it remains something false, something closer to hypocrisy. It does not transform their being, it does not make them luminous, it does not give them grace and beauty. And in their ordinary life they are as angry, as full of ambition – or even more so – than others. And that “more” can be understood; there is a reason.They have somehow forced themselves to be nonviolent. Now where will their violence go? It will have to find some new ways, new outlets, because their master, Mahavira, who was a contemporary of Buddha, said to them: “Create a consciousness which is followed by nonviolence” – in the same way as Buddha said it. In the same way as Buddhists have misunderstood Buddha, they have found a legal way to get out of it.“Don’t kill,” Buddha said. And they say, “We don’t kill; we only eat the meat of the animal who has died naturally.” This is a legal strategy to get out of it.Jainas have followed in a routine way, without understanding, the message of Mahavira. Because Mahavira said: “Don’t kill animals, don’t cut down trees” – he was the first to say: “Don’t cut down trees” – Jainas have followed it, not understanding the depth and the significance of it, but only as a dead letter. They have followed literally, so they stopped farming because in farming you will have to cut down plants and trees.They stopped being warriors. Mahavira was born into a warrior race; all twenty-four Jaina tirthankaras were warriors. Of course it is absolutely certain that the people who became interested in Jaina tirthankaras must have come, at least the majority of them, from the kshatriyas – the warrior race, the samurai of India. But they could not remain warriors anymore, they had to drop their swords.They could not be warriors, they could not be farmers, and the brahmins wouldn’t allow them to be brahmins. And they were not interested either in being brahmins, because they were not interested in brahmin scriptures – because those scriptures are full of violence.In those scriptures animal sacrifice is allowed; not only animal sacrifice but human sacrifice too: at the altar of God you can sacrifice human beings. Once in a while, even in these days, this twentieth century, it happens in India: once in a while a child is sacrificed, a man is sacrificed – even now!They could not become brahmins, they could not remain kshatriyas, warriors. They would not like to become sudras. To be cobblers was impossible because that is violence, and it was against their ego to become sweepers. Then the only possible way for them was to be business people. So all the Jainas became business people, and their whole repressed violence became their ambition, their greed.Hence the Jainas’ is a small community in India, a very small community, but it manages and controls the biggest part of the wealth of the country. It is the richest community. All the violence became directed toward one thing: money. You can hurt people by being rich without hurting them in any visible way. You can exploit people. You need not kill them, you need not drink their blood, but you can still exploit them to such an extent that no blood is left in them. That’s what happened with the Jainas. That is always going to happen if you try to do the superficial first.It is as stupid as if I want to invite you for dinner – I need not invite your shadow, it comes with you. If I invite your shadow, the shadow is not going to come; it cannot come and there is no question of your coming because you are not invited at all.Character is a shadow phenomenon, consciousness is the center. Character simply reflects consciousness. So these sutras have to be understood not as moral teachings, but as spiritual insights. All beings tremble before violence. “All beings” means trees, birds, animals, men…We are so cunning that we go on saying that man is the master. Animals are created for him to enjoy, trees are created for him. Not only do we make distinctions and differences between man and other animals and other planes of existence, we make differences in humanity too.For example, Adolf Hitler used to think that the Germans, particularly the Nordics, the purest Germans, are made by God to dominate the whole world. All other races are a little lower than the pure Aryans. So if they don’t yield, don’t surrender, they can be destroyed.Jews have always thought that they are the chosen people. Hindus have always thought that they are the most pious people, God’s own people; God always takes birth in Hindu families, nowhere else. Hindus have always thought that this country, India, is the only sacred country. But this stupidity is nothing special to Hindus; everybody thinks that way.Mohammedans think that God has given the real and the final dispensation to Mohammed in the Koran. Now there is no need for any master, no need for any Buddha. The Koran is the full stop; evolution has stopped at the Koran. And Mohammedans have the privilege and the responsibility to turn the whole humanity into Mohammedans. And if people resist they have to be killed for their own sake.And so is the case with Christians, because their Jesus is the only begotten Son of God. And what are all others – bastards? Only Jesus is the only begotten Son of God, and you can reach heaven only through Jesus – not through Buddha, not through Krishna, not through Zarathustra. No, Jesus is the only way, the only truth.So not only in animals and trees have we made a hierarchy, we are trying to make a hierarchy in man too. All men are the same. Yes, there may be superficial differences – which is good. It will be very sad if those superficial differences disappear. They make life more enchanting; they give life variety, color. They make life a garden, full of different colors and different perfumes. Small differences are beautiful; they have to be cherished, they have not to be destroyed. Man has not to be made into a single kind of humanity. These differences – of Jews and Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians – are beautiful. The differences in Chinese and Japanese and Germans and English and French and Italians, are beautiful, but these are superficial things.At the core, all human beings are equal and the same.Put two men and a woman on a desert island and this is what surely will happen:If they are Jewish, the two men will play cards to see who gets the woman.If they are English, they will discuss the weather and ignore the woman because they are more interested in each other.If they are French, the two men will share the woman.If they are Italian, the woman will kill one of the men.If they are Eskimos, one of the men will claim the woman and then lend her to the other man.If they are Americans, they will still be discussing the matter, trying to find a fair and amicable way to settle the problem.These differences are there, and these differences are beautiful and they have to be cherished. They are lovely, they make the earth beautiful; otherwise it will be very boring.The following ad appeared in the personal column of a London paper: “My husband and I have four sons. Has anyone any suggestions as to how we may have a daughter?”Letters poured in from all over the world. An American wrote, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”An Irishman sent a bottle of Scotch with instructions to drink the entire contents before retiring.A German offered his collection of whips.A Mexican recommended a diet of tacos and refried beans.An Indian proposed Yoga, particularly shirshasana – the headstand.A Frenchman merely wrote, “May I be of service?”These differences are good, beautiful; they should be helped to grow. But the basic, the fundamental being is the same, not only in human beings but in all beings. The tree has a being – only its body is different from you; and the tiger has a being – only its body is different from you. The differences are only on the circumference. The center is always the same because the center is one. The name of the center is godliness.All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life. There is no need to prove these things. These are simple observations of everybody. But a few conclusions can be drawn from them. If all beings tremble before violence, then there is something wrong in violence, basically wrong. It is against nature.Destructiveness is not natural, creativeness is natural. Not violence but compassion is natural, not violence but love. Not anger, not hate, because those are the things that lead to violence, those are the seeds. Love, compassion, sharing, these are natural. And to be natural is to be religious.All fear death. Hence, do not kill. Rather, help people to know death. Their fear is because of ignorance. They are afraid of death because death is the greatest unknown. There is no way to know death unless you die. Help people to know death through meditation, because that is a way of dying and still remaining alive.All love life. Hence, love. Create contexts, spaces, where more love can grow. That’s what I am doing here: creating a space where your love energies can flow, where they have no hindrance, no obstructions.All the societies of the world have been too war-oriented, hence they have not allowed love – because if you allow love to flow, war disappears. If you allow love and help love and create contexts for love to grow and happen, it will be impossible for you to make people fight each other and kill each other.So from the very beginning we have to give them military training. From the very beginning children have to be taught hatred. The Hindu is told to hate the Mohammedan, the Mohammedan is told to hate the Hindu. The Christian hates the Jew, the Jew hates the Christian, and so on, so forth. Each nation hates another nation, and in each nation also there are different, small communities which hate each other: Maharashtrians hating Gujaratis, Gujaratis hating Maharashtrians.India is one country, but the North hates the South, the South hates the North. The Hindi-speaking people hate the non-Hindi-speaking people, and the non-Hindi-speaking people are always against the Hindi-speaking people.It seems that we have been brought up in such a way that hate has become simple, habitual; we are habituated to it, and love has become almost impossible. With so much hatred, with so many enemies, you are hating almost everybody. How can you love your wife? How can you love your children? How can you love your parents? And then impossible demands are made on you: you are told to love your wife, to love your husband, and you are told to hate everybody else in the world. These are contradictions. Either you can love all or you can hate all; you cannot divide.The man who hates everybody else cannot love his wife – it is impossible. He becomes accustomed to hate. Hate flows in his blood, it circulates in his being. If for twenty-three hours in the day you are hating, fighting, struggling, competing, then do you think for one hour back home with your wife you will be loving? Impossible. Those twenty-three hours will continue underneath.So the policeman becomes a policeman twenty-four hours. Even when he is at home with his wife he behaves as if he is a policeman. The magistrate becomes a magistrate, the clerk becomes a clerk twenty-four hours – not only in the office, he carries his files in his head. Even while making love to his wife he is calculating, he is doing a thousand and one other things in his mind. He may be in the office or he may be somewhere else…Just watch when you are making love to your wife, where you are. Are you there? In fact, somebody else is making love to your wife; you are not there – it is just a mechanical act. And do you think your wife is there? She is also not there. She may be in the kitchen or thinking how to purchase a new fridge – may already be gone to the supermarket. She may be there; she may not be with you at all.That’s why your love is not satisfying; on the contrary, it leaves you very frustrated. And can you love your children? Impossible. How can you love your parents? – these are the people who have taught you all kinds of hatreds.We need a totally different world, a different upbringing, where hate is not taught. This is a very strange world that we have created. Up to now what we have done to humanity is really unbelievable: on the one hand we teach them hate, and on the other hand we go on talking about peace. On the one hand we poison them, and on the other hand we tell them, “You are all brothers.” We talk about brotherhood, and we prepare for war; we talk about world peace, and we prepare for war. This is sheer neurosis; this is not sanity. Man hitherto has remained insane, and the reason is a wrong upbringing.We have not listened to the buddhas yet. Now it is time! We have to listen to the buddhas now. If we don’t listen, just a few more years and the whole humanity will be doomed. We cannot afford anymore not to listen.All love life. Help people to love more. Love yourself. Rejoice in love.See yourself in others.Then whom can you hurt?What harm can you do?See the point: this is not a moral teaching – this is a spiritual regeneration, a revolution. See yourself in others. Not only philosophically, but existentially. Put the ego aside and you will be able to see that you are in all, that life is one. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?He who seeks happinessby hurting those who seek happinesswill never find happiness.If you are trying to seek happiness by hurting those who also are seeking happiness, you cannot find happiness, because you have not even understood the most fundamental thing about life. In such ignorance how can you be happy?Just look all around, look with loving eyes, look with egoless mind, and you will see that life is absolutely against destructiveness. Life is creative energy. Even if sometimes people commit suicide, they commit it not in the service of death but in the service of life.The people who commit suicide are the people who have been in tremendous love with life and feel frustrated, disillusioned. In those moments of disillusionment they go insane. Those people who commit suicide are not against life, remember. Ordinarily that’s what is thought about these people, that they are against life. No, they are too much for life; they are so much for life that life cannot fulfill their demands. In utter frustration they commit suicide.Mulla Nasruddin was so discouraged with life that he decided to commit suicide. One evening he walked out to the country, a loaf of bread tucked under his arm. When he came to a train junction he lay down on the railroad tracks. A peasant passing by was amazed by the strange sight.“What are you doing,” he asked, “lying on these tracks?”Said the Mulla, “I am going to commit suicide.”“What do you need the bread for?” asked the peasant.“In this country,” said the Mulla, “by the time the train gets here, a man could starve to death.”Nobody wants to die. That means life wants to persist for ever and ever. That means life is in love with eternity. In fact life is eternal. Death only changes the form, it does not destroy – but it creates fear because it is the most unknown phenomenon.Fear disappears only when, in deep meditation, you become acquainted with death; when in deep meditation you know: “I am not the body, not the mind. Then how can there be death?” The body will go into the earth – dust unto dust – but your consciousness will persist forever. Then fear disappears. And when fear disappears in you, a great desire arises to help others so that they too can dissipate their fear – because people living in fear are living in anguish. Their lives are a nightmare surrounded by fear.Life should be surrounded by love, not by fear. It is fear that creates anger. It is fear that ultimately creates violence. Have you seen that fear is only a feminine form of anger and anger is a masculine form of fear? Fear is a passive form of anger and anger is an active form of fear. So you can change fear into anger very easily, and anger into fear – very easily.Sometimes people come to me and they say, “We are feeling very afraid.”I tell them, “Go and beat the pillow and be angry with the pillow.”They say, “What will that do?”I say, “Just try.” And it becomes a revelation even to them. If they can beat the pillow in real, hot anger, immediately fear disappears, because the same energy turns and becomes active. It was inactive, then it was fear. Fear is the root cause of hate, anger, violence. Help people not to be afraid. But how can you help people not to be afraid unless you know what fearlessness is?He who seeks happiness by hurting those who seek happiness will never find happiness. You can find happiness only if you help others also toward happiness. You cannot find happiness alone; that’s what you have been trying. You have been trying to be happy alone and let the others go to hell. You are not so alone; we are joined together with each other. If everybody else is going to hell, you cannot go to heaven, remember.There is a beautiful parable about Gautam Buddha:He arrives at the gate of heaven. The doors are flung open for him, great music is there to receive him, and angels with garlands, but Buddha refuses to enter. He says, “I will wait here. Till the last being has entered into heaven I cannot enter.”The angels persuade him: “It will take eternity for everybody – all men, all women, and all elephants, and ants and… If you are thinking for all beings to enter first, then it will take eternity!”Buddha says, “It is nothing to be worried about – I will wait. I can wait, I know how to wait. And I am eternally blissful already – what more can heaven give to me? There is nothing more than that. So I will wait here, but I cannot enter heaven unless everybody else has entered.”And the story goes that Buddha is still waiting at the gate; the angels are still trying to persuade him. Again and again they try new arguments, but they have not yet been able to take him in and close the door. And the doors are open and Buddha is waiting…There can be a thousand and one interpretations of this beautiful parable. Today I would like to remind you of one thing: even if Buddha wants to get in alone, he cannot. He understands that, that’s why he is saying: “Till the last being has entered, I am not going to enter” – because he understands that it is impossible.We are all one, we are not separate. It is not possible just for my hand to enter heaven; even if it enters it will be a dead hand, it will not be really my hand. It is not possible for one of my eyes to enter heaven and the whole body to remain outside. Either I can enter as a whole being or not at all. That’s what Buddha is saying.Buddha is saying, “I am only a part – the total is outside. I cannot enter. I will enter only with the whole.” If you understand this, your approach, your relationship with life, will have a totally different flavor. You will see all are friends, you will befriend life. In that very befriending you will start becoming happy. In that love for all, a great bliss will arise in you.For your brother is like you.He wants to be happy.Never harm himand when you leave this lifeyou too will find happiness.This sutra has been misinterpreted for at least twenty-five centuries.…and when you leave this life you will find happiness. This has been interpreted again and again as if it says something about life after death: “When you leave this life, when you leave this body, then you will find happiness” – as if happiness is something which happens only after death; it cannot happen in life. This has been the way of the Buddhist interpreters.I am not a Buddhist. The Buddhists have been interpreting it in a life-negative way. My interpretation is totally different. And I say to you that that is exactly what Buddha meant it to be, because I am not just interpreting it in a philosophical way – it is my experience too. And as far as experience is concerned it can’t be different; it is not different from Buddha’s experience.When Buddha says: …and when you leave this life… he does not mean death. He simply means this way of living this life, this way of stupid living: this way of desires, ambitions, anger, possessions, jealousies – this foolish way of life. And everybody who is not getting deeper into meditation is living in a foolish way.Wiznicki and Polacek went to a used car lot to buy a car. They didn’t have enough money to buy one but the salesman sold them a camel.“Does this thing work?” asked Wiznicki.“Of course,” said the salesman. “This camel stops at red lights and goes on green.”Wiznicki and Polacek left on the back of the camel but in twenty minutes they were back without the animal.“What happened?” asked the salesman.“Camel do what you say all right,” exclaimed Polacek. “We stop at red light, boys in car pull up beside us. One boy yell out, ‘Look at those two jerks on the camel.’ We got off to see who the two jerks were and camel ran away!”If you look at your life, if you watch closely, you will see what a fool you are, what a jerk you are.To live without meditation is to be foolish, because whatsoever you do then is going to be wrong. You cannot do right without meditation because right only grows in the soil of meditation. In the soil of the mind ambitions, desires arise. And when there is ambition there is competition, and when there is competition you are not a friend to others. You are an enemy and others are your enemies. The competitive mind lives in an inimical way, lives in hatred, lives in jealousy; its whole function is out of jealousy. And because of this kind of life man suffers, he remains in misery.When Buddha says: …and when you leave this life you too will find happiness, he means if you leave this life of ambition, jealousy, hatred, competition, if you leave this life of the ego, you will find happiness – immediately, instantly, herenow. It is not a question of after death. It is not a question that after death you will be happy. You can be happy this very moment – you just have to change your pattern of life.And the pattern of your life can be changed in two ways: either from the outside, from without – which is character, which is morality – or from the inside, from the interiority, from within – which is religion.Don’t be a moralist. That is not a way of real revolution, it is all hocus-pocus. The moralist is an egoist in a new way. He lives in misery. Only one who has started living from the center, who enters his own subjectivity in deep silence, will have happiness showering on him.Never speak harsh wordsfor they will rebound upon you.Angry words hurtand the hurt rebounds.A fundamental of life: whatsoever you do rebounds on you. If you use harsh words, they will rebound. If you hurt people, that will come back to you.Once I was in Matheran with a few friends. We went to visit a place called Echo Point. One man was with us who started barking like a dog, and all the valleys and the mountains surrounding started barking as if thousands of dogs were there.I told the man, “Why don’t you sing a song? – because these mountains will only echo it. If you bark like a dog they will become dogs. Why don’t you sing a song?”The man started singing a song; we were showered by his beautiful song. From all the valleys and the mountains the song started coming back to us.I told the people who were present that life is also an echo point. It gives you whatsoever you give to it. You have to reap the crop, whatsoever you have sown before. Sowing the seeds of poison, don’t hope that you will be reaping a crop of nectar; you will not be able to attain to nectar by the seeds of poison. Poison will bring more poison. Sow the seeds of nectar and reap the crop of nectar.Never speak harsh wordsfor they will rebound upon you.Angry words hurtand the hurt rebounds.Like a broken gongbe still, be silent.Know the stillness of freedomwhere there is no more striving.This is the most pregnant sutra of all the sutras of today. This is the secret of meditation, this is what meditation is all about.Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom… What is …the stillness of freedom…? – freedom from desire. It is desire that creates noise in you. And there is not only one desire in you, there are millions of desires clamoring for attention, asking you, pulling you, pushing you, to follow them. You are falling apart because you are continuously being pulled and pushed in different directions.Know the stillness of freedom… That means freedom from desires. Then there is stillness.…where there is no more striving. When there is no desire there is no more striving. Where there is no longer a goal there is no more striving. Where you are no longer ambitious for anything – worldly or otherworldly, material or spiritual – when you are not ambitious at all, how can there be a noise in your being? All is bound to become silent. This is true silence.There is another kind of silence too. You can sit in a Yoga posture, you can take deep breaths, and you can chant a mantra, and you can force your mind again and again for months, years. If you go on doing such a thing, after years of practice you may attain to a certain stillness which will be forced, artificial. And if you will look deep within yourself you will find all the noise has become only repressed; it is still there lurking underneath you. It is no longer on the surface, it has gone to the bottom. And that is even more dangerous, because if something is in the conscious, getting rid of it is easy; if something becomes unconscious, then getting rid of it becomes impossible.Hence psychoanalysis tries to bring everything to the conscious so that you can get rid of it. It brings your dreams, your unconscious messages, to the conscious – because the only way to get rid of anything is to become fully conscious of it. Then it is up to you to keep it or to throw it away, but to remain unconscious is to be a victim. Your strings are pulled from behind the curtain and you don’t know who is pulling them. You are just a doll pulled this way and that. You are simply following unconscious desires.Psychoanalysis brings your repressed desires to the conscious, but it cannot do it totally – because even the presence of the psychoanalyst is enough to keep you repressed. Only meditation can help you totally, because you are not bringing it to somebody else’s notice, you are bringing it in front of your own being. You can be absolutely free. You need not be afraid what the other will think.The presence of the other is always repressive even though the psychoanalyst says, “Don’t be worried, don’t be afraid, I am not going to disclose it to anybody. This will remain a secret with me, this will die with me.” Whatsoever he says, his presence is enough to repress, because it is impossible for him not to be judgmental. If you are saying something which goes against his mind you can see in his eyes that the judgment has arisen.It is because of this that Sigmund Freud used to sit behind a curtain; he never used to face the patient. He was fully aware of the phenomenon that the face, the eyes, the gestures, will show that you are judgmental, that you are judging. And if you are judging, the fear arises and repression happens. But even if you are sitting behind a curtain, the person knows you are there. The other is there and the other is repressive.Hence psychoanalysis helps only partially. And you know perfectly well that your psychoanalyst is as ill as you are, or maybe even more ill than you are. Psychoanalysts themselves go to other psychoanalysts to be psychoanalyzed, because they are suffering from the same problems.Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung were traveling in a train together, when Jung was still a disciple and had not betrayed the master. Talking about psychoanalysis, Jung suddenly had an idea. He said, “You have psychoanalyzed us all, but you yourself are still unpsychoanalyzed. Would you like some of us to psychoanalyze you? I am ready. If you want, I can function as your psychoanalyst.”Sigmund Freud started trembling, perspiration came to his forehead although it was a cold winter morning. He said, “No, never.”Jung asked, “Why?”Sigmund Freud said, “That will destroy my whole prestige.”Jung said, “Then it has destroyed your prestige already. If you are afraid, then how can you say in front of us that others should not be afraid – if even you are afraid?”Sigmund Freud was afraid because he was carrying great repressions. He was so repressed about a few things that it is rare to find a person so repressed. He has done great work in bringing sex into the human consciousness from the repressed world. He has done the greatest service to humanity by destroying the taboo against sex, but he himself had very funny ideas about sex. He was not clear himself about sex, sexuality. He was carrying all kinds of dead, rotten ideas about sex himself. He was very much afraid of death too. Even the mention of death once or twice had made him go into a faint; just the mention of death and he had fainted, become unconscious.Now, this is the founder of psychoanalysis – who is fainting at the mention of the word death and carrying very stupid, funny ideas about sex. What to say about other psychoanalysts – they are in the same boat as their patients, and their patients know it perfectly well.No, it is not possible for you to expose yourself totally in front of anybody else, hence in the East we never developed anything like psychoanalysis. We developed meditation which is exposing yourself in front of yourself. That is the only possibility to be utterly true, because there is no fear.Freedom from desire, freedom from the unconscious, freedom from all kinds of goals, brings a different kind of stillness, a natural stillness that arises within your being, starts overflowing. Even others can feel it; it becomes almost tangible.Like herdsmen driving their cows into the fieldsold age and death will drive you before them.Death is going to come sooner or later. Before death comes, learn how to die in meditation.But the fool in his mischief forgetsand he lights the firewhere one day he must burn.The fool goes on creating ditches for himself. You create your own misery, because you act out of unconsciousness, you act out of a noisy, cloudy mind. You don’t act out of clarity; your action is not out of spontaneity; your action is not out of meditative silence. It creates fire. You may be thinking you are creating it for others, but everything rebounds on you.There is no hellfire anywhere else unless you create it. Everybody has to carry his heaven or hell within himself – it is your own creation.He who harms the harmlessor hurts the innocentten times shall he fall –Into torment or infirmity,injury or disease or madness,persecution or fearful accusation,loss of family, loss of fortune.Fire from heaven shall strike his houseand when his body has been struck downhe shall rise in hell.Fire from heaven shall strike his house… It is not that somebody is sitting there in heaven who punishes you: you spit in the sky and it falls on you, you throw fire in the sky and it falls on you. You go against the current – that is your whole misery.Go with nature. Go absolutely in tune with nature, not up-current but with the current. Don’t push the river, float with it. And life will be a bliss, and life will be an ecstasy, and life will be a benediction. Otherwise fire will strike your home. …and when his body has been struck down he shall rise in hell. And this happens every day.When you go to sleep, many of you suffer from nightmares. Many write to me, “What to do about nightmares?” You cannot do anything directly about nightmares; you will have to change your pattern of life. Your nightmares are produced by what you are doing and thinking in the day. Your night is simply a reflection. If your day is beautiful, blissful, loving, you can’t have nightmares. And if your day is silent, still, utterly thoughtless, contentless, absolutely pure, whole, knowing no disturbance then all dreams will disappear. In the night you will have a dreamless sleep.The same happens when death comes. When the body falls, if you have lived rightly, mindfully, meditatively, immediately you experience heaven. Otherwise, you experience hell. These are not geographical places somewhere; these are when you leave the body. The mind left alone goes berserk. The mind left alone, unoccupied, creates something for which you have been sowing the seeds your whole life.Now psychologists are slowly, slowly agreeing with this, that when a person dies, and even while he is dying he is already entering into either a nightmare that is hell, or into a very, very beautiful space that is paradise.The third thing is neither hell nor heaven, neither happiness nor unhappiness, but just pure awareness. That is nirvana, that is moksha. There is no word to translate it, because in all the non-Indian religions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam – only two words have been talked about: heaven and hell. The third is missing, the highest is missing.That’s why I say these three religions are a little primitive compared to Buddhism. Buddhism reaches to the highest peak – it transcends heaven and hell too.One can die in absolute silence – fully alert, experiencing neither pleasure nor pain. Then he will not be born again. Then he has jumped out of the ugly wheel of life and death. He has become one with the cosmos. To become one with the cosmos is nirvana. He has ceased as an individual being and he has become the whole.Become still; not a forced stillness, not a practiced and cultivated stillness, become still naturally. Understanding the futility of desire, seeing the absolute absurdity of ambition, become still – through understanding, not through practice.Like a broken gong be still, be silent. Know the stillness of freedom where there is no more striving, and you have gone into the beyond and you have become the beyond.This is the goal of sannyas, this is the goal of all religion. This is the essential core of all spirituality. Science only knows the part; art a little more than science. Religion knows the whole.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I have always thought that the sense of science lies in its utility for human needs; in helping to provide enough food, finding treatments against sickness, creating machines to deliver man from hard and stupid work, etcetera.Until now I have always been convinced that there is nothing wrong with science, but rather with the popular attitude toward science: that it can discover the interior laws of life.Now I hear in your words that science itself is a root of the miseries in the world, because it destroys the mysteries of life and hence leads to an anti-religious attitude. Are you against science?I am not against science, but I am certainly for a different kind of science, with a totally different quality to it. Science as it exists now is very lopsided; it takes account only of the material, it leaves the spiritual out of it – and that is very dangerous.If man is only matter, all meaning disappears from life. What meaning can life have if man is only matter? What poetry is possible, what significance, what glory? The idea that man is matter reduces man to a very undignified state. The so-called science takes all the glory of man away from him. That’s why there is such a feeling of meaninglessness all over the world.People are feeling utterly empty. Yes, they have better machines, better technology, better houses, better food than ever. But all this affluence, all this material progress is of no value unless you have insight – something that transcends matter, body, mind – unless you have a taste of the beyond. And the beyond is denied by science.Science divides life into two categories: the known and the unknown. Religion divides life into three categories: the known, the unknown and the unknowable. Meaning comes from the unknowable. The known is that which was unknown yesterday, the unknown is that which will become known tomorrow. There is no qualitative difference between the known and the unknown, only a question of time.The unknowable is qualitatively different from the known–unknown world. Unknowable means the mystery remains; howsoever deep you go into it, you cannot demystify it. In fact, on the contrary, the deeper you go, the more the mystery deepens. A moment comes in the religious explorer’s life when he disappears into the mystery like a dewdrop evaporating in the morning sun. Then only mystery remains. That is the highest peak of fulfillment, of contentment; one has arrived home. You can call it godliness, nirvana, or whatsoever you like.I am not against science. My approach is basically scientific, but science has limitations, and I don’t stop where science stops. I go on, I go beyond. Use science, but don’t be used by it. It is good to have great technology; certainly it helps man get rid of stupid work, certainly it helps man get rid of many kinds of slavery. Technology can help both man and animals. Animals are also tortured; they are suffering very much because we are using them. Machines can replace them, machines can do all the work. Man and animals can both be free.I would like a humanity which is totally free from work, because in that state you will start growing – in aesthetic sense, sensitivity, relaxation, meditation. You will become more artistic and you will become more spiritual because you will have time and energy available.I am not against science, I am not anti-science at all. I would like the world to have more and more science, so that man can become available for something higher, for something which a poor man cannot afford.Religion is the ultimate in luxury. The poor man has to think about bread and butter and he cannot even manage that. He has to think about a shelter, clothes, children, medicine, and he cannot manage these small things. His whole life is burdened by trivia; he has no space, no time to devote to God. And even if he goes to the temple or to the church, he goes only to ask for material things. His prayer is not true prayerfulness, it is not that of gratitude; it is a demand, a desire. He wants this, he wants that. We cannot condemn him, he has to be forgiven. The needs are there and he is constantly under a weight. How can he find a few hours just to sit silently, doing nothing? The mind goes on thinking. He has to think about tomorrow.Jesus says: “Look at the lilies in the field; they toil not, they don’t think of the morrow. And they are far more beautiful than even Solomon, the great king, in all his grandeur, ever was.” True, the lilies toil not and they don’t think of the morrow. But can you say it to a poor man? If he does not think of the morrow, then tomorrow is death. He has to prepare for it; he has to think from where he is going to get his food, where he is going to be employed. He has to think. He has children and a wife, he has an old mother and an old father. He cannot be like the lilies of the field. How can he avoid toil, labor, work? – that will be suicidal.The lilies are certainly beautiful and I totally agree with Jesus, but Jesus’ statement is not yet applicable to the greater part of humanity. Unless humanity becomes very rich, the statement will remain just theoretical; it will not have any practical use.I would like the world to be richer than it is. I don’t believe in poverty and I don’t believe that poverty has anything to do with spirituality. Down the ages it has been told that poverty is something spiritual; it was just a consolation.Just the other day, a French couple wrote a letter to me. They must be new arrivals here, they don’t understand me. They must have come with certain prejudices. They were worried, very worried. They wrote in the letter: “We don’t understand a few things. Why does this ashram look luxurious? This is against spirituality. Why do you drive in a beautiful car? This is against spirituality.”Now, for these last three or four days I have been driving in a Chevrolet. It is not a very beautiful car; it is the car of the working man. But in a sense I am also a working man – fixing the mind. I fix nuts and bolts! In America, even the poorest drives a Chevrolet.But this French couple must have the old idea that poverty has something spiritual about it. Man has lived so long in poverty that he had to console himself, otherwise it would have been intolerable. He had to convince himself that poverty is spiritual. Poverty is not spiritual – poverty is the source of all crimes.I would like to tell the couple that if you want to cling to your beliefs and prejudices, this is not the place for you. Please get lost – the sooner the better, because you may be corrupted here. Listening to me is dangerous for you.To me, spirituality has a totally different dimension. It is the ultimate luxury – when you have all and suddenly you see that, although you have all, deep inside there is a vacuum which has to be filled, an emptiness which has to be transformed into a plenitude. One becomes aware of the inner emptiness only when one has everything on the outside. Science can do that miracle. I love science, because it can create the possibility for religion to happen.Up to now, religion has not happened on the earth. We have talked about religion but it has not happened; it has not touched the hearts of the millions. Only once in a while a person has been able to become enlightened. In a big garden where there are millions of bushes and trees, if only once in a while in thousands of years a flower comes to a tree, you will not call it a garden. You will not be thankful to the gardener. You will not say, “The gardener is great, because look: after one thousand years, out of millions of trees, a tree has again blossomed with one flower.” If this happens it simply shows it must have happened in spite of the gardener! Somehow he has forgotten about the tree, somehow he has neglected the tree, somehow the tree has escaped his grip.Man has lived irreligiously: talking about God, going to the church, to the temple, to the mosque, yet his life has shown no flavor of religion.My vision of religion is totally different. It has nothing to do with poverty. I would like the whole earth to become as rich as paradise, even richer than paradise – so that people can stop thinking about paradise. Paradise was created by poor people just to console themselves: “Here we are suffering, but it is not for long. Only a few more days, or a few years, and death will come and we will be transported into paradise.” And what a consolation! That those who are rich here will be thrown into hell.Jesus says a camel can pass through the eye of the needle, but the rich man cannot pass through the gate of heaven. What consolation! The poor people must have felt very satisfied, contented: “It is only a question of a few more days: then you will be in hellfire and I will sit in the lap of God, with all the luxuries, with all the riches, with all the joys that I am deprived of here and you are enjoying.” The idea of paradise seems to be just revenge.I would like this earth to be a paradise – and it cannot happen without science. So how can I be anti-science? I am not anti-science. But science is not all. Science can create only the circumference; the center has to be that of religion. Science is exterior, religion is interior. And I would like men to be rich on both sides: the exterior should be rich and the interior should be rich. Science cannot make you rich in your inner world; that can only be done by religion.If science goes on saying there is no inner world, then I am certainly against such statements – but that is not being against science, just against those particular statements. Those statements are stupid, because the people who are making those statements have not known anything of the inner.Karl Marx says religion is the opium of the people – and he has never experienced any meditation. His whole life was wasted in the British Museum, thinking, reading, collecting notes, preparing for his great work, Das Kapital. And he was so much into trying to gain more and more knowledge that many times he would faint in the British Museum. He would have to be carried unconscious to his home. And it was almost an everyday thing that he would have to be forced to leave the museum – because the museum has to close sometime, it cannot remain open for twenty-four hours.He had never heard about meditation; he knew only thinking and thinking. But still in a way he is right, that the old religiousness has served as a kind of opium. It has helped poor people to remain poor; it has helped them to remain contented as they are, hoping for the best in the next life. In that way he is right. But he is not right if we take into consideration a Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu – then he is not right. And these are the really religious people, not the masses; the masses know nothing of religion.I would like you to be enriched by Newton, Edison, Eddington, Rutherford, Einstein; and I would like you also to be enriched by Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Mohammed, so that you can become rich in both the outer and the inner dimensions. Science is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough – and it cannot go. I am not saying that it can go and it does not go. No, it cannot go into the interiority of your being. The very methodology of science prevents it from going in. It can go only outward, it can study only objectively; it cannot go into the subjectivity itself. That is the function of religion.The society needs science, the society needs religion. And if you ask me what should be the first priority – science should be the first priority. First the outer, the circumference, then the inner – because the inner is more subtle, more delicate.Science can create the space for real religion to exist on the earth.The second question:Osho,Why are the frauds worshipped by people, and people like Jesus, Buddha and Socrates condemned, stoned and killed?The buddhas have always been condemned by the ordinary masses, but the ordinary masses are not responsible for it. They are unconscious. We cannot make them responsible for it. They can’t help it – they are fast asleep. And the buddhas disturb their sleep; the buddhas make every possible effort to wake them up. Nobody wants to be disturbed in one’s sleep, when one may be having beautiful dreams, sweet, nice dreams…People want to remain unconscious. Consciousness is unknown to them and they are naturally afraid of the unknown. With the known they are secure, safe, and everybody else is just like them.When buddhas happen, they create a great disturbance. They cannot help it, either. When they become awakened they come to know such bliss, such silence, such heights of ecstasy, such orgasmic joy, that it starts overflowing, that great compassion arises in them. They can see people moving, walking in sleep; they start shaking them, shocking them.So it is an absolutely natural phenomenon. People become angry because you are disturbing their dreams – their anger can be understood. Buddhas become compassionate – they cannot help it. When you are blissful, compassion comes as a shadow, it follows you. Out of their compassion, they start waking people up. Naturally there arises a conflict.And the people simply do not want to be disturbed. They don’t want awakening, they want opium. It feels very good; at least it keeps them unaware of the real problems of life.Buddhas know perfectly well, that trying to wake people up is getting into danger. But it is worth it. And because they now know they are indestructible – they have come to know the eternal in themselves, what can the people do? They can crucify – let them crucify. The body is going to die anyway. They can torture, but the torture cannot reach to the buddhas. The suffering remains on the outside, it cannot come in. The buddhas remain alert, watchful, witnessing. Everything is outside; nothing can penetrate into their innermost core.So they don’t feel that they should avoid waking people up, disturbing people. The moment they become awakened they rush to the masses. When they were not awakened they went to the forests, to the mountains, to some place where they could be alone. All the buddhas – Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira, Gautama – all went into solitude. They avoided the masses when they were themselves asleep. But the moment they became awakened, the moment they saw the beauty and the benediction of life, the moment they saw the eternal beauty of existence, they rushed back to the marketplace – all of them – to give the message to the people, because the people are starving for spiritual food, although they are not aware that they are not nourished. Their souls are asleep; they are alive but not really alive.And when buddhas speak to these people they bring a totally new kind of language. People cannot understand it; they can only misunderstand it. They are bound to misunderstand it, it is so new.Jacobs went into Levine’s clothing store to ask the price of a suit on display in the window.“You picked the best suit in the place,” said Levine, “and to show you that I like to do business with a man who has got such good taste, I am gonna make you a special proposition. I will not ask you one hundred dollars for the suit. I will not ask you ninety. I will not ask you seventy. Sixty dollars is the price for you, my friend.”Jacobs replied, “I won’t give you sixty, I won’t give you fifty. My offer is forty.”“Sold,” said Levine. “That’s the way I like to do business – no chiseling.”People have a certain language – their language. Buddhas speak a totally different language; it comes from a different plane. People live in fear; buddhas live in freedom. People live in misery; buddhas live in ecstasy. How can they communicate? Communication is impossible.Lanagan, aged eighty-eight, was on his deathbed and Father Feeney was trying to administer the final blessing.“Open your eyes,” said the father, “we have got to save your immortal soul.”Lanagan opened one eye, closed it, and tried to doze off. He was having a nice sleep. “Come on, now!” cried the priest. “If you don’t want to go to confession, at least answer me this: do you renounce the devil and all his works?”“Well, I don’t know, Father,” said Lanagan opening his eyes. “At a time like this it ain’t smart to antagonize anybody.”The people want to be left alone, they don’t want to be disturbed. But buddhas are bound to disturb them. If somebody is responsible then buddhas are responsible, because they are conscious people. And I say it on my own authority: if people are against me, the responsibility is mine, not theirs – they are doing the natural thing. But what can I do? I am also doing the natural thing – but we exist on different planes.And this struggle is bound to continue forever.Three explorers – a priest, a businessman, and a Sufi – were passing through a dangerous jungle. As the days went by, the number of hostile wild beasts who circled around them became larger and larger. Eventually they had to take refuge in a tree.After a council of war they decided that one of them should go for help, since if they stayed as they were, fear, hunger and fatigue would eventually force them to fall into the jaws of the ravenous beasts.But they could not decide who should go. “Not me,” said the priest, “for I am a man of God, and I should stay to comfort whoever is left behind.”“Not me,” said the businessman, “because I am paying all the expenses of the trip.”The Sufi said nothing, but suddenly pushed the priest off his branch. He fell to the ground, and immediately a fierce pack of hyenas picked him up, fought off all the other animals, and placed him reverently on the back of the largest of their number. Then, guarding him carefully, they escorted him toward safety.“A miracle!” cried the businessman. “After your cruelty, divine guidance has intervened to save that good man. I am, from this moment on, converted to a good and holy life.”“Steady on,” said the Sufi, “for there is, after all, another explanation.”“What other explanation can there possibly be?” shouted the businessman.“Simply this: that it takes one to know one,” said the Sufi, “and the smallest always recognize their leader and honor him.”You ask me, “Why are the frauds worshipped and buddhas tortured?” The frauds are understood easily; they speak the same language as the people. The frauds are understood because the frauds are serving people in their sleep, they are offering them opium. The frauds are understood, respected, worshipped, because the frauds are not a disturbance – not at all.P. D. Ouspensky has dedicated his great book – one of the greatest ever written, In Search of the Miraculous – to his master, George Gurdjieff, with these words: “To my master, George Gurdjieff, who disturbed my sleep forever.”The third question:Osho,I don't know who I am and I could never know who you are. All I know is that this someone-or-other loves you, whoever you are.Oh, Osho – you are such a sweet apple to eat in the dark.One never comes to know who one is. If one comes to know who one is, then he must be wrong – because this infinite that resides in you is unknowable, not unknown. You can go searching into it. To send you into that adventure, the buddhas have been telling you again and again: “Know thyself.” Don’t misunderstand them – they have been misunderstood. Because Socrates says: “Know thyself,” people think they can know; otherwise, why should Socrates say: “Know thyself?” Socrates is not saying that you can know yourself; he is saying try to know thyself. In knowing yourself you will come across the unknowable. The very endeavor to know yourself will bring you to the infinite ocean of life.You will never know who you are, you will not be able to answer. You will not be able to say that, “I am A or B or C.” Whatever answer you bring is going to be wrong.When you become silent, utterly silent, no answer is there. All answers that you had before have been dissolved and no new answer has come up. And not only has the answer has not come up, even the question is no longer remembered. When neither the question nor the answer is there, in that deep silence, in that stillness, there is a kind of knowing that never becomes knowledge – a kind of awareness, a kind of light, that enlightens you, yet you cannot inform anybody about it. You cannot even make a theory out of it for yourself. You will be utterly dumb.This is a beautiful experience. This is how it should be. This is how it feels as you come closer and closer to satori, to samadhi.You say, “I don’t know who I am.” This is the beginning of real knowing. This state of a recognized ignorance is the first step into the temple of God. You say, “I don’t know who I am and I never could know who you are.” That too is true. If you cannot know who you are, how can you know who I am? – because we are the same, we are one. You are unknowable, I am unknowable; we belong to the same mystery, we are part of the same orgasmic whole.It is an ecstasy, a bliss. It is a benediction. You can dance in it, you can sing in it, you can overflow with love through it, but it never becomes knowledge. Yes, sometimes it can become a song, a Song of Solomon…Meditate over the Song of Solomon. It is one of the most beautiful songs ever sung. It has not been understood by the Jews and the Christians; in fact, they feel a little embarrassed because it looks so sexual. It certainly looks sexual, because sex is the only possible language that can come close to the spiritual. It is the sex energy that becomes spiritual energy. So it is perfectly right that the Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon, has such sensuality around it. It is so sensuous, it is incomparably sensuous. Nothing else has ever been written, sung, with such profound sensuality.But the so-called religious person thinks a religious person has to be absolutely anti-sense, anti-sex; he can’t be sensate and he can’t be sensuous. That is utterly wrong. The religious person is more sensuous than anybody else, because he is more alive. And when you want to express the ultimate, the only possible way is to express it through the deepest human experience – of sexual orgasm. Ecstasy cannot be expressed in any other way.We are part of one organic, orgasmic whole. This whole existence is in a deep, sensuous play. Yes, you can feel it, you can taste it, but you cannot know it. Forget all about knowing it. The whole effort is an exercise in utter futility.It is good, Anuradha, that you understand that you cannot know yourself and you understand that you cannot know me either.You say, “All I know is that this someone-or-other loves you, whoever you are.” It is a tremendously beautiful experience. Anuradha is simply stating something inexpressible. Difficult it is to express, but she has come very close; she has almost hit the target. Yes, this is how it is felt between a master and a disciple, because it is the greatest love affair there is. Exactly like this it is felt: “All I know is that this someone-or-other loves you, whoever you are.”Only a great love is felt – love pulsating between the master and the disciple. Slowly, slowly, there is neither master nor disciple; only love remains.And you say, “Oh, Osho – you are such a sweet apple to eat in the dark.” Yes, love is a taste – the taste of Tao. But Anuradha, why in the dark?I am reminded:A rabbi was asked, “Why does a Jewish wife close her eyes when making love?”The rabbi said, “Heaven forbid she should see her husband having a good time.”Why in the dark? Let me also have a good time. Let me also see it and experience it.But I can understand why she is saying it. Yes, in the dark you taste more. Because our eyes cannot function, the energy that moves through the eyes becomes available to other senses. In the dark you hear better. If you want to hear music, it is good to listen in the dark; you will hear better. Because the eyes are no longer functioning, the energy becomes available to the ears.In the dark you will taste better because the energy will move to the tongue, and the eyes are using eighty percent of your energy. When you are eating, if you are seeing, then eighty percent is involved in seeing and only twenty percent is available to the other four senses – so to each sense nearabout five percent. That’s why our other senses have become retarded. We don’t taste, we don’t hear, we don’t touch. If you touch in darkness you will feel more, you will know the texture. And if you listen in darkness, the music will penetrate to the very heart.Eyes have become very oppressive, very exploitative – they have become dictatorial. They have absorbed all the energy, which is not their right; it has to be distributed back. Each sense should have at least twenty percent of the energy. Yes, sometimes, when you want to go into one sense very deeply, you can make the whole energy available for it. Close your ears, plug them; close your eyes, blindfold them; close your nose – and then eat. And you will be surprised: such subtle nuances of taste you have never known before, because the whole one hundred percent of your energy is moving through the tongue. So I understand why Anuradha says, “Oh, Osho – you are such a sweet apple to eat in the dark.”But, Anuradha, an apple is a dangerous thing. You know what happened to Adam and Eve… But I am making available to you the same apples, because to me the serpent who seduced Eve to eat the apple was the greatest benefactor of humanity. Without him there would have been no humanity at all. You would not have been here; no Buddha, no Jesus, no Mohammed, no Bahauddin, no Mansoor. It is all because of the serpent. The serpent is the real founding father of humanity – the whole credit goes to him. That apple proved of great significance.I am not prohibiting you from anything – no prohibition. I am making available to you all the joys of life. Eat them, be nourished by them. I am against the biblical idea of creating inhibitions, repressions, taboos. I am against the very idea of God telling Adam and Eve not to eat from a certain tree. It is against freedom and it is against growth and it is against maturity.But that’s how religions have functioned in the past. These stories are created by the so-called priests. Their whole idea of religion is that of repression, because it is only through repression that man can be reduced to a slave. It is only through repression that man can be exploited, oppressed. It is only through repression that man’s intelligence can be destroyed.Eat all the apples that life makes available to you. Nothing is prohibited – because it is only through experiences of all kinds that one becomes enriched. And if you are not really rich in experiences – good and bad – you will never become enlightened. Enlightenment is not possible for those who have lived only a poor, saintly life. It is not for those who have lived only the poor life of a sinner. It is for those who have lived life in its totality, who have known sin and who have known saintliness, who have known all that is dark and who have known all that is light, who have moved into all the polarities.A real maturity happens only when you learn how one walks on a tightrope: sometimes leaning to the left just to keep balance, and sometimes leaning to the right just to keep balance. When he feels that he may fall toward the left, he immediately leans toward the right. If he leans too much to the right, to balance it he starts leaning toward the left. Leaning right and left, he keeps himself in the middle.Don’t be a leftist, otherwise you will fall; and don’t be a rightist, otherwise you will fall. Be both, and both in such a balance, in such a synthesis, that you can remain walking on the tightrope. Life is a tightrope stretched between two hilltops. Unless you walk with full awareness, sensitivity, intelligence, you will not reach to the other shore.The buddha is talking of the other shore. The other shore is available only to those who grow in intelligence. Priests want you to remain stupid and buddhas want you to become more and more intelligent. Hence there is a conflict between the priests and the buddhas.Jesus was crucified not by criminals but by the rabbis, by the priests. Socrates was not poisoned by bad people but by the respectable ones. Why? – because Socrates was trying to make life available to his disciples in its totality. What was his crime? The crime for which the people of Athens – the respectable people, the highest strata of the society – dragged him into the court was that he was corrupting the youth. He was making life available to his disciples in its totality, and he was condemned as a corrupter of youth.I am also condemned as a corrupter of youth. It seems humanity has not grown at all; we are moving in circles. If Socrates comes back he will not find it difficult to understand man. He will find it very difficult to understand a car or a radio or a television; it may be really inconceivable to him what these things are, how they function. Ordinary things that you never think about – electricity – he will not be able to understand. But he will be absolutely able to understand man, because man has not grown at all. Man is the same – is doing the same, is behaving in the same foolish way.People are against me because I am making all the apples available to you. Eat them. Live life in its totality.And, Anuradha, soon – the day is not far off – many of you are going to become enlightened in this life. I can see you moving closer and closer to the point from where the ego disappears.Now Anuradha is getting into difficulties: her memory is disappearing, she can’t remember much. And of course Arup is worried, because Anuradha helps her in writing letters and she cannot remember… Even to write a single letter she takes at least one hour. But as far as I am concerned, I am immensely happy – it is Arup’s problem. I am immensely happy. The past is disappearing, the memory is becoming totally different. Now more important things are happening which have to be remembered; the ordinary, the mundane, cannot be remembered.And the ego is disappearing. Anuradha has become almost empty. I say “almost” – just a little bit is left. Once that little bit is gone, the beyond will start showering on her. The first flowers have started opening, the spring is close by.Anuradha, feel blessed. The spring is very close by, and I am immensely pleased with you.The fourth question:Osho,“He has tamed his horses…” Yes! But how to do it? What is the way to tame them? I either control, repress and stop myself, or I am led by my senses and driven by my “animal.” With both I feel not at ease and I constantly move from one side, repression, to the other – driven.How to come out of this trap? Is watching and awareness all there is to do?Do you think watching and awareness is a small thing? You ask me, “Is watching and awareness all there is to do?” Just do it – and you will know that nothing is left to be done anymore. Don’t philosophize about it, don’t go on thinking about it. Of course, the word awareness does not seem very big. And if you look in the dictionary the meaning is there: it is not so fantastic, it is not that far out.You know your problems existentially, and you know the solution only intellectually – that is the problem. You will have to know your solution also existentially. Awareness contains all the religions of the world, all the scriptures of the world, all that has ever been said by all the enlightened people. This simple word contains all; it is like a small key. Don’t throw it away: “…because it is so small – how can it open the doors, all the doors of the great palace?” It is a master key. And keys are not that big; you don’t have to carry them in trucks, you can keep a key in your pocket. It is just a small thing, but it can unlock great doors, many doors. If it is a master key it can unlock all the locks.Awareness is the key.You say, “How to tame…? I either control, repress and stop myself, or I am led by my senses and driven by my ‘animal’.” Yes, these are the two alternatives if you don’t attain to awareness. Either you will repress and control – which is ugly, which will make you unnatural, which will make you ill at ease with yourself, which will drive you ultimately into a kind of insanity – because you are repressing your own energies, which need to be transformed, not repressed. And energies repressed are dangerous; they will explode.And your senses have their own aliveness. If you repress them you will become dull, you will become insensitive. You will become insensitive to beauty, to joy, to music, to poetry, to all that has any intrinsic value.That’s why your so-called monks, your mahatmas, your saints, are utterly insensitive. They can’t see any beauty anywhere, they can’t see any joy anywhere. And if you live with them for a few days you will know they are joy-killers; they will destroy your joy also, they will make you embarrassed if you are happy. They will ask such questions as, “Why are you happy? What is there to be happy about in this life? Life is misery. Why are you laughing and giggling? What is there to laugh about? Crying is okay, tears are accepted – they are religious. But giggling? – that is not religious.”Just the other day someone has written to me, “You must be the first enlightened one who is telling jokes.” Yes, that is true – at least I can claim that much originality. Otherwise it is very difficult to claim any originality in this world; there is nothing new under the sun. For millions and millions of years man has existed and thousands and thousands of enlightened people have existed; they have done almost everything that can be done. I was really searching what to do – something new! Then I stumbled upon jokes. I said, “This is right!”If you repress you will become humorless, you will lose all sense of humor. Your saints cannot laugh, and a man who cannot laugh is not a man; he becomes subhuman. Horses don’t laugh, buffaloes don’t laugh, donkeys don’t tell jokes to each other. Laughter is absolutely human; no other animal laughs. And if one morning, just going for a walk, a donkey suddenly starts laughing, you will go crazy! You will not even be able to report to anybody that this has happened; they will think that you are mad.It is man’s privilege to laugh. Laughter has something divine about it; laughter has something which is available only to man. Only man can laugh, because he can sense the absurd, the ridiculous; because he can see through and through, and he can see all around such stupidity pretending to be wise, fools pretending to be intelligent, intellectual – the intelligentsia.Never repress. Repression will destroy all that is human in you. And once the human is destroyed you cannot attain to the divine, because humanness is the bridge. Man is a bridge between the animal and the divine. And the animal is also beautiful because the animal has aliveness. That is exactly the meaning of the word animal. It comes from anima – aliveness, life, vitality. Your saints become non-vital because they destroy the animal. They don’t tame it, they destroy it; they find easier to destroy.Taming needs art, it needs great art. To kill a tiger is simple. To ride on the tiger and come back home is dangerous and arduous and needs great art. And so is the case with all your senses: they have their own sensitivity, a little intelligence of their own. Have you observed that your senses have their own intelligence, their own small minds?You are asleep and a cockroach starts crawling – what else in India? – a cockroach starts crawling up your leg, and you remain asleep and the leg simply throws the cockroach away. The leg has its own intelligence, its own built-in alertness; it functions on its own. Your sleep remains undisturbed. You eat – your stomach must have its own intelligence; otherwise it is a very complicated process to digest, to transform bread into blood. Scientists have not yet been able to do it mechanically. They have not been able to create machines which can transform bread into blood. Your stomach must have an intelligence of its own – and it does not ask you at all. Once you have taken anything down the throat you forget all about it; now it is up to the stomach to do the whole work. And the work is really complicated, immensely complicated: sorting out different elements, sending those different elements to different parts of the body…You have wounded your hand. Immediately your hand, your blood circulation, your body starts a healing process. Your mind is not needed at all.Remember that forcing your senses into some repressed state will take your vitality. You will not be fresh, you will not be young, you will not be flowing. That’s what has happened to humanity at large: because of wrong religious teachings, people have become dull, stupid.There is a woman in Russia who can read with her fingers – and not braille; she can read ordinary books with her fingers, with closed eyes, blindfolded. She says that she can see through the fingers. There are people whose fingers are so sensitive, by touching you they will know much about you that even you may not be aware of. Just shaking hands with you they know much about you. Your hand gives them a kind of information: whether it is cold or warm, friendly or unfriendly, or indifferent. A sensitive person, just by shaking hands with you, has already become aware of many things about you, has already known much about you.Each sense has its beauty and has to contribute to your intelligence. So please, don’t repress, don’t control.While rambling along the railroad tracks, Isaac found twenty dollars. He walked a little further and felt his corns pinch. “Feet,” he said, “I’m gonna buy you a brand-new pair of shoes.”He continued his walk, but soon felt the hot sun on his forehead. “Old top,” promised Isaac, “I’ll get you a cool, shady hat.”Just then Isaac’s stomach grumbled. “Okay, belly,” he said, “I will buy you a fine meal.”Isaac resumed his journey. Five minutes later, he stopped in shock. He looked downward at the front of his pants and hollered, “Hey, big stiff, who told you we came into big money?”Each sense of the body has its own intelligence. No sense has to be curtailed; each sense has to be given freedom joyously. Each sense has to be nourished in its aliveness. Only then will you know that all your senses create an orchestra, a great melody.But I understand your trouble; this is the trouble of almost everybody in the world. Either you control or you start indulging, and you don’t know how to remain exactly in the middle. Indulgence is also destructive. Repression is destructive, indulgence is destructive – because these are two extremes. One fasts for many days; he is trying to control, repress his hunger, his body’s needs. Another eats too much, goes on stuffing.It is said that Nero used to have four physicians always around him because he was a lover, a mad lover, of food; he was obsessed with food. He would eat too much, and the physicians’ work was to help him vomit so that he could eat again. And this he would do many times in the day. Otherwise you can eat only once, if you live in a primitive, aboriginal part of Africa…because for centuries they have eaten only once, and that is enough. If you live in India you will eat twice, if you live in America five times. But Nero was eating sometimes even twenty times a day. Now, this is indulgence, mad indulgence! This is again going to dull your senses. His belly must have been going berserk, his body must have been feeling a kind of insanity.One has to be in the middle, the golden mean. That is Buddha’s teaching.There is a beautiful story in Buddha’s life:He came to Shravasti, one of the greatest cities of those days. It must have been something like the Paris of India of those days, because its beauty is described so much in the scriptures. And Buddha also must have loved the town very much, because in his forty-two years’ teaching he came at least twenty times to Shravasti; that is the most he ever visited any place. Sarnath he visited only once – because of the mosquitoes. Sarnath has really big mosquitoes; Pune mosquitoes are nothing, Puneites are nothing.When I was staying with a Buddhist monk in Sarnath, we had to sit beneath a mosquito net the whole day – he in his bed, I in mine – and we had to talk… I told him, “This is my first and last visit. I am not coming back again to Sarnath.”He said, “Do you know, Buddha himself never visited twice.”I had not known that. I said, “Tell me.”He said, “Yes, he came here only once – to Shravasti twenty times, Sarnath only once. What is the reason?” And we joked.I said, “The reason is clear: he didn’t have mosquito nets. In the first place, these mosquitoes must have tortured him. And these are really monsters, not mosquitoes – very big ones. Poor Buddha must have escaped.”He only remained one day there. He went to Shravasti twenty times; he stayed twenty rainy seasons in Shravasti. Now Shravasti has almost disappeared; a small village is thought to be where Shravasti used to be. It was a big city – ten lakhs of people – one of the most beautiful in the country.And the king of Shravasti was Shrona. He must have loved beauty; he made the city so beautiful – beautiful lakes and roads and palaces. And he invited all kinds of artists, musicians, poets – his court was full of talented people. He had the most beautiful women around him. He lived in utter luxury. His days were spent moving from one pleasure to another. Naturally, he soon got fed up, tired, wearied.And then Buddha came. Shrona was feeling so bored with life that he went to listen to Buddha thinking maybe he had something to say. He was feeling so meaningless, so utterly meaningless, that he had started lately to contemplate suicide. Seeing Buddha and his divine beauty, his grace – and Shrona was a very aesthetic person – seeing Buddha he immediately fell in love with him.He didn’t go back to his palace. He asked Buddha with folded hands, “Give me sannyas. Initiate me.”Buddha hesitated a little bit because he knew everything about Shrona and his life; it would be difficult for him. He may not have tasted water for years; alcohol was the only thing that he used to drink. He had indulged so much that for a moment Buddha was hesitant.But Shrona said, “Don’t hesitate. I am fed up with my life, I am finished with it! If you don’t give me sannyas I will commit suicide – and that will be your responsibility.”My own observation is also this: that a man really becomes a sannyasin when he comes to the point where there are only two possibilities: either suicide or sannyas.Buddha had to initiate him immediately, because he did not want to be responsible for his suicide. But what Buddha had not expected started happening. Shrona became just the opposite of what he had been before. He had been absolutely indulgent in everything, in every possible thing. Now he became a great ascetic, so much so that he started torturing his body, he became a masochist. He would lie down on thorns, he would stand in the hot sun. He would not live as other sannyasins were living – moderately, balanced, the life of the golden mean. No, he moved to the other extreme. Within six months it was impossible to recognize him, he had become so thin, so dark. He was a beautiful person; he had become ugly. He was starving himself. Buddhist sannyasins used to eat once a day and he used to eat only thrice a week, and that too, so little.It happens: people can move to the extreme very easily. Mind lives in extremes – from one extreme one can jump to the other extreme very easily. The most difficult thing is to remain in the middle, because to remain in the middle you will need awareness. Moving from one extreme to the other you don’t need awareness. You were unconscious before as an indulgent person, now you are unconscious as a great ascetic. First you were stuffing yourself with food and you were unconscious, now you are starving yourself and you are unconscious.The man of consciousness stays in the middle: neither too much nor too little. He always gives to the body what is needed, to the mind what is needed. His life has a very, very rhythmic quality to it. He responds to his requirements very consciously, responsibly, but he does not go in an insane manner this way or that.After six months Buddha had to go to him. Shrona had wounds all over his body because he was lying down on thorns. He was stinking because he had stopped taking baths; he thought that too was luxury.In India, Jaina monks don’t take baths, they don’t clean their teeth, because that is thought to be too materialistic – you are decorating the body. It is very difficult to talk to Jaina monks. They used to come to me before, but fortunately they no longer come here. It was so difficult to talk to them because their breath smell is simply unbelievable, their body odor is intolerable. But that is thought to be a great renunciation.Buddha went to see Shrona. He was ill, with wounds all over the body, almost dying. Buddha asked him one question: he said, “Shrona, I have come to ask one question of you. I have heard that when you were a king you used to play beautifully on the sitar. You were a great lover of the sitar and you had practiced your whole life.”Shrona said, “Yes, that is true.”Buddha asked him, “So I have come to ask you one thing: if the strings of the sitar are too loose, will there be any music?”Shrona said, “No, how can there be any music? If the strings are too loose, music cannot be created.”Buddha said, “Then if the strings are too tight, will there be any music?”Shrona said, “No, that too is not possible. If the strings are too tight, they will be broken.”Buddha said, “Then tell me, when is music possible?”Shrona said, “There is a point exactly in the middle when you cannot say the strings are loose and you cannot say the strings are tight. It is a great art to bring the strings to that middle point – exactly in the middle, neither leaning to this side nor to that; no leaning at all, exactly in the middle.”Buddha stood up and he said, “Shrona, I have nothing else to say. I just came to remind you that life follows the same law. Be in the middle. You have moved from a too-loose life to a too-tight life. That’s why you are not attaining to the music called nirvana, the music called meditation.”That exact middle cannot be found without awareness. And don’t say, “Is watching and awareness all there is to do?” Yes, it is all. It is more than you need, more than you will ever need. It will fulfill all your needs. It will teach you how not to repress and how not to indulge. It will make you so alert that you will be just a witness. And when one is just a witness of one’s senses, one enjoys and yet one remains above. One becomes a lotus leaf, in the water and yet untouched by the water.The last question:Osho,I am a very jealous person, particularly as far as my wife is concerned. If she even looks at anybody, I become enraged. What should I do?It has nothing to do with your wife. If the wife is not there you will be jealous about something else.Remember always: don’t be too concerned about outer causes, because causes are not outside you. Outside are only excuses; causes are inside you. You are full of jealousy; the wife simply functions as an excuse. Don’t be too worried about the excuse, because that is wasting time. Look inside yourself: why are you jealous?Jealousy means ego, jealousy means unconsciousness. Jealousy means that you have not known even a moment of joy and bliss; you are living in misery. Jealousy is a by-product of misery, ego, unconsciousness.Forget all about the wife; otherwise you will remain concerned about the wife, and that is a way of escaping from the real cause. The real cause is always inside. And not only about jealousy, remember, about all problems – greed…Somebody comes to me and says, “I am very greedy about money. How can I get rid of this greed for money?” It is not a question of money. Greed is greed. If you get rid of money you will become greedy for God; greed will still be there.The night Jesus was saying good-bye to his disciples, one of the disciples asked him, “Lord, you are leaving us. There is one question, and it is on the minds of all your disciples. In the kingdom of God you will be sitting at the right side of God himself – obviously, you will be his right hand. And who will be sitting next to you? Among us twelve, who will be the second to you? That is the most important thing in our heads. Please say something about it; otherwise, once you are gone it will be impossible for us to decide and we will be quarreling and fighting over it.”Now, this is jealousy. Now, what kind of disciples has Jesus? As far as my observation goes, Jesus was not very fortunate about his disciples. Buddha was far more fortunate. Never in the whole life of Buddha has a disciple asked such a stupid question. And these are the apostles of Jesus, the twelve apostles – his messengers to the world.Remember, if greed is dropped about money, immediately it will take another object, it will become focused on something else. So the first thing to remember: it has nothing to do with your wife, it has something to do with yourself. Forget about the wife completely, keep her out of the problem. She is not the problem, you are the problem! Take responsibility, and then things start changing.If you take responsibility, if you think, “I am responsible, nobody else,” you will not be angry with your wife. You will not be fighting and nagging, you will not be nasty with her. You will start looking deeper and deeper. And in that very search you will become aware. That’s what awareness is, that’s how one becomes aware.And when you are fully aware of your jealousy you will be surprised, you are in for a surprise: when you are fully aware of it, it disappears. It simply disappears, not leaving even a trace behind it.Two men had had enough of the world so they decided to leave their wives, kids and jobs for the peace and quiet of the wilderness. They stopped for supplies at a sporting goods store owned by a wise old man.“Take this,” said the old storekeeper to the renunciates as he handed them a board lined with mink fur, with a small slit cut out in the middle which was also lined with fur.“No way!” cried the men. “We know what that board is for and I tell you we are through with that kind of thing forever!”But the wise old man slipped the board into one of the packs while they were not looking, and the men left.Three years later one of the men returned to the old man’s sporting goods store.“Well, hello,” cried the storekeeper. “Where is your partner?”“Dead,” said the returning survivor.“What happened?”“I shot him.”“But why?”“Well,” said the man, “I caught him in bed with my board.”It is not a question of the wife – even a board will do: “My board.” It is a question of the ego, and the ego exists only when you live in an unconsciousness, in a darkness. The ego exists only in the dark night of the soul.Bring a little light inside. Meditate a little bit. Sit silently, doing nothing, looking inward. In the beginning you will find only rubbish. Don’t be worried – go on looking. Within three to nine months the rubbish will be gone, and a silence will start dawning on you and a stillness will arise.In that stillness you will become aware of yourself and of the whole that surrounds you. That state is samadhi, and to know it is to know all, to be it is to be all.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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He who goes naked,with matted hair, mud-bespattered,who fasts and sleeps on the groundand smears his body with ashesand sits in endless meditation –so long as he is not free from doubts,he will not find freedom.But he who lives purely and self-assuredin quietness and virtue,who is without harm or hurt or blame,even if he wears fine clothes,so long as he also has faithhe is a true seeker.A noble horse rarelyfeels the touch of the whip.Who is there in this world as blameless?Then like a noble horsesmart under the whip,burn and be swift.Believe, meditate, see.Be harmless, be blameless.Awake to the law.And from all sorrow free yourself.The farmer channels water to his land.The fletcher whittles his arrows.The carpenter turns his wood.And the wise man masters himself.Gautama the Buddha has no philosophy of life. He is not a philosopher at all. He is a man of insight, he is wise; he knows how to see into life, into reality. He has a way of seeing but not a philosophy of life. He has a way of living but not a philosophy of life.A philosophy of life is a false substitute – it is avoiding transformation of your being. You can learn beautiful words, systems of thought, ideologies, and you can become so much engrossed in them that you can forget totally that you don’t know even yourself, that you don’t know how to see that you are blind, that you have not been able to create light in your heart, that the flame is absent, that you are living in deep darkness; that your life may be very sophisticated, cultured, but it is not true life. You live on the surface; you don’t know its depths and its heights. It has both deep valleys and high peaks, but to reach to those depths and those peaks you will have to pass through an alchemical process.Buddha is an alchemist. He shows you how to transform your energies from the lowest to the highest center of functioning, from the mud to the lotus, from the baser metal into gold, from stones into diamonds. He is a scientist of the inner. His approach is utterly scientific, not philosophic at all.That’s why he could not fit with the Indian mind; the Indian mind is too philosophical. The Indian mind has learned too much jargon, it has become very skillful in splitting hairs. Buddha is not concerned at all with all that nonsense. He goes directly to the problem.The problem is that we are living with a darkness in the heart – how to transform this darkness into a luminosity? We have the potential, but we don’t know how to change it into actuality. Buddha is very pragmatic, very practical, the first man really to be so pragmatic about the inner world, about subjectivity, about interiority. People are very interested in philosophies of life. If they don’t have one, they feel as if they are missing something. People are interested in phony words because they cost nothing. You can be a Hindu, you can read the Vedas and the Gita and Upanishads, and you can become very learned. You can become a great parrot, you can become a pundit, a great scholar, you can talk about great things for hours, but your life will remain ordinary – it will not have any touch of the beyond.You can be a Mohammedan or a Christian – there are hundreds of ideologies in the world – you can be a Catholic or Communist. It does not matter what you believe in. What really matters is, are you capable of seeing? Do you have eyes to see the mystery of existence? Do you have the heart to feel the magic of it? Are you open, available, vulnerable to the unknown? And when the unknown calls, are you courageous enough to go into the uncharted sea, not knowing what is going to happen next? Do you have that type of guts?Goldberg had a vague feeling that something was missing in his life. One night he was particularly depressed and told his wife about his yearning for something.“But Sam,” reassured his wife, “you have everything.”“I know, I know. But I don’t have a philosophy of life – I want that.”“Sam, what do you want that for? None of the neighbors have one.”But that’s really the problem – the neighbors do have one. Somebody is a Hindu, somebody is a Mohammedan, somebody is a Christian, somebody is a Jew, somebody is a Communist; somebody talks about Das Kapital and somebody about the Gita and somebody about the Koran, and you start feeling as if you are missing something because you cannot talk about great things. You start feeling these people must know all that they are talking about. They know nothing. They are as blind as you are, or maybe they are blinder than you are. At least you are free of the philosophies – that is one of the basic hindrances in seeing.The first thing to understand about Buddha and his approach is that he does not want to give you a teaching. He certainly wants to give you a science. He is not interested at all in making your minds more sophisticated – he wants you to drop the mind. Sophisticated or unsophisticated, mind is a block, it hinders. No-mind is the capacity to see; mind is the capacity to believe, but it is not the capacity to see.Hence Buddha has given a totally new meaning to meditation. Before him, meditation was concentration in the beginning and contemplation in the end. But concentration and contemplation are both part of the mind; the mind can play these games perfectly well. The mind is very much interested in concentration because through it, it becomes stronger. Concentration is nourishment. And mind is immensely interested in contemplation too, because through contemplation, finer food, finer nourishment, become available.If you concentrate you can become a scientist of the objective world; if you contemplate you become a great philosopher. But unless you know what meditation is you will never be a mystic; and without being a mystic, you will miss all – your whole life will be a sheer waste.These sutras are tremendously important. In a few places the translation is not accurate, but on the whole it gives you the essence. Wherever I see it is not accurate I will remind you. Those inaccuracies are bound to happen – because in the West nobody has talked like Buddha; hence no Western language is capable of translating Buddha accurately, adequately.Jesus was a buddha, but his way of talking was not that of Buddha. Jesus talked as if he were talking to primary school children – and that’s exactly the case. The people he was talking to were really at a very, very beginners’ stage. He had to use parables, metaphors. He had to use phrases which are anthropocentric: Kingdom of God – there is no God and there is no kingdom. And Jesus knew it, but he had to talk in words which people could understand.People can understand a king – then God is the greatest king. But the difference is of quantity, not of quality. Kings have kingdoms; hence God, the greatest king, must have the greatest kingdom. But again the difference is of quantity, not of quality. And because it is not of quality it misses the whole point, it misses the target.God is not a person but a presence. And God has no kingdom because God is a pervading presence of life, of beauty, of music, of poetry. He is spread all over space; he is not separate from it. He is not the creator, he is the very phenomenon of creativity itself. But Jesus could not talk that way – Buddha could.Buddha was talking to a very ancient people, to people who were very well acquainted with higher reaches – even they were not able to understand. Jesus had to use language which could be understood. And Jesus was a carpenter’s son; he himself knew the language of the ordinary people. Buddha came from a royal family, a son of a king – very sophisticated – knew all about philosophy and was fed up with it; knew all about beautiful parables, stories, mythologies, and was finished with all that. He had seen through them, that they keep people occupied but they don’t transform them. He had discarded all that is nonessential; he talked only about the very essential. He was very telegraphic too: he would not use a single word more than was needed. Unless it was absolutely needed – only then would he use it.And of course, he changed the meaning of words; that always happens when a buddha, an awakened person, uses words. He gives new color, new nuances, new meanings to ancient words. Buddha transformed the word meditation. Meditation had always been something of the mind, and Buddha brought a new quality, so totally new, diametrically opposite to the old meaning: he said, meditation means a state of no-mind. It is not concentration, it is not contemplation. It is not thinking, it is not thinking about God. It is not even prayer – because thinking is of the head, intellectual; prayer is emotional. That is another side of the head, not very far away from it; a different language used by another part of the head.Now scientists agree about it, that the head has two hemispheres. The left hemisphere speaks the language of intellect, logic, arithmetic; and the right hemisphere speaks the language of emotions, feelings, sentiments. But they are two sides of the same head.Buddha was the first to indicate this: that concentration, contemplation, belong to one side of the head, the left hemisphere; and prayer, devotion, belong to the right hemisphere. But both are of the head, and the true seeker has to go beyond the head; he has to transcend the duality of the head, the division of the head. Only when you transcend the division can you come to the one.Hence, he gives a totally new meaning to meditation, to dhyana. He makes it mean a state of no-mind. You will constantly have to remember that. Wherever the word meditation is used, remember, Buddha means no-mind.The second thing: wherever you come across the word belief, beware. Buddha never means what you mean by the word belief. His word is shraddha. Shraddha does not mean belief, it does not even mean faith; it means trust, which is a totally different phenomenon.Shraddha means a state of total trust. Belief is not total trust; doubt remains in it, repressed. Belief is a cover-up. You doubt but you have covered it with a blanket, with belief. You are afraid of the doubt. Doubt disturbs, so you cling to the belief, but the belief can never take you beyond the doubt.Belief is doubt standing on its head, upside-down, that’s all. The doubter doubts, the believer believes, but both are blind. They are in the same boat, maybe sitting back-to-back, but in the same boat. Hence the believer is always afraid of somebody provoking his doubt, and the doubter is always on guard that nobody should convince him of any belief. They are entangled with each other.What is trust? Trust is going beyond doubt and belief. Belief is always in a certain idea; trust is always in that which is – not in an idea but in existence itself, within and without. And between belief and trust there is another word, faith – beware of that too. Buddha never means faith when he uses shraddha, and he always uses shraddha. Faith is just in between: belief is in an idea, faith is in a person, and trust is in existence itself. Buddha never wants you to be faithful because faith creates fanatics, faith creates neurotics.Just the other night, a young woman came to take sannyas. The way she approached me I became aware that she is neurotic. But I never say no to anybody. Who knows, there is always a possibility – one can never say – that the neurotic may become normal. And at least, if she is willing to take sannyas, she has still some sense left; maybe she can be helped.I could see it was going to be difficult – the way she came, the way she sat… And finally, when I called her close to me, she refused to come close. She stood up with raised hands and said, “I am Jesus Christ.” I didn’t say anything to her, although I wanted to say, “So, old chap, you are back again. Have you forgotten what happened the last time? Maybe that’s why you have come in the form of a woman this time.” And after declaring that she was Jesus Christ, she walked away.Faith creates these types of neurotics. Christianity has many neurotic people, because the whole idea depends on faith: “Believe in Jesus Christ, have faith in him. He will deliver you.” – as if he is responsible for your bondage. He can deliver you only if he has put you in the prison; otherwise, how can he deliver you? He is the savior and you are the saved; he is the shepherd and you are the sheep. Don’t you see the indignity involved in it? You become just sheep. All the religions, more or less, have been doing this. If you believe in persons, you will be reduced to sheep – you will not be human beings. Your humanity is destroyed. You are imprisoned in very subtle, invisible prisons. You cannot see them, they are transparent.Buddha says: “Be a light unto yourself.” Don’t believe in persons, don’t believe in ideologies. And when you don’t believe in any ideology, and you don’t believe in any person, a great trust explodes, a trust in existence itself – in the trees, in the rocks, in the people, in the stars, rivers, mountains, in all that is. Of course, the buddhas are part of it, but you don’t believe in Buddha particularly. You simply believe in existence. You believe in the fragrance of a rose and you also believe in the fragrance of a Jesus. But this belief is not rooted in any idea. In fact, it is something subjective, it has nothing to do with any object.If you believe in Jesus you cannot believe in Krishna. If you believe in Krishna you cannot believe in Mahavira. Naturally, if you believe in one you have to disbelieve in all others. That’s how belief divides people. And the whole history is full of blood, murder, crusades. It is full of blood and violence in the name of religion, because you have been told to believe one against all others.Trust is totally different. If you trust existence… Existence implies Jesus as much as Krishna, as Buddha, as Zarathustra. They are all part of it. Mohammed, Nanak, Kabir, Farid are all part of it. And you don’t believe only in buddhas, you believe in the ordinary people that surround you too; not only people but animals, trees, rocks. It is not a question of what you believe in – the object becomes irrelevant. You simply have a trusting heart, a great trust that we belong to this existence, we are part of this miraculous existence, that this existence cannot be unfriendly to us. It has given birth to us, and how can the mother be unfriendly?This is a totally different meaning to trust. It is neither belief nor faith. Remember these two words because they are again and again translated wrongly.The sutras:He who goes naked,with matted hair, mud-bespattered,who fasts and sleeps on the groundand smears his body with ashesand sits in endless meditation –so long as he is not free from doubts,he will not find freedom.These people – the people who go naked, with matted hair, mud-bespattered, the people who go on long fasts, the people who sleep on uneven ground, or even on thorns, the people who smear their body with ashes – these people have been thought of down the ages as if they are saints. They are simply masochists, they enjoy torturing themselves. They are very violent people.The difference between them and Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan and Nadirshah is only one: Genghis Khan, Nadirshah, Adolf Hitler, enjoy torturing others, and these so-called saints enjoy torturing themselves – but both enjoy torture. Now, if you torture others it is condemned, obviously, because “others” include you and you are afraid of being tortured. But if somebody tortures himself it is praised – it has nothing to do with you; he is torturing himself.In fact, the people who worship these masochists are sadists. You would like to torture them, but they are such good people, they are doing your job. What you would have liked to do, they are doing themselves. You can go and worship them.Masochism is a disease: to torture oneself. And sadism is also a disease: to enjoy torturing others. If you are courageous enough, if you can risk…because great risk is there; if you torture others, they will take revenge. Adolf Hitler finally had to commit suicide, and Nadirshah lived his whole life in constant fear and trembling, because he had murdered so many people. He had made so many enemies, he could not trust anybody. He was not even able to sleep well; a slight noise and he would jump up – and that’s how he died.One night a stray camel entered the campus where Nadirshah was camping. That stray camel reached near Nadirshah’s camp; he heard the noise. It was dark… He jumped out of his bed, thought that the enemy had arrived, started running, got caught in the rope of the tent, had a heart attack and died.These people who torture others cannot live peacefully – it is impossible, because they make so many enemies. But they enjoy torturing.Now, the best way to torture is to torture yourself; then there is no fear. Nobody is against you; on the contrary, people worship you as a holy person. Now, look at the foolishness! If a person walks naked, what is holy in it? You can go when great religious gatherings happen in India, particularly Kumbha Melas, and you can see the naked sadhus, and you will be surprised! You don’t see any holiness. On the contrary, you will see in their eyes the worst kind of criminals. You can go to the prison and look into the eyes of the murderers, and you will find them more innocent. These people who exhibit themselves naked on the roads are really psychologically ill. In psychological terms they are exhibitionists.It is a strange thing that Hindus have worshipped these exhibitionists for centuries. And the same Hindus are against my sannyasins because they think my sannyasins are going against Hindu culture – because they are not wearing proper clothes. You have been worshipping naked people, no question of clothes at all and you say that my sannyasins are going against Hindu culture because they are not wearing proper clothes. You are going against Hindi culture. Your culture has always worshipped the exhibitionists, your culture has always worshipped the perverted people.Now, a person who spreads thorns and pebbles before he goes to sleep – that is preparing the bed – you worship him as holy? He has to be given electric shocks, not flowers, not to be garlanded; he needs psychological treatment. He is perverted. This is not natural. No animal ever does it; even animals are far more normal. Before they go to sleep they will remove the stones and thorns and they will prepare a soft bed for themselves, soft earth, and then they will go to sleep. Even animals seem to be far more intelligent, far more natural, than your so-called saints.A person who throws dust on his body is simply being foolish, or maybe he is just an egoist, because this kind of behavior is worshipped in this country. Now, the same type of people raise questions against me: Why am I against saints? I am not against the saints. I am not against Buddha and I am not against Nanak and I am not against Kabir and I am not against Raidas, but I am certainly against these ill people, the exhibitionists, the masochists, the abnormal, the neurotic. I don’t call them saints, they are not. But out of a hundred, ninety-nine percent belong to these categories.It is only because you have been worshipping them for centuries that you don’t ask: “What are you doing?” And you are angry at me because I am raising questions for the first time – questions which disturb you. But Buddha was also doing the same, and you were angry at him too.He says: He who goes naked, with matted hair, mud-bespattered, who fasts and sleeps on the ground and smears his body with ashes and sits in endless meditation – so long as he is not free from doubts, he will not find freedom. You can go on doing these things for years, your whole life – you will not arrive anywhere. All these things are just empty rituals you are following because you have been told that this is what holiness is. You are so unintelligent that you cannot even see that: What kind of holiness is this? How can this be holy?How can smearing your body with dust or ashes be holy? It is simply torturing yourself, because the body breathes. Do you know that it is not only your nose that keeps you alive, but that there are millions of small doors in the body from where you breathe. You cannot even see them with bare eyes. Just try: paint a person’s whole body, leaving his nose, paint it completely so all the holes and the pores of the body are closed. He will die within three hours. He can breathe from the nose – that won’t keep him alive more than three hours.If all the pores are closed… And that’s what is being done by smearing ashes on your body. You are closing the pores of the body. This is a way of torturing yourself, this is starving yourself of oxygen. And the less oxygen you get, the more stupid you become, because oxygen is one of the most essential nourishments for intelligence.Without oxygen the mind starts becoming dull. That’s why in the night you feel sleep coming to you more easily than in the day, because in the day the air has more oxygen in it and you are breathing more oxygen. That oxygen keeps you alert, awake. In the night the quantity of oxygen in the air falls low, there is more carbon dioxide – that makes you feel sleepy. By smearing your body with ashes you are trying to reduce the amount of oxygen reaching to your brain cells, you are starving the brain. You will become dull, stupid. And that’s why you rarely see so-called saints intelligent. You will rarely see any sharpness, any awareness.They live like robots. Of course, they follow a certain law that is written in the scriptures and delivered to them by the same kind of stupid people. They follow a certain law without understanding anything, why they are doing it. I have asked many people who smear their bodies with ashes, “Why do you do it?” And they say, “Because it has been done since the beginning – saints have always been doing it.”I have asked them, “What is the science behind it?” They look puzzled. They say, “Science…?” They are not aware of what they are doing. They are not aware that they are starving their brain cells of oxygen.And they have many strategies like that: standing on the head for hours – because of gravitation so much blood goes into the brain that it destroys the finer nerves of the brain. Your whole intelligence depends on those finer nerves. Or starving yourself – call it fasting, then it becomes a religious thing. When you starve your body you are also starving your brain, because the brain is the subtlest part of the body.Now it is scientifically proven that if a few vitamins are missing from the body you will lose intelligence. Sooner or later every child has to be provided with certain vitamins, certain chemicals so that his intelligence can be raised very high. In the Soviet Union they are already doing it. If you starve your body, then naturally your brain is starved. You don’t allow the brain the right food, you don’t allow the brain the right amount of food, you don’t allow the brain the right amount of oxygen – do you think you will be able to become a great meditator, a buddha? Whom are you trying to befool? But you are following a certain law, a certain ritual, with no understanding about it.Sir Reginald Farthington was on trial before the High Court of Australia for the crime of molesting an ostrich. “Before passing sentence,” announced the judge, “do you have anything to say?”“Your Honor,” said the Englishman, “if I’d known you were going to make such a fuss about it, I’d have married the bloody bird.”This is the legal mind. This is how the legal mind functions: “I would have married the bloody bird!” It goes from one foolishness to another foolishness.If you starve your body of the right food, of the right amount of oxygen, problems will arise. And you will go to the same people who are creating problems for you, and they have ready-made prescriptions.One man came to me, a young man; he was under the spell of Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh.Shivananda told him, “Live only on milk, because that is the purest food.”Now, if you have seen pictures of Shivananda… One can see that this man has not lived only on milk. He was so fat that even to raise his own hands was difficult for him, they were so heavy. So he had to walk with two people, his hands on their shoulders. This man must be obsessed with food, must be eating too much. He must have been one of the fattest men in India, and he suggested to this young man to live only on milk.And what was the problem? Why had this young man gone to him? The young man had gone to him to attain brahmacharya – celibacy. He had read in the scriptures that unless you are absolutely celibate you cannot reach God. So he asked how to become absolutely celibate; now the suggestion was, “Live only on milk.”Now this is utter nonsense! If you live only on milk you will be more sexual than ever before, because from where are you going to get the milk? From cows or buffaloes. That milk is not created for man; cows’ milk is created for bulls, and bulls are the most sexual animals in the world. Cows’ milk has more chemicals to make you sexual than anything else in the world. It is the unholiest food. But who cares? Who thinks about it?Just because the scripture says it, Shivananda told him, “Live on milk.” Now, it is only man, only man, who lives on milk, even after childhood, no other animal. There is something wrong in it. All animals live on milk when they are small for a few months. Once they have become able to eat and digest solid food they drop the milk and moves to solid food. Milk is meant for children.And one of the most important things that is growing in the child is his sexuality. He is becoming more and more mature and sexual, because the whole biology depends on sex. After a time the child has to move to solid food. It is only man who continues to drink milk. It is okay in coffee or in tea, but just to live on milk is going to be dangerous.The young man became more sexual, and weaker. The body became weaker and the mind became more and more obsessed with sex. Again he went to the same saint. The saint said, “It is because you are suffering from tamas – you are suffering from the very lowest kind of energy called tamas, which pulls you downward.”“What has to be done?” the young man asked.The saint, the so-called saint, said, “You need not sleep as much as you are sleeping, because sleep creates tamas” – that too is written in the same scriptures: sleep creates tamas – “so sleep only five hours.”First the food was taken away. He was starving, because for a fully grown-up person milk is not enough. He needs solid food; he is not a child. And then the milk is coming from cows – milk which is meant for bulls, not for men – so he is becoming more sexual. Now the sleep is reduced. Five hours of sleep for a young man is not right. Yes, for an old man it is perfectly okay; as you become older, less and less sleep is needed, because the body is going to die, it no longer needs to recover. Otherwise, a young man’s body recovers itself every day.For recovery, for regaining lost strength, for recreating the cells that have died yesterday, you need a long sleep – seven or eight hours, not less than that. Five is not enough. Now he started suffering from sleepiness; the whole day he would be yawning and feeling sleepy.His father brought him to me and he said, “What is to be done? Now he is again trying to go to Rishikesh, and each time he goes he brings a problem. He was perfectly okay; reading these nonsense books he became interested in becoming brahmachari – a celibate – and then the whole trouble started. Now he cannot read, is losing interest in everything, is becoming obsessed with sex and food and sleep. He is obsessed with these three things. He is driving himself crazy and the whole family too.”I looked at the young man – he was really in a mess. But he said, “I am following a great saint.”I asked him, “How do you know that he is a great saint? What is your criterion? Because he repeats the scriptures? How do you know that the scriptures are written by those who know?”He said to me, “Please don’t create doubt in me. I want to remain a believer, because without faith, without belief, there is no deliverance.”I said to him, “You don’t need any deliverance. There is no need for any deliverance. You are already delivered! You are already in God! There is no need to search for him. You are part of truth. Just live naturally, sanely, and you will be able to understand the mystery of life. There is no need to become insane. All these ways are driving you insane.”And then one finds some way or other to satisfy the natural needs – one becomes a hypocrite. Your whole religious training helps you only to become hypocrites. It does not make you holy; it simply makes you pseudo, phony.You repress something from one side and it starts asserting from the other side.Fogarty began to drop in at Barney’s Bar regularly, and his order was always the same: two martinis. After several weeks of this, Barney asked him why he did not order a double instead.“It is a sentimental thing,” said Fogarty. “A very dear friend of mine died a few weeks ago, and before his death he asked that when I drink I have one for him too.”A week later, Fogarty came in and ordered one martini. “What about your dead buddy? Why only one martini today?”“This is my buddy’s drink,” came the reply. “I am on the wagon.”You can always find a way. Mind is very cunning, utterly cunning. You cannot get rid of the cunningness of the mind by such stupid things. And if you are doing such stupid things, you can sit long, endlessly, in meditation… Nothing is going to happen, because meditation’s first requirement is intelligence: awareness of your situation and of what you are doing to yourself and why – not just following dead scriptures, not just following the so-called saints because the masses call them saints.…so long as he is not free from doubts, he will not find freedom. What does Buddha mean by this? …so long as he is not free from doubts… How does one become free from doubts? You will be surprised: unless you become free from beliefs you cannot become free from doubts. It is belief that creates doubt. For example, if you believe in God then the question arises whether God really exists or not. The doubt cannot come first; first comes the belief.You are told by your parents, by your society, that there is a God. Because you are told there is a God, one day or other your intelligence asserts and starts asking, “What is the proof? How do we know for certain, for sure, that God really is?” Now doubt is coming.In the Soviet Union, where they don’t teach the children that there is a God, nobody doubts God’s existence – there is no question of doubt. Nobody believes in the first place – why should they doubt? In India too, if you are born in a Jaina family you never doubt the existence of God. Why? – because in the Jaina tradition there is no God, no belief. But a Jaina doubts about the existence of the soul, because he is told that there is a soul, invisible – the body will die but the soul will continue on its journey.Now the doubts arise: “Where is this soul? What is this soul? Has anybody ever seen it? Has anybody come back to the world after death and said, ‘I am still alive. You can’t see me, but I am’?” The Jaina doubts about the soul, not about God.The Hindu doubts about God, the Mohammedan doubts about God, the Christian, the Jew, all doubt about God – because God is their belief. The Jaina and the Buddhist never doubt about God because that is not their belief, but the Jaina doubts about the soul. The Buddhist never doubts about the soul either, because that is not his belief.Buddha has taken away all the beliefs, so that you need not doubt: no God, no soul, no hell, no heaven, no moksha. Buddha has taken all the beliefs away. See his scientific approach of destroying doubt – very paradoxical.Just the opposite has been done by others. Others have also tried to take your doubts away, but their method has been to impose belief on you so that the doubt goes deep into the unconscious, becomes repressed – you don’t see it anymore. It is covered by the belief, but it never dies; on the contrary, it moves deeper into your being and becomes more and more part of your being. All your believers know it perfectly well, that there is doubt in their hearts. At the very core there is doubt; only on the circumference is belief.Buddha is the first human being in the world who has really tried to destroy doubt. But strange is his way: his way is to take away all the beliefs; then you have taken the very ground in which doubts grow. Be without belief and you will be without doubt. Without belief, without doubt, where can mind remain? Mind needs these two pillars to support it. These are mind’s two wings: doubt and belief. This is the duality on which mind feeds and lives. Once belief and doubt both are gone, you have destroyed the very foundation of the mind.To be a no-mind is meditation. Not by sleeping on thorns, not by going naked, not by fasting, not by torturing yourself, but by great understanding of things. From where does doubt come? Go into it, search, and you will find it always comes because of a certain belief.Now the modern mind can attain to meditation more easily than humanity was ever capable of, for one single reason: the modern mind is no longer so burdened by belief. Hence there is not so much doubt either. Nowadays you rarely come across people who are skeptical, people who are full of doubt, people who are atheists – you rarely come across such people nowadays. In the old days they were many. And the reason is simple: now nobody believes. So if somebody says, “I don’t believe in God,” you will say, “So what? Who believes? Keep quiet.” Now nobody can argue against God because nobody is arguing for the poor man.This is a very new situation. And your old traditions cannot accept the challenge of this new situation. If you declare, “I am an atheist,” people will say, “So be it. Why brag about it? Why make a fuss about it? Perfectly okay, we are happy – be an atheist.” Who bothers about the church and who bothers about the temple? Even the people who go, go only as a social formality; even they don’t believe.This is a rare opportunity for the search; it has never been as spacious as it is today. Of course, your old traditional people are very much worried; they think this is the worst kind of age that has ever happened. This is not the worst kind of age – this is the best, the pinnacle. This is the time, the right time, a ripe time. We can inquire with total hearts into reality, because no belief hinders, and because there is no belief, there is no doubt.This is freedom. Buddha calls it freedom. …so long as he is not free from doubts, he will not find freedom. “Freedom” means freedom from the mind. Then you are simply in silence, and in that silence you melt, you merge with the whole. And to melt and merge with the whole is to be holy. Not by fasting, not by torturing, but by becoming one with the whole, one becomes holy.But he who lives purely and self-assuredin quietness and virtue,who is without harm or hurt or blame,even if he wears fine clothes,so long as he has faithhe is a true seeker.But he who lives purely… What does Buddha mean by “living purely”? He means living innocently, with no belief, with no doubt, living not out of mind but out of meditation. He has his own meaning of purity. He does not mean by “living in purity” rotten, old ideas. Purity does not mean that you should eat food only prepared by a brahmin; purity does not mean that you should eat only when the sun is in the sky; purity does not mean that you should only wear this and you should not wear that.Purity means living out of no-mind, living spontaneously, moment to moment like a child, innocently – living from a state of not knowing. All knowledge is cunning, and all knowledge corrupts. Living from a state of not knowing is purity.Socrates says: “I know only one thing, that I know nothing” – this is purity.Buddha used to tell his disciples, “Please never ask me metaphysical questions, because I don’t know. Don’t ask about God and don’t ask about the soul, and don’t ask about heaven and hell.” He had a list prepared of eleven questions; those eleven questions contained all the questions philosophy is full of.Whenever he would enter a new town, his disciples would go around and tell people, “Please don’t ask these eleven questions, because Buddha will not answer these questions. He is interested only in practical questions. Ask about greed and how to get rid of it; ask about anger and how to go beyond it. Ask about possessiveness and how to drop it, ask about transformation. Ask how you can drop the mind and attain to meditation. But don’t ask metaphysical questions because they don’t help you at all. They create belief, and with belief comes doubt. And divided into belief and doubt you become a schizophrenic, you become zero. You lose your integrity.”But he who lives purely and self-assured… Now, this word self-assured is also not rightly translated. What Buddha means is one who trusts his own being – it is not self-assured. Self-assured gives the sense of ego; Buddha means an egoless trust. One who trusts in the whole existence also trusts in himself, because he is part of the whole. He listens to his heart’s voice and follows it. Unafraid he goes with his heart. He trusts his intuition. And once you have known the art of how to listen to your intuition, you will be surprised: intellect can err, intuition never errs – it is infallible. It always directs you in the right course of action.…in quietness and virtue… “Quietness” means meditation, thoughtlessness, no thought disturbing, the lake of consciousness absolutely without any waves and ripples. The consequence of such silence is virtue. Virtue is not something practiced by you; you cannot practice virtue. If you practice virtue, on the surface you will wear a mask, but behind the surface you will go on living in your old vicious ways. Of course, you can hide from others, but how can you hide from yourself?That’s what happens to your priests, your so-called saints; their whole life becomes very cunning – they say one thing, they live a totally different life. They are bound to be so because the virtue is cultivated.A sociologist was taking a survey based on the sexual proclivities of various national and ethnic groups. He approached an elderly Italian gentleman in a black suit and, after the usual preliminaries, asked him how often he had sexual intercourse.“Oh, maybe ten, twelve times a year,” stated the old fellow.“But you are Italian and Italians are supposed to be very sexy,” came the response.“Listen, I don’t think that is so bad for a sixty-year-old priest who does not own a car.”Your priests, your saints, your so-called virtuous people, respectable people have double lives: on the surface one thing, in the depth totally the opposite of it.Sister Semolina had lately arrived at the jungle mission. She was under the instruction of Mother Maria, who called her into her office late one afternoon.“I must go to the capital and I will be away overnight,” said Mother Maria. “I want to warn you: if Father Dominique comes to your room tonight do no let him in, no matter what he tells you.”Next day, Mother Maria returned to find Sister Semolina waiting in her office. “I am here to confess,” she said tearfully. “Last night I disobeyed your orders. Father Dominique came to my door, and, oh Mother, he was so convincing. He said to me that I was the gateway to heaven and that he had the key to heaven and that if I let him put his key into my locked gate we could be in heaven together.”“That bastard!” exclaimed Mother Maria. “He told me it was Gabriel’s horn, and I have been blowing it for fifteen years.”But this is natural, it has to be so. These jokes are not just jokes, they have great truths in them. It is inevitable because your whole idea of virtue is to impose upon yourself good qualities, praised down the centuries. But if you impose something upon yourself, what are you going to do to your nature? You will become two persons, and the nature is certainly more powerful than anything imposed.The nature has to be transformed. Character has not to be cultivated; it has to be a by-product of consciousness. That is Buddha’s great contribution to the world.…in quietness and virtue… Virtue comes number two. First comes quietness, meditativeness, purity, innocence, trust.…who is without harm or hurt or blame, even if he wears fine clothes, so long as he also has faith he is a true seeker. Again read instead of “faith,” “trust.” He who has trust, he is a true seeker. The believer is not a true seeker – he has already believed. He is phony from the very beginning. If you already believe in God, how can you seek and search? You have killed the quest from the very beginning, you have aborted the quest.One can go into inquiry only when one has no belief and no doubt. When one is simply open, with no prejudice, no conclusion, no ready-made answers given by others, when one simply goes as a clean slate, as a mirror, then one comes across truth.Truth can be known only by a mirrorlike mind. A mirrorlike mind is a no-mind. But if you are already a believer you will never know the truth. A Christian cannot know, a Mohammedan cannot know, a Hindu cannot know, a Buddhist cannot know. You cannot know unless you drop all these ideologies, put them aside and go into the journey absolutely open, not even a small prejudice lurking somewhere in your mind.Once a very famous professor, Doctor Bannerji, came to see me. He said that he wanted to prove scientifically the theory of reincarnation, the theory of rebirth. He wanted to prove that the Christians and the Mohammedans and the Jews are wrong, and he wanted to prove it scientifically. He had come for my support.I said, “The way you are saying it, the search is unscientific from the very beginning.”He asked, “Why?”I said, “You have already decided that Mohammedans, Christians, Jews are wrong. You have not entered the search yet and the decision is already there that Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists are right. And how can you say you want to prove it scientifically? – how can it be scientific?”“The first requirement of a scientific mind is not to start with a conclusion. Drop your conclusions. You will have to be perfectly alert that you don’t know what the reality is – then go into it. And then inquire, remaining very impartial. Even if it goes against your theory, let it go; even if it goes against Hinduism, let it go. Truth has to be revealed, not Hinduism to be proved. You are too much of a Hindu,” I told him; “You can’t be a scientist.”He had come to be with me for two hours – within twenty minutes he left. He said, “I am in a hurry, I have to go somewhere.”I said, “You are not in any hurry and you are not going anywhere. You had asked for two hours and I have given you two hours – and you cannot leave this place before two hours are up. You will have to answer me first: What kind of scientific approach is this?”Of course he was unable. It was so clear, so obvious that in science you don’t start with a conclusion – you start only with a hypothesis: may be, may not be, perhaps… You start with a “perhaps”; the “perhaps” keeps you open.Buddha cannot mean faith, Buddha cannot mean belief. He means trust – trusting that if you go without any conclusion you will find. Because the truth is there! It is not something that has to be created, it is already there. Truth does not mean something in heaven; truth means the herenow reality. Whatsoever it is, XYZ, start with a “perhaps,” be an inquirer.And then Buddha says: …even if he wears fine clothes… There is no need to be naked, there is no need to renounce, there is no need to go on a fast. The real things to be renounced are your conclusions, your beliefs, your prejudices.A noble horse rarelyfeels the touch of the whip.Who is there in this world as blameless?Buddha was a prince before he became enlightened, and when he was a prince he really loved horses. He was a lover of horses. In those days, horses were the fastest moving vehicle; and they were the greatest support in war. And there were lovers of horses: in English, the name Philip simply means a lover of horses – Buddha was a Philip.When he became enlightened he remembered the horses many times. He talks about horses in many ways. He says there are four kinds of horses. First, the worst: even if you beat them, the more you beat, the more they become stubborn. They have no aristocracy, no grace, no dignity. You can insult them, you can whip them, you can beat them – they are very thick-skinned. If they don’t want to move, they will not move.Then the second kind: if you beat them they will move; they have a little dignity, a sense of self-honor. Then the third kind, a little higher: you need not beat them – just the noise of the whip is enough. And the highest, the fourth: even the noise of the whip is not needed – only the shadow of the whip is enough.Buddha says men are also of four kinds. The highest, the most intelligent, the real seekers of truth, need only the shadow of the whip; just a little hint from the master is enough. They need not be beaten, they need not be forced. A noble horse rarely feels the touch of the whip. There is no need for the noble horse to feel the touch of the whip – just the shadow. So there are four kinds of disciples too. The highest kind simply takes the hint. Sometimes not even a word is uttered; the master just looks into your eyes, and that’s enough.That’s what happened a few days ago. A well-known therapist from America took sannyas – an old woman. I can say she belongs to the fourth: just the shadow of the whip – I just looked into her eyes – and that was enough. And she has become mine and I have become hers. Immediately the contact happened, the connection. It cannot be broken now.Yesterday she wrote a letter, because she is leaving today and she is afraid. In the few days she has been here she has known new depths of being – she has not been here long, only a few days. She has seen me only once, just for two minutes. She says she has known great depths, subtle experiences have happened; they are very delicate, and she is a little bit afraid. “Going back to the West so soon, in the gross marketplace of the West, will I be able to continue growing?” She asked me, “Will I be close to you there as I am here? Will I be part of your commune even though I am thousands of miles away?”Love knows no distance. You can be thousands of miles away – if your heart is full of love, if your heart remembers me, you are as close as anybody can be.My commune is going to spread all over the earth. Wherever you will see a sannyasin, my commune exists there. Wherever you will find a sannyasin, I am there with him. Wherever a sannyasin remembers me I am present to him, far more deeply than I can be physically present – because I am no longer in my body, just somehow hanging around the body. I am no longer the body. If you love me you will know that I am something totally different from the body; it is a nonphysical phenomenon.And you can be in contact wherever you are. The moment you close your eyes you will find me inside you. The master becomes part of the disciple. Slowly, slowly the master is no longer outside, he is more and more inside. And it has started happening – the process is triggered, and it is a process which cannot be stopped; even the gross material world of the West cannot stop it. And you will not be there for long either; soon you will be pulled here. Now this is your home and wherever you are, you will find yourself an outsider.A noble horse rarely feels the touch of the whip. Who is there in this world as blameless? Buddha asks. Who is there in this world as blameless? – that one is capable of becoming a buddha. That one is capable first of becoming a disciple, then becoming a master.Then like a noble horsesmart under the whip,burn and be swift.Be like a noble horse – smart, aware, watchful. …burn and be swift. If you are aware… Awareness is fire; it burns all that is wrong in you. It burns your ego. It burns your greed, it burns your possessiveness, it burns your jealousy – it burns all that is wrong and negative, and it enhances all that is beautiful, graceful, divine.And when the gross and the ugly are burned, a great sharpness happens to your being, a great swiftness comes to your life, a great intensity and passion, a great totality and wholeness.Believe, meditate, see.Let me remind you again: don’t read “believe,” read “trust”: trust, meditate, see.These are the three steps, simple, very simple. The first thing is trust: have a loving trust for all that is, then meditation becomes easy because you can relax. The person who trusts can relax into existence. The person who cannot trust remains tense, remains anxious, afraid. The person who trusts can melt, can disappear, evaporate. He knows: “Even if I fall into the ocean, I am just a dewdrop…” but he also knows: “As a dewdrop I will disappear, but I will exist as the ocean. I will not be losing anything; I will be gaining all.” Meditation is a dewdrop disappearing in the ocean.And then there is seeing. That’s why I say Buddha has no philosophy but a philosia – he has no system of thought but a way, a method, to see.Be harmless, be blameless.Awake to the law.Remain in tune with that law of existence. Flow with the river; don’t try to go upstream. Let let-go be your fundamental sutra, and then you will be harmless and you will be blameless.Awake to the law. Aes dhammo sanantano – awake to the eternal law.And from all sorrow free yourself.Sorrow arises whenever you go against the law of existence, and bliss whenever you go in rhythm with it, dancing with it hand in hand.The farmer channels water to his land.The fletcher whittles his arrows.The carpenter turns his wood.And the wise man masters himself.This is the way to be wise and to be a master of oneself. Without being a master of oneself, your life is empty, vain, meaningless. It can’t have any poetry, it can’t have any joy, it can’t have any ecstasy. And ecstasy, joy, is your birthright – but you can have it only when you attain to this worth, to this worthiness.Become aware, trust, start seeing – drop all beliefs and all doubts, and the goal is not far away. You need not go anywhere. If you can trust, meditate, see, if you can awaken to the eternal law, you are the master – not the master of anybody else but the master of yourself. And that is the true mastery. Jesus calls it the Kingdom of God.But you will have to be reborn, you will have to learn a new way of life – a new way, let me remind you, not a new philosophy. And Buddha is giving you hints. These hints can be used if you listen attentively, intelligently, meditatively.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 4 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 4 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,How can I go to the other shore when I am trying to be herenow? It is a mess in my mind when I think of that, but somewhere in my heart I feel a kind of rest.“The other shore” is only a metaphor. There is no other shore; this is the only shore there is. To be herenow is to enter the other shore.We can live in two ways: we can live in time or we can live in eternity. If we live in time, metaphorically that is called “this shore”; if we live in eternity, metaphorically that is called “the other shore.” The gate to enter into eternity is herenow. To live in time is to live either in past or in future.Mind lives in time – mind is time. It is always entangled either with the past or with the future – and both are not. The past is no more, the future not yet, and the mind lives in something that is not. Mind’s existence is a very shadowy, pseudo existence; it is just a reflection in the mirror, the moon seen reflected in the lake.To be herenow means getting out of time. You will have to pull yourself from the past, you will have to be out of the past. You will have to slip out of the past as a snake slips out of the old skin. And you will have to be very alert not to get entangled into the future – future projections, dreams. If you can avoid past and future you are alert, you are aware.That’s what Buddha means by sammasati – right awareness. Then you are now and you are here. Where else can you be? That’s where you really are.Even though you go on moving into the past and into the future, all that movement is like a dream. You fall asleep, you remain in your room, but in your dream you can wander all over the earth, or you can go to the planets, to the moon, or to the stars. But in the morning when you wake up you will not find yourself on the moon. You may have been on the moon the whole night in your dream; you are going to wake up in your room. So, even when you were walking on the moon in your dream, you were in your room – really you were in your room.We are always in the present; there is nowhere else to be. But we can dream, we can imagine, we can revive memories, we can project great illusions into the future, but still we are herenow. The day, the moment, you become aware that you are here and you cannot be anywhere else, that you are now and you cannot be then, you sink into reality, you go to the depth of reality itself, you change your gear from time to eternity.The cross in its original sense represented time and eternity. It does not represent simply Jesus’ crucifixion; the cross is an older symbol than Jesus. In fact it is only a part of the ancient Eastern symbol, swastika, just a part of it. The swastika in the East has always represented time and eternity; the cross also represents time and eternity. The horizontal line represents time. Time is horizontal, it is linear; it moves from one moment to another moment. And the vertical line on the cross represents eternity – depth, height. In time you swim, in eternity you dive.Herenow simply means this gap between the past and the future, this small interval. From this small interval you enter into a totally different world – that is called “the other shore.”You need not be puzzled. But sometimes if you catch hold of metaphors too literally you can become very confused. And I have to use metaphors; there is no other way to express that which cannot really be expressed, to express that about which the only right course is to be silent. The only possible way is to use metaphors, parables, stories, because they give you indirect hints.Reality is so delicate and so fragile; it is like a very delicate flower. If you try to catch hold of it directly you destroy it. You cannot hold it in your fist; it is very mercurial. You can only move in a very indirect way, and very subtle has to be your movement – not even the footsteps should be heard. You can only whisper with reality; you cannot shout and you cannot argue.That’s what a metaphor is: a dialogue which is done in whispers, a dialogue which is done in a poetic way; not prose, not clear-cut, not mathematical – vague, mysterious. You cannot attack reality; you can only persuade, you can seduce reality. It is a love affair, not a rape.That’s where religion and science are different. Science is a kind of rape on reality. It tries to snatch truth from reality forcibly, violently; hence it destroys the natural equilibrium, the natural balance. It destroys ecology, it destroys the harmony, the accord of existence. It is a rape, because science speaks in the language of conquest.Religion is a love affair, it is not a rape. Religion woos reality, persuades, slowly, slowly in a very indirect way. One has to be exquisitely graceful, hence these metaphors.“The other shore” is a beautiful metaphor, but let me remind you: this is the other shore, this is that. You are not going to change the shore, you are simply going to change your consciousness. The change has not to happen in the outside – not that you take a boat, a ferry, and you go to the other shore. That will be a change in the outer circumstances. No, you drop the mind and you become consciousness; the other shore has arrived, and you have not moved even a single inch, you may not have done anything at all. You may have been simply sitting with closed eyes…That’s what Buddha was doing when he reached the other shore. In Bodhgaya he was sitting underneath a tree by the side of the river Niranjana. It was early morning, a beautiful, silent morning, and he opened his eyes. The last star was disappearing from the sky; he saw the last star disappearing, and something inside, in him, also disappeared: the last trace of the ego. The sky became empty, he became empty, and those two emptinesses met, merged, melted into each other. The sky entered him, he entered the sky.On the visible side, on the outside, nothing was changed; everything was exactly the same. The Niranjana continued to flow, the birds must have continued to sing: not even a leaf has fallen from the tree, nothing has changed – and all has changed. Now Buddha is no longer a mind; he has become meditation. He is no longer in thoughts; he has become a pure witness, a sakshin.This is the other shore I am talking about.That’s why when you think you feel a little confused, but when you don’t think about it you also feel a kind of rest. Watch! Confusion must be felt in the head and the rest in the heart. The heart has its own reasons, its own way of understanding things.When I am talking to you, I am not only talking to your minds – that is only the superficial part. What is really transpiring between me and you is something of the heart. The mind is being used as a stepping-stone toward the heart, that’s all. I am using words as stepping-stones, as means, not as an end in themselves.That’s why these two things are felt by you simultaneously: a confusion in the head and a deep rest in the heart. The heart understands – the heart understands that this moment, the herenow, is the other shore. But the heart is not very articulate; the head is very articulate. This is one of the dilemmas: the head cannot understand but is very articulate, and the heart can understand but is not very articulate. It understands but its understanding remains silent; in fact the more it understands, the more silent it becomes. The head understands nothing; in fact the less it understands, the noisier it is. You have to see this point.Use the head to reach to the heart, but don’t become rooted in the head. Don’t stay there. Use it as a stepping-stone, as a ladder, but don’t make your house there; otherwise your whole life will be of confusion, anxiety, anguish. Use it, and forget all about it. Enter the heart and listen to the silent dance of the heart energy. Listen to the relaxed, restful song of the heart, the soundless sound, the one hand clapping.The heart is very close to the mystery of existence; the head is the farthest away. The head is this shore and the heart is that shore – but you are already on that shore. The head is simply dreaming things. When you get out of the head you simply get out of something which never existed in the first place.The second question:Osho,You continuously tell us to “be aware,” to “be a witness,” but can a witnessing consciousness really sing, dance and taste life? Is a witness a mere spectator of life and never a participant?Mind is bound to raise this question sooner or later, because mind is very much afraid of your becoming a witness. Why is the mind so afraid of your becoming a witness? – because your becoming a witness is the death of the mind.Mind is a doer, it wants to do things, and witnessing is a state of nondoing. The mind is afraid: “If you become a witness, I will not be needed anymore.” And in a way the mind is right.Once the witness arises in you the mind has to disappear, just as if you bring light into your room and the darkness has to disappear – it is inevitable. Mind can exist only if you remain fast asleep, because mind is a state of dreaming and dreams can exist only in sleep.By becoming a witness you are no longer asleep, you are awake. You become awareness – so crystal-clear, so young and fresh, so vital and potent. You become a flame – intense, burning from both ends – as if, in that state of intensity, light, consciousness, mind dies, mind commits suicide. Hence the mind is afraid.And mind will create many problems for you, it will raise many, many questions. It will make you hesitate to take the jump into the unknown, it will try to pull you back. It will try to convince you: “With me is safety, security; with me you are living under a shelter, well guarded. I take every care of you. With me you are efficient, skillful. The moment you leave me, you will have to leave all your knowledge and you will have to leave all your securities, safeties. You will have to drop your armor and you will be going into the unknown. You are unnecessarily taking a risk for no reason at all.” And it will try to bring beautiful rationalizations. This is one of the rationalizations which almost always happens to every meditator.It is not you who is asking the question; it is the mind, your enemy, who is putting the questions through you. It is mind who is saying, “Osho, you continuously tell us to ‘be aware,’ to ‘be a witness.’ But can a witnessing consciousness really sing, dance and taste life?” Yes – in fact only a witnessing consciousness can really sing, dance and taste life. It will appear like a paradox. It is. But all that is true is always paradoxical, remember. If truth is not paradoxical then it is not truth at all, then it is something else.Paradox is a basic, intrinsic quality of truth – let it sink into your heart forever. Truth as such is paradoxical. Although all paradoxes are not truths, all truths are paradoxes. The truth has to be a paradox because it has to be both the poles – the negative and the positive – and yet a transcendence. It has to be life and death, and plus. By “plus” I mean the transcendence of both – both and both not. That is the ultimate paradox.When you are in the mind, how can you sing? The mind creates misery; out of misery there can be no song. When you are in the mind, how can you dance? Yes, you can go through certain empty gestures called dance, but it is not a real dance.Only a Meera knows a real dance, or a Krishna, or a Chaitanya. These are the people who know real dance. Others know only the technique of dancing, but there is nothing overflowing; their energies are stagnant. People who are living in the mind are living in the ego, and the ego cannot dance. It can make a performance but not a dance.The real dance happens only when you have become a witness. Then you are so blissful that the very bliss starts overflowing – that is the dance. The very bliss starts singing; a song arises on its own accord. And only when you are a witness can you taste life.I can understand your question. You are worried that by becoming a witness one will become merely a spectator of life. No, to be a spectator is one thing, and to be a witness a totally different thing, qualitatively different.A spectator is indifferent, he is dull, he is in a kind of sleep. He does not participate in life. He is afraid, he is a coward. He stands by the side of the road and simply goes on seeing others living. That’s what you are doing all your life: somebody else acts in a movie and you see it. You are a spectator. People are glued to their chairs for hours together before their TVs – spectators. Somebody else is singing; you are listening. Somebody else is dancing, you are just a spectator. Somebody else is loving and you are just seeing it. You are not a participant. Professionals are doing what you should have done on your own.A witness is not a spectator. Then what is a witness? A witness is one who participates yet remains alert. A witness is in a state of wu-wei. That is Lao Tzu’s word: it means action through inaction. A witness is not one who has escaped from life. He lives in life, lives far more totally, far more passionately, but yet remains deep down a watcher; goes on remembering, “I am a consciousness.”Try it walking on the road: remember that you are a consciousness. Walking continues – and a new thing is added, a new richness is added, a new beauty. Something interior is added to the outward act. You become a flame of consciousness, and then the walking has a totally different joy to it; you are on the earth and yet your feet are not touching the earth at all.That’s what Buddha has said: “Pass through a river, but don’t let the water touch your feet.”That’s the meaning of the Eastern symbol of the lotus. You must have seen Buddha’s statues, pictures of him sitting on a lotus – that is a metaphor. A lotus is a flower that lives in the water and yet the water cannot touch it. The lotus does not escape to the Himalayan caves; it lives in the water and yet remains far, far away. Being in the marketplace but not allowing the marketplace to enter into your being, living in the world and yet not of the world – that is what is meant by a “witnessing consciousness.”That’s what I mean by saying to you again and again, be aware. I am not against action, but your action has to be enlightened by awareness. Those who are against action are bound to be repressive, and all kinds of repression make you pathological, not whole, not healthy.The monks living in the monasteries, Catholic or Hindu; the monks of the Jainas and the Buddhists, who have escaped from life – they are not true sannyasins. They have simply repressed their desires and they have moved away from the world, the world of action. Where can you be a witness if you move away from the world of action? The world of action is the best opportunity to be aware. It gives you a challenge, it remains constantly a challenge.Either you can fall asleep and become a doer, then you are a worldly man, a dreamer, a victim of illusions – or you can become a witness and yet go on living in the world. Then your action has a different quality to it. It is really action. Those who are not aware, their actions are not real actions but reactions; they only react. Somebody insults you and you react. Insult the Buddha: he does not react – he acts. Reaction is dependent on the other – he pushes a button and you are only a victim, a slave; you function like a machine.The real person, who knows what awareness is, never reacts; he acts out of his own awareness. The action does not come from the other’s act; nobody can push his button. If he feels spontaneously that this is right to do, he does it; if he feels nothing is needed, he keeps quiet. He is not repressive; he is always open, expressive. His expression is multidimensional. In song, in poetry, in dance, in love, in prayer, in compassion, he flows.If you don’t become aware, then there are only two possibilities: either you will be repressive or indulgent. Both ways you remain in a bondage.A nun was raped just outside the monastery. When she was finally found, she was carried inside and the nearby physician was called.He came, raised his hands and said, “This is work for a plastic surgeon.”A plastic surgeon was called. When he saw the poor nun he exclaimed, “Oh, my God! What a mess! Where should I start?”The mother superior replied, “Well, that’s easy. First get that smile off her face.”The third question:Osho,What is yes? I find that I have no real understanding of it. I have seen that whenever I say yes, there is a hint of surprise, as if I am amazed that there is no reason to say no. My yes is always instead of no. Where is the seat of this experience, yes?Yes contains the very essence of all religions. Saying yes to existence is to be religious. Saying no is resistance, saying no is conflict, saying no is egoistic. Saying no is keeping your separation, keeping yourself aloof. Saying yes is merging, melting into the whole. Saying yes is opening up, just like a bud opens and becomes a flower. The no is a closed state of mind; yes is an open flower.The difference between no and yes is the difference between a dead and an alive person. The person who lives in the no remains encapsulated, remains in a windowless world where the sun and the rain and the wind cannot reach; where God can go on knocking but even the sound of the knock will not reach; where love cannot reach.The closed person, the person who lives with no, lives in the ego. The greater the ego, the fewer are the bridges between the person and existence. When the ego is total, the person is completely enclosed by a wall; he lives in a prison of his own creation. He cannot say yes to the moon and he cannot say yes to the trees and he cannot say yes to anything. He has forgotten to say yes, and even if he sometimes says yes, his yes is nothing but a camouflaged no.I have heard a story about Joseph Stalin:Molotov, his foreign minister, phoned him from the UN. His wife was sitting by his side while he took the phone call. Joseph Stalin said, “No, no, no, yes, no!”The wife was surprised. Not by the no’s, so many no’s – she knew her husband perfectly well, he was a man of no. He was one of the most egoistic men possible. His name is significant: “Stalin” means a man of steel. He was not really a man but a steel man, a machine, a robot. No was just natural to him.The wife was puzzled that between those four no’s there was one yes. She asked him, “Can I ask you one question? I don’t want to interfere in your politics and what is going on between you and Molotov and what you are saying. Just one thing… I have become very curious: did you really say one yes among all those four no’s, or did I mishear you? Did you really say yes?”Stalin said, “Yes, I said yes.”The wife asked, “Then one question more: Why did you say yes?”He said, “When I said three no’s, Molotov asked, ‘Did you say no?’ I said, ‘Yes.’”There are people who can say yes only when it is nothing but a camouflaged no. And there are also people, very rare, who can say no only as a camouflaged yes. These are the buddhas. Yes, sometimes they also say no, but their no is not a negative no; the heart of their no is yes. They are incapable of saying no. If they have to use the word sometimes, in certain circumstances, it really means yes.A man like Buddha can sometimes be very hard, but he is hard because of his compassion and love. George Gurdjieff was very hard on his disciples just because of his infinite compassion, his total love.Yes is the very essence of religion, no the very foundation of irreligion. The atheist is not one who does not believe in God; the atheist is one who believes in no. And the theist is not one who believes in God; the theist is one who believes in yes – because there have been theists like Buddha and Mahavira who do not believe in God, yet where else can you find more religious people? And there are millions of people who believe in God, and their life gives no indication of any religion – no fragrance. They stink of irreligion, of violence, of hatred, of jealousy, of possessiveness. Flowers of love don’t bloom in their life.Yes is the foundation of a true religious life.You ask me, “What is yes?” Yes is dropping of the ego. Yes is coming out of the mind. Yes is trust. Just the other day Buddha was talking about trust: Trust, meditate, and see. Yes means trust, and trust is the beginning of meditation. Meditation means relaxing with existence. Unless you trust, unless you can say yes to existence, how can you relax? People cannot relax because they are afraid. People cannot relax because they fear that if they relax they may be cheated. People can relax only with others whom they trust.With a stranger in your room you may not be able to sleep in the night. Who knows, he may cut your throat. Who knows, he may steal your money and escape. But with your wife or husband you go into deep sleep, you can trust. The child can go anywhere with his father or mother. Even if the father is going into fire, the child can go singing a song, dancing, inquiring, questioning, unafraid, because he knows his hand is in his father’s hand.This trust is yes: knowing that this existence is our mother, that nature is our source – it can’t be against us, it can’t be inimical to us. Seeing this, understanding this, trust arises. Then you can say yes. Then you can say “Amen”; that simply means yes.And the moment you can say yes and you can relax, meditation becomes natural. Without any effort, without any strain, without any tension, you start falling into spaces called meditation: empty spaces but not empty in a negative sense, empty of all rubbish and junk, but full of God – full of godliness rather; empty of the world, but full of something that you had never known before; full of a light which is immaterial, full of fragrance which comes from nowhere, out of the blue. Emptiness, yet a plenitude, emptiness and yet a fullness – not negative.And when there is meditation, seeing arises, darshan is born – you become capable of seeing. Your eyes are so clear, so pure; no clouds, no confusion, no thoughts. Your eyes are so perceptive, so penetrating, that you can reach to the deepest core of the mystery of this existence, that you can have a glimpse of the magic that surrounds you, the eternal magic. Aes dhammo sanantano: you can have a look into the inexhaustible law.You ask, “What is yes? I find that I have no real understanding of it.” Nobody has. Once you have a real understanding of yes, you have all that is needed for the journey to the other shore. Then you are ready to go to the other shore. The yes becomes the boat, and it is capable of crossing all the storms. Howsoever stormy the ocean may be, the boat of yes is capable of reaching the other shore. If you have the boat of yes, then nobody can prevent you from reaching to godliness.You say, “I have seen that whenever I say yes, there is a hint of surprise, as if I am amazed that there is no reason to say no.” Yes. Anybody starting saying yes, learning how to say yes, is bound to be surprised again and again. The places where you would have said no before, now you are saying yes. You are bound to be surprised because there is no reason to say no. Why did you say no your whole life? Just watch people, and yourself – almost ninety-nine percent of no’s are just out of the ego; there is no valid reason for them.The child wants to go and play outside. It is so sunny and the birds are singing and the wind is blowing and the butterflies and the bees are humming… And the child asks the mother, “Can I go out and play in the garden?” She says “No” – not even thinking, not even listening to what he is really asking for, not even giving him a single thought, a moment’s awareness. No simply comes automatically, as if it is built in. She has not thought, she has not looked at the child at all. She is not saying no to what the child has asked because she has not heard it at all; she is simply saying no. Whatsoever the child is going to ask, she is going to say no anyway. It has no reference to the child; it has some reference to her power trip.So many women don’t really want to be mothers. They are not even worthy of being mothers, but they want to be mothers, they desire to be mothers, for a totally different reason – not for motherhood.Motherhood is a great meditation. Motherhood is one of the greatest arts: you are creating an alive being. The sculptor is nothing compared to the mother, because he will be creating only a marble statue. The painter is nothing, the poet is nothing, the singer is nothing, the musician is nothing, because they will be playing with things, objects. The mother is the greatest poet and the greatest painter and the greatest musician and the greatest sculptor, because she is creating a consciousness – life itself.But women are not interested in motherhood, their interest is totally wrong. Their priorities are wrong, their intentions are wrong. Although they say that they would like to be mothers, really what they want is power. A woman feels very powerful when she has children – because man has taken all other power trips from her. She is not allowed to be in the marketplace, she is not allowed to be in the church, she is not allowed to be in politics. She is not given any opportunity anywhere to have her ego fulfilled; almost ninety percent of opportunities have been taken by the man. The woman has been forced to live in the house; she can have only one power trip – over her children.Hence the no. She has not listened, she has not seen the child; she has simply said no. And it is absolutely meaningless. If she had listened there was no reason to say no. This is perfectly right: when the sun is dancing outside, why should the child remain in the house, dark and dismal? And when the wind is blowing outside, the child should also be allowed to dance in the wind. The child should be allowed to dance in the rain too, but the mother rationalizes, “He may catch cold or he may fall ill – that’s why I am saying no.” But those are just rationalizations.In fact, each child has a birthright to dance in the rain, in the wind, in the sun. It gives health, it gives vitality. It brings him closer to nature and closer to God. The mother forces him and takes him to the church or to the temple where he can’t see anything, no God at all. And where God is so much alive, so much throbbing, in nature… The child would like to climb a tree, it is such a challenge – God is calling him from the tree, from the top of the tree. That is true religion. Let the child climb the tree.All children should be allowed to climb trees, to climb mountains. They should be given all chances to accept all kinds of challenges. They should be helped to move into danger. They should be prepared, not protected; prepared to move into danger – helped, persuaded, rewarded, to move into danger because a man who knows how to move in danger is bound to stumble upon God sooner or later. But the mother will say no, the father will say no.For many years a Negro kid had been praying to God to make him white. One morning he woke up and found that his skin was white. He got out of bed very excitedly and shouted, “Momma, Momma! Look, I have turned white!”From the kitchen Momma replied, “Shut up, Tommy, I am getting bored with you. Tell it to your father.”Tom went into the bathroom. “Daddy, Daddy! Look, I am white now.”The father did not even turn his eyes away from the mirror. He said in a tired voice, “Oh Tommy, please, I have no time. Go and tell your sister this nonsense.”Tom was more and more puzzled. He went to his sister. “Mary, Mary, have you seen? God did a miracle – my skin turned white.”Mary answered, “Fuck off, man! I’m late, I gotta go.”At this point Tom was quite pissed off, and looking at his watch he said, “Well, I’ve been white for only five minutes but I already can’t stand these fucking niggers anymore.”No comes easy, no has become our way of life.You ask me, “I feel surprised, as if amazed that there is no reason to say no.” Yes, there is no reason to say no. And if you can avoid saying mechanical no’s, if sometimes there is really a reason to say no, your no will have a positive value; it will not be negative. The man who lives in the climate of yes sometimes may have to say no, but his no will not be negative, it can’t be. And vice versa. The person who lives in the climate of no, even if he says yes sometimes, it is not positive, it is not really yes; it is only a disguised no. Its value is negative.You say, “My yes is always instead of no.” In the beginning it is bound to be so. You have become so habituated to saying no that your first yes will be instead of no. But that is not the real yes yet, it is only a substitute; it will have something of the no in it, some dirtiness of the no will still cling to this yes. It is as if your cup is dirty and you pour tea into it and your tea also becomes dirty. If your yes is only a substitute for no, if it is instead of no, then it will have some qualities of no still clinging to it. But in the beginning it is bound to be so, so don’t be worried about it. Clean your cup a little more.Start saying yes for no reason at all, just as you have been saying no up to now for no reason at all. It can be one of the most beautiful chantings, far better than repeating “Rama, Rama, Krishna, Krishna, Jesus, Jesus.” Far more beautiful and far more significant, far more meaningful, will be to sit silently and repeat meaningfully, consciously, “Yes, yes, yes.” It can be a far deeper going mantra than any other can ever be, because Rama and Krishna and Jesus are so far away, they are just stories; you can’t really relate with them. The world has changed so much that they can’t be more than stories.I have heard that Jesus came back after eighteen hundred years just to have a look at the world, see how things are going – hoping that things must have changed by now. Eighteen hundred years of Christianity, thousands and thousands of Christian priests all over the world, thousands of churches – the world must have changed!He landed on the bank of Lake Galilee where he had walked once on water. Just by chance a rabbi had come for a morning walk. Jesus wanted to see the rabbi, see who he is, so he walked on the water. The rabbi looked a little puzzled. Jesus came back and said to the rabbi, “Did you see what I have done?”The rabbi said, “Yes, I have seen. Why don’t you learn to swim like everybody else? Are you crazy or something?”The world has changed.I have heard about another rabbi. He had come from America to visit the Holy Land. He was passing Lake Galilee – he wanted to see the place also – and he asked the boatman how much it would cost; he would like to have a trip round the lake. “Can you take me to the other shore and back?”The boatman said, “Fifty dollars.”The rabbi said, “That is too much. I have seen bigger lakes than this and I have never paid more than five dollars. Fifty…?”The boatman said, “But you don’t recognize, rabbi, that this is the place where Our Lord walked on water.”The rabbi said, “Seeing the cost, anybody would walk on the water. I cannot pay fifty dollars – and I come from America. That poor carpenter’s son, how could he have paid fifty dollars?”The world has changed. If these people, Jesus and Krishna and Rama, suddenly land now, they will not be recognized, they will be thought crazy. They will look so outlandish, they will look as if they are coming from a film set, out of a movie – movies like The Ten Commandments. They will not look real.But yes can be a totally different matter.“Jesus” you will repeat mechanically, but saying “Yes,” really meaning it… Bowing down to the earth and saying yes… Lying on the earth naked and saying yes to the earth as if the earth is your mother, which it is… Swimming in the lake and saying yes to the water, not only saying it, but feeling it all over, each fiber of your being, each cell of your being pulsating with yes… Taking a sunbath and saying yes, not verbally, I mean, but existentially, being in the mood of yes, receiving the sun, welcoming the sun and the sand and the texture of the sand, and the coolness of the wind… Welcoming all these gifts of existence that go on showering on you – and you don’t even feel grateful.Yes is gratitude. No is ugly, ungratefulness. But in the beginning, it is going to be so: your yes will be only instead of no. But it is a good beginning. Slowly, slowly you will come to a yes which is not instead of no but has its own rights, has its own roots in your being. When that yes has happened to you which has no reference to no – not that it is not only instead of no but it has no reference to no, it is not the opposite of no, it has no resounding of no at all; you have forgotten the no, only yes exists, as if there is no opposite word to it – that is the ultimate peak of yes.In that moment yes becomes prayerfulness, in that moment yes becomes a bridge. The ego disappears, the separation is gone. One feels one with the whole.You ask me, “Where is the seat of this experience, this yes?” The heart is the seat. The seat of no is the head; the seat of yes is the heart. They don’t come from the same place, they don’t come from the same world. They are utterly different. In the dictionary they belong together, but in existence itself they are utterly different – different planes, different dimensions.The last question:Osho,Why do people think so differently from each other?Thinking can never be the same. Here there are three thousand sannyasins sitting around me – three thousand sannyasins means three million minds. One sannyasin does not mean one mind – many, thousands, a crowd. Each person is a crowd, and each person is a different crowd, because each person has been brought up in a different way.Somebody has been brought up as Christian and somebody as a Communist – how can they think in a similar way? How can they avoid being different? And not only different but antagonistic toward each other? Somebody has been brought up as an Indian and somebody as a Chinese – how can they think in the same rhythm? Impossible.Thinking comes from the outside – upbringing, education, conditioning, culture. And there is no way to put two people into a similar situation – not even twins think in the same way. There is no way at all to put two people into exactly the same situation. Even twins born in the same family will have different conditionings, because the mother may love one child more than the other; the father may have just the opposite preference. One child may be physically weak, the other may not be; one child may be more or less ill, the other may be healthy. The one child may be interested in games because he is healthy, the other may avoid games because he remains ill. The child who goes to play will have different friends from the child who never goes to the games – he will have different friends – and so on, so forth. Small differences make so much difference that you cannot imagine.It is reported that the great Napoleon remained afraid of cats his whole life. He was not afraid of lions but he was afraid of cats. Strange! He was not afraid of anything – not even of death – but in front of a cat he was simply not in his senses. When he was just a six-month-old child, a wild cat jumped on his chest, and he became so frightened and the fear went so deep into his heart, into his unconscious, that he was incapable of overcoming it.It is said that he was defeated only once in his life, in the last war with the Duke of Wellington. Wellington brought seventy cats to frighten him. Just in front of the army…the first battalion was of cats. And the moment Napoleon saw seventy cats – one was enough! – he lost all intelligence. He started trembling and perspiring.He told his second in command, “Now I cannot think clearly, my mind is very clouded. I am so afraid that I’m not in my senses, so you manage everything.” That was the first time that he was not in control of the army – and he was defeated. The credit goes to the cats, not to Wellington. Statues have been raised of Wellington and people have forgotten the cats completely. Statues should be raised of the cats; Wellington is not the real conqueror.Small things… Now, how can you avoid such small differences? Impossible. Even in twins it is difficult.So no two persons can be brought up in the same way; hence the difference in thinking. Differences only disappear when you meditate. If all three thousand sannyasins are in a state of meditation here – just a silence, no thought – then there are not three thousand sannyasins at all, because three thousand zeros joined together become one zero. Three thousand zeros are not three thousand zeros – they become one zero.And that is what is happening, slowly, slowly. The more you become meditative, the more your differences are dropping. This may be the only place on the whole earth where differences are disappearing. Mohammedans and Christians and Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists and Parsis are all together, without even thinking to what religion the other belongs. The Swedish and Germans and French and Italians and Chinese and Japanese and English and Americans, all nationalities, and nobody takes any note of it, nobody even thinks about it. This may be the only communion happening on the earth, a real brotherhood.And the reason is not that I am teaching you to be brothers, learn tolerance. Remember, those who learn tolerance remain intolerant. The very word tolerance is ugly. The moment you say, “I can tolerate others,” that shows intolerance. You may have repressed your intolerance, but it is intolerance. To tolerate others means intolerance – what else can it mean?Here, nobody is tolerating anybody. People have simply forgotten the differences, because we are moving out of the mind. My whole effort is to bring you out of the mind. If you remain in the mind, you are different. If you come out of the mind, you are one. Meditation brings a kind of unity which is not a synthesis. I am not interested in synthesizing Hinduism with Christianity and Christianity with Islam and Islam with Buddhism. That is all nonsense.My effort is totally different: I am trying to bring you out of your mind. When the Christian comes out of his mind he is no longer Christian, and when the Hindu comes out of his mind he is no longer Hindu. It is not a synthesis, it is dropping of the mind. Mind creates all the differences.You ask me, “Why do people think so differently from each other?” They have been brought up differently, they have been conditioned differently. They cannot think as others think – that is impossible. They cannot interpret the way others interpret. A Jew can read the New Testament, but it will not be the same book – although it is the same book visibly, it will not be the same book that Christians read, because to the Jew, Jesus is a renegade, Jesus betrayed Judaism. Now that is very deep-rooted. The Christian reading the New Testament is not reading an ordinary book – it is the holiest of the holy. Jesus is God’s only begotten son.When the Hindu reads the same book, he reads it indifferently; it doesn’t matter much. And he goes on comparing it with the Upanishads and the Gita and finds it poor. Not that it is poor – he reads the Gita in a different way. That is the Lord’s song and this is just a carpenter’s son, Jesus – how can he be compared with Krishna?Krishna is an incarnation of God, and this man Jesus seems to be an illegitimate child. Krishna comes directly from the seventh paradise. Krishna is incomparable, he is the perfect master. Jesus is good; one can say at the most, “a good man.” The comparison from the very beginning becomes impossible.The Jaina reads the Gita, but he cannot read it the way the Hindu reads it. Their eyes are different, their perspectives are different. The Jaina scriptures say that Krishna has fallen into hell because he was the cause of this great war. Arjuna seems to be closer to the heart of a Jaina, because Arjuna was saying, “I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to kill. What is the point of killing these people? Just for the kingdom? And one day my death will come and that kingdom will be gone, so what is the point? I am going to renounce, I am going to become a monk.”And if he had escaped there is every possibility he may have become a Jaina monk. If you really want to become a monk then the best way is to become a Jaina monk, because that is the worst kind of monk possible. Other monks are so-so; the Jaina monk is really a monk. You cannot improve upon it.But Krishna persuaded Arjuna not to escape. He must have been a man like me, who said, “This is escape. You are a coward. Live in the world. Fight! Because you are a warrior, and that is your type. You can’t be a monk, that is not in your nature. Follow your nature.”Krishna says to Arjuna, “Swadharme nidhanam shreyah pardharmo bhayawahah.” Never follow anybody else’s idea – that is very dangerous because you will become imitative. Always follow your own nature, self-nature; only then will you attain to freedom. It is better to die following one’s nature than to live following somebody else’s nature, because that will be a pseudo life. To die following one’s nature is beautiful, because that death too will be authentic.Krishna convinced Arjuna – that is how the whole Gita was born. It is a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna was trying to escape and Krishna was pulling him back into the world – and finally he succeeded.Jainas have been very angry – they missed a good monk. They have thrown Krishna into the seventh hell for a very long period, because he was the cause of millions of people’s deaths. India has never known a greater war since. Now, how can a Jaina read the Gita with the same interpretation as the Hindu? Impossible. From the very beginning the mind is prejudiced.People are bound to think differently, because they are brought up differently, in different religions, through different priests, different schools, different colleges, different universities. They have been fed different ideas, ideologies – they are bound to think differently. And there is no way to make them think similarly – impossible.The only possible way is to bring them out of their minds. Then they slip out of the whole upbringing. Then suddenly there is oneness; then you see with pure eyes, uncontaminated by the culture and the tradition; then you see really as things are, not as you are supposed to see them. You become a pure mirror.Thinking can never create one world: only meditation can create one world.Clusky went to confession for the first time in twenty-five years. “Tell me,” asked the priest, “did you ever sleep with a woman?”“Eh, no, Father,” replied Clusky.“Now, son,” said the priest, “I will ask you again. Did you ever sleep with a woman?”“Ah, ey, ah – no, Father.”“There is you and me and God listening. I’m going to ask you once more. In the last twenty-five years, have you ever slept with a woman?”“Well, eh, come to think of it, Father,” said Clusky, “I did doze off a time or two.”Now you see the difference: people listen according to their idea. And it is natural…Claude was sitting at a sidewalk cafe sipping a glass of wine. Just then his friend Rene came running up to him.“Claude,” he gasped, “I just saw a man going into your house.”“Who is this man, Rene? What did he look like?”“He was six feet tall and had black hair and a black mustache,” reported Rene.“And did he wear a checked cap with a striped Basque shirt?” asked Claude.“Yes,” agreed Rene. “You have described the man.”“That was only Pierre,” he said. “He will make love to anybody.”The two persons are thinking differently. Their approach is different, their attitude is different; then the conclusions become different.Foong, the laundryman, had been in America ten years and kept sending money to his wife in China, telling the bank clerk proudly that his wife had just had a new baby.“But Mr. Foong,” said the clerk, “you have been here in America ten years.”“Yes, yes,” says the Chinaman happily. “I got velly good fliends in China.”People are full of different conceptions, philosophies of life, ways of looking at things; hence they are bound to think differently. Thinking makes you different from others, separate from others; thinking is a function of the ego. Nonthinking… Suddenly all differences evaporate.And that’s what I teach, and that’s what Buddha’s whole message is: Become a no-mind. Become pure consciousness, an empty sky with no clouds of thoughts. Then who are you – Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian? Indian, Japanese, German? Black, white? Man, woman? Who are you? Young, old? Rich, poor? Famous, notorious? Who are you? All these differences disappear. You are a pure silence.That silence is your supreme self. To attain it is to attain nirvana. To attain it is to be available to benediction, to all God’s blessings.Meditate more and more so that you can disappear, so that you can allow God to be. The moment you are not, God is – and God is one, and you are many. Not only outside are you many, inside also you are many. And when you disappear – the many disappear from the inside and from the outside – then these are all waves of the same ocean.And to know the ocean that is hidden behind all the waves of different shape, color, form, is to know the truth. And truth liberates.Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the ultimate, the inexhaustible law, that truth liberates.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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He is awake.The victory is his.He has conquered the world.How can he lose the waywho is beyond the way?His eye is open.His foot is free.Who can follow after him?The world cannot reclaim himor lead him astray,nor can the poisoned net of desire hold him.He is awake!The gods watch over him.He is awakeand finds joy in the stillness of meditationand in the sweetness of surrender.Hard it is to be born,hard it is to live,harder still to hear of the way,and hard to rise, follow, and awake.Yet the teaching is simple.Do what is right.Be pure.At the end of the way is freedom.Till then, patience.If you wound or grieve another,you have not learned detachment.Offend in neither word nor deed.Eat with moderation.Live in your heart.Seek the highest consciousness.Gautama the Buddha is talking about the very essence of buddhahood: the height of buddhahood and the depth of it, the glory and the grace, the tremendous freedom that it brings, the light that it showers, the love, the joy, the bliss, the awakening.These sutras are rare, rare even among the rarest sutras, because Buddha is opening his own heart to you. He is inviting you to become a guest in his innermost core. He is revealing, in simple words, the fragrance that has happened to him and that is also possible for you because each man is born to be a buddha.Unless one becomes a buddha one has not lived and one has not known what life is. One has dreamed of course, and dreamed of a thousand and one things; but one has been asleep. And whether your dreams are beautiful or ugly does not matter. In the morning of buddhahood when you have awakened, all those dreams, both good and bad, sweet and bitter, golden dreams and nightmares, will be known as false, illusory. It was a self-deception, and people have lived for lives in self-deception; the capacity to deceive oneself is enormous. Beware of it. One can even dream that one is awake, one can even dream that one has become a buddha. That is the ultimate trick the mind can play upon you.It happened in Baghdad…A man was brought to the caliph, because the man had declared that he was the new messenger of God. The caliph was irritated, annoyed, and he said, “You must be mad, because Mohammed is the last messenger of God and there is not going to be anybody else. The message has arrived in the Koran. Yes, before Mohammed there had been other messages, but all those messages were fragmentary because man was not ready and ripe. Mohammed has brought the full message; now there is not going to be any other messenger in the world. Bring yourself to your senses; otherwise you will have to suffer for it!”The man was thrown into prison for seven days, tortured, beaten, starved. After seven days the caliph arrived. The man was bound to a pillar, bruised, wounded. The caliph said, “Now you must have come to your senses. What do you say now?”The man laughed and he said, “All the torture and all the suffering that have been imposed upon me simply prove that I am really the messenger, because when God was sending me to the world he warned me: ‘My messengers have always been tortured.’ And I was doubting; I was wondering why people were not torturing me if I am the real messenger. You have proved it! God was right, there was no need to doubt.”The caliph was at a loss – what to say to this madman? But suddenly another man who was also bound to a pillar started laughing hysterically. The caliph asked him, “Why are you laughing?”The man said, “This guy is a cheat, because I am God myself, and I have never sent this man to the world as my messenger!”That man had been imprisoned one month before, declaring himself God.Mohammedans are very fanatic; they can’t allow – sometimes even when it is the truth. When al-Hillaj Mansoor declared, “Ana’l haq – I am God himself!” it was a truth, he was not dreaming. But he was crucified. When Sarmad, another Sufi mystic, declared, “I am God!” his head was cut off. And these people were not dreaming. But it is very difficult from the outside to decide who is dreaming, who has gone mad, who is imagining, and who is declaring the truth. Because sometimes the dreamer believes in his dream, believes absolutely, so belief cannot prove anything. It may be just an ego trip.The last deception that the mind can play on you is to say to you, “Why are you unnecessarily bothering? You are a buddha.” And I want you to be aware of it, because this is going to happen to many people. People can believe anything.Just the other day a man wrote a letter to me saying, “I want to become a sannyasin, but I am a little afraid because I know that I am a Judas and I will prove to be a Judas to you.” People can believe they are Christ, they can believe they are Judas. And he must believe it really deeply.I have sent him a message: “You can become a sannyasin. I already have many other Judases, so what difference does it make? One more is welcome.” Jesus had only one Judas: I have many, and it is better to have many – one can prove more dangerous. If you have many Judases, first they will have to compete with each other. Their energies will be wasted among themselves. They will fight with each other; they will betray each other first. And Judas could betray Jesus because Jesus had only twelve disciples; I have one hundred thousand disciples.I cannot take too much care as to who is a Judas and who is not; and I need not, because whatsoever happens is the will of existence. If a Judas is needed then he will have to come, that is the way existence wants it to be. But your mind can play tricks on you. You can’t just be a nobody – if you cannot be Christ, at least you can be Judas. You can’t accept the fact of anonymity.And that is very fundamental, the first basic requirement to enter into the world of religion: to accept oneself as anonymous, as if you have no name, no form, no identity. Then the mind cannot deceive you. Then the mind cannot seduce you into some idea, into some imagination.Buddha is talking about what happens when a person becomes awakened. Ordinarily man is asleep, all men are asleep. Irrespective of their religion, nation, race, on one thing they all agree: they are all fast asleep – dreaming different dreams, but the sleep is the same. The difference of dreams makes no difference to the quality of the sleep. One is dreaming Christian dreams, another is dreaming Jewish dreams, another is dreaming Hindu dreams, and so on and so forth, but dreams can’t change your consciousness. In fact they are hindrances.The sleep has to be broken, the sleep has to be shattered; otherwise you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t know where you are coming from, you don’t know where you are going. You don’t know what you are saying and what you are doing, to yourself and to others. You are accidental. You are like driftwood at the mercy of the blind winds: there is no destiny. The winds throw you on this shore or on that shore, but you are not the master of your own being. You are a slave, a slave of blind forces.The first thing to be done is to come out of your sleep.Buddha says in the first sutra:He is awake.He is defining buddhahood, or you can call it christhood; it is the same. Buddha and Christ are synonymous.He is awake. That is the most essential quality: he is no longer asleep, he is no longer dreaming. He has no thoughts, no memories, no imagination. He is utterly silent and alert. His silence is not a dead, cold silence; his silence is wakeful, warm, alive.He is awake: you are not – you are so full of junk. Unless you become empty of the junk you will not be awake. You go on doing the same things again and again, you go on repeating. You move in circles, never seeing the fact that you are functioning like a robot, like a machine.The legend goes…In the days of ancient Rome an officer called away to the wars locked his beautiful young wife in a chastity belt, and gave the key to his best friend with the admonition, “If I don’t return in a year, use this key. To you, my dear friend, I entrust it.”He then galloped off to the wars. Ten miles away from home he heard the clatter of hoof-beats behind him and he waited. His friend on horseback galloped up saying, “You gave me the wrong key!”Man is so deeply unconscious.A couple of drunks in a bar started talking about sex. “Say,” said the first one, “have you ever gotten so drunk you kissed a broad’s navel?”“Drunker.” answered his pal.Just watch your life and you will be absolutely in agreement with him: “Drunker.” What have you been doing? Can you say you have lived your life with awareness? Can you say your actions have the quality of awareness? Somebody insults you: do you respond or do you react? If you react, you are asleep; if you respond, you are awake.And what is the difference between reaction and response? – the difference is great.Once a few people were insulting Buddha very much. They were shouting at him, saying all kinds of dirty words to him, and he was standing there listening to them as totally as possible.After a few minutes they felt frustrated, because he was not saying anything, and one of them asked, “Are you deaf or something? Why don’t you answer?”Buddha said, “I am answering, but my answer is a response, not a reaction.”Naturally they asked, “What is the difference between reaction and response?”And Buddha said, “Sit down and I will explain it to you.”And the enemies turned into disciples. They were listening to Buddha, sitting silently; listening to what he was saying. They were converted. Buddha said, “If you had come ten years ago, when I was asleep just as you are, I would have reacted. You would have pushed my buttons.”When you push the button and the fan goes on it is not a response; it is a reaction, it is mechanical. When you push the button and the lights go on or off, it is a reaction not a response. The light, the fan, or any other mechanism, has no freedom to choose; it simply reacts. Response means choice, response means “chosen with consciousness.”Buddha said, “Ten years ago if you had said these words to me I would have cut off your heads with the sword that I carried with me. But now I am awake. I listened to your words and I felt deep compassion for you because you were torturing yourselves unnecessarily. You cannot force me to do something, I am not a machine. Now I am a man and you cannot force me to do anything. I act out of my own choice; hence it is not reaction, it is action, and action is a response. I see the whole situation, and then out of my consciousness I act. At this moment I am feeling so compassionate for you, so sorry for you, that I cannot speak the same language that you are speaking to me.”The man who is asleep reacts; he knows nothing of action. And reaction is a binding: it binds you into new prisons, new chains. Response is out of freedom, hence it brings more freedom. Reaction is out of the past; you act according to your memories, built-in by your experiences, conditionings. You react not to the present, not in the present. You don’t reflect the real situation as it is; you go on interpreting it according to your past, your past experiences.The man who is awake is like a mirror: he reflects that which is the case. He is awake.The victory is his.He has conquered the world.And Buddha says: “It is only by awakening that one becomes victorious; not by conquering the world but by conquering one’s unconsciousness.”There are only two types of people in the world: the Alexander the Great type and the Buddha type. There are millions who belong to the Alexander type. Ninety-nine point nine percent of people belong to the Alexander type – small Alexanders and big Alexanders, but Alexanders all. Everybody is trying to conquer the world in his own way, big or small, through money, power, prestige. And everybody is carrying a deep desire, a great longing to succeed one day in becoming the most famous man in the world, the most powerful man in the world. This is the Alexander type, the extrovert, the worldly; he accumulates money, possessions, but he loses his soul.There are very few, very rare people in the world who belong to the Buddha type, who are no longer interested in the world, whose whole interest is in self-actualization, in self-realization, in becoming more aware of the reality that they are.These are not fixed types, they are liquid. Anyone who belongs to the Alexander category can move to the category of being a buddha. And all the buddhas, in their past, belonged to the Alexander category, and all those who are Alexanders now can become buddhas one day. It all depends on you; a conscious, deliberate choice is needed: that you turn your energies from extroversion into introversion, that you become more interested in the inner reality, that you become more interested in your subjectivity rather than in objects. You start moving, diving deeply into your interiority to find the center of your being.And the magic is, the moment you find the center of your being you have found the center of the whole existence, because there is only one center; my center and your center are not two centers. Anybody who moves inward comes to the same center. On the periphery we are different people; at the center we are one.He is awake. The victory is his. And Buddha says: “The real conqueror is not the one who has conquered the world but the one who has conquered himself.” He has conquered the world too, not in a visible way but in a very, very invisible way. He becomes the master.Buddha came to a town. The king of the town was reluctant to go and receive him, because he said, “I am a great king and he is just a beggar.”But his prime minister who was an old and wise man, insisted: “Either you go to receive Buddha or accept my resignation.”This was too much, because that old man was absolutely needed by the kingdom. The king was utterly dependent on the old man and his advice; he could not afford to lose him. He asked, “But why? Why are you so insistent? He is just a beggar, and I am a king!”The prime minister said, “To be frank, he is the king and you are the beggar. Either you come with me to receive him or accept my resignation, because I cannot serve such a stupid person who can’t see a simple fact: Buddha is the real conqueror of the world. What do you possess? – things that will be taken away when death comes. But what he possesses, nobody can take away, not even death. He has conquered himself, and conquering himself is conquering the world.”The young king had to go to receive Buddha. When he was bowing down to Buddha, Buddha said, “No need to bow down to a beggar.”He was very shocked: “How does he know?” In that shock his eyes were opened. He looked at Buddha: that grace, that beauty, that silence, that light, that love – he had never seen it anywhere else. He bowed again.Buddha said, “Now it is right, now it is of your heart. Otherwise you were following the advice of your prime minister. Now you are really bowing down because you have seen me.”It is rare to find a buddha and more rare to recognize him, because you go on seeing with your old eyes, with your old, stupid mind. Your stupid mind is unable to see buddhahood. It can see only things; it cannot see the immaterial, the mysterious. It can only see the gross, not the subtle.One Friday night Bob came home earlier than usual and surprised his attractive wife in bed with another man. Becoming enraged, he seized a pistol he kept hidden in his dresser and shot the lovers to death.A next-door neighbor, Jim, was discussing the tragedy with some friends a few days later. Jim said, “Well, after all, it is not the worst thing that could have happened.”The others jumped on him. “What do you mean? Two people dead, and Bob may be about to be executed?”Jim replied, “Well, I still say it could have been worse. If Bob had come home early on Thursday night, I would be dead!”Man lives in such unconsciousness. He goes on doing things motivated by the unconscious. He is not master of his own soul. He does not know from where these desires arise; they simply possess him. And when he is possessed by a desire, he is utterly helpless.The buddha is awake, awake to all that is happening in his being; so alert that nothing can take possession of him, so full of light that no darkness can enter his own being. He lives in that light, he lives with that awareness. His every movement, his every act, comes out of this consciousness; hence there is never any repentance in a buddha. He never looks back; there is no point. Each thing that he has done, he has done totally and perfectly.You always have to look back, for the simple reason that you are always partial, fragmentary. Only a part of your being gets involved, and you do everything in such a way that you are not totally in it, never wholly in it. Later on you start thinking, “I should have done that,” or “I should have done this,” or “Maybe a better way of doing it was possible.” You start repenting, you start feeling guilty. Your actions are so incomplete, that’s why there is this hang-up. When some action is done with your totality, when you are entirely in it, then once you are out of it, you are entirely out of it.Remember this fundamental law: if you are totally into something, you can be totally out of it. If you are not totally in it you will remain involved in it even when the time is past; even when its days are gone you will remain involved in it. Some part of you will go on clinging to the past, and you will always feel miserable. Whatsoever you choose, misery is bound to follow, because sooner or later you will realize that you could have done better.But a man of awareness knows that there is no possibility of doing it any better. Then what is the point of remembering it? He does not remember the past. Not that he has no memory – he has a clearer memory than you have – but that memory is just a silent storage. If he needs it, that memory can be used, but he is not a slave to the memory.He never thinks of the future; he never rehearses for the future, because he knows: “Whatsoever happens, I will always be there with my totality. More than that is not possible.” So he simply acts spontaneously, with no memory, with no future projection. His act is total and of the present; and the act which is total and of the present brings freedom.How can he lose the waywho is beyond the way?His eye is open.His foot is free.Who can follow after him?How can he lose the way who is beyond the way? By becoming fully aware you are freed from all ways, all methods, all techniques. All techniques and methods are just to bring you to the way that leads inward. But once you have reached your innermost core, no method, no technique, no way, is needed. You have gone beyond, you have transcended all. Now you cannot go astray. How can you go astray if there is no way? Now you cannot do anything wrong. If there is no method, how are you going to do anything wrong? How can he lose the way who is beyond the way?That is the state of a buddha. He cannot fall from that state, because it is not something like an achievement; it is your natural, spontaneous being. Once known it is forever yours. Even if you want to escape from it you cannot.His eye is open. Remember, Buddha is not saying: “His eyes are open.” He says: His eye is open. We have two eyes; those two eyes look outward. To look at the objective world we need two eyes, because the objective world is the world of duality, but there is one more eye which looks inward. When both of your eyes look inward they become one; hence the idea of the third eye.The third eye is only a metaphysical idea, but it is a metaphor of great significance. Not that there actually is a third eye, that if you operate on your skull you will find a third eye inside – no. But there is an insight which is not divided in two; it is single, singular, it is one. Hence Buddha says: His eye is open. Not “eyes” but “eye”; he can see inward.And again he says: His foot is free. Not his feet, because the question is not of moving outward but moving inward.In the inner world, everything is one; in the outer world, everything is two.Who can follow after him? You cannot follow a buddha; you can understand him. You can learn much from a buddha, but you cannot follow him. You cannot be a blind follower; you cannot simply say, “I believe.”There are a few people, particularly Indians, who come to me and say, “We don’t need any meditation, we believe in you. We don’t need to go into any therapy groups; we trust that your blessing is enough.” Now these people are using beautiful words, but they are deceiving themselves.Buddha has said that buddhas can only point the way, you have to go on it on your own. Nobody else can walk for you and nobody else can see for you. You will have to see your inner being yourself. There, at your innermost core, you will have to go alone, absolutely alone.But you can learn much in the presence of a buddha. You can imbibe his spirit; you can start pulsating with his energy. You can be so utterly silent in his presence that his presence becomes a great transformation for you. But ultimately you have to go inward alone; there, nobody can accompany you.Buddha has said: “Buddhas are like birds flying in the sky, they leave no footprints.” You cannot follow them, you cannot go after them. You cannot simply say, “I believe in Buddha, I believe in his compassion, and that’s enough.” No, it is not enough. Belief is not enough; only knowing can bring freedom. Belief brings bondage; all beliefs bring bondage.The world cannot reclaim himor lead him astray,nor can the poisoned net of desire hold him.Once you have become awake at the center of your being, then a few things become impossible. The world cannot reclaim him…The whole world with all its allurements, seductions, is absolutely impotent in impressing a buddha. He remains centered, he cannot be distracted. Distraction is possible only while you are asleep. In sleep you can decide not to be distracted, but you will be distracted. In sleep you can decide, “I will not do this,” but you will have to do it.In sleep, how many times have you decided never to be angry again? But when the opportunity arises you forget all your decisions; you are angry again. In fact, while you are deciding: “I am not going to be angry again,” even then in that moment, if you look deep down, somebody is laughing, because somebody deep down knows that this is all nonsense, rubbish. And if someone else insists, “No, you have made this decision many times before and again and again you forget, and I say to you that you will be angry again,” you could become so annoyed that you become angry with that person immediately – even that may be enough to make you angry.I have heard…A man suffered from such great anger that he killed his wife and threw his child into a well. Once he became so angry that he burned his whole house. That was too much, and later he sorely repented.By coincidence a Jaina monk had come to the place. The man went to the monk and he said, “Initiate me, because I don’t think that I will ever get rid of my anger if I don’t change my life drastically.”Now, that “drastically” changing your life is again an expression of anger. A drastic change is an angry change. But the Jaina monk was as asleep as this person, and he was very happy, he was getting a disciple. He immediately initiated him.Jaina monks live naked, so the man immediately threw off all his clothes. The teacher was very impressed. He said, “It took me five years, slowly, slowly to drop my clothes. You are a rare man – within a moment you have thrown off all your clothes.”There is a procedure in the Jaina system that first you reduce your clothes to three, then to two, then to one, and then finally you drop that one too. Go slowly, practice, so that you don’t feel ashamed of being naked. But a practiced thing is not a real thing; all that is cultivated is false.The teacher was very impressed, but in fact it was part of the anger of this man who could burn his house, who could kill his wife, who could throw his innocent child into a well and kill him. This man was capable of doing anything. He could throw off his clothes and be naked. It looks like great renunciation – it is nothing. If you look deep down, it is anger standing on its head; it is anger against anger.Soon the man became very famous. Such people can become very famous, because whatsoever they do, they do with passion, with a certain intensity, with fire. He fasted for days at a time.The teacher gave him the name Shantinath – shantinath means “lord of peace” – just to remind him that he had renounced anger, now peace had to be his style of life. And for ten years he was not angry – not even for a single moment. In fact there was no need, no opportunity arose. Anger does not come from out of the blue; it needs a certain context. His wife was not there, his child was not there, the house, the family, the business, the people, nobody was there. And he was so highly respected the whole country came to know about this great man, this mahatma.He was in New Delhi. One of his old friends came to the capital for some business, but when he learned that his friend was staying in Delhi and had become a well-known personality – the whole land worshipped him – naturally he went to see him and pay his homage. But deep down he was a little suspicious because he had known this man from his very childhood; he could not believe that he had really become “lord of peace.” He was a devil incarnate! Was it possible that such a change could happen so suddenly? He was suspicious, but changes happen in the world. He went.He had hoped that the great man would at least recognize him; they were old childhood friends, they had known each other for forty years. But the great man had become so great now, how could he recognize his friend? He did recognize him – the friend immediately knew that he had recognized him – but he wouldn’t look at him. In fact, he avoided him; that very avoiding was an indication that he had recognized him.The friend thought that nothing had changed; the anger had now become his ego. When all the other people were gone the friend remained there; he came close. He asked, “Sir, can I ask your name?”Shantinath, Lord of Peace, was a little disturbed. What stupidity! All the newspapers printed his pictures and his name. His name was broadcast on All-India Radio, he was shown on television. Everybody knew about him, he was a household name, and this fool was asking his name. But he didn’t show anything on the surface. He simply said, “My name is Shantinath.”Some metaphysical dialogue followed, and the man again asked, “Sir, I have forgotten your name. What is your name?”Now fire came to the eyes of the mahatma. But still he tried to control, though his face was getting red. He said, “I have told you. You seem to be an idiot! Can’t you understand a simple name? My name is Shantinath.”Again a little spiritual discussion followed, and the man said, “Sir, I have forgotten your name.”Shantinath took his staff in his hand and he said, “This is the last time, enough is enough! If you ask me the fourth time I will break your skull. My name is Shantinath – Lord of Peace.”And the friend said, “Now I have understood. You certainly are Lord of Peace – your red eyes, your face, your fire and the staff in your hand. No, I will not ask the fourth time. I know that you killed your wife, you killed your child – you can kill me!”People don’t change: so unconscious, so deeply unconscious are the desires, longings – anger, greed, sexuality – that on the surface they may seem to be changing, but deep down they don’t change. By changing your character you can’t change your consciousness, but vice versa can happen: if you change your consciousness, then your character changes.That is Buddha’s way, that is my way too. I give you keys to change your consciousness from sleep to awakening; that is the real thing to be done. Then all that was part of sleep disappears with sleep – anger, greed, possessiveness, jealousy; all that was part of sleep disappears. You cannot change those things unless your sleep is gone.Enrico Caruso was the matinee idol of the opera society of the world in the early 1900’s. He was also privately one of the more active lovers of his time. The following remark is attributed to the great Italian tenor: “I never make love in the morning,” Caruso is supposed to have said. “It is bad for the voice, it is bad for the health, and besides you never know who you might meet in the afternoon.”Now you see the unconsciousness. And this is the way of almost everybody.Two young women were having a conversation. One of them said, “I don’t see what fun you and your husband have going out and getting drunk every weekend.”The other replied, “Well, every time he gets boozed up he thinks I am somebody else and sneaks me home the back way!”Yes, when you are drunk you can even love your own wife. Even the impossible becomes possible when you are drunk. And this drunkenness is not new; it is very ancient, millions of years old. Hence it takes great effort to wake up. Once you are awake: The world cannot reclaim him or lead him astray, nor can the poisoned net of desire hold him.He is awake!Again and again Buddha repeats: He is awake!The gods watch over him.The moment you are awake the whole existence supports you, the whole existence becomes tremendously friendly. That is what Buddha means by “gods watch him, watch over him” – every care is taken of him. Not that there are gods, but the whole existence itself, all the elements of nature, visible, invisible, start becoming very friendly toward the man who is awake, because he is the most precious treasure. In him nature has become fulfilled, in him existence has blossomed. He is the goal of all existence: the whole existence is moving toward buddhahood. And whenever one person becomes a buddha, a shiver of joy goes all over the universe, ripples of joy, great rejoicing.He is awake! Remind yourself again and again, the definition of a buddha is: He is awake! – and you are asleep.A couple named George and Christine had been engaged for years and had put off their wedding day repeatedly because George’s work was so important to him he didn’t feel he could take any time off even for a honeymoon. Finally, however, Christine’s constant prodding made him weaken and they were married. They were all set to drive off to Hollywood on their honeymoon when George got a phone call from his boss.“Yes, sir,” George said, “I will be right there.”“But George,” wailed Christine, “what about our honeymoon?”“I am sorry, honey,” he said, “it can’t be helped. There is an emergency situation at the office and I am the only one who can take care of it. I will tell you what: you drive out to Hollywood as we planned and I will catch a plane after things are straightened out and meet you there.”“But what if I arrive before you do?” she asked. “What can I do about our honeymoon?”“Well,” George replied, “just begin without me.”Man thinks he is living, but without awareness there is no possibility of life. How can you have a honeymoon without a husband? How can you begin it?We are born, that is true, but we are not yet alive – and that is far truer. We have to be reborn. Just as one day a child comes out of the mother’s womb… That is a physical birth, the mother’s womb is a physical phenomenon. Then one day you have to come out of the womb of your psychology, of your mind.Unless you come out of your mind and become a no-mind you will not know what life is all about, you will live in vain. You will not have your honeymoon, it is impossible. You will not know the sweetness that existence is full of and the ecstasy. That is all yours just for the asking, but you have to do one thing: you have to risk.The child coming out of the mother’s womb takes a risk. His risk is great, because for nine months he has known a certain way of life, a most relaxed way which he will never know again: no worries, no responsibilities. He is simply enjoying. It is a long, long holiday, nine months’ holiday, and everything is provided for. He doesn’t even have to breathe – the mother breathes for him. Food is supplied, everything reaches him. He goes on growing, he simply rests. Now, coming out of this womb there is a risk, a great risk: losing his old style of life, so comfortable, so secure, so silent, so immensely relaxed. But every child takes the risk, comes out of the womb, enters into the world of worries, responsibilities, anxieties, challenges. But they are needed for his maturity, for his growth.You will have to come out of the womb one more time. That womb is your mind, and it is far more difficult to leave. And many die in that womb; they never come out of it. Those who come out of it are the buddhas.The way to come out of it is to become more and more a witness of your own mind; that is the way to come out of your mind. Your witnessing creates distance; your witnessing creates a separation from the mind. Your umbilical cord is cut. Slowly, slowly your identity with your mind is dropped. You start looking at yourself as consciousness; not as mind, not as thought, but as consciousness. That is the great beginning, the real life, the real honeymoon with life, honeymoon with existence.He is awake! The gods watch over him. And don’t be worried that out of your mind you may be unprotected, insecure. The whole existence will care about you; you will be taken care of. The whole existence becomes a mother to you.Move into the insecurity of no-mind and you will find the real security: the security of insecurity. That’s the definition of sannyas: the security of insecurity.He is awakeand finds joy in the stillness of meditationand in the sweetness of surrender.Again and again Buddha repeats: He is awake… because that is the most essential quality. Everything else follows it, everything else is secondary.The husband came home to discover his wife in the passionate embrace of his best friend.“I love him, John,” she said to her astonished spouse.“See here,” said the friend, “we are all too sophisticated to let a situation like this get out of hand. Tell you what we will do – we are both sportsmen; I will play you a game of gin rummy for her.”The husband thought about that for a moment. “All right,” he said, “but let us play for a penny a point on the side, just to keep it interesting.”You cannot hide your unconsciousness; it surfaces. Your reality goes on expressing itself; you may not be able to see it, but everybody else can see it. This is a strange world. You may not see your unconsciousness, but everybody knows about it, just as you know about everybody else’s. Because we pay more attention to other people than we do to our own mind, we are capable of knowing their faults, their reasons for misery, their causes of hell. We are very wise as far as others are concerned and we are very unwise as far as we are concerned, with our own inner being.We are focused on others, and this creates two things: you can’t help others, you can only condemn them. And your condemnation is not going to change them; in return they will condemn you.So society becomes a game of condemning each other. Nobody sees his own faults; on the contrary, everybody tries to cover them up. It is not that he does not want to see them; he does not want them to be seen by others. But you can’t help it: others are bound to see, because whatsoever there is in your unconscious goes on surfacing.Doris, Carol and Maria were arrested and brought into night court.The judge looked at Doris and she rolled her eyes and exhibited her legs.“What is your business?” the judge demanded.“Well, Judge,” she cooed, “I am a dressmaker and this awful cop…”“Thirty days!” interrupted His Honor.Carol was called and she tried the weeping stunt. “Ah, Your Honor, I am a respectable dressmaker with a family to support, a crippled mother and a dying baby.”“Thirty days!” rasped the judge.Maria was called to order and the judge asked, “What is your business?”“I am a whore,” she answered.“How is business?” he asked.“Just lousy,” said Maria, “what with all these dressmakers around?”It is very easy, very, very easy, to see others. Everybody is transparent to everybody else; just to himself he is completely blind. And when Buddha says: He is awake… he means that he has started changing his focus, his attention, from others to himself. He is turning inward. He is showering his whole consciousness upon his own being. In that very showering he is bathed, he becomes new, he is reborn.…and finds joy in the stillness of meditation… Once you turn in, meditation has started. Meditation means the capacity to be joyously alone, the capacity to be happy with yourself, the capacity to keep company with yourself. To be with yourself is meditation. There is no need for the other in meditation; the joy of aloneness, not the misery of loneliness, is meditation: …and finds joy in the stillness of meditation.Meditation in the East is not what is understood in the West. In the West, meditation means contemplation: meditating on God, meditating on truth, meditating on love.People ask me sometimes, “You tell us to meditate, but on what?” If you meditate on something, you are not meditating at all, because you are again focused on something outside of yourself. It may be love, it may be truth, it may be God; it makes no difference.Meditation in the East has a totally different meaning, just the opposite of the Western meaning. Meditation in the East means no object in the mind, no content in the mind; not meditating upon something but dropping everything; neti, neti, neither this nor that. Meditation is emptying yourself of all content. When there is no thought moving inside you there is stillness; that stillness is meditation. Not even a ripple arises in the lake of your consciousness; that silent lake, absolutely still, that is meditation. And in that meditation you will know what truth is, you will know what love is, you will know what godliness is.See the point: how can you meditate on God? You don’t know anything about God. All your meditation is going to be just imagination, an exercise of imagination. You don’t know truth – what are you going to meditate upon? – some idea given by others, some belief, some concept. It is not going to help.Buddha’s way is: first become meditation, and then in meditation, truth, godliness, love, and all that is transcendental will be revealed to you. Meditation opens the eye and frees the foot.…and in the sweetness of surrender. In meditation, surrender happens – surrender to the whole. Not to any idea, not to any idol, but to the whole. Not surrender to Krishna or Christ, but to the whole of existence. Nothing is excluded; everything is included in it, from the rocks to the stars, from a blade of grass to the sun. Everything is included: this whole organic, ecstatic celebration which we call the universe.Why do we call it the universe? Because it is one – uni means one. Although we go on behaving as if it is a multiverse; it is not, it is a universe. It is one organic unity; it is a dynamic unity and it is organic too. It is tremendous ecstasy to meet and merge into it, to dissolve yourself into it; that is surrender. The river moving into the ocean is surrender. Two lovers dissolving into each other is surrender. But these are small surrenders, indicative only, fingers pointing to the moon.The ultimate surrender is your individuality moving into the universality. You are becoming part of the whole.Hard it is to be born…Buddha means it is hard to be born as a human being. It takes millions of lives to arrive at this stage.…hard it is to live…And even if you are born, life is not easy. It is very hard, it is difficult, arduous, a thousand and one problems always surrounding you and no solution seems possible. But these are nothing compared to the third thing:…harder still to hear of the way…To be born is hard, because you could have been a dog or a tiger or an elephant or an ant or a rosebush. There are millions of forms; from all those planes you cannot enter into buddhahood. After millions and millions of births you have come to the crossroads. Man is a crossroad: from man all the dimensions are open. And it is up to you to move, up to you to choose, up to you to be whatsoever you want to be. In the whole of existence only man is a free being. It is a glory, a great gift of existence.…Hard it is to be born – and – hard it is to live… Life is not easy. How can a life of unconsciousness be easy? You create your own problems. You dig ditches into which you yourself are going to fall; you create walls which become imprisonments for you. You are your worst enemy.Life is hard, but the hardest thing is to hear of the way: to find a master – a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu. It is very hard to find a buddha, and harder to hear him and to understand what he is saying. It is easier to misunderstand him; it is easier not to recognize him. You can find a thousand and one rationalizations and deny him. In fact you will try, because your ego is at stake. To recognize somebody as a buddha means you have to surrender. Recognizing a buddha and not surrendering to him is impossible. Recognizing a buddha and surrendering to him is a natural phenomenon.Once you recognize somebody as awakened, enlightened, there is no way to escape, you have to surrender. If you want to escape, then be alert. From the very beginning don’t recognize, from the very beginning create as many barriers as you can. Distort everything; bring in all your prejudices. Don’t see, close your eyes. Don’t listen, become deaf. Don’t feel, and escape from the buddhafield, because who knows? – sometimes it happens in spite of you.It is happening to many here in spite of themselves. They had not come here to stay forever. They had come out of curiosity, or a friend was coming and they accompanied him, or they were just passing from Kabul to Goa, or Kathmandu to Goa, and they were trapped in Pune! Then they forgot about Kathmandu and Kabul and Goa and all disappeared, the whole world disappeared. They entered into a totally different reality. They may not have come consciously, they may have resisted; they may have decided reluctantly to be here for a few days. Seeing so many people involved, they may have thought that there must be something here.It is hard to recognize a buddha, to hear him silently, without distorting, without bringing your mind in. It is hard to understand him because he speaks from a different altitude. He speaks from the peaks of the Himalayas, and you live in the dark valleys below. The distance is great. He shouts so that he can reach you, but by the time his words reach you they are no longer the same. By the time they reach to your heart, much of their flavor, their authenticity, their truth, is lost. But though it is hard, it happens, and if you are courageous enough it can happen to you.There has never been a time when there was not a buddha alive in the world, somewhere, in some part of the world. There has always been a source; there has always been a boat ready to take you to the other shore. If anything is missing it is just readiness on your part.…harder still to hear of the way,and hard to rise, follow, and awake.And the hardest thing, Buddha says, is: even if you hear a buddha it is hard to rise to those heights. It is a tremendous effort, an arduous journey, a great pilgrimage to rise to those heights, because you cannot truly understand a buddha unless you become a buddha yourself. The only way to understand a buddha is to be a buddha.…hard to rise, follow, and awake. Yes, you can understand intellectually, but intellectual understanding is not going to help; it may even become a hindrance. It will give you the idea in your sleep that you have understood, and now there is no need to bother any more, you already know.Intellectually, many people who come here know what Jesus says, what Buddha says. Intellectually they can analyze, they can discuss, but that is not the point. Knowing has to be existential, not intellectual. Intellect can be used as a stepping-stone, but it is not the real temple, it is only a stepping-stone.You have to experience what Buddha is saying; what Buddha teaches has to become your own experience. You have to become a witness to this experience. Only then have you followed, only then have you risen, only then are you awake.Yet the teaching is simple.Buddha says that although it is hard to find and recognize a master, hard to understand, hard to realize the understanding, actualize the understanding in your life, it still has to be said that the teaching is simple. The difficulty arises from you; the teaching is very simple. It has to be so: truth is always simple.The complexity is in you, and it is because of your complexity that a simple truth becomes very complex. You don’t want to hear or you want to hear something else. You come for consolations, not for revolutions. You come to be patted, to be told that you are perfectly right. You come to be accepted and loved, not to be transformed. You come to be respected, and you come so that you can feel you are important, needed.The deepest need of the mind is to be needed. And if you start feeling that a master needs you, you are indispensable, that gives you a great ego, but you have missed the whole point. You come so full of ideas and those ideas go on making such noise in you that when Buddha is shouting from the housetops, even then you listen only to that which you want to hear.A man walks into an ice cream shop. “I will have a gallon of chocolate ice cream.”“Sorry, we are all out of chocolate,” says the clerk.“In that case I will have a quart of chocolate ice cream.”“Listen, we don’t have any chocolate.”“Well, in that case I will have a double scoop chocolate cone.”“Mister, we are all out of chocolate, all out!”“Well, I guess I will just have some chocolate ice cream in a cup.”“Wait a second!” cries the clerk. “Can you spell the water in watermelon?”“Sure.” says the man.“Can you spell the gold in goldfish?”“Easy.” says the man.“Well, can you spell the fuck in chocolate?”“Wait a second, there is no fuck in chocolate.”“That’s what I have been trying to tell you!”But it is very difficult when you are obsessed with something to understand a simple thing. Yet the teaching is simple.Do what is right.And in Buddha’s way, the right is that which is done consciously. That is his definition of right. Do what is right.Be pure.By purity he always means innocence: a state of not-knowing, a state of functioning like a child. He perfectly agrees with Christ, that unless you are like a small child you will not enter into the kingdom of God.Be a child again. Your knowledgeability is a great obstruction in the way; remove it, be innocent.At the end of the way is freedom.If you can fulfill these simple things – awareness, rightness, innocence – which are just three faces of the same phenomenon of being conscious, of being meditative, then: At the end of the way is freedom. Then you will attain to absolute freedom. His word is nirvana. Nirvana means absolute freedom: not freedom for the ego, but freedom from the ego; not freedom for you, but freedom from yourself. Freedom to Buddha is equivalent to God. He never uses the word God, because God has become a bondage to many people. He uses the word freedom, moksha or nirvana.Nirvana means cessation of the ego; literally it means blowing out a candle. Just as you blow out a candle and it disappears and cannot be found anywhere – it disappears into the whole – so the ego disappears in an awakened one. And in that disappearance of the ego you become unlimited. The dewdrop falling into the ocean becomes the ocean itself; then there is no limit to you. That is freedom.Till then, patience.But it may not happen today. You may not be immediately ready to take the jump. Till then, patience is needed. Buddha says: “Yet the teaching is very simple.” He has reduced it to a few words: do what is right. That is, do everything consciously. Be pure, innocent, childlike, and be patient. Don’t be in a hurry. At the end, freedom is inevitable; it is a by-product of total awareness.If you wound or grieve another,you have not learned detachment.Detachment is also one of the by-products of awareness. If you are alert you cannot wound or grieve another, because you know there is no other; it is all one reality. Wounding somebody else is the same as wounding yourself – maybe your right hand wounding your left hand – and the pain will be yours. You can wound somebody, but ultimately you have wounded yourself because there is nobody else, it is all oneness.Offend in neither word nor deed.Eat with moderation.Live in your heart.Seek the highest consciousness.Simple statements – not a very complex theology he gives to the world. He says: “Don’t offend anybody, avoid it. Don’t hurt anybody.” People enjoy hurting, because the more you can hurt, the more power you feel. But the power is of the ego, and the ego is going to become, more and more, a heavy load for you. Don’t hurt; don’t feed the ego.Eat with moderation. Buddha is always in favor of moderation: avoid excess in everything. He is not in favor of fasting. He says don’t eat too much, and he says don’t eat too little – in moderation. Just be in the middle, always in the middle. Be balanced, keep an equilibrium. Live in your heart. And slip down from the head to the heart, from thinking to feeling, from logic to love.Seek the highest consciousness. And keep only one goal: constantly be mindful that you have to become a buddha. Less than that is not going to fulfill you.Seek the highest consciousness. With these simple requirements fulfilled, one day you will bloom into a one-thousand-petaled lotus. You have the potential to be a buddha; if you don’t fulfill it you will live in misery, you will die in misery, you will be born again in misery, and the wheel will continue.This is an opportunity here for you to jump out of the wheel. Don’t miss the opportunity.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I am confused about which path I am on. Sometimes I feel filled with joy when playing, singing, dancing or fighting with others and I can only see myself by looking at others. At other times I can't stand to be with anyone or relate at all; I am only happy being completely with myself. When I am with people, I judge that I am escaping my aloneness and when I am with myself, I judge that I am avoiding love.Isn't it possible to be on both paths, alternating between them? How can I tell when I am using one to escape the other?Prem Indivar, there is no goal and no path for people like you, you are just crazy! Buddha is talking about sane people. Buddha is a very rational person: he divides, categorizes. But there is a third category Buddha is not aware of. The Sufis know about the third category; they call them mastas – the mad people.There is no need for you to alternate, because alternating between one path and the other you will always feel this problem of judgment. When you are on one you will think that you are missing the other, and this will become an unnecessary anguish.Simply be wherever you are. Enjoy the moment, all the moments – the moments of love and the moments of meditation – and don’t be bothered with the other. In a particular moment, be totally in it. Playing, loving, dancing, singing, forget that there is another path. And while you are feeling silent, still, alone, and enjoying your aloneness, forget that there is any path called love.It is not a question of consciously alternating between the two; otherwise you will become divided, schizophrenic, and to be schizophrenic is to fall below normal sanity. Mastas, the really mad people, don’t fall below sanity, they go above it, they transcend it. Both look mad; both are no longer in the world of reason: one has fallen below it, one has gone above it. In a sense they are alike and in a sense they are absolutely different.Indivar, you are a masta. Rejoice in being whatsoever you are. And what is happening to you is the best that can happen to a man. It is just natural for you to be sometimes with others and enjoying their company, and sometimes to be with yourself and enjoying your own company. It is like day and night for you. You need not choose: the day is followed by the night on its own accord. It is like summer and winter. It is not a question of choice on your part; it is something spontaneous and natural that is happening to you. I am tremendously happy with you; so simply be as you are, drop this judgment.So let me state it clearly. There are three possibilities: one, meditation; second, love; third, one can just be crazy with no question of choice, no question of deliberately going on a certain path, forcing yourself on a certain path.There are many here who are in the same situation. At least twenty questions have come to me, and the problem is the same. If there is no question for you and you can enjoy meditation without ever being worried about love, then that is your path. If you can enjoy love without ever being distracted by meditation, that is your path. If you find yourself in a deep synthesis, that both are happening, then that is your path.My whole effort here is to help you to be your natural self. Any imposition is a violation. Indivar, rejoice in being whatsoever you are. There is no goal for you, no path for you. Rejoicing is the goal, rejoicing is the path.In fact, we are all where we should be, we are already there. The paths are needed to awaken us. Don’t be disturbed by the word path, because it gives you the idea that you have to go somewhere, reach somewhere; it is because of the language. We have to use words, and every word is loaded with our mundane meanings; hence the buddhas have always found it difficult to commune with you. You can’t understand silence, because you can’t be silent. That is the best thing: if you can sit silently with a buddha for even a single minute, all is conveyed.Here, being with me, my real message is between the words – the pauses, the intervals – not in the words. Read me between the lines, not in the lines, and you will be able to understand me more.There is a beautiful story…A mystic received a letter. The letter had come from another mystic, but the letter from him was absolutely empty, nothing was written on it. There had been a problem: the man who had written the letter was older in age, but the man to whom the letter was written was older in enlightenment; he had become enlightened first. So the problem arose of how to start the letter.In India, if you are writing to an older person you have to be very respectful. So how do you start? How do you address the person? He is younger, physically, so you cannot show respect, you have to show love. But he is older as far as enlightenment is concerned, so you cannot talk to him as if you are talking to a young man, younger than you; you have to be respectful.The mystic was puzzled. And if you cannot start the letter, how can you write it? So he sent the empty paper.The other mystic received it. He read it, rejoiced in it. He was so happy that a disciple who was sitting close by asked, “You look so happy, may I also read the letter?”The letter was passed to the disciple who read it and rejoiced in it.Then a third person who was also present became interested. There seemed to be something very mysterious about the letter. But this man was not a disciple; he had come to see the mystic just out of curiosity. He said, “Can I also have a look?”Both the master and the disciple hesitated. They looked at each other wondering how to answer this man. The man became even more intrigued. He said, “Is there something very mysterious in it?”They said, “There is really nothing in it. It is a very rare letter; you will not understand its language. That’s why we are hesitating. We don’t want to offend you, but if you insist you can see it.”The man looked at this side and that side of the paper and saw there was nothing at all written on it. He returned the letter without saying anything and rushed out. These people seemed to be mad!Buddhas cannot use silence with you because then you will not understand; you will escape. They have to use words which have your meanings, so they have to be very, very alert in choosing their words, but even then those words are inadequate.The word path is so inadequate that Lao Tzu always uses “the pathless path.” Now what is the sense of saying “pathless path”? It is empty paper. “Gateless gate,” “effortless effort,” “action in inaction” – wu-wei, all these contradictions together, paradoxes together, are just to shake and shock you out of your sleep. Otherwise there is no path and there is nowhere to go. You are already there and you have been always there. All that is needed is to wake up.Indivar, I can see you are coming out of your dreams, your sleep. I can see you turning and tossing in your bed; the morning is not very far away. Please don’t be worried about the paths, because that worry can keep you asleep. Don’t judge any moment. Don’t compare any moment with another moment, because every comparison is a thought process and every thought process keeps you attached to the mind. Relax, whatsoever happens, allow it to happen. Be in a let-go.I am saying these things to you because that is the easiest thing for you; just be in a let-go. Godliness is going to happen to you; you are not going to find it. The goal is going to happen to you. And it can happen anywhere; there is no path leading to it. In fact it is our own reality; we simply have to be alert to see.In Japan there is the beautiful story of a really great buddha, Hotei. In Japan he is called the Laughing Buddha, because the moment he became enlightened he started laughing.People asked him, “Why are you laughing?”He said, “Because I have become enlightened!”“But,” they said, “we can’t see any relationship between enlightenment and laughter. What is the point of laughing?”Hotei said, “I am laughing because I was searching for something which was already in me. I was searching the seeker; it was impossible to seek it. Where can you seek the seeker? How can you know the knower? It was like a dog chasing its own tail or you chasing your own shadow; you cannot catch hold of it. It was so ridiculous; the whole effort was so absurd, that’s why I am laughing. I have always been a buddha, now it seems very strange that for millions of lives I remained unconscious. It seems unbelievable how I went on missing myself. Now that I have known, a great laughter is arising in me.”And it is said he continued to laugh until his death; that was his only message to the world. He must have been a man like Indivar – just crazy, far out!The second question:Osho,Can someone who is not open wake up?It is impossible to wake up if you are not open. Opening to existence is what waking up is all about: open to the sun, to the moon, to the rain, to the wind, open to this whole celebration of the trees, of the rocks, the earth and the stars, of animals, birds, people. Existence is a celebration, a continuous festival, a carnival. If you are not open, if you are closed, if you don’t have any windows and doors toward existence, how can you wake up? Waking up and being open are synonymous.People remain closed in their minds. They never come out of their minds and they never allow reality to penetrate their hearts. A very transparent Wall of China divides them from the world. And the world is divine, existence is godly. And why do people remain closed? – they are afraid, afraid of being open, because when you are open you are insecure, unguarded. When you are open you are vulnerable. When you are open you don’t know what is going to happen, everything is a surprise. You are moving into the unknown; each moment brings the unknown to your door.The closed mind is afraid of the unknown; the closed mind is interested in the known. Why? – because with the known it is easier to manage. The mind knows everything about it, it is clever and efficient about it. But a closed mind is really below normal; it is not yet human. It cannot be intelligent.Intelligence needs constant challenges, encounters with reality, because only through those encounters is your intelligence sharpened and your potential becomes actual.It is impossible to remain closed and wake up. I know that you are trying to do that, but it is not possible in the very nature of things. I feel deep compassion for you. I want to help you, but you won’t allow me. You won’t allow me to take your hand in my hand. You won’t allow my energy to touch your heart, to move it, to bring a dance to it. You remain alert, but you remain alert only to guard yourself. You are afraid, afraid of falling in deep love, because the moment you fall in deep love the ego disappears. It is a kind of death, and one cannot be guaranteed what will happen afterward.Resurrection always looks like a myth, although it happens, it is inevitable. If you are ready to die, resurrection happens. The last words of Jesus were: “Forgive these people, because they know not what they are doing. And I don’t ask anything from you: let thy will be done, let thy kingdom come.”This is surrender; this is totally opening up to existence: no complaint, no grudge, not even against those who are murdering him. The trust is total; it is because of this fact that the resurrection happens. It may not be an historical fact that Jesus revived after three days, but it is a metaphysical fact. And a metaphysical fact is far more real than an historical fact; it shows something of the depth of human beings. If you can die as an ego, you will be resurrected as a buddha, as a christ.Come out of your mind. But we go on moving in circles.The mother took her son to the psychiatrist and complained that he was always thinking about sex.The doctor drew a square on a piece of paper, looked at the boy and asked, “Son, what comes to your mind when you see this drawing?”The kid answered, “Looks like a window.”The doc said, “What do you think is going on behind that window?”“People are behind that window,” replied the kid. “They are huggin’, kissin’ and makin’ love.”The doctor drew a circle and asked, “What comes to your mind when you see this?”The kid said, “That’s a porthole.”“And what do you think is going on behind that porthole?” inquired the doctor.“Ah,” said the kid, “There are people behind that porthole with their clothes off, drinking, making love and having a ball.”The doctor said, “Son, would you mind leaving the room? I would like to discuss this with your mother.”The boy got up to leave and as he reached the door he turned around and said, “Hey, Doc, can I have those dirty pictures you drew?”A closed mind goes on interpreting life, existence, according to its own prejudices and concepts which were unconsciously acquired, and hence remain unavailable to the reality. Even if you come across Buddha, even if you meet Christ or Krishna or Confucius, you will miss. They can talk to you about the ultimate, but you will listen only about the mundane. They will talk about the sacred, but you will not listen to what they are saying; you will listen according to your closed mind. It has fixed ideas.It was the nurse’s day off, and the doctor stuck his head into the waiting room to ask, “Who is next?”One guy got up and said, “Me, Doc.”“What’s your trouble?” asked the doctor. So the guy told him. The doctor grabbed him by the arm, pulled him into his office and balled him out: “Never do that again, especially not in a roomful of people. Next time just say that your nose or your eyes bother you.”A couple of weeks went by and the fellow came back. The nurse was off again, and when the doctor asked, “Who is next?” the same guy said, “I am.”The doctor asked, “What is your trouble?”The guy replied, “My ear’s bothering me.”“What is wrong with it?”“I can’t urinate out of it!”Even great advice is of no use – you will come to your own conclusion again and again. That’s how you have been missing much that is possible here. Be open; you have nothing to lose. Just see: what can you lose if you open up? What do you have? But people go on guarding their emptiness, their nothingness, their begging bowls, so afraid.In India we have a story that once a naked man was asked, “We never see you taking a bath.”He said, “I never take a bath, because if you put your clothes on the bank and you go to take a bath in the river, somebody may steal them.”The people who were asking said, “But you are naked! Why should you be worried about the clothes?”But man is not ready even to see that he is naked. He wants to believe that he has beautiful garments. Who wants to see one’s nakedness?And, you are empty, you are naked. There is nothing to lose. Relax and open. And you have all to gain, you have everything, the whole universe to gain. Just by waking up, one becomes the master; otherwise one remains a slave.The third question:Osho,Let us see you get out of this one, you tricky rascal! You tell us often that sannyas does not mean renouncing the world, but the ego. Yet when we decide to stay with you we end up renouncing our homes, jobs, money and possessions; our private space, sometimes our family and friends too. We don't make any formal renunciation, but it happens anyway, and we flourish and are perfectly happy. You are so devious, it is beautiful!Sannyas can have two possibilities. One is a formal renunciation which means repression, escape, and that is ugly. That has been the way in the past. It is life-negative; it is anti-life. It promises you all the joys in heaven. In fact, it is out of greed that you renounce the world. The formal renunciation is pseudo; it is plastic. It is not a real flower, it has no fragrance. On the contrary, deep down it is a great greed: greed for the other life, for eternal life, for the joys of heaven.Just look in the scriptures of the world and you will be surprised. The way they describe heaven or paradise is nothing but the dream of a very greedy, sensuous, materialistic mind. It has nothing to do with religion at all. In the Mohammedan idea of heaven there are beautiful women; they always remain young. And not only are there beautiful women, but because in Mohammedan countries homosexuality has been a long, long tradition, young boys are also available, beautiful young boys. And rivers of wine – you need not go to a pub – rivers of wine; drink, swim, dive deep into it. And trees are of gold, and flowers are of diamonds and emeralds. What kind of dream is this? Whose dream is this? Greed projected. It is not renunciation; it looks like renunciation but it is not.The same is the case with the Hindu heaven and the Christian paradise. In fact, the Christian word paradise comes from the Arabic firdaus. Firdaus means a walled garden of pleasure, just as emperors and great kings used to have a walled garden of pleasure. In order to gain it you have to renounce this world.If you look at it in the true light, then the so-called worldly people are not so worldly, not so materialistic as the so-called otherworldly. It is because of this that this country, which thinks itself very religious, is not at all religious; it is very materialistic. On the surface is religion, but deep down is the desire for pleasures.The second kind of sannyas – the kind I am introducing into the world – is not one of formal renunciation. In fact, I never use the word renunciation at all. I say: sannyas is rejoicing. Rejoice in life, in love, in meditation, in the beauties of the world, in the ecstasy of existence, rejoice in everything. Transform the mundane into the sacred. Transform this shore into the other shore. Transform the earth into paradise.Then, indirectly, a certain renunciation starts happening. But it happens, you don’t do it. It is not a doing, it is a happening. You start renouncing your foolishnesses; you start renouncing rubbish. You start renouncing meaningless relationships. You start renouncing jobs which were not fulfilling to your being. You start renouncing places where growth was not possible. But I don’t call it renunciation, I call it understanding, awareness.If you are carrying stones in your hand thinking that they are diamonds, I will not tell you to renounce those stones. I will simply say, “Be alert and have another look!” If you see yourself that they are not diamonds, is there any need to renounce them? They will fall from your hands on their own accord. In fact, if you still want to carry them you will have to make a great effort, you will have to bring great will to carry them. But you cannot carry them for long; once you have seen that they are useless, meaningless, you are bound to throw them away.Once your hands are empty you can search for the real treasures, and the real treasures are not in the future as they used to be in the old concept of sannyas. The real treasures are right now, here.A very handsome young chap was recently hired in a large accounting firm. In a short while the young man came to Mr. Diamond, his department head, and said, “I am sorry to tell you, but some of the young ladies in this office are tempting me sorely.”“Be firm, young man,” was the reply, “and you will get your reward in heaven.”A few weeks later the lad complained again. “Mr. Diamond,” he said, “I don’t know what to do! This time it is that beautiful redhead who is pursuing me.”“Resist, my son, and you will get your reward in heaven.”“I don’t know how much longer I can resist,” the young man said. “By the way, Mr. Diamond, what do you think this reward will be that I will get in heaven?”“A bale of hay, you jackass!”Yes, that’s what you will get! If your renunciation is to get something in the other world, you will simply get a bale of hay, you jackass! Because it is greed projected, and greed is going to remain unfulfilled. The so-called religious people are greedy for the eternal, and you become religious only when greed disappears totally.Heaven is not somewhere else; it is a way of living. Hell is also a style of life. Hell is living unconsciously; heaven is living consciously. Hell is your own creation, so is heaven. If you go on living unconsciously, through your unconscious desires, instincts, motives – of which you are not the master but only the victim – then you create hell around yourself. But if you start living a conscious life, a life of bringing more and more light to the deep, dark corners of your being, if you start living full of light, your life is moment-to-moment ecstasy.There is no need for trees to be of gold, they are perfectly beautiful as they are. In fact, a tree of gold will be a dead tree. Roses need not be of diamonds; roses of diamonds will not be roses, they will not be alive. And only stupid people need rivers of wine. A man who lives consciously is so drunk with the sheer joy of breathing, with the sheer joy of being, with the joy of the birds singing and the sun rising in the morning, is so drunk with existence that he needs no other drug – alcohol, LSD, mescaline or marijuana. He needs nothing, he is always in a psychedelic ecstasy, and that ecstasy is something his inner being releases; it is his own fragrance. Not only is he drunk, but whoever comes to him, stays with him, becomes drunk with his being.I am a drunkard; if you allow yourself to be here and available to me, you are bound to become drunkards. That’s what has happened. I am not devious, I am simply a drunkard. And I am not trying in devious ways to make you renounce the world; I am simply trying to make you aware of the real world. When the real is known the false disappears. To know the real as real is enough: the false disappears, it becomes insubstantial.If you are here with me, it is not that you had to renounce your family; on the contrary, you are here with me because you have found your family here. If you have dropped out of your job, it is not because of your being here; on the contrary, you have found your creativity here, you have found your joy here. You have found your real, authentic work; hence the false has disappeared. It is a transformation process.But my emphasis is never on renouncing anything; my emphasis is on rejoicing more and more. And your rejoicing is bound to change your life patterns. You can’t remain the same when you meditate, when you become aware. How can you remain the same? How can you go on doing the same foolish things? It was possible when you were unconscious; it is impossible when you become conscious.A soldier just returning from three years overseas arrived at a camp near his home town. He was naturally very anxious to see his wife, but try as he would he could not possibly wrangle more than two hours’ leave.After six hours’ absence he came back to the camp. “Why the hell are you four hours AWOL?” barked the sergeant.“Well, you see,” said the soldier, “when I got home I found my wife in the bathtub, and it took me four hours to dry out my uniform!”When you live an unconscious life you live in a different way.When Tom, the rising young insurance executive, appeared at his friend Ed’s home in the early morning hours, asking to be put up for the night, Ed was concerned by his friend’s hollow-eyed appearance. “What happened, Tom? You and your wife had a fight?”“Yeah, when I got home last night I was really beat, tired as hell, so when she asked me for fifty dollars for a new dress…”“Yeah?”“Well, I guess I must have been half asleep or something, because I said, ‘All right, but let us finish this dictation first.’”Are you all British, or what? Can’t you get such a simple joke? Living an unconscious life you are even bound to miss jokes!The moment you change from mind to meditation your whole life is going to be affected. It is natural. If it is not affected, that will be something unnatural. Your relationships are bound to change.For example, a man may believe that he loves his wife. The moment he starts meditating it will become clear and transparent whether he loves her or not. He may never have loved her. He may simply be using her as a sex object, or he may be using her as a mother substitute. He may be using her because he is unable to be alone, but he may never have loved her. He may be dependent on her; she may have great utility.But to use another human being is immoral, ugly, as is pretending that you love. And I am not saying that you are consciously doing it; it may be just an unconscious thing. You may not even be aware that you don’t love her; you may think that you love her. You may not be deceiving her deliberately; you may be deceiving her and you may be deceived yourself too.But if you start meditating, things will become clear. You will have more light in your life; just as when you bring a candle into a dark room you start seeing clearly. In the darkness the window looked like a door; now it is no longer a door. Or the painting, the frame of the painting, in the darkness and dimness looked like a window; it is no longer a window. Now that you see things clearly you cannot behave in the old way. You will have to change; you will have to rearrange your whole life.That’s what happens to every sannyasin. If your love is true, it will be deepened; if it is false, it will disappear. If your respect for your parents is just a formality, it will disappear; if your respect for your parents is a reality, it will become more and more profound. And if the work that you are doing is your heart’s fulfillment, you will go deeper into it.A painter will become a greater painter, a musician will have new visions, and a poet will have new insights if he is really a poet, only then. If the poet was just playing with arranging words and was writing poetry just to become famous and the poetry was not his love affair, he was not ready to sacrifice his life for it, then poetry will disappear. But it is not renouncing anything. You are not renouncing anything; a few things are disappearing, and a few other things will appear.One thing is certain: after meditation, after my sannyas, whatsoever happens is going to give you more fulfillment, more maturity, more rootedness, more centering. It will become a life which does not only grow old but also grows toward heights and depths. You will start living not only a horizontal life but a vertical life too. You will live on the horizontal as far as it is needed; otherwise ninety percent of your energies will start moving in the vertical dimension, toward heights and depths.Then this earth, this world, becomes only an opportunity to grow. And the man who is using the world, the earth, this life, as an opportunity to grow is on the right track. If you not only grow in age but you also become grown-ups, then you have lived rightly. And it is not renunciation: it is rejoicing, it is being grateful to existence.Your society, your parents, your teachers, your priests, your politicians have all tried to impose something upon you, and you are carrying all that. But anything imposed on you will remain a burden. You will be crushed under the weight of it, and the weight will go on growing every day.The function of the master is to undo what the teachers, priests, parents and politicians have done to you. Here I only make things clear to you. I don’t impose any discipline; I don’t give you any character. I simply give you more consciousness, more light. Then you have to find your character. Then you have to find your life-style, your life pattern.I give you just a small candle; then you can find your path into the darkness of life. And even a small candle is enough. If a little space around you becomes lighted and you can take three, four steps in the light, that’s enough because by the time you have taken four steps, the light has gone four steps ahead of you. With a small candle one can pass through ten thousand miles of darkness.I am not against life at all, as the old sannyas was. The old sannyas had a very strange idea: that if you want to attain to God, you have to be anti-life, as if God were against life. If God were against life, life would not exist even for a single moment. Who goes on nourishing life? Who goes on pouring energy into life?The great Indian poet, Rabindranath, has said, “Whenever a child is born, I dance, I rejoice. Why? Because a new child gives me an absolute certainty that God has not yet become hopeless, that he still hopes. Each new child brings this certainty to the world, that God is still interested in humanity, that he has not abandoned the project, that he still hopes that buddhas will be born, that he still goes on creating new children, that he is not tired, that his hope is infinite and his patience is infinite.”God loves the world. It is his creation. To deny it is to deny him. If you deny the painting, you have denied the painter. If you condemn the poetry, you have condemned the poet. If you reject the dance, you have rejected the dancer. And this stupid logic has been going on for centuries: accept God, praise God, and deny life! And the same people went on saying again and again that God created the world. Then why did he create the world? So that you can renounce it? So that you can reject it? So that you can condemn it and become great saints?God created the world as an opportunity to grow. Growth needs many, many opportunities, challenges.I have heard a story…One day a farmer, an old farmer, mature, seasoned, was very, very angry with God – and he was a great devotee. He said to God in his morning prayer, “I have to tell it as it is – enough is enough! You don’t understand even the ABC of agriculture! When the rains are needed there are no rains; when the rains are not needed you go on pouring them. What nonsense is this? If you don’t understand agriculture you can ask me. I have devoted my whole life to it. Give me one chance: the coming season, let me decide and see what happens.”It is an ancient story. In those days people had such trust that they could talk directly to God, and their trust was such that the answer was bound to happen.God said, “Okay, this season you decide!”So the farmer decided, and he was very happy because whenever he wanted sun there was sun, whenever he wanted rain there was rain, whenever he wanted clouds there were clouds. And he avoided all dangers, all the dangers that could become destructive to his crops; he simply rejected them – no strong winds, no possibility of any destruction to his crops. And his wheat started growing higher than anybody had ever seen; it was going above the height of a man. And he was very happy. He thought, “Now I will show him!”Then the crop was cut and he was very puzzled. There was no wheat at all, just empty husks with no wheat in them. What happened? Such big plants – plants big enough to have given wheat four times bigger than ordinary wheat – but there was no wheat at all.And suddenly he heard laughter from the clouds. God laughed and he said, “Now what do you say?”The farmer said, “I am puzzled, because there was no possibility of destruction and all that was helpful was provided. And the plants were going so well, and the crop was so green and so beautiful! What happened to my wheat?”God said, “Because there was no danger – you avoided all dangers – it was impossible for the wheat to grow. It needs challenges.”Challenge brings integrity; otherwise a person remains hollow, empty. If all the facilities are provided for you and there is no danger in your life, you will remain hollow and empty. Existence gives life with all its dangers.My sannyas is to accept this challenge. To live dangerously is what my sannyas is all about. The more dangerously you live, the more risks you take, the more you grow, the more you become integrated, crystallized, the more your soul becomes a clear-cut, well-defined phenomenon. Otherwise it remains vague, cloudy, doubtful.I am all for life. If you ask me, God and his creation are not two separate things. The creator has become his own creation. The creation and the creator are one. I am in immense love with life. And this is my message to you: love life totally, get involved with life. Don’t hold back, because whatever you hold back will remain empty. Become committed to life: a multidimensional commitment is needed.Scientists say that even the greatest human beings use only fifteen percent of their potential. If even the greatest use fifteen percent, what about normal people? They use only five to seven percent of their potential. Just think: if every person was using one hundred percent of his potential, if each person was a torch burning from both ends together, with intensity, with passion, with love, then life would be a sheer celebration. You would see many christs and many buddhas walking on the earth. But because of this old idea of renunciation we have missed much.I want to bring a totally new concept of sannyas to the world: a sannyas that loves, a sannyas that knows how to become committed, a sannyas that goes to the deepest core of life.But nobody else can decide it for you. Not even I can decide for you. I can only make things clear to you. I can give you the map, but you have to go, you have to journey, you have to move. And remember one thing: my map will really be my map and it can’t be exactly your map. It may give you a few hints, a few indications, but it can’t be your map exactly because you are a totally different person. You are so unique that nobody else’s map can be your map. Yes, by understanding my map you will become aware of many things about yourself, but you are not to follow it blindly; otherwise you will become a pseudo human being.Listen to me, to my words, to my silence, to my being. Try to understand what is happening, what is transpiring, and then decide on your own. Don’t throw the responsibility on anybody else’s shoulders. This is the way to grow. This is the way to arrive.The fourth question:Osho,I have many friends, but the question: “Who is a real friend?” always arises in my mind. Will you say something about it?You are asking from the wrong end. Never ask, “Who is my real friend?” Ask, “Am I a real friend to somebody?” That is the right question. Why are you worried about whether others are friends to you or not?The proverb is: A friend in need is a friend indeed. But deep down that is greed. That is not friendship; that is not love. You want to use the other as a means, and no man is a means, every man is an end unto himself. Why are you so worried about who is a real friend?A young honeymoon couple was touring southern Florida and stopped at a rattlesnake farm along the road. After seeing the sights they engaged in small talk with the man who handled the snakes.“Gosh!” exclaimed the young bride, “You certainly have a dangerous job! Don’t you ever get bitten by the snakes?”“Yes, I do,” answered the handler.“Well,” she insisted, “just what do you do when you are bitten by a snake?”“I always carry a razor-sharp knife in my pocket, and as soon as I am bitten I make a deep, crisscross mark across the fang wound and then suck the poison from the wound.”“What? Ah, what would happen if you were to accidentally sit on a rattler?” persisted the bride.“Ma’am,” answered the snake handler, “that will be the day I learn who my real friends are!”Why are you worried? The real question has to be, “Am I friendly to people?” Do you know what friendship is? It is the highest form of love. In love, there is bound to be some lust; in friendship, all lust disappears. In friendship nothing gross remains; it becomes absolutely subtle.It is not a question of using the other, it is not even a question of needing the other; it is a question of sharing. You have too much and you would like to share. And if someone is ready to share your joy with you, your dance, your song, you will be grateful to him, you will feel obliged. Not that he is obliged to you, not that he should feel thankful to you because you have given so much to him. A friend never thinks in that way. A friend always feels grateful to those people who allow him to love them, to give them whatsoever he has.Love is greed. You will be surprised to know that the English word love comes from a Sanskrit word lobh; lobh means greed. How lobh became love is a strange story. In Sanskrit it is greed; the original root means greed. And love as we know it is really nothing but greed masquerading as love; it is hidden greed.Making friendships with the idea of using people is taking a wrong step from the very beginning. Friendship has to be a sharing. If you have something, share it, and whoever is ready to share with you is a friend. It is not a question of need. It is not a question of the friend having to come to your aid when you are in danger. That is irrelevant – he may come or he may not come, but if he does not come you don’t have any complaint. If he comes you are grateful, but if he does not come, it’s perfectly okay. It is his decision to come or not to come. You don’t want to manipulate him; you don’t want to make him feel guilty. You will not have any grudge. You will not say to him: “When I was in need you didn’t turn up – what kind of friend are you?”Friendship is not something of the marketplace. Friendship is one of those rare things which belong to the temple and not to the shop. But you are not aware of that kind of friendship; you will have to learn it.Friendship is a great art. Love has a natural instinct behind it; friendship has no natural instinct behind it. Friendship is something conscious; love is unconscious.You fall in love with a woman, and we say, “You have fallen in love.” That phrase is significant: “falling in love.” Nobody ever rises in love, everybody falls in love! Why do you fall in love? – because it is falling from the conscious to the unconscious, from intelligence to instinct.What we call love is more animalistic than human. Friendship is absolutely human, it has something for which there is no inbuilt mechanism in your biology; it is non-biological; hence one rises in friendship, one does not fall in friendship. It has a spiritual dimension.But don’t ask, “Who is a real friend?” Ask, “Am I a real friend?” Always be concerned with yourself. We are always thinking about others. The man asks whether the woman really loves him or not. The woman asks whether the man really loves her or not. And how can you be absolutely certain about the other? It is impossible. He may repeat a thousand times that he loves you and he will love you forever, but still the doubt is bound to persist whether he is speaking the truth or not. In fact, repeating something a thousand times simply means it must be a lie, because truth need not be repeated so often.Adolf Hitler in his autobiography says, “There is not much difference between truth and a lie. The only difference is that truth is a lie repeated so often that you have forgotten that it is a lie.”That’s what experts in advertising will say: go on repeating, go on advertising. Don’t be worried about whether anybody is listening or not. Even if they are not paying any attention, don’t be worried; their subliminal minds are listening, their deepest core is being impressed. You don’t look at advertisements very consciously, but just passing by them in the movie, on TV or in the newspaper, just a glance and there is an imprint. And it is going to be repeated again: “Lux toilet soap” or “Coca-Cola.”Coca-Cola is the only international thing. Even in Russia there is Coca-Cola. Everything American is banned and barred, but not Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is the only international thing. Go on repeating it.In the beginning the electricity used for advertisements was static electricity. It remained “Coca-Cola.” But later on they discovered that if you put it on and off it is far more effective, because a man passing by will read it only once if the light remains static. But if it changes, goes on and off again and again, by the time you pass it, even in a car, you will have read it at least five to seven times: “Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola.” That goes deeper, and sooner or later you become impressed.That’s how all the religions have lived up to now: they go on repeating the same stupid beliefs, but those beliefs become truths to people. People are ready to die for them. Now, nobody has seen where heaven is, but millions of people have died for heaven.Mohammedans say that if you die in a religious war you will immediately go to heaven and all your sins are forgiven. And Christians also say that in a religious war, in a crusade, if you die you immediately go to heaven; then everything else is forgiven. And millions of people have died and killed others, believing that this is a truth.We have seen such things happening even in this twentieth century; it doesn’t seem to be very grown-up in that way. Adolf Hitler repeated for twenty years continuously: “Jews are the cause of all misery,” and a very intelligent nation like Germany started believing in him. What to say about ordinary people? – even people like Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers Germany has produced in this century, believed that Adolf Hitler was right. He supported Adolf Hitler.A man of the intelligence of Martin Heidegger supporting a stupid, mad person like Adolf Hitler! What could the secret be? The secret is: repeat, go on repeating. Even Jews started believing that it must be true: “We must be the cause; otherwise how could so many intelligent people believe it? If so many people believe it, there must be something in it!”You have been brought up with such beliefs, such ideas, which have no foundation in reality. And if you go on living according to them you will live in vain. You have to go through a radical change.Ask questions about yourself, don’t ask about others. It is impossible to be certain of the other and there is no need either. How can you be certain of the other? The other is a flux. This moment the other person may be loving, and the next moment he may not be loving. There can be no promise. You can only be certain about yourself, and that too only for the moment. And there is no need to think of the whole future. Think in terms of the moment and the present; live in the present.If this moment is full of friendship and the fragrance of friendship, why be worried about the next moment? The next moment will be born out of this moment. It is bound to be of a higher, deeper quality. It will bring the same fragrance to a higher altitude. There is no need to think about it, just live the moment in deep friendship.Friendship need not be addressed to anyone in particular; that is also a rotten idea that you have to be friends with a certain person. Just be friendly; rather than creating friendship, create friendliness. Let it become a quality of your being, a climate that surrounds you, so you are friendly with whomsoever you come in contact.This whole existence has to be befriended, and if you can befriend existence, existence will befriend you a thousandfold. It returns to you in the same coin but multiplied. It echoes you. If you throw stones at existence you will be getting back many more stones. If you throw flowers, flowers will be coming back.Life is a mirror, it reflects your face. Be friendly, and all of life will reflect friendliness. People know perfectly well that if you are friendly to a dog even the dog becomes friendly to you, so friendly. And there are people who have known that if you are friendly to a tree, the tree becomes friendly to you.Try great experiments in friendships. Try with a rosebush, and see the miracle: slowly, slowly, it will happen, because man has not been behaving with trees in a friendly way; hence they have become very afraid.But now scientists say that when you come with an axe to cut down a tree, even before you have started cutting it, the tree goes into a shiver, a cold shiver. It goes into a great fear, panic even before you have started, as if the tree becomes aware of your intention. Now they have sophisticated instruments just like cardiographs, which can make graphs on paper showing what the tree is feeling. When the tree is feeling joyous, there is a rhythm in the graph; when the tree is feeling afraid, the fear is shown on the graph. When the tree sees the friend coming it rejoices, it jumps, it dances; the graph immediately shows a dance. When the tree sees the gardener coming, the dance disappears.Have you ever said hello to a tree? Try it, and one day you will be surprised: the tree also says hello in her tongue, in her own language. Hug a tree, and a day will come soon when you will feel that it was not only you who were hugging the tree, the tree was responding. You were also hugged by the tree although the tree has no hands; it has its own way of expressing its joy, its sadness, its anger, its fear.The whole existence is sensitive. That’s what I mean when I say that existence is God.Be friendly and don’t be worried whether anybody is friendly toward you or not – that is a businesslike question. Why be worried? Why not transform the whole existence into a friend toward you? Why miss such a great kingdom?The last question:Osho,Why are thousands of people from all over the world coming to you?It is a very difficult question for me to answer. How can I answer on behalf of thousands of people who are coming to me? They have different reasons.A few are coming to me because I have called them: they may know it, they may not know it. There is more possibility that they will not know it, at least not in the beginning. Only later on, as they become immersed into my commune, into my world, slowly, slowly they will become aware that they have been called forth, just as Jesus called to Lazarus in his grave, “Lazarus, come out!” and he came out of his grave.The life that you have lived has been life in a grave and I have called you. A few of you are being called; that’s why you are here. About these people I can say why they are here because I have called them. They have been with me for many lives: this is a long, long love affair with them. This is not the first time that they are with me: this is the last time certainly, because I am not going to come again. I have called them because of certain promises made in the past.There are many kinds of people. A few have come just accidentally; but even though they have come accidentally they have a certain potential in them and their potential became involved with me. They were not coming consciously, they were not called – they were just passing by – but they got caught in the net.A few have come for certain needs to be fulfilled. There are a few people who are in search of father figures; because Friedrich Nietzsche says, “God is dead,” and once God is dead man feels empty. The West is feeling very empty: God is dead, and God was the father, the permanent, eternal father.It is not an accident that Christian priests are called “father,” although it is very strange because they don’t have any children, they are unmarried. It is a strange world: unmarried priests are called “father”! But it is perfectly logical, because the Christian idea of God is also without a woman. How do they manage it? God the Father, Christ the Son – at least let the Holy Ghost be a woman! But they don’t even allow the Holy Ghost! The trinity is not true: it is lacking something, it is missing something; the feminine energy is missing.But at least God was there. If not the mother, God was there as the father, a protector. And people were feeling protected – whether there was a God or not was not the question, but people were feeling protected. And on the earth was the father, the priest and the pope – or papa – the great father, the highest priest. Pope also means father – papa, popa, pope, or whatsoever you call him.But the Vatican has lost its grip on the West; the relationship between the pope and the West is only formal. Christianity has become a Sunday religion. And exactly the same is the case in the East: all religions have become formal. Now people are in search of a father figure.A few people come because they are missing protection, they need protection. They will escape from me, because I don’t give protection. On the contrary, I take all protection away. They will escape because I don’t give any security; on the contrary, I take all security away. I give you insecurity, because to me insecurity is the right situation in which one grows. If there is no God, no father, the whole responsibility falls on your own shoulders, and it is good, it is perfectly good.I absolutely agree with Friedrich Nietzsche. Buddha also agrees. Buddha says there is no God, Mahavira says there is no God, for the simple reason that the idea of God has been dangerous in the sense that people feel protected and they stop growing. If you are unprotected, if you are under the sky, you have to depend on yourself. You have to become stronger, more integrated. Then you are free to live in hell or in heaven; nobody can reward you and nobody can punish you.A few people are coming because they are missing a father figure. If they stay with me I will transform this situation into a beautiful, positive phenomenon; if they escape, then it is up to them. It is very easy for them to escape, because they will see that I am destroying them. If any idea of protection is left in their minds I am destroying that too. I am taking away all patterns, structures, strategies of the mind.I want you to be utterly alone, so alone that you have to fall upon yourself – there is nowhere else to go. You have to stand on your own legs, you can’t use any crutches.A few other people are coming to find some kind of consolation. They will also be shocked, because I don’t give any kind of consolation.A pretty model took her troubles to a psychiatrist. “Doctor, you must help me!” she pleaded. “It has gotten so that every time a man takes me out I wind up in bed with him, and then afterward I feel guilty and depressed all day long.”“I see,” nodded the psychiatrist, “and you want me to strengthen your willpower?”“Heavens, no!” exclaimed the model. “I want you to fix it so I won’t feel guilty and depressed afterward!”People, many people, consciously or unconsciously, are here to find some kind of consolation so they don’t feel guilty, so that they don’t feel unworthy. I am not here to give you consolation. Why give consolation when I can give you the real thing? Why give you plastic toys when I can help you to grow into a soul?A few other people come because they are on the verge of going insane; psychology, psychoanalysis and psychiatry have not been of much help. It can help only up to a point. It can help a person to be normal if his madness is ordinary madness, but it cannot help a person if his madness has something spiritual in it.People like R. D. Laing are becoming aware of it: that if a person’s madness is because he is too sensitive, too alert and too aware of the misery in which people are living and he himself is living; if he becomes aware of the meaninglessness of this whole life that we have created on this earth, he is bound to go berserk. He will not be able to bear it; it will be unbearable. Those people cannot be helped by psychiatry or psychoanalysis. Those people can only be helped if something like meditation starts happening in their being.So if some ordinarily insane person comes here I send him back to the West, because psychiatry is perfectly capable of helping him. There is no need for me to waste my time on that kind of person: there are other plumbers who can do that. I do a special kind of plumbing! If your insanity is spiritual then I am here to help you. And spiritual insanity is really a beautiful beginning; it can become the greatest blessing in your life. It is a blessing disguised as a curse.But still the question is difficult because there are so many people and each person comes with a different motive. But I am not much concerned about your motives. I know why I am here and I go on doing my thing, irrespective of why you have come here.Those who have something significant growing in them are bound to remain with me – those who are courageous enough to move beyond the boundaries of the mind, beyond all boundaries and all limits. Those who are not courageous will leave of their own accord.Many will be called; few will be chosen. Thousands will come, but only a few will be transformed. It is all up to you. You can use this opportunity that I am making available to you; you can miss it too. I cannot be forced upon you. I am available; you can share. You can look through my eyes. I have opened a door and I am standing at the door welcoming you.Why you have come is not the point. Come in!Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Master yourself according to the law.This is the simple teaching of the awakened.The rain could turn to goldand still your thirst would not be slaked.Desire is unquenchableor it ends in tears, even in heaven.He who wishes to awakeconsumes his desiresjoyfully.In his fear a man may shelterin mountains or in forests,in groves of sacred trees or in shrines.But how can he hide there from his sorrow?He who shelters in the wayand travels with those who follow itcomes to see the four great truths.Concerning sorrow,the beginning of sorrow,the eightfold way,and the end of sorrow.Then at last he is safe.He has shaken off sorrow.He is free.The awakened are few and hard to find.Happy is the house where a man awakes.Blessed is his birth.Blessed is the teaching of the way.Blessed is the understanding among those who follow it,and blessed is their determination.And blessed are they who reverethe man who awakes and follows the way.They are free from fear.They are free.They have crossed over the river of sorrow.The first sutra:Master yourself according to the law.This is the simple teaching of the awakened.Man can either be interested in dominating and mastering others, or he can be interested in mastering himself. The first category is the category of the fools, but they make the major part of history: Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Nadirshah, Alexander, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong. History is full of the names of the first category. It is the wrong kind of history to teach.The right kind of history will teach about the buddhas: those who have tried and conquered themselves. It is far more arduous to conquer oneself; it needs far more integrity, awareness, strength, will, trust, surrender. It requires all the great qualities of consciousness. It basically requires consciousness.You can master yourself only if you are absolutely alert; otherwise you remain dominated by your desires. You are a slave in your own house. One desire pulls you toward the south, another toward the north, and you are at the mercy of those blind desires. You are always falling apart. It is difficult even to manage to remain together: so many desires, so many attractions, so many objects alluring you. You are simply in an insane state, running hither and thither, not knowing why, not knowing whether it is worth it at all.Man is born unconsciously, although he has the potential to become conscious. But the potential will remain only a potential unless you work hard to actualize it. One is born with an intrinsic capacity to conquer oneself, but your whole energy becomes extrovert. Living with people who are extrovert, ambitious, desiring this and that, a child also starts imitating. He learns from others, his parents, teachers, priests, politicians, and they are all in the same boat. Someone is after money, someone is after power, someone is after fame, but no one seems to be interested in one’s own self. No one seems to be ready to go on that great pilgrimage of self-discovery.Buddha says: Master yourself… If you are at all interested in mastery – and who is not interested? – then become interested in self-mastery. Don’t waste your time in trying to dominate others. The effort to dominate others creates political conflict; the whole world is full of it. Politics even enters personal relationships and destroys them. Even when you love a woman or a man, the mind starts its cunning ways to dominate, to possess, to destroy the freedom of the other, because you are afraid. You are afraid that if you don’t dominate, the other is going to dominate you.For all those who want to dominate others, Machiavelli is the teacher. In India a similar type of man existed; his name was Chanakya. He preceded Machiavelli by thousands of years. Both men are the foundations of the extrovert mind. They laid the foundations, and their first foundation is that the best way to defend yourself is to attack; hence, before the other attacks you, attack the other. Before your wife starts dominating you, dominate her, or before your husband starts dominating you, dominate him.A young man was going to get married. He asked his father, “Do you have any advice for me?” And his father whispered something into his ear. The young man laughed and said, “I will take care of it.”He went to the town to get married. As the couple was coming back to the village, the horse who was carrying them from the town stopped. The young man was very angry. He said to the horse, “This is the first time – I can forgive you, but remember, I can forgive you only two times.”The horse moved, but again he stopped at another place and wouldn’t budge. The young man said, “This is the second time – now be alert!”And when the horse stopped for the third time, the young man got down, took his pistol and shot the horse immediately then and there. The horse fell down.The wife could not believe her eyes – what cruelty! She said, “What are you doing?”He said, “This is the first time… Remember, you have only two more chances.”And from that day, it is said, his wife always followed him. What else to do?This has been the way down the ages: either the husband dominates or the wife. In ninety-nine percent of the cases the wife dominates, because the husband is trying to dominate in the outside world, in the marketplace. He comes home so tired, so frustrated that he has no desire, will or power to fight with the woman. And the woman has been waiting the whole day, accumulating. Her energies are fresh and she has nowhere to go to dominate anybody else; only the husband is her dominion.Man has imprisoned women in the house at a great cost, because he has taken away all other possibilities of ego trips. Now only one outlet is left to her – he himself – and he is suffering a lot. In fact, the Women’s Liberation movement is not only woman’s liberation; if it really happens, it will be far more man’s liberation. Hence I don’t see any intelligent man against it; all intelligent men are for it, because they know if the woman really becomes free they will be free too. It is going to be freedom for both.It is one of the laws of life: either you can both be free or you will both be slaves. It is not possible that one should be the master and the other should be the slave. The law is that the master is always a slave of his own slave, because his mastery also depends on the slave. Without the slave he will not be a master at all.The child finds all these people around, running in the same direction. The child is vulnerable, open, ready to be impressed. It is very difficult for the child to find a Buddha, to find a Jesus. He always finds these stupid people living their lives in absolute unawareness. He starts imitating them. By the time he is of age he is already structured, programmed, conditioned.Unless you make a great effort to get out of this conditioning you will not be free; unless you make a great, concentrated, determined decision that you have to get out of it there is not much possibility. Even if life itself needs to be staked you are ready to stake your life for freedom from all kinds of conditionings. But you can make the decision.This is what sannyas is: a determination, a decision, a commitment to yourself, a gift to yourself.Master yourself… because mastering yourself you enter the kingdom of godliness, you enter the real world of peace and bliss. You enter your own treasures, and they are inexhaustible. You come to know for the first time the richness of your being, the beauty of your being and the ecstasy of your being.Master yourself according to the law. Now, there is a possibility you may misunderstand Buddha, because “according to the law” in the eyes of Christians and Jews and Mohammedans means according to the law prescribed in their books: the Ten Commandments, the Koran, the Bible. That is not Buddha’s meaning. “According to the law” does not mean the law of the state or the law given by the priests. “According to the law” for Buddha means according to the ultimate law of life and existence.There is a tremendous harmony and anyone just a little bit sensitive, intelligent, can feel it. Life is a harmonious whole; it is not a chaos, it is a cosmos. Why is it not a chaos? – because a law runs through and through it like a thread in a garland. That thread is invisible; you see only the flowers, but the thread is keeping them together. Existence is a garland; there is a thread, a sutra – sutra means thread – a very thin thread, almost invisible, running through the whole existence, that makes it a cosmos instead of a chaos.“According to the law” in the words of Buddha means: be in harmony with nature, existence. Don’t fight with it, don’t go against it. Don’t try to go upstream, to flow upstream. To be in a let-go with existence is to follow the law. Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the inexhaustible law. If you relax, if you allow the law to take you over, to possess you, you will be overflooded with it. You need not go on an ego trip. The river is already flowing to the ocean; you simply flow with the river. No need to swim either; float, and you will reach the ocean.Master yourself according to the law. Buddha makes that condition, because the danger is that in trying to master yourself you may use the same strategy that you have been using in mastering others. That’s what so many monks have done in the past: just as they fight with others they start fighting with themselves, but the fight continues. The object changes, the enemy changes, but the fight continues.And they fall into a far deeper mess, because when you fight with yourself you have to divide yourself in two, you have to become two parties. You have to condemn some part of your being as the enemy. It may be sex, it may be your body, it may be your mind, anything, but you have to divide yourself in two: the higher and the lower, the heavenly and the earthly, the material and the spiritual, the body and the soul, and then you start fighting. Then you are the soul, and fight the body. Again you have become an extrovert.In fact, the introvert cannot fight; there is no possibility, because there is no other. With whom are you going to fight and who is going to fight, and for what? You alone are left; when you move inward only your consciousness is there. There is no reason, no possibility to fight. Any effort to fight with yourself is bound to create a split in you, and that’s what has happened to the whole of humanity.The whole humanity has been reduced to a state of neurosis; it is schizophrenia. Everybody is split, and your so-called religious people are responsible for this great calamity. Man is not functioning as a whole, not as an integrated whole; he functions as a divided, split personality. That’s why it is so difficult to trust man: one moment he says one thing, another moment just the opposite, because one moment he may be talking from one side of his being, his soul side; another moment he may be talking from the other side, the body side.Howsoever you divide yourself, in reality you remain indivisible. You are not body and soul; you are bodysoul, you are psychosomatic, you are one individual, indivisible entity. Hence, Buddha reminds you: “Don’t start fighting with yourself in order to become a master.”That’s what so many stupid people down the ages have been doing: fasting; torturing themselves – lying down on a bed of thorns; wounding their bodies; destroying their eyes; cutting off their sexual organs. Millions of people have done such stupid things. Studying them, they seem to be unbelievable.In Russia there was a cult, a Christian cult, whose fundamental ritual was to cut off their sexual organs. Thousands of people used to do it. The women would cut off their breasts; the men would cut off their genital organs. And each year there was a particular day when they would gather by the thousands, and it would be done in mass madness. One person would do it, another would follow, and then there would be a frenzy. Thousands would start cutting off their sexual organs and the blood would be all over the place. They were just mad people, but they were worshipped.Now there was a problem for the cult: how to increase their numbers. So they would purchase or steal children. That was the only way; otherwise they would never have a great religion with millions of followers. No religion wants to use birth control methods for the simple reason that it reduces their numbers. Catholics are against it, Mohammedans are against it, Hindus are against it. Everybody is against birth control for the simple reason that it will reduce their numbers, and numbers are power. The more people follow your church, the more powerful you are. This is part of politics, power politics. They are not concerned about the future of humanity, they are not concerned with the misery of people, they are not concerned with poverty.To give birth to a child now is almost a crime, because the world is already overpopulated. Half of humanity is starving, and by the end of this century starvation is going to be so acute, so intolerable, that the earth is going to become a mad planet. Either suicide or murder will be the only possible ways for people to exist, and both are wrong.The Catholic pope and the Hindu shankaracharya and the Hindu priests will be the responsible persons, because they are all against birth control. They talk beautifully, they rationalize beautifully, that they are against birth control because birth control is against nature. If birth control is against nature then the pope of the Vatican should be against medicine, because that too is against nature. If a person is dying of cancer, let him die, don’t give him medicine. On that point the pope is absolutely silent. In fact, Christians go on opening new hospitals.If birth is natural, then death is natural. If you have disturbed the balance by preventing people from dying, then you have to accept the other part to it also. Allow people to die naturally; then let them give birth to as many children as they can. Then there will be no imbalance; nature balances itself.In India just fifty years ago, nine out of ten children were going to die within two years, only one was going to survive. Now just the opposite is the case: nine are going to survive and only one is going to die. How has this happened within fifty years’? Modern medicine has done a miracle; it has changed the whole balance. If you accept medicine and if you accept the hospitals and if you accept that people have to be saved from cancer and tuberculosis, then you have to use birth control. Otherwise how can the population be kept within normal, bearable limits?Those Russian sects were always in difficulty to get new people. It was difficult to get converts because of their practices, so the only way was to purchase children from poor people or steal them. Both were practiced, stealing and purchasing human beings.And these kinds of practices have been followed over almost all the world. There have been people who have destroyed their eyes, because eyes distract you toward beauty. They create sexuality, so destroy the eyes. But can you destroy sexuality by destroying your eyes? Do you think sexuality exists in the eyes? Do you think blind people don’t have any sexuality? In fact, even if you cut off your sexual organs you cannot destroy sexuality, because sexuality exists somewhere deep in your skull.The sex center is not really the sex organ; that is its outermost part. Its innermost core is in the brain – there is a center in the brain. Once that center is triggered, the sexual organ starts becoming alive, but the triggering has to first happen in the brain. That’s why you can have beautiful sexual dreams; you can have an orgasm in your dreams – just the mind! That’s why pornography is possible; the sex organs cannot understand pornography, it is the brain. Now they have found exactly where the center is, and if it is touched by an electrode you immediately go into a sexual orgasm.The behaviorists who are working on it are going to give man, sooner or later, a small, matchbox-sized thing you can keep in your pocket; nobody will ever be able to see it. You can just put your hand inside your pocket and push the button and you can have a sexual orgasm walking on the road. And even in India nobody will be able to prevent you then; the police will not be able to, because nobody will know why you are looking so happy, why there is such a great smile on your face.But there is a great danger and the behaviorists have become aware of it. They have been experimenting with rats. They had made a small machine, electrodes fixed in the head of the rats, and the rats were taught if they want a sexual orgasm they have to push a button. Those rats went berserk! They pushed the buttons so many times – one rat pushed it sixty thousand times. He continued; he would not eat, he would not drink, he forgot everything, until he fell dead. He was so tired, but the joy was such that he risked all.The eyes don’t have sexuality, neither do the sexual organs have it; it is somewhere in the mind.I have heard an ancient parable…It seems that when the creator was making the world, he called man aside and bestowed upon him twenty years of normal sex life. Man was horrified: “Only twenty years?” But the creator did not budge. That was all he would give him.Then he called the monkey and gave him twenty years.“But I don’t need twenty years,” the monkey protested. “Ten is plenty!”Man spoke up and said, “Can I have the other ten years?”The monkey graciously agreed.Then he called the lion and gave him twenty years. The lion too needed only ten. Again man said, “Can I have the other ten years?”The lion roared, “Of course.”Then came the donkey. He was given twenty years, but like the others, ten years was enough for him. Man asked for the spare ten years and got them.This explains why man has twenty years of normal sex life, ten years monkeying around, ten years of lion about it, and ten years of making an ass of himself.Man seems to be the most stupid of all the animals. They say, “Ten is more than enough.” Man seems to be the most in the grip of desire: more and more and more. Whatsoever he has is not enough, is never enough. This creates his sorrow, this makes him a slave. The “more” is your master. To be aware of the trap that is created by this constant desire for more is to take a very necessary step toward self-mastery.“Something the matter?” asked the bartender of the young, well-dressed customer who sat staring sullenly into his drink.“Two months ago my grandfather died and left me eighty-five thousand dollars,” said the man.“That does not sound like anything to be upset about,” said the bartender, polishing a glass. “It should happen to me!”“Yeah,” said the sour young man, “but last month an uncle on my mother’s side passed away. He left me hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”“So why are you sitting there looking so unhappy?” asked the bartender.“So far this month, not a cent!”You cannot be satisfied with anything, because the mind is always asking for more; and the desire for more creates sorrow, makes you a slave. And the desire for more does not allow you to live according to the universal law. You start fighting for more. Whether it is something outward or inward does not matter; if you are fighting for something more you are going against the law of nature.Trust nature, be relaxed with it; it takes care. It is always providing you with whatsoever is really needed, and if it does not provide it that means it is not really needed.Master yourself according to the law. This is the simple teaching of the awakened. One thing to be noted: Buddha always says, “…of the awakened.” He does not say, “This is the teaching of Gautama the Buddha.” He simply says, “…of the awakened” – whosoever is awakened. He does not make it a personal statement; he makes it a universal thing: “Whosoever is awakened, this is going to be his teaching.” This is very rare, this is unique. Awakening can happen to anybody: it has happened to Jesus, it has happened to Lao Tzu, it has happened to Basho, it can happen to anybody. Buddha is saying that whosoever is awakened, this is going to be his teaching.Master yourself according to the law. This is the simple teaching of the awakened. He is absolutely nonpersonal, there is no person. He is only a presence, a vehicle of the universal law, speaking not on his own behalf but on the behalf of existence, allowing himself to be used by existence as a medium.The rain could turn to goldand still your thirst would not be slaked.Desire is unquenchableor it ends in tears, even in heaven.Desire is unquenchable… Why? – because desire means desire for more. How can you quench it? By the time you have arrived it asks for more. You wanted ten thousand rupees; by the time you have ten thousand, the desire has moved ahead of you and is asking for one hundred thousand. By the time you achieve that, the desire has moved. It always moves ahead of you; the distance between you and your desire always remains the same.The distance between a beggar and his desire, and the distance between Alexander the Great and his desire is the same. Both are poor in the same way. Alexander may possess much but that makes little difference as he is not satisfied with what he has.It is said that Diogenes once said to Alexander the Great, “Have you ever thought about one thing? – meditate over it: you want to conquer the whole world, but are you aware that once you have conquered the whole world, then what? There is no other world. Then what will you do?”It is said, just by Diogenes saying it, Alexander became very sad, and said, “Please don’t mention such sad things; let me first conquer the whole world, then we will see. But don’t talk about such sad things to me; it makes me feel very sad.”He had not conquered the whole world yet, but the very idea that if you conquer the whole world, what are you going to do… There is no other world, and you will feel stuck. The mind will ask for more.The mind lives through more, and the more cannot be fulfilled; that is impossible. …it ends in tears… Every desire ends in frustration because every expectation is the beginning of frustration. Why does every desire end in frustration? There are only two alternatives: either you achieve the object of your desire or you don’t achieve it, but in both cases it will end in tears. If you achieve it you will see the utter futility of it all.The rich man sees the futility of his riches – how much he has labored, and how much he has worked for it. And now, whatsoever he has attained is absolutely useless, it fulfills nothing. You can have two houses or three houses, one in the city, one in the hills, one on the seashore, but you are the same person, as empty as before. You can live in a palace, but how can you change your inner meaninglessness? You will be as meaningless in a palace as you are in a hut.In fact, you will be more meaningless in a palace, because while you are in a hut you can still hope that one day when you have managed to get into a palace, everything will be okay. You can hope, but the man who is in the palace has no hope, he feels utterly hopeless. And he cannot tell others either, because that will be stupid of him. People will think that he worked hard for nothing.Just think of Alexander the Great: he devoted his whole life to conquering the world. And if after he had conquered it he had said to the world: “It was useless. I wasted my time and my life,” people would have thought he was stupid. Could he not have seen it before?There is an ancient story in India…A henpecked husband asked somebody, “What can I do do? My wife is so dominating.”The friend suggested, “You should not have allowed it from the very beginning. Now it is difficult, but still not too late. Today get drunk so that you can have courage. Then go and shout and knock on the door and enter into the house and throw things and let her feel that you are a man. And beat her, give her a good beating! Settle it once and for all.”So the man got drunk, although he was afraid: “These things seem to be impossible – I cannot do it. But maybe the drink will help.”He drank and he felt really great, puffed up, but as he approached the house, slowly, slowly he became sober; the effect of the alcohol was disappearing. The fear was arising, but he kept himself courageous by repeating, “The man is a wise man, and at least if I can do it once it will be finished forever. And it is worth doing it.”So he knocked on the door, shouted, entered inside, started throwing things.His wife was very angry. She was so angry she cut off his nose with a knife. Now, without a nose it was very difficult to live in the town, so the man escaped from the town in the night – that same night he escaped. But wherever he would go, people would ask, “What happened to your nose?”So he became a sadhu, he became a monk, he renounced the world. He said he had renounced the world, his wife and all. And he had to find a rationalization for his nose, so he said, “This is the latest technique of attaining, of realizing God; it is the nose that is the barrier!” And he philosophized about the nose and he said, “The nose represents the ego.” And it is right – the nose represents the ego. You can see the ego on the nose; nowhere else it is so apparent.So he convinced a few people. And the method seemed so simple – just cut off the nose and you get ultimate truth and bliss – and he used to look so blissful. He pretended, but what else could he do? Without a nose he had to save face somehow, and without a nose it is difficult, but he laughed, danced, and he was always ecstatic.A few foolish people became ready to cut off their noses, so he would take one person into the forest, cut off his nose, and would ask him, “Can you see God?”The man would answer, “I can’t see anything, and my nose is gone.”And the man would say, “Neither can I see, but now it is better that you don’t tell anyone, because your nose is gone just the same way as mine is gone. Be part of the conspiracy now. Tell others, become ecstatic and tell others that you have attained to God.What else was there to do now? The nose couldn’t be put back; in those days there was no plastic surgery possible. This seemed to be the only rational way. So the man would go dancing in the town and would tell others, “That man is the greatest master; I have seen God. What an experience! I am so blissful and the bliss goes on showering on me. I am ecstatic twenty-four hours a day, and God is with me.” And he would talk of great things. Indians are very capable of talking of great things; for centuries they have talked and talked and talked.A few more people became interested, and slowly, slowly he had a gathering. The more people were with him without noses, the more his theory was gaining ground. Even the king became interested: “If there is such a simple method” – almost like Transcendental Meditation – “why not try?” But the prime minister was a little doubtful, skeptical. He said, “Wait, don’t be in a hurry. Let me first inquire.”So he got hold of the man, gave him a good beating, and told him, “Tell the truth, otherwise we will kill you!”So he had to tell the truth: “It is because my wife had cut off my nose; what else could I do? I had to find some way to save face, and this seemed to be the most simple, attractive way. And I am perfectly happy now: I have a following, my needs are taken care of, and you will be surprised that even my wife, who knows perfectly well that she had cut off my nose, came to see me the other day and asked me, ‘What is the matter?’ And I said, ‘You cut off my nose but the moment my nose dropped I saw God!’ And she is contemplating becoming a follower and I am just waiting for her; I want to cut off her nose. Let me cut off her nose; then you can kill me or whatsoever you want to do to me. But first let me take revenge!”And what a spiritual way to take revenge! You go on following others, although you see them living in misery. You go on following the powerful, the rich, the wealthy, although you see their faces are sad, their eyes are dull. They don’t seem to be intelligent either; they don’t have any grace, any joy, any beauty.If you succeed you will be in pain, because your success will bring the truth home: that your whole life has been sacrificed for nothing. Or if you fail you will be frustrated, because you will see that you have failed, that you are not worthy, you will become self-condemnatory.Buddha is right when he says “it ends in tears.” Every desire, whether fulfilled or not fulfilled, ends in tears. And no desire simply ends; before it ends it gives birth to other desires. So it remains a continuum: one goes on from one desire to another desire, life after life.He who wishes to awakeconsumes his desiresjoyfully.Either you will be consumed by your desires or you have to consume your desires. And what does Buddha mean by saying, “Consume your desires”? He simply means witness, watch. The whole affair is stupid.The intelligent person lives joyfully, contentedly, whatsoever situation he is in, whatsoever he has got. He lives joyfully, thankfully, gratefully. You can take his possessions away from him but you cannot take his joy, because he knows how to live joyfully.His joy is not dependent on anything, on any outer cause. His joy is his inner understanding: the understanding that from the outside one has never achieved joy, that from desires one has always come to tears. Seeing the nature of desire, his desire has disappeared; he lives without desire. And to live without desire is to live in contentment; it is to live without any hankering for more. Then whatsoever is, is more than enough.Either you live in desire or you live in gratitude: remember this. The man who lives in desire cannot be grateful to existence, he can only complain and complain; he will always have some grudge against existence. But the man who has no desires has only gratitude. Even that which is given to him is more than he ever deserved. He is always thankful; in that thankfulness is beauty and benediction.In his fear a man may shelterin mountains or in forests,in groves of sacred trees or in shrines.But how can he hide there from his sorrow?You can escape to the caves, to the mountains, to the forests, but how can you escape from yourself? No escape is possible from yourself.The only way out is to be transformed, to become awakened. To watch, to see, to witness your desires, slowly, slowly brings awakening. He who shelters in the way… So don’t go anywhere else. There is no other shelter except dhamma, except the way.He who shelters in the wayand travels with those who follow itcomes to see the four great truths.Buddha says, without giving any adjective to it, simply “the way.” That’s exactly the meaning of Tao: the way. It is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian nor Buddhist; it is simply “the way.” Take shelter in “the way.”Dhammam sharanam gachchhami – I take shelter in the law, in the way. That’s how those who were desirous of becoming initiates of Buddha used to pray to him. Three shelters: take shelter in the awakened master, take shelter in his commune, and take shelter in the law, the dhamma, the way.Buddham sharanam gachchhami – that is the first shelter – I take shelter in the awakened one. Sangham sharanam gachchhami – I take shelter in the commune of the awakened one. And dhammam sharanam gachchhami – I take shelter in the law, in the way, in the ultimate harmony of existence. These three shelters are immensely important.The sutra says: He who shelters in the way and travels with those who follow it… Religion is something which cannot be taught but can only be caught. It is like an infection: you cannot teach it, but if you live with people who have already caught it, it is contagious. Then you will become slowly, slowly attuned to it.It is said in one of the ancient Taoist scriptures that if even a pebble is thrown into a heap of diamonds, sooner or later the pebble will become a diamond. It is true: not about the pebbles – it is true about man.If you are part of a commune where many people are moving toward the sun or moving toward the source of light, love, joy, how long can you lag behind? Sooner or later the spirit of the commune is going to overpower you, to overflood you.If you listen to good music and you start feeling it deep down inside of you, a kind of synchronicity arises. If you see a dancer dancing you feel your feet are ready to dance; something has been transferred to your feet. It is not visible, it is not measurable, it is not material, but you have caught the vibe; you would like to stand up and dance.The same happens in the commune of a buddha. The presence of the buddha is a tremendously powerful magnet. It attracts all those who are courageous, it attracts all those who are real seekers, it attracts all those who are authentic human beings. And then a commune is slowly, slowly created. If you become part of a commune you start moving with the commune into unknown territory. It is easier to move in unknown territory when you find so many people going toward that ultimate goal.He who shelters in the wayand travels with those who follow itcomes to see the four great truths.Concerning sorrow,the beginning of sorrow,the eightfold way,and the end of sorrow.The whole teaching of Buddha can be divided into four parts. The four noble truths he calls arya satya – noble truths. The first is that unexamined life is sorrow, unenlightened life is sorrow. That is the most fundamental truth, Buddha says. Those who follow the way become aware that life can be lived in two ways, either consciously or unconsciously. If you live unconsciously you will live in sorrow, you will be at the mercy of blind instincts.A wealthy American widow had a fantasy about marrying a man who had never had any previous sexual experience with a woman.She made contact with a discreet, international detective agency, and within six months they found an Australian gentleman who seemed to be perfectly suited for the widow.On the wedding night the widow was trembling with excitement as she completed her toilette and entered the bedroom to greet her husband. To her amazement, he had piled all of the furniture, including the bed, into the living room.“Why did you get rid of the furniture?” she blurted in disbelief.“Well,” drawled her new spouse, “I have never slept with a woman before, but if it is anything like those kangaroos, we will need all the space we can get.”People go on living through fantasies, absurd fantasies. Look at your own fantasies and they will all be ridiculous. But you never see your own fantasies as ridiculous; it is easier to see others’ fantasies as ridiculous. Watch your own fantasies. What do you want out of your life? What are you living for? What is your program, your schedule on this earth? Why do you want to still be alive tomorrow? Just look at your fantasies. If you are given only seven days to live, how are you going to fulfill those seven days? With what? Write down your fantasies, don’t be cunning and don’t be clever, be utterly true, and you will find all your fantasies are ridiculous. But this is how people are living.“This life,” Buddha says, “is nothing but sorrow.” He agrees with Socrates. Socrates says: “An unexamined life is not worth living.” And Buddha says: “An unexamined life is nothing but sorrow.” That is the first noble truth.The second noble truth, one who follows the path becomes aware of is: …the beginning of sorrow… the cause of sorrow. The cause is desire, desire for more. First, one experiences that his whole life is full of sorrow; then, one becomes aware that the cause of that sorrow is desire. Those who have escaped from the wheel of desire are not in sorrow, they are utterly blissful. But those who are caught in the wheel are crushed by so many desires.The first truth is: life is sorrow. The second truth is: the cause of sorrow is desire, desire for more. The third truth is: the eightfold way. Buddha says that his whole approach of transforming your being can be divided into eight steps – the eightfold way. And all those steps are nothing but different dimensions of a single phenomenon: right mindfulness, sammasati. Whatsoever you are doing, do it absolutely consciously, alertly, with awareness. Those eight steps are nothing but applications of awareness into different aspects of life.For example: if you are eating, Buddha says to eat with full awareness – samyak ahar. Then whatsoever you eat is right – just be aware. Now see the difference: other religions say, “Eat this, eat that. Don’t eat this, don’t eat that.” Buddha never says what to eat, what not to eat. He says, “Whatsoever you are eating, eat with full awareness. And if your awareness says no, then don’t eat it.” Can you eat meat with awareness? It is impossible; you can eat meat only with unawareness.In Africa a few days ago, an African dictator, Bokassa, who was trying to be another Napoleon, was dethroned. The strangest thing that came to light was that in his house, in his freezer, human flesh was found. He was a man-eater.Just think of a man eating another man’s meat. Is it possible in consciousness? The whole thing is so disgusting! It is said that children were stolen just to prepare food for Bokassa. Of course, small children have delicious meat. Hundreds of children had disappeared and nobody would have ever thought that this man, who used to call himself the emperor, was the cause behind the whole thing. But so is the case when you eat animal meat, not much difference in it. The animals also have life just as you have; they are our brothers and our sisters.Buddha never says what to eat, what not to eat; he never goes into details. And that’s my approach too: just be aware.Likewise he uses this method of awareness for other things in life: samyak vyayam – right effort. Don’t make too much effort and don’t make too little either. Use right effort for everything, a balanced effort, effort which does not disturb your tranquillity. Life is like walking on a tightrope: right effort is needed and awareness so that you do not fall. Each moment there is danger: if you lean too far toward the left you will fall. Finding yourself leaning too far to the left you have to lean toward the right to keep balance. And when you lean toward the right a moment comes, you start feeling that now you will fall toward the right; then you start leaning toward the left just to balance. This is right effort: keeping balanced.All those eight steps are nothing but applications of a single thing – awareness. Buddha calls it right mindfulness. Don’t do anything unconsciously.The fourth noble truth: …and the end of sorrow. Nirvana, cessation of sorrow. The man who follows the path finds four things: life is sorrow; the cause of sorrow is desire; the method to get rid of sorrow is the eightfold path, rooted basically, essentially, in the phenomenon of awareness; and if you follow awareness you will attain to the cessation of sorrow, you will attain to nirvana. Buddha says: “These are the four noble truths.”Then at last he is safe.And one who has moved through all these four and attained to the fourth is at last safe.He has shaken off sorrow.He is free.To be free of sorrow is to be free. If you remain in sorrow you are not free. If you remain sad, howsoever great a saint you may be, you are not free; you are still far away from the goal.Our so-called saints are very sad-looking people. People think the sadder they are, the greater they are. They are not free from sorrow; in fact they are more in sorrow than ordinary, worldly people. The worldly people sometimes laugh too, enjoy too, dance too, sing too, but the so-called saint looks at these laughing, singing, dancing people with condemnation. He thinks they are just superficial. Their laughter is not laughter to him; their joy is not joy to him. He has a great condemnation of all this, because he has renounced all these things without understanding, without going through these four noble truths. He has simply renounced; he has followed a tradition, a convention, of renunciation. He is an escapist. He has to condemn all laughter, because he cannot laugh. He has become dry, dry like a rock; he cannot bloom into flowers. He has to condemn all springs and he has to condemn all rosebushes. And he finds ways and means to condemn you.If you go to a so-called saint, he looks at you as if you are not a human being. He looks at you as doomed, as doomed to hell, bound toward hell, already falling into the bottomless pit of hell. He looks at you with condemnation, with pity. But pity is not compassion, and condemnation simply shows that he has not known anything at all.He is just the same type of person as you are, only standing on his head. You are greedy for money, he is afraid of money. You are related to money through greed, he is related to it through fear. But both are related to money, both are obsessed with money.It is said that if you took money to Vinoba Bhave he immediately closed his eyes; he refused to see money. Now this looks ridiculous – there must be great fear. Just a ten-rupee note and he closed his eyes. Why should you be so afraid of it that you have to close your eyes? But because he closed his eyes, he never touched money, and he did not want to see money, he is revered as a great saint. But this fear of money, this antagonism, is a kind of relationship. He was not free of money, otherwise why should he have closed his eyes? And a ten-rupee note is nothing but a piece of paper. He didn’t close his eyes when he looked at other pieces of paper, why give so much importance to this piece of paper? There must be greed deep down which was standing on its head.There are people who are running after women or after men, and then there are people who are running away from men or away from women. But both are obsessed with the other sex. This obsession does not show understanding. Understanding brings you freedom from all obsessions – of fear, of greed. The real understanding simply makes you free from all kinds of desires and anti-desires. It makes you free of the world and the other world too. It simply makes you free.The awakened are few and hard to find.Happy is the house where a man awakes.Buddha repeats this again and again, and it is worth repeating so that you become alert about the phenomenon; it is very rare. The awakened are few and hard to find. Yes, you will find many pseudo people pretending; and it is very difficult to judge who is pseudo and who is real. But a few things can be remembered. The pseudo will always be against the world; he has replaced fear with greed. The pseudo will always be an escapist. The pseudo will be always sad, he cannot laugh; laughter seems too mundane, almost sacrilegious to him.The really awakened is neither for the world nor against the world. He lives in the world and is absolutely free of it. He lives in the world but the world does not live in him. He is in the world but not of it. He is never an escapist. Once you become awakened there is nowhere to escape, there is no need either; in fact, there is nobody to escape.The unawakened, the pseudo person, who is pretending to be a master or a buddha, is bound to create a division between God and the world, and he will tell you to renounce the world if you want to get to God. In fact, that is the same as: “Cut off your nose if you want to see God!”Neither the nose prevents you from seeing God nor can the world prevent you from seeing God. In fact, if you have poor eyes the nose will help you, otherwise where are you going to put your specs? Without a nose it will be very difficult! The nose is not a hindrance, it can be a help sometimes. Neither is the world a hindrance. It is a help, a challenge, a sharpening of your intelligence, an opportunity to grow, to be mature, to be alert.The world is full of pitfalls, but those pitfalls are helpful because they keep you alert. If there are no pitfalls you will tend to fall asleep; when there is great danger you are bound to be awake.A great Zen story…A prince wanted to learn meditation; he went to a Zen master. He was in a hurry too, because his father was old and his father had sent him to this Zen master to learn meditation. The father said, “In my life I have wasted much time unnecessarily, and only later on I became aware that the only worthwhile, only meaningful thing in life is meditation. So don’t waste your time.” He told his son, the prince, “Go to this master and learn meditation before I leave my body. I will be happier leaving my body if you have learned meditation. I cannot give you anything else. This whole kingdom is worthless; this is not your true heritage. I will not be happy giving you only this kingdom; I will be happy if I can help you to meditate.”So the prince went to the Zen master and he said, “I am in a hurry. My father is old, he can die any moment.”The master said, “The first principle of meditation is to not be in a hurry. Impatience won’t do. Get lost, get out! Never come here again! Try to find some pseudo master who will give you a mantra to chant and will console you with ‘Go on chanting fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen in the evening and you will become enlightened.’“But if you want to be here, forget time – because meditation is a search for eternity. And forget all about your old father; nobody ever dies, believe me. One day you will see that what I am saying is true. Nobody ever gets old and nobody ever dies. Don’t be worried. I know your father, because he has learned meditation from me. He is not going to die – his body may die. But you will have to forget all about your father and your kingdom if you want to learn meditation. It needs one-pointed devotion.”The master was such, his impact was such, the young man decided to stay.Three years passed. The master never said a single word about meditation. The young man served the master in every possible way, waited and waited, and he was afraid to mention the subject because he might say, “Get lost – you are in a hurry!” So he could not say even that.But three years was too much. Finally one morning when the master was sitting under a tree taking a sunbath, he said, “Sir, three years have passed. Are you aware? And you have not even told me what to do, what is meditation.”The master looked at him and said, “So you are still in a hurry! Okay, today I will start teaching you meditation.”And he started teaching in a very strange way. The young man was cleaning the floor of the temple and the master would come from the back and hit him hard with a wooden sword – he would hit him really hard! The young man would be reading the Buddhist sutras, and the master would come from behind, and he was such a silent man that his footsteps could not be heard. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the hit with the wooden sword would descend.The young man thought, “What kind of meditation is this?” In seven days he was feeling so tired and wounded and scratched. He asked, “What are you doing? You go on hitting me!”The master said, “This is my way of teaching. Be alert, be very conscious, so before I hit you, you can dodge – that’s the only way.”There was no other escape, so the young man had to be very alert. He was reading the book but he was alert, conscious. Slowly, slowly within two, three weeks, he started hearing the footsteps of the master whose walk was almost like a cat’s. When the cat goes to catch the rat she walks so silently. The master was really an old cat!But the young man became alert enough; he started hearing his footsteps. Within three months the master was unable to hit him even a single time. Twenty-four hours a day he would try, but the young man would dodge and jump, whatsoever he was doing.Then the master said, “The first lesson is over. Now begins the second lesson: now be alert in your sleep. Leave your doors open, because I may come any time.”Now this was a harder thing. Initially he would come and hit him hard. The old man did not need much sleep either; two hours was enough for him. And this was a young man, he needed eight hours sleep, and the whole night it was a struggle. Many times the master would come and hit him, but the young man was now certain that the first lesson had been of much value; he became so alert and so peaceful that he was no longer inquiring, “What are you doing? This is nonsense!”The master himself said, “Don’t be worried. Just keep alert even in your sleep. And the harder I hit you, the better, because then you will be really alert. The situation has to be created.”Within three months he would jump from his sleep. He would immediately open his eyes and say, “Wait! There is no need, I am alert!”After three months the master said, “You have passed the second lesson, now comes the third and the last.”The young man said, “What can be the third, because there are only two states – waking, sleep. Now what are you going to do?”He said, “Now I will hit with a real sword – that is the third lesson.”It is one thing to be hit by a wooden sword because you know that at the most you may be hurt but you cannot be killed. The master brought out a real sword. He took it out of the sheath, and the young man thought, “This is the end, I am finished! This is a dangerous game. Now he can hit with a real sword. If I miss even once I have missed forever!”But he did not miss even once. When the danger is such, you rise to face that danger. After three months, not even a single time had the master been able to hit him with the real sword. The master said, “Your third lesson is complete – you have become a meditator. Now tomorrow morning you can leave. You can go and tell your father that I am absolutely contented with you.”The next morning he was to leave. It was evening; the sun was setting. The master was reading a sutra under a tree in the last rays of the sunlight. And the young man thought – he was sitting somewhere behind – “Before I leave” – the idea had come to him many times – “I have to hit this old man once! Now this is the last day; tomorrow morning I will leave.”So he prepared. He took a wooden sword, hid behind a tree. The master said, “Stop!” He did not look at him at all. “Come here! I am an old man, and such desires are not good – the desire to hit your own master!”The young man was puzzled. He said, “But I have not said anything.”The master said, “One day when you become really alert, even that which is not said is heard. Just as one day you were not hearing my footsteps and one day you became aware and started hearing them; just as one day you were not able to hear my footsteps in your sleep, but the day came when you started hearing my footsteps, even in your sleep. Exactly like that, one day you will know. When the mind is absolutely silent you can hear words that have not been spoken. You can read unexpressed thoughts. You can read intentions. You can read feelings. Not that you make any effort – you become a mirror, you reflect.”The buddhas are rare and few to find. And Buddha says: Happy is the house where a man awakes. By “the house” he means the body. Happy is the body where a man awakes, where the flame of awareness has arisen. You become a temple.Blessed is his birth.Blessed is the teaching of the way.Blessed is the understanding among those who follow it.And blessed is their determination.And blessed are they who reverethe man who awakes and follows the way.They are free from fear.They are free.They have crossed over the river of sorrow.To meet a buddha is rare. To take refuge in a buddha is even more rare. To follow, to live out the teachings of a buddha is even more rare; hence Buddha says: Blessed is his birth. Blessed is the teaching of the way.Even the birth of a man who one day becomes a buddha is blessed. His coming into the world is a blessing to the world, to himself and to others too. Blessed is the teaching of the way. And then spontaneously he starts to teach; it is a sharing. He has come home and he starts calling others who are still wandering in the darkness.Blessed is the understanding among those who follow it. And not only the buddha is blessed: blessed are those too who follow it. And blessed is their determination. And blessed is the commitment, the involvement of following the way, the dhamma.And blessed are they who revere the man who awakes and follows the way. They are free from fear. They are free. To be free from fear is to be free. To be free from fear you need to be free from desire. Desire keeps you afraid. Desire keeps you always wavering: “Whether it is going to happen or not? Whether I am going to make it this time or not?” If you succeed you are afraid – somebody will take it away from you. If you succeed in accumulating riches you are worried, afraid: you can be robbed, they can be stolen. If you don’t succeed you are constantly in fear: “I am not of any worth.” You fall in your own eyes, you are trembling. To be free from desire is to be free from fear.Then one lives in the moment; neither the past is one’s concern nor the future. How can there be any fear? And Buddha defines freedom as freedom from fear.They have crossed over the river of sorrow. Life unexamined, unobserved, unenlightened, is nothing but a river of sorrow, and we are all drowning in it. There is only one boat to get to the other shore. The name of the boat is awareness.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,In spite of dreadful political catastrophes, political action seems to be the only means to fight against injustice in the world. Does the search you are inspiring exclude political action?I am in love with life in its totality. My love excludes nothing; it includes all. Yes, political action is included in it too. That’s the worst thing to include, but I can’t help it! But everything that is included in my vision of life is included with a difference.In the past, man has lived without awareness in all aspects of life. He has loved without awareness and failed in it, and love has brought only misery and nothing else. He has done all kinds of things in the past, but everything has proved a hell. So has been the case with political action.Each revolution turns into anti-revolution. It is time we should understand how and why it happens, that each revolution, each struggle against injustice, finally turns into injustice itself, becomes anti-revolutionary.In this century it has happened again and again. I am not talking about a faraway past; it happened in Russia, it happened in China. It is going to happen if we continue to function in the same old way. Unawareness cannot bring more than that.When you are powerless, it is easy to fight against injustice; the moment you become powerful, you forget all about injustice. Then repressed desires to dominate assert themselves. Then your unconscious takes over, and you start doing the same things that were done before by the enemies, against whom you had been struggling. You had staked your very life for it.Lord Acton says that power corrupts. It is true only in a sense, and in another sense it is absolutely untrue. It is true if you look at the surface of things: power certainly corrupts, whosoever becomes powerful becomes corrupted. Factually it is true, but if you dive deeply into the phenomenon then it is not true.Power does not corrupt: it is the corrupted people who become attracted toward power. It is the people who would like to do things which they cannot while they are not in power. The moment they are in power, the whole of their repressed mind asserts itself. Now there is nothing to bar them, nothing to prevent them; they have the power. Power does not corrupt them; it only brings their corruption to the surface. Corruption was there as a seed; now it has sprouted. The power has only proved the right season for it to sprout. Power is only the spring for the poisonous flowers of corruption and injustice in their being.Power is not the cause of corruption, but only the opportunity for its expression. Hence, I say that basically, fundamentally, Lord Acton is wrong. Who becomes interested in politics? Yes, people go into it with beautiful slogans, but what happens to those people?Joseph Stalin was fighting against the injustice of the czar. What happened? He himself became the greatest czar the world has ever known, worse than Ivan the Terrible! Hitler used to talk about socialism. He had named his party the Nationalist Socialist Party. What happened to socialism when he came into power? All that disappeared.The same thing happened in India. Mahatma Gandhi and his followers were talking about nonviolence, love, peace – all the great values cherished down the ages. And when power came, Gandhi escaped. Mahatma Gandhi escaped because he became aware that if he took power in his hands he would no longer be the mahatma, the sage. The followers who came into power were all later proven as corrupt as anywhere else, and they were all good people before they were in power – great servants of the people! They had sacrificed much. They were not bad people in any way; in every possible way they were good people. But even good people turn into bad people – that is something fundamental to be understood.I would like my sannyasins to live life in its totality, but with an absolute condition, categorical condition, and that condition is awareness, meditation. First go deep into meditation, so you can cleanse your unconscious of all poisonous seeds, so there is nothing to be corrupted and there is nothing inside you which power can bring forth. Then do whatsoever you feel like doing.If you want to become a painter, become a painter. Your painting will have a difference; it won’t be like Picasso. Picasso’s paintings are insane; he is insane. In fact, if he had been prevented from painting he would have been in a madhouse. Through his paintings he is catharting, throwing out his insanity onto the canvas, getting rid of it. Yes, he feels better as it is a kind of vomiting. After vomiting one feels better but what about others who look at the vomit? But the world is so stupid that if Picasso vomits, people say, “What a great painting, something never seen before, something unique!”Vincent van Gogh really went insane, had to be hospitalized for a year, and then he committed suicide. And he was not more than thirty-seven. Now, what kind of paintings had this man been doing? Certainly he had the art, the skill, but the art and the skill were in the hands of a suicidal madman. Looking at his paintings you will feel restless, uneasy. Keep a Picasso painting in your bedroom and you will have nightmares.A meditator can become a painter, but then something totally different will come out of him – something of the beyond, because he will be capable to receive godliness. He can become a dancer; his dance will have a new quality to it, it will allow the divine to be expressed. He can become a musician, or he can go into political action, but his political action will be rooted in meditation. Hence there will be no fear of a Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or Mao Zedong coming out of it; that is impossible.I don’t tell anybody to go in a certain direction; I leave my disciples totally free. I simply teach them meditation. I teach them to be more alert, more aware, and then it is up to them. Whatsoever their natural potential is they will find it, but it is going to be with awareness. Then there is no danger.I am not against political action, I am not against anything. I am not life-negative; I affirm life, I am in absolute love with life.And of course, when millions of people are on the earth, there is going to be some kind of politics or other. Politics cannot just disappear. It will be like dissolving the police, the post office, the railway – it will create chaos.I am not an anarchist and I am not in favor of chaos. I want the world to be more beautiful, more harmonious, more of a cosmos than of a chaos. Sometimes I praise chaos, only in order to destroy that which is rotten. I praise destructiveness also, only in order to create. Yes, sometimes I am very negative – I am against conventions, conformities, traditions – only to make you free so that you can create new visions, new worlds, so that you need not remain imprisoned with the past, so that you can have a future and a present. But I am not destructive; my whole effort is to help you to be creative.A few of my sannyasins are bound to go into political action, but I will allow them only when they have fulfilled the basic condition: when they are more alert, aware, when their inner being is full of light. Then do whatsoever you want to do, you can’t bring harm to the world. You will bring something good, something beautiful; you will be a blessing to the world. Without it, without that awareness, even if you do something good, it is going to turn into something harmful.Just a few days ago, Mother Teresa of Calcutta received the Nobel Prize. Now this is something utterly stupid; the Nobel Prize Award Committee has never done anything so foolish before. But on the surface it looks beautiful; it is being praised all over the world as if they have done something great.J. Krishnamurti has not received a Nobel Prize, and he is one of those rare human beings, those few of the buddhas, who are really laying the foundation for world peace. And Mother Teresa has received the Nobel Prize for world peace. Now, I don’t understand what she has done for world peace. George Gurdjieff didn’t receive a Nobel Prize, and he was working hard to transform the inner core of human beings; Raman Maharshi didn’t receive the Nobel Prize. Their work is invisible: their work is that of bringing more consciousness to people. When you bring bread to people it is visible, when you bring clothes to people it is visible, when you bring medicines to people it is visible. When you bring godliness, it is absolutely invisible.Mother Teresa is doing something good on the surface only: serving the poor of Kolkata, the ill, the diseased, the old, the orphans, the widows, the lepers, the crippled, the blind. It is so obvious that she is doing something good. But basically what she is doing is consoling those people, and giving consolation to the poor, to the blind, to the lepers, to the orphans, is an anti-revolutionary act. Consoling means helping them remain adjusted with the society that exists, remaining attuned with the status quo. What she is doing is anti-revolutionary. But the governments are happy, the rich people are happy, the powerful people are happy, because she is really not serving the blind and the poor. She is serving the vested interests, she is serving the priests and the politicians and the powers; she is helping them to remain in power. She is making, creating, an atmosphere in which the old can continue.In India no revolution has ever happened against the powerful, the rich, the wealthy, for the simple reason that it is a so-called religious country; there are so many consolers. Fifty lakhs of Hindu monks consoling people, giving them explanations why they are poor, why they are blind, why they are crippled: because of their past karmas! They have done something bad in their past lives, hence they are suffering. “Suffer silently, don’t react,” they go on teaching those people, “because if you react, if you do something again, you will suffer again in your next life. Don’t miss this opportunity, let the accounts be closed. This time behave in a good way!” And of course, to be a revolutionary is not something good. Be obedient – that is good – don’t be disobedient. Disobedience is evil, it is sin. The Christians call it the original sin.What was the sin of Adam and Eve? – they had disobeyed God. There seems to be not much of a sin in it. Eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge is not a sin. Why should it be called the original sin? It is called the original sin because they disobeyed. To disobey is the greatest sin in the eyes of the priests.For ten thousand years in India these priests and monks have been teaching people, “Be obedient to the system that is in power. Don’t disobey; otherwise you will suffer in your future.” Hence no revolution has happened, and the monks and priests are praised very much.Now Christian missionaries are doing the same all over the world: serving the poor, the crippled. They are telling the poor people, “Suffer silently as it may be a test for you that God has created. You have to pass through this fire, only then will you become pure gold.” Christian missionaries are anti-revolutionary.And why are they serving the poor people? It is because of greed: they want to get to paradise, and the only way to get to paradise is through service. Now, sometimes I wonder what will happen if nobody is crippled, blind, poor. What will happen to the Christian missionaries? How will they reach paradise? The very ladder will disappear; they will miss the boat, there will be no possibility to go to the other shore. These Christian missionaries would like poverty to continue, they would like the poor people to remain on the earth. The more poor there are, the more opportunities to serve, and of course, more people can get to heaven.Giving the Nobel Prize to Mother Teresa is giving the Nobel Prize to anti-revolutionary acts. But that’s how it has always happened: you praise the people who somehow confirm the old, the dead, who help the society to remain as it is.My work is invisible. In fact, I am teaching you, in an indirect way, the greatest revolution possible. I am teaching you rebellion, and this rebellion is multidimensional: wherever you will go, this rebellion will have its impact. If you go into poetry you will write rebellious poetry. If you go into music you will create a new kind of music. If you dance, your dance will have a different flavor. And if you go into politics, you will change the whole face of political action itself.I am not against political action, but the way it has been up to now is utterly meaningless; it is absurd. I want to change its very foundation. Hence, on the surface nobody can see that I am involved in any political activity, nobody can see that I am involved in any kind of worldly activity.I am teaching people to sit silently, to watch their thoughts, and to get out of their minds. The stupid revolutionary will think that I am against political action, that I am a reactionary. Just the reverse is the case. Out of his stupidity – although he may talk about revolution – what he is going to do is going to be reactionary. He will drag the society backward.I am not doing anything that can be called political, social: I am not for social reform or political action. At least on the surface I look like an escapist and I am helping people to escape. Yes, I am helping people to escape to themselves, to escape from all kinds of unintelligent activities.First sharpen your intelligence. Let a great joy arise in you. Become more watchful, so much so that not even a corner in your being is dark anymore. Let your unconscious be transformed into consciousness; then do whatsoever you want to do. Then, if you want to go to hell, go with my blessings, because you will be able to transform hell itself.It is not that meditators go to heaven, no: wherever they go they are in heaven and whatsoever they do is divine. But this is such a new approach that it will take time to be understood. I am using such a different language that it is natural that I will be misunderstood.A beatnik ran through a red light. The cop pulled him over and said, “Did you not see the red light?”The beatnik replied, “Like, man, I did not even see the house!”There are different languages!As Harry was shaving one morning he called out, “You know, sweetheart, I don’t seem to get along too well with the other fellows at the office.”There was no response.“Darling, the boys treat me like I am a little odd.”There was still no response.He put the razor away and started to comb his hair.“Lovey, the boys seem to think that I am queer.”Still getting no reply he finally shouted, “For heaven’s sake, John, aren’t you listening?”I am talking one language, and people are accustomed to a totally different language. Unless you meditate you will not be able to understand what is happening, what I am saying and what I am doing.Three men, English, Arabian and American, were standing on a street corner in Casablanca, when a spectacular oriental beauty walked haughtily by them.“By Jove!” exclaimed the Englishman.“By Allah!” sighed the Arabian.“By tomorrow night!” said the American.The second question:Osho,To many people in the West, the master–disciple relationship is outside their experience. What does it involve?The East has contributed a few tremendously significant things to human consciousness. One of those beautiful things is the phenomenon of the master–disciple relationship. It is an Eastern contribution; just as science is a Western phenomenon, mysticism is Eastern. Science is extrovert, mysticism is introvert. Science is trying to know the objective reality, and mysticism is an exploration of the subjective reality, of the interiority of your own being.In the world of science the teacher–student relationship exists, because science can be taught; hence the teacher–student relationship. But religion, mysticism, cannot be taught, it can only be caught. Hence, in mysticism there is no relationship like the teacher–student relationship. A totally different kind of relationship exists: the master–disciple. The differences are tremendous, the differences are great.Between a student and a teacher, doubt is the method. The teacher is there to help your doubts disappear, he is there to answer your questions; he is there to inform you, make you more knowledgeable. The student is there with all his questions, curiosities, doubts. In fact, the more intelligent he is, the more doubtful he will be. The best student is full of doubts, and the best teacher is one who helps the student with new answers, new knowledge, so that his doubts can be disposed of. Science uses doubt as the method; that’s its fundamental method of inquiry.In the world of religion just the opposite is the case: trust is the method, not doubt; love is the method, not logic; surrender is the method, not conquest of knowledge. The student, when he comes from the university, comes with great ego because he has accumulated much knowledge, he has learned much. But the disciple, when he comes from the master, comes as a nobody, egoless. He no longer exists as a separate entity from existence. He has not learned anything; on the contrary, he has unlearned whatsoever he used to know before.A great German philosopher had come to see Raman Maharshi. He asked Raman, “I have come from far, far away, to learn much from you.”Raman laughed and he said, “Your journey has been an exercise in futility. Unnecessarily you traveled to me, because I am not here to teach you anything. If you have come to learn, you have come to the wrong place; I help people to unlearn!”The master helps you to unlearn. The master helps you to become innocent again, childlike.Jesus says: “Unless you are like a child, unless you are reborn, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God.” He is speaking an Eastern language. Jesus traveled to India; whatsoever he taught later on, he had imbibed that spirit in this country. In fact, it was one of the reasons that he was crucified. It was one of the basic reasons his people could not understand him: he was bringing a totally new language, a new approach, a new vision.The East has always been the source. Pythagoras came to the East, Jesus came to the East; and whatsoever the West has ever come to know about master-and-discipleship has been experienced through the East, directly or indirectly.The master–disciple relationship is a love affair, the greatest love affair possible. The disciple surrenders his ego to the master. He bows down. He says: “Buddham sharanam gachchhami – I bow down to the buddha, I surrender to the buddha, I take shelter at your feet.” The moment he drops his ego he becomes part of the being of the master.The master is no longer there as a person, he is only a presence. And when two presences meet, the greatest orgasmic experience happens, the greatest ecstasy. That ecstasy is the goal of the master-and-disciple relationship. That ecstasy has been happening for centuries in a very mysterious way: the master says nothing about it, the disciple hears nothing about it, but sitting by the side of the master, silently waiting, patiently, prayerfully, one day the synchronicity happens. One day, suddenly, the disciple starts breathing with the master. His heartbeat is no longer separate from the master’s heartbeat. They disappear as two and become one.That experience of oneness with the master is the opening of the door of the temple of godliness.The third question:Osho,What is platonic love?Love is simply love. It can’t be Platonic or Hegelian or Kantian; love is simply love. Platonic love is another name for homosexuality. Plato seems to be the first person who believed in homosexuality. Many must have practiced it before him, but he is the first propounder of it.The Greek idea of beauty was not that of feminine beauty, but male beauty. You must have seen Greek painting, sculpture, in museums and you must have observed that you never come across paintings of a nude woman or a statue of a nude woman. No, it is always a man. Platonic love is just a good name for homosexuality. It is better to call it what it actually is, rather than giving it a beautiful label.But love is neither homosexual nor heterosexual; love is simply love. In fact, love has nothing to do with the object. Love is a state of consciousness when you are joyous, when there is a dance in your being. Something starts vibrating, radiating, from your center; something starts pulsating around you. It starts reaching people: it can reach women, it can reach men, it can reach rocks and trees and stars.When I am talking about love, I am talking about this love: a love that is not a relationship but a state of being. Always remember: whenever I use the word love I use it as a state of being, not as a relationship. Relationship is only a very minor aspect of it. But your idea of love is basically that of relationship, as if that is all.Relationship is needed only because you can’t be alone, because you are not yet capable of meditation. Hence, meditation is a must before you can really love. One should be capable of being alone, utterly alone, and yet tremendously blissful. Then you can love. Then your love is no longer a need but a sharing, not a necessity. You will not become dependent on the people you love. You will share, and sharing is beautiful.But what ordinarily happens in the world is: you don’t have love, the person you think you love has no love in his being either, and both are asking for love from each other. Two beggars begging each other. Hence, the fight, the conflict, the continuous quarrel between the lovers on trivia, on immaterial things, on stupid things, but they go on quarreling.The basic quarrel is that the husband thinks he is not getting what is his right to get, and the wife thinks she is not getting what is her right to get. The wife thinks she has been deceived and the husband also thinks that he has been deceived. Where is the love? Nobody bothers to give, everybody wants to get, and when everybody is trying to get, nobody gets; everybody feels at a loss, empty, tense.The basic foundation is missing, and you have started making the temple without the foundation. It is going to fall, collapse any moment. And you know how many times your love has collapsed, and still you go on doing the same thing again and again.You live in such unawareness. You don’t see what you have been doing to your life and to others’ lives. You go on mechanically, robot-like, repeating the old pattern, knowing perfectly well you have done this before. You know what has always been the outcome, and deep down you are also alert that it is going to happen the same way again because there is no difference. You are preparing for the same conclusion, the same collapse.If you can learn anything from the failure of love, then that thing is: become more aware, become more meditative. And by meditation I mean the capacity to be joyous alone. Very rare people are capable of being blissful for no reason at all – just sitting silently and blissful. Others will think them mad, because the idea of happiness is that it has to come from somebody else. You meet a beautiful woman and you are happy, or you meet a beautiful man and you are happy. Sitting silently in your room and so blissful, so blissed out? You must be crazy or something; people will suspect that you are on a drug, stoned.Yes, meditation is the ultimate LSD; it is releasing your own psychedelic powers. It is releasing your own imprisoned splendor; you become so joyful, such a celebration arises in your being that you need not have any relationship. Still you can relate with people, and that’s the difference between relating and relationship.Relationship is a thing: you cling to it. Relating is a flow, a movement, a process. You meet a person, you are loving because you have so much love to give. The more you give, the more you have. Once you have understood this strange arithmetic of love, that the more you give, the more you have… This is against the economic laws that operate in the outside world, but once you have known that if you want to have more love and more joy, you give and share, then you simply share. And whosoever allows you to share your joy with him or with her, you feel grateful to him or her. But it is not a relationship; it is a river-like flow.The river passes by the side of a tree, saying hello, nourishing the tree, giving water to the tree, then moves on, dances on. It does not cling to the tree. And the tree does not say, “Where are you going? We are married, and before you can leave me you will need a divorce, at least a separation. Where are you going? And if you were to leave me, why did you dance so beautifully around me? Why in the first place did you nourish me?” No, the tree showers its flowers onto the river in deep gratefulness, and the river moves on. The wind comes and dances around the tree and moves on. And the tree gives its fragrance to the wind.This is relating. If humanity is ever going to become grown-up, mature, this will be the way of love: people meeting, sharing, moving, a nonpossessive quality, a non-dominating quality. Otherwise love becomes a power trip.Don’t be worried about what platonic love is. Meditate on what love is.Mrs. Green and her neighbor, Mrs. Kenyon, were having a chat one day.“Mrs. Green,” said Mrs. Kenyon, “maybe it is none of my business, but after all we have been friends a long time and I am concerned about your reputation. You are divorced, that’s true, but people are talking about you. It just does not look right when an eighteen-year-old boy comes every night and visits you till such a late hour.”“Well,” Mrs. Green smiled, “don’t worry about it. It is purely a platonic relationship.”“How can it be platonic?” Mrs. Kenyon asked.“Well,” said Mrs. Green, “it is play for him and it is tonic for me!”That’s what platonic love is: play for one, tonic for the other. More than that I don’t know anything about it!The fourth question:Osho,I am a businessman. Can I also meditate and become a sannyasin?One has to do something in life. Somebody is a carpenter and somebody is a king, and somebody is a businessman and somebody is a warrior. These are ways of livelihood; these are ways of getting bread and butter, a shelter. They can’t change your inner being. Whether you are a warrior or a businessman does not make any difference: one has chosen one way to earn his livelihood, the other has chosen something else.Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being; that is true. If your being has also become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate and impossible to be a sannyasin. Because if your being has become businesslike, then you have become too calculative. And a calculative person is a cowardly person: he thinks too much, he cannot take any jumps.Meditation is a jump from the head to the heart, and ultimately from the heart to the being. You will be going deeper and deeper, where calculations will have to be left behind, where all logic becomes irrelevant. You cannot carry your cleverness there.In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever. People who are intelligent need not be clever; they are innocent, they need not be cunning. They function out of a state of not-knowing.If you are a businessman, that’s okay. If Jesus, who was the son of a carpenter, helping his father, bringing wood, cutting wood, if he could become a meditator and a sannyasin, and ultimately a christ, a buddha, why not you?Kabir was a weaver. He continued his work his whole life. Even after his enlightenment he was still weaving; he loved it. Many times his disciples asked him, prayed to him with tears in their eyes, “You need not work anymore, we are here to take care of you. So many disciples, why go on in your old age spinning, weaving?”And Kabir would say, “But do you know for whom I am weaving, for whom I am spinning? For God! – because everyone is now a god to me. It is my way of prayer.”If Kabir could become a buddha and still remain a weaver, why can’t you?But business should not enter into your being. Business should be just an outside thing, just one of the ways of livelihood. When you close your shop, forget all about your business. When you come home don’t carry the shop in your head. When you are home with your wife, with your children, don’t be a businessman. That is ugly: it means your being is becoming colored by your doing. Doing is a superficial thing. The being should remain transcendental to your doing and you should always be capable of putting your doing aside and entering the world of your being. That’s what meditation is all about.A marriage broker was trying to arrange a match between a businessman and a beautiful young girl. But the businessman was very cagey. “Before I buy goods,” the businessman said, “I look over samples, and before I get married I must also have a sample.”“But good heavens, man, you can’t ask a respectable girl for a thing like that!” the broker replied.“Sorry,” insisted the other, “I am strictly business and I want it done in my way or not at all.”The broker went off in despair to talk with the girl. “I have got you a fine fellow,” he said, “with lots of money. But he is strictly business and he don’t do nothing blind. He must have a sample.”“Listen,” said the girl. “I am as smart in business as he is. Samples I won’t give him – references I will!”If you are that kind of businessman then it is going to be difficult to meditate and impossible to be a sannyasin. But you have come here, you have been listening to me; even the desire to become a sannyasin has arisen in you. That is a good indication that business has not yet poisoned your soul totally. A part of you is still available for love; a part of you is still available to existence. A part of you is still not businesslike. Otherwise you would not be here.Businesslike people can’t come to me; it is impossible for them to have any communion with me. They can’t understand a single word uttered here, and what to say about the silence that is present here? They live in a totally different world, in a very mundane world.It was quite a swanky bar in the best part of town. The new arrival ordered a bottle of beer. Paying with a dollar bill, he was surprised when the young bartender gave him ninety cents change. When questioned about it, the bartender said that a dime was all he was charging.The customer, being hungry and pleased with the apparently low prices of the place, ordered a ham and cheese sandwich on rye.“That will be fifteen cents,” said the barkeeper.The customer’s eyes widened: “I can’t understand. How can you sell stuff so low?” he asked.“Listen, buddy,” said the bartender, “I just work here. I am not the boss. He is upstairs with my wife and I am doing the same thing to him down here!”There is a certain mind which always functions in a businesslike way; in every dimension of life he is always a businessman. If you are that kind of businessman, then this is not the place for you.This is a place for gamblers. This is a place for people who can risk, who can risk all for nothing. Yes, exactly all for nothing, because meditation will bring you to nothingness. But those who arrive at the nothingness of meditation, immediately become aware that they have arrived at the fullness of godliness, too. Nothingness of you is the fullness of godliness, it is the other aspect. You become nothing, and suddenly a great plenitude descends in you, and you are overflowing with godliness. By becoming nothing you become spacious, you become a host to the great guest.But if you are continuously calculating you cannot become nothing. How can you drop all for being nothing? You will always be calculating: you will move cautiously.Then this is not the place for you. Then go to some old, traditional, pseudo teachers. They will console you. They will tell you that you can remain a businessman and can still open a bank account in paradise. Be charitable, give to some charity. Donate to the poor; donate to the temple, or the church, or the synagogue; to the hospital; to the school, and you will be rewarded in your afterlife. Just do virtuous things which you can afford. If you exploit people, you can always give a portion back to them.I have heard…In a church the priest was telling the people, “The building is getting very old and we need money.”Nobody responded – all businessmen! Everybody was looking at each other; everybody was waiting and expecting that somebody else would be foolish enough.And then a woman stood up – the prostitute of the town – and she said, “I donate ten thousand dollars to the church.”The priest could not believe his ears, his eyes. For a moment he was in shock, and then he said, “But I cannot accept your money, I cannot accept any wrong money.”A businessman stood up and said, “You don’t worry, that is our money. It is only coming via her; you can accept it!”You can donate a little bit to the church, to some charitable institution; you can give some money to the poor people. These are the consolations. And a place for you will be reserved in heaven.Don’t be such a fool; heaven is not so cheap. In fact, there is no place like heaven anywhere, it is something inside you. No charity can lead you there, but if you reach there your whole life becomes a charity; that is a totally different phenomenon. If you reach there, your whole life becomes compassion.Remain a businessman, but for a few hours forget all about it. I am not here to tell you to escape from your ordinary life. I am here to tell you the ways and the means, the alchemy, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Be a businessman in your shop and don’t be a businessman at your home. Sometimes for a few hours forget even the home, the family, the wife, the children; for a few hours just be alone with yourself. Sink deeper and deeper into your own being. Enjoy yourself, love yourself.And slowly, slowly you will become aware that a great joy is welling up, with no cause from the outside world, uncaused from the outside. It is your own flavor, it is your own flowering. This is meditation.Sitting silently, doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Sit silently, doing nothing, and wait for the spring. It comes, it always comes, and when it comes, the grass grows by itself. You will see great joy arising in you for no reason at all. Then share it, then give it to people. Then your charity will be inner. Then it will not be just a means to attain to some goal; then it will have intrinsic value.And once you have become a meditator, sannyas is not far away. My sannyas particularly is nothing but living in the ordinary world, but living in such a way that you are not possessed by it: remaining transcendental, remaining in the world and yet a little above it. That is sannyas.It is not the old sannyas, in that you have to escape from your wife, your children, your business, and go to the Himalayas. That kind of thing has not worked at all. Many went to the Himalayas, but they carried their stupid minds with them. The Himalayas have not been of any help to them. On the contrary, they have destroyed the beauty of the Himalayas, that’s all. How can the Himalayas help you? You can leave the world, but you cannot leave your mind here. The mind will go with you; it is inside you. And wherever you are, your same mind will create the same kind of world around you.A great mystic was dying. He called his disciple, the chief disciple. The disciple rejoiced very much that the master was calling him: “There is a great crowd and he is calling only me. He must be giving some secret key that he has not given to anybody up to now. This is the way he is choosing me as his successor!” He came close.The master said, “I have only one thing to tell you. I didn’t listen to my master – he had also told me when he was dying, but I was just a fool and I didn’t listen, and I didn’t even understand what he meant. But I am telling you from my own experience he is right, although it had looked very absurd when he said it to me.”The disciple asked, “What is it? Please tell me. I will try to follow it word by word.”The master said, “It is a very simple thing: never, never in your life keep a cat in your house!” And before the disciple could ask why, the master died!Now he was at a loss – what a stupid kind of thing! And now whom to ask? He inquired of some old people in the village, “Is there any clue to this message? There must be something mysterious in this!”One old man said, “Yes, I know, because his master – your master’s master – had also told him, ‘Never, never keep a cat in your house!’ but he didn’t listen. I know the whole story.”The disciple said, “Please tell me so I can understand. What is the secret hidden behind it? I want it to be decoded for me so I can follow it.”The old man laughed. He said, “It is a simple thing, it is not absurd. Your master’s master had given him a great message, but he never inquired, ‘What is the meaning of it?’ You are at least intelligent enough to inquire about it. He simply forgot about it. Your master was young when the message was given; he used to live in the forest. He had only two clothes with him; that was all he possessed. But there were big rats in the house and they would destroy his clothes, and again and again he would have to ask the villagers for new clothes.“The villagers said, ‘Why don’t you keep a cat? Just keep a cat and the cat will eat the rats and there will be no problem. Otherwise – we are poor people – how can we go on supplying you new clothes every month?’“It was so logical that he asked somebody for a cat. He got a cat, but then the problems started. The cat certainly saved his clothes, but the cat needed milk because once the rats were finished the cat was starving. And the poor man could not meditate because the cat was always there, crying, weeping, going round and round and round him.“He went to the villagers and they said, ‘This is a difficult thing – now we will have to supply milk for you. We can give you a cow. Be finished, keep the cow! You can drink, and your cat can also survive. That way you need not come every day for your food either.’“The idea was perfectly right. He took the cow and now the world started. That’s how the world starts. The cow needed grass, and the people said, ‘We will come in the coming holidays and will clear the forest, prepare the ground. You start growing a little wheat, other things, and leave a part for grass.’“And the villagers came according to their promise. They cleared the forest, they cleaned the soil, they planted wheat. But now it was such a problem: you have to water, and so forth. And the whole day the poor man was engaged in looking after the field. No time to meditate, no time to read the scriptures.“He again went to the villagers. He said, ‘I am getting deeper and deeper into difficulties. Now the question is when to meditate – no time is left.’“They said, ‘Wait. A woman has just become a widow, and she is young and we are afraid that she will tempt the young people in the town. Please take her with you. And she is healthy enough, she will take care of your field, the cow, the cat, and she will prepare food for you, and she is very religious too. And don’t be worried, she will not disturb you.’”That’s how things move to their logical conclusion. Now, from the cat, how far the man had moved.“And the woman came and she started looking after him, and he was very happy for a few days. She would massage his feet, and slowly, slowly what was going to happen happened: they got married. And when you get married in India, at least one dozen children – one dozen is the minimum. So all meditation, all sannyas, disappeared.“He remembered only when he was dying. He remembered again that when his master was dying he had told him, ‘Beware of cats.’ That’s why he has told you. Now be aware of cats.”Just one step in the wrong direction and you have to go the wrong way. And your mind is with you wherever you go.I have traveled in the Himalayas. Once I was in a deep part of the Himalayas with two of my friends. We entered an empty cave; it was so beautiful that we stayed the night there.In the morning a monk came and he said, “Get out! This is my cave!”I said, “How can this cave be yours? I don’t see – this is a natural cave. You don’t claim it, you can’t claim it. You have not made it. And you have renounced the world, your house, your wife, your children, your money, and everything, and now you are claiming, ‘This is my cave – get out of it!’ This is nobody’s cave.”He was very angry. He said, “You don’t know me – I am a dangerous man. I can’t leave it to you. I have been living in this cave for thirteen years.”We provoked him as much as we could and he was all fire, ready to fight, ready to kill! And then I said to him, “Wait, we will leave. We were just provoking you to show you that thirteen years have passed, but you have the same mind. Now this cave is ‘yours,’ because you have lived here thirteen years so it is yours. You had not brought it with your birth and you will not take it away when you die. And we are not going to stay here forever, just an overnight stay. We are just travelers, we are not monks. I have just come to see how many stupid people are living in these parts, and you seem to be the tops!”You can leave the world but you will be the same. You will again create the same world, because you carry the blueprint in your mind. It is not a question of leaving the world; it is a question of changing the mind, renouncing the mind. That’s what meditation is and that’s what sannyas is.The last question:Osho,What is unawareness?To be in the mind, to be identified with the mind, is unawareness. To think “I am the mind,” is unawareness. To know that mind is only a mechanism just as the body is, to know that the mind is separate, is awareness.The night comes, the morning comes: you don’t get identified with the night. You don’t say “I am night,” you don’t say “I am morning.” The night comes, the morning comes, the day comes, again the night comes; the wheel goes on moving, but you remain alert that you are not these things. The same is the case with the mind.Anger comes, but you forget, you become anger. Greed comes, you forget, you become greed. Hate comes, you forget, you become hate. This is unawareness.Awareness is watching that the mind is full of greed, full of anger, full of hate or full of lust, but you are simply a watcher. Then you can see greed arising, becoming a great, dark cloud, then dispersing, and you remain untouched. How long can it remain? Your anger is momentary, your greed is momentary, your lust is momentary. Just watch a little and you will be surprised: it comes and it goes. And you remain there unaffected, cool, calm.A great king asked a Sufi mystic to give him something in writing – a sutra, a small maxim which would help him in every possible situation, good or bad, which would help him in success, in failure, in life, in death.The Sufi gave him his ring and told him, “There is a message. Whenever you are really in need, in a real emergency, just open the ring, lift up the diamond, and inside you will find the message. But do not open it out of curiosity, you can see the message only when there is real danger which you cannot face on your own and you need me.”Many times the king became curious what was in there, but he resisted his temptation: he had given his promise, his word. He was a man of his word.After ten years he was attacked and defeated. He ran away into the forest, into the mountains, and the enemy was following him. He could hear the horses coming closer and closer. It was death coming closer; they would kill him. But he was going as fast as he could on his horse. He was tired, his horse was tired; he was wounded, his horse was wounded.And then suddenly he came to a cul-de-sac. The way ended, there was an abyss. And there was no possibility of turning back because the enemy was closing in, at every moment coming closer. He could not take a jump into the abyss; that was sure death. Except for waiting there was nothing to do.Suddenly he remembered the ring. He opened the ring, removed the diamond. Inside there was a piece of paper; on the piece of paper just a simple, single sentence: “This too will pass away.” And suddenly a great calmness descended on him: “This too will pass away.”And it happened exactly like that. He was hearing the noises coming closer; by and by he started hearing them going farther away. They had taken a wrong turn. He had passed a crossroad, they must have moved onto the other road. Then he gathered his armies, fought the enemies again, won back his kingdom. He was received with great joy, garlanded, flowers showered, the whole capitol decorated for his welcome.Suddenly he felt great ego arising in him. Again he remembered the message, “This too will pass away,” and the ego disappeared. And all those garlands and all that welcome became just a child’s play. In failure it helped, in success it helped.That became his meditation; that became his mantra. So whatsoever would come he would repeat deep down – not verbally, but the feeling would be there in his heart – “This too will pass away.”If you can remember it, then whatsoever comes into your mind, you will remain simply a witness: “This too will pass away.” That witnessing is awareness. But we are identified: we become greed, we become anger, we become lust. Whatsoever comes in front of our consciousness, we become identified with. It is as foolish as when it happens to very small children.Have you tried it? Just put a mirror before a very small child. He will look in the mirror very surprised, with wide open eyes he will look: “Who is this fellow?” He will try to catch hold, but he cannot catch hold of the person. And then, if the child is intelligent, he will try to go to the back of the mirror: “Maybe the child is hiding behind the mirror.” He is not yet aware that it is only a mirror, there is no reality.Mind is only a mirror: it reflects the clouds of the world; it reflects all that happens around in the world. Somebody insults and there is anger – it is a reflection. Somebody beautiful passes by and it reflects – it is lust. And you immediately become identified with it.Keep a little distance and slowly, slowly you will find that the distance goes on growing. One day the mind is so far, far away, it does not affect you at all. This is coming home, this is buddhahood. Aes dhammo sanantano: this is the inexhaustible law of life. If you can be a witness you will be able to pass through a great transformation. You will know your real self.The old maid sat stroking the head of her pet tomcat and worrying about what she had missed all her life, when all at once, a fairy appeared with her wand and told the old maid she was ready to give her any three wishes she might make. The fairy asked that she not get excited but take her time and decide on her wants carefully.Her first wish was that she might have a beautiful body. The wand was waved and her wish granted. When she examined the result in the mirror, her second wish was immediate: that she be given clothing to drape this wonderful figure. Her wish was again fulfilled with racks of beautiful clothes made to fit perfectly.When asked for the third wish, she said she wanted a man.Said the fairy, “You have a beautiful cat there. How about making a man out of him for you?”That was entirely agreeable, and the tomcat became a man. The old maid was very happy. When asked if she were entirely satisfied, she said she was. Then the fairy asked the man if he were entirely satisfied. “Yes,” said he, “but she won’t be.”“Why?”“She forgot about that trip to the veterinarian!”You go on doing things, unaware of what you are doing. You go on asking for things, unaware what you are asking for. If all your desires are fulfilled you will be the most miserable man in the world; it is good that they are not fulfilled.The really religious person never asks anything from existence. He says, “Thy will be done, thy kingdom come. Because what can I ask out of my unawareness? Whatsoever I ask is going to be wrong.” He asks only one thing: “Thy will be done.”Be meditative, be prayerful. Remember these two sutras: “This too will pass away” – that will help you to meditate – and the second sutra, “Thy will be done”; that will help you to be prayerful. And when meditation and prayerfulness meet, you are at the highest peak of consciousness possible.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Live in joy,in love,even among those who hate.Live in joy,in health,even among the afflicted.Live in joy,in peace,even among the troubled.Live in joy,without possessions,like the shining ones.The winner sows hatredbecause the loser suffers.Let go of winning and losingand find joy.There is no fire like passion,no crime like hatred,no sorrow like separation,no sickness like hunger,and no joy like the joy of freedom.Health, contentment and trustare your greatest possessions,and freedom your greatest joy.Look within.Be still.Free from fear and attachment,know the sweet joy of the way.How joyful to look upon the awakenedand to keep company with the wise.How long the road to the manwho travels with a fool.But whoever follows those who follow the waydiscovers his family, and is filled with joy.Follow then the shining ones,the wise, the awakened, the loving,for they know how to work and forbear.Follow themas the moon follows the path of the stars.It is a pleasant surprise to meditate on these sutras of today. They go against the idea that prevails all over the world about Gautama the Buddha. He is represented by his enemies and even by his friends and followers as the pessimist par excellence. He is not a pessimist at all; he is one of the most joyous persons ever. These sutras will give you immense insight into the heart of this awakened man:Live in joy,in love,even among those who hate.Joy is the keyword of all these sutras. Joy is not happiness, because happiness is always mixed with unhappiness. It is never found in purity, it is always polluted. It always has a long shadow of misery behind it. Just as day is followed by night, happiness is followed by unhappiness.Then what is joy? Joy is a state of transcendence. One is neither happy nor unhappy, but is utterly peaceful, quiet, in absolute equilibrium; so silent and so alive that his silence is a song, and his song is nothing but his silence. Joy is forever, happiness is momentary. Happiness is caused by the outside, hence can be taken away from the outside. You have to depend on others for happiness, and any dependence is ugly, any dependence is bondage. Joy arises within; it has nothing to do with the outside. It is not caused by others. It is not caused at all, it is the spontaneous flow of your own energy.If your energy is stagnant there is no joy. If your energy becomes a flow, a movement, a river, there is great joy – for no other reason, just because you become more fluid, more flowing, more alive. A song is born in your heart, a great ecstasy arises.It is a surprise when it arises, because you cannot find any cause for it. It is the most mysterious experience in life: something uncaused, something beyond the law of cause and effect. It need not be caused because it is your intrinsic nature, you are born with it. It is something inborn, it is you in your totality, flowing.Whenever you are flowing, you are flowing toward the ocean. That is the joy: the dance of the river moving toward the ocean to meet the ultimate beloved. When your life is a stagnant pool you are simply dying. You are not moving anywhere – no ocean, no hope. But when you are flowing, the ocean is coming closer every moment, and the closer the river comes, the more dance there is, the more ecstasy there is.Your consciousness is a river. Buddha has called it a continuum. It is a continuity, an eternal continuity, an eternal flow. Buddha has never thought of you and your being as something static. In his vision, the word being is not right. According to him, being is nothing but becoming. He denies being, he accepts becoming – because being gives you the idea of something static inside you, like a rock. Becoming gives you a totally different idea: like a river, like a lotus opening, like a sunrise. Something is constantly happening. You are not sitting there like a rock, you are growing.Buddha changes the whole metaphysics: he replaces being by becoming, he replaces things by processes, he replaces nouns with verbs.Live in joy… Live in your own innermost nature, with absolute acceptance of whosoever you are. Don’t try to manipulate yourself according to others’ ideas. Just be yourself, your authentic nature, and joy is bound to arise; it wells up within you.When the tree is taken care of, watered, looked after, one day it naturally blooms. When the spring comes there is great flowering. So is it with man. Take care of yourself. Find the right soil for your being, find the right climate, and go deeper and deeper into yourself. Don’t explore the world; explore your nature. Because by exploring the world you may have many possessions, but you will not be a master. But by exploring yourself you may not have many possessions, but you will be a master. It is better to be a master of yourself than to be a master of the whole world.Live in joy, in love… One who lives in joy naturally lives in love. Love is the fragrance of the flower of joy. Inside there is joy; you cannot contain it. It is so much, it is unbearable. If you try to be miserly about it, you will feel pain. Joy can be so much that if you don’t share it, it can become suffering, it can become pain. Joy has to be shared; by sharing it you are unburdened, by sharing it new sources open up within you, new streams, new springs.That sharing of your joy is love; hence one thing has to be remembered: you cannot love unless you have attained to joy. Millions of people go on trying: they want to love and they don’t know anything about what joy is. Then their love is hollow, empty, meaningless; their love brings despair, misery, anguish, it creates hell. Unless you have joy you can’t be in love. You have nothing to give, you are a beggar yourself. First you need to be a king, and your joy will make you a king.When you are radiating joy you can love. Buddha says: “When you have become the shining one, when your hidden secrets are no longer secrets but are flowering in the wind, in the rain, in the sun; when your imprisoned splendor is released, when your mystery has become an open phenomenon, when it is vibrating around you, pulsating around you, when it is in your breath, in your heartbeat, then you can love.” Then you touch dust and the dust is transformed into the divine. Then whatsoever you touch becomes gold. Ordinary pebbles in your hand will be transmuted into diamonds, emeralds; ordinary people touched by you will not be ordinary anymore.A man who has attained to joy becomes a source of great transformation for many people. His flame has been lit, now he can help others. The unlit flames coming closer to the one who has become afire with joy, can also become lit.That’s what satsang is, that’s what communion with a master is: coming closer to his fire, coming closer to his splendor, coming closer to his glory, coming closer to what has happened to him. And just by coming closer the flame jumps into you and you are never the same again.Love is possible only when your flame is lit; otherwise you are a dark continent. And you are pretending to give light to others? Love is light, hate is darkness. You are dark within and trying to give light to others? You will only succeed in giving them more darkness, and they are already in darkness. You will multiply their darkness; you will make them more miserable. Don’t try to do that, because it is impossible, it is not according to the nature of things. It can’t happen. You can hope, but all your hope is in vain. First be filled with joy.Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. And then it is not a question of what others do to you. Then one can love even those who hate him. Then one can live in love and joy even among enemies.A disciple of Buddha became enlightened, and Buddha said to him, “Now that you have entered the temple, go and spread the message, because there are many who need a little help, there are many who are drowning in the river of sorrow. Now that you have learned how to swim, help others. Now you have the boat, you can take them to the other shore. Remember the way I helped you; now go and help others.”The disciple said, “Whatever you say, I will do. I will go. It hurts to leave you. It hurts, it is painful to go away from you, but if you say so, I will go. If you had told me before…” See the love of a disciple, of a devotee. He says, “If you had told me before, I would not have tried for enlightenment at all, because to be with you is far more significant. I would have risked enlightenment; I would have dropped the very project, if I had known that I would have to leave. But now it is too late. If you say so, I will go.”Buddha said to him, “You can choose the direction, the place, where you would like to go.”In Bihar there was one part where no disciple of Buddha had ever gone: Suka was the name of the place. The disciple said, “I will go to Suka.”Buddha looked a little surprised. The disciple was young, very young, not only in age but young also in his enlightenment. He did not know the ways of the world. Buddha said, “You are not aware, it seems, that the people of Suka are very dangerous people, murderers, thieves, robbers. That’s why no one has chosen to go there yet.”The young man said, “But that’s why I am choosing to go there, because they also need your message. They also need you, and more so than others. Bless me so that I can go and help a few people there.”Buddha said, “Then you will have to answer three questions. The first is: those people are so mischievous – I know them – if you go there they won’t listen to you. They will insult you, they will try to humiliate you; they are going to be very nasty to you. When they will insult you and are nasty to you, how are you going to respond?”The young man said, “There is no need to ask me – you know how I am going to respond. I will thank them, will be grateful to them, because they are good people. They only insult me, they only humiliate me. They could have beaten me and they are not beating me. They could have thrown stones at me and they are not throwing stones at me. They are good people, I will be grateful to them that they are not harming my body.”Buddha said, “And if they start hitting you, beating you, wounding you, throwing stones at you, then what will your response be?”And the young man said, “I will still be tremendously grateful to them that they are only throwing stones at me, beating me, but are still leaving me alive, are not killing me. They could have killed me!”Buddha said, “Now the last question. If they kill you, by the time you are dying, in those last moments when you are dying, what will be your response?”The young man said, “I will still be grateful to them because they have only killed my body; they cannot kill me. And sooner or later my body is going to go anyway. And I will also be grateful that they have destroyed my body and now they have taken from me all opportunities of committing any error. I will not be able to commit any error; I will not be able to go astray. I will be thankful; I will die with great gratitude.”Buddha said, “Now you can go anywhere. You can go to Suka or wherever you choose, you are ready. If this is your response, you have become a buddha; you are the shining one.”It is not a question of loving those who love you. That is very ordinary, that is businesslike, a bargain. The real love is to love those who hate you. Right now even to love those who love you is not possible, because you don’t know what joy is. But when you know joy, the miracle happens, the magic. Then you are capable of loving those who hate you. In fact, it is no longer a question of loving somebody or not loving somebody, because you become love; you don’t have anything else left.In the Koran, I have heard, there is a statement: “Hate the Devil.” A great Sufi mystic woman, Rabiya, canceled that line from her Koran. Hassan, another famous mystic, was staying with Rabiya and he saw her doing it. He said, “What are you doing? The Koran cannot be corrected, that is blasphemy. You cannot cut any statement from the Koran; it is perfect as it is. There is no possibility of any improvement. What are you doing?”Rabiya said, “Hassan, I have to do it. It is not a question of the Koran, it is something totally different: since I have known godliness I cannot hate. It is not a question of the Devil, I simply cannot hate. Even if the Devil comes in front of me I will love him, because now I can only love; I am incapable of hate; hate has disappeared. If one is full of light he can give you only light; whether you are a friend or an enemy does not matter.“From where,” Rabiya says, “can I bring darkness to throw on the Devil? It is no longer anywhere – I am light. My light will fall on the Devil as much as on God. Now, for me, there is no God and no Devil, I cannot even make a distinction. My whole being is transformed into love; nothing is left.“I am not correcting the Koran – who am I to correct it? – but this statement is no longer relevant to me. And this is my copy; I am not correcting anybody else’s Koran. I have the right to put my copy right according to myself. This statement hits me hard whenever I come across it. I cannot make any sense out of it; hence I am crossing it out.”A man who is full of joy and love can’t help it. He loves friends, he loves enemies. It is not a question of a decision on his part; love is now his nature, like breathing. Will you stop breathing if an enemy comes to see you? Will you say, “How can I breathe in front of my enemy?” Will you say, “How can I breathe because my enemy is also breathing and the air which has passed through his lungs may enter me? I can’t breathe.” You will suffocate, you will die. It will be suicide and utterly stupid.On the way, a moment comes when love is just like breathing; the breathing of your soul. You go on loving. In this light you can understand Jesus’ statement: “Love your enemies as yourself.” If you ask Buddha, he will say: “There is no need to do such a thing, because you can’t do otherwise. You have to love. In fact you are love, so wherever you are – in flowers, in thorns, in the dark night, in the full noontide, in misery surrounding you like an ocean or in great success – it does not matter. You remain love; everything else becomes immaterial. Your love becomes something of the eternal, it continues. One may accept it, one may not accept it, but you can’t hate; you have to be your true nature.”Live in joy… Buddha repeats,…in health,even among the afflicted.By health Buddha means wholeness. Health comes from the same root as healing. A healed person is a healthy person; a healed person is a whole person. By health Buddha does not mean the ordinary, medical meaning of the term; his meaning is not medicinal, it is meditational, although you will be surprised to know that the words meditation and medicine both come from the same root. Medicine heals you physically, meditation heals you spiritually. Both are healing processes, both bring health.But Buddha is not talking about the health of the body; he is talking about the health of your soul. Be whole, be total. Don’t be fragmentary, don’t be divided. Be an individual, literally: indivisible, one piece.People are not one piece; they are many fragments, somehow holding themselves together. They can fall apart at any moment. They are all Humpty-Dumptys, just bundles of many things. Any new situation, any new danger, any insecurity, and they can fall apart. Your wife dies or you go bankrupt or you are unemployed, anything can prove the last straw on the camel’s back. The difference is only of degrees. Somebody is boiling at ninety-eight degrees, somebody at ninety-nine; somebody may be ninety-nine point nine degrees, but the difference is only of degrees, and any small thing can change the balance. You can go insane at any moment, because inside you are already a crowd.So many desires, so many dreams, so many people are living in you. If you watch carefully, you will not find one person there but many faces, changing every moment. It is as if you are just a marketplace where so many people are going and coming, so much noise, and nothing makes sense.Just the other day, Subhash asked a question: “Osho, do you ever dream?”You can dream only if you are many. You can dream only if you have many desires. I have none. Dreams are a by-product of desiring: what you desire in the day, you dream in the night. Dreaming is a hangover: something has remained incomplete in the day that has to be completed. The mind is a perfectionist; it wants to try, in every possible way, to complete things.On the road you saw a beautiful restaurant, but you were in a hurry. You were going for some work and you could not enter the restaurant. And the smell and the color of the food were so enchanting and you wanted to go in but you could not. You will dream about the restaurant; you will have to dream just to complete the whole process, so that it drops and no longer goes on hanging onto you. But your dreams will reflect your insanity.A sane person cannot dream, but by “a sane person” I mean a shining one, a buddha. I don’t mean by sane what you mean by the word. To you, the insane people are in the insane asylums and everybody outside is sane; that is not so. The wall of the asylum does not divide the sane from the insane; there are insane people inside and there are insane people outside. The people who are outside have not yet been caught or maybe they are still within the boundary of normal behavior. At least on the surface they can manage; in their innermost core they may be insane.I cannot dream even if I want to; it is impossible. Whenever I am sitting I am simply sitting – there is no thought. And when I am sleeping I am simply sleeping – there is no dream. But Subhash must be suffering from dreams. Everybody is suffering, day in, day out.“I am worried. Last night I dreamed I was alone with a hundred beautiful blondes, a hundred beautiful brunettes and a hundred beautiful redheads. It was horrible!”“Good heavens, man! What is so horrible about that?” asked the psychiatrist of the patient.“I dreamed that I was a girl, too!”Your dreams will reflect you. Who else can they reflect? Your dreams are keys; through your dreams much can be known about you.The whole of psychoanalysis depends on your dreams for clues. When you are awake you are not trustworthy; what you say about yourself is deceptive. In your dreams you are more innocent, because there is nobody to control and repress. The conscience is fast asleep, morality is gone; you are more natural, more normal. In your dreams you are purer. Hence, psychoanalysis has to depend on your dreams and through your dreams it comes to conclusions about you.It is a very sad state of affairs that you cannot be trusted at all, because you say one thing and you are totally something else. And it is not that you deliberately try to deceive; deception has almost become your second nature. That’s why you immediately forget your dreams within five seconds of waking up; it is a strategy of the mind. When you wake up there is a little lingering, a little memory – just a few fragments, the last parts of your dreams. But within five seconds they are gone. By the time you are out of bed all your dreams have disappeared, you have forgotten all about them. Unless you make a very conscious effort you will not be able to remember them. This is a strategy of the mind; it simply closes the door, because your dreams can be a disturbance to you.If you come to know that in your dream you killed your father it will be heavy on you, you may feel guilty. If you are a very, very moralistic, puritanical person and you see that in your dream you had eloped, escaped with the wife of your neighbor and you were enjoying it, you will be disturbed. You will become suspicious about your morality, about your purity. It will hang over you like a dark cloud.The mind simply cuts you off from your dreams. It has created two kinds of worlds: one, the dreaming world, totally separate, and one, the so-called waking world, again totally separate. You live in compartments: when you enter dreaming you forget all about waking; when you enter waking you forget all about dreaming.The buddha is awake even while he is asleep. He has no compartments in his being. He is not many, he is one. Because he is one and he has no clinging to memories and no desires for the future, the present is enough for him. Then he lives moment to moment in its totality; he does not go on living partially. Your dreams simply show that you live partially, and the unlived parts have to be lived in your dreams. If you live totally each moment, then there is no possibility of any dreams.Once it happened…A Sufi came to me, a very beautiful person, and doing Sufi meditation – zikr – he had become capable of reading other people’s thoughts. Some of his disciples, who were known to me, wanted him to come and read my thoughts.I said, “Okay, bring him.”The man was really capable. He would simply close his eyes and he would start saying the thoughts that were passing within you. For half an hour he remained with closed eyes, very puzzled. Then he finally gave up. He said, “But I don’t see anything, just utter emptiness.” He said, “This is the first time that I can’t read. What have you done to me?”I had not done anything to him. I said to him, “I have not done anything. I am simply sitting here, not doing anything to you or to anybody else. But how can you read if there are no thoughts? It is not that I have stopped your capacity to read.”He was thinking that I had done some damage to his thought reading. I said, “I have not done anything. If you want, I can start bringing up a few thoughts. It will be an effort. Just the way I speak outside I will start speaking inside. I will have to think of my sannyasins and I will have to speak to them, and then you can read. Your capacity is intact. But I was just sitting silently, the way I always sit when I am alone. Neither in the daytime am I thinking, nor in the night am I dreaming. All dreams disappeared the day desires disappeared. All thoughts became meaningless the day I came to know that I am not the mind. But I understand your difficulties, I understand your confusion.”A wealthy tycoon went for a cruise on his fancy yacht, taking with him five buddies, six gorgeous girls and a sailor to man the ship. They encountered a serious storm and the boat went down with the tycoon and his buddies, but the women and the sailor managed to make it to a desert island along with a waterproof bag of limited provisions.All went well for almost a week. Our sailor friend had his Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday well taken care of. The only problem was that they were running out of food.On Sunday a voluptuous native woman approached bearing gifts of bananas, coconuts and other edibles. The gorgeous girls were overjoyed. “We are saved!” they cried.But the sailor muttered resignedly to himself, “There go my Sundays!”You are living inside in a very confused state. And not only young people; even when they become old the same state continues – not only continues, it becomes more and more confusing because, as you accumulate experience, your confusion becomes greater.Interviewing the sixty-five-year-old rodeo champion in Amarillo, Texas, the New York newspaperman remarked, “You are really an extraordinary man to be a rodeo champion at your age.”“Heck,” said the cowboy, “I am not nearly the man my pa is. He was just signed to play guard for a pro football team, and he is eighty-eight.”“Amazing!” gasped the journalist. “I would like to meet your father.”“Can’t right now. He is in Fort Worth standing up for grandpa. Grandpa is getting married tomorrow; he is one hundred and fourteen.”“Your family is simply unbelievable!” said the newspaperman. “Here you are, a rodeo champion at sixty-five. Your father is a football player at eighty-eight. And now your grandpa wants to get married at one hundred and fourteen.”“Hell, mister, you got that wrong,” said the Texan, “Grandpa does not want to get married – he has to!”You go on accumulating. Your childhood is the closest to buddhahood. As you grow old you grow insane. As you grow old, you go farther and farther away from buddhahood. It is really a very strange state; it should not be so. One should grow toward buddhahood, but people grow in just the opposite direction.Buddha says: Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. This is a very important sutra to be remembered; more so because the Christian missionaries are creating a totally wrong approach to life. They say: “When there is so much misery in the world, how can you be joyous?” Sometimes they come to me and they say, “People are starving and people are poor. How can you teach people to dance and sing and be joyous? There are so many people afflicted with so many diseases, and you teach people meditation? This is selfishness!”But that’s exactly what Buddha is saying. He is saying: Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted.Live in joy,in peace,even among the troubled.You cannot change the whole world. You have a small life span, it will be gone soon. You cannot change the whole world, you cannot make it a condition that you will rejoice only when the whole world has changed and everybody is happy. That is never going to happen and it is not within your capacity to do it.People have decided to be miserable; that is their decision, otherwise nobody is forcing them to be miserable. Poverty is their decision, maybe taken unconsciously, but poverty is their decision. You can see it happening.Just three hundred years ago the native people of America were as poor as one can imagine. They had the land – the same land – but they had chosen a life-style which kept them poor. Now America has become the richest country. It is the same country, but with a different type of people.You will be surprised that the first people who arrived in America were not very virtuous, religious types of people; in fact the virtuous and the religious remain miserable. The people who reached America and Australia, the pioneers, were more down-to-earth people who believed in “Eat, drink and be merry.” These were the people who transformed the whole fate of the American continent; they transformed a poor country into the richest ever.Now the same can happen to this country, but it has taken the wrong style of life. And it has lived with this style of life for so many centuries that it seems it is the only way to live. And it worships people who support its style, because they fit with its ideology.The people of this country cannot agree with me because I am trying to change the very style of life, the very pattern, the very structure of their thought, their mind, their being. They can become as rich as any country in the world, maybe the richest, but first they will have to change their whole style of thinking, living, being. They worship poverty so how can they become rich? They condemn richness so how can they become rich? They condemn all joys of the earth, they are all for renunciation, they are anti-life. How can life shower upon them its grace, its bliss, its joys? They are not receptive; they are completely blind and deaf.If the only way you can be happy is to have everybody else happy, then you are never going to be happy. Buddha is stating a simple fact. He is saying: Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. He is not saying don’t help them, but by being ill yourself you cannot help them. By being poor yourself you cannot help the poor, although the poor will worship you because they will see how great a saint you are. They worshipped Mahatma Gandhi for the sheer reason that he tried to live like a poor man. But just by living like a poor man you are not going to help the poor. If the doctor also falls ill to help his patients, will you call him a saint? You will call him stupid, because this is the time he needs all his health so that he can be helpful to people.This is strange logic, but it has prevailed down the centuries: that if you want to help the poor, be poor, live a poor life, live just like the poor. Of course the poor people will give you great respect and honor, but that is not going to help the poor, it will only fulfill your ego. And any ego fulfilled creates misery for you, not joy.Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled. That is the only way to help, the only way to serve. First be selfish, first transform yourself. Your life in peace, in joy, in health, can be a great source of nourishment for people who are starving for spiritual food.People are not really starving for material things. Material richness is very simple: just a little more technology, a little more science, and people can be rich. The real problem is how to be inwardly rich. And when you are outwardly rich you will be surprised – for the first time you become more acutely, more keenly aware of your inner poverty. For the first time all meaning in life disappears when you are outwardly rich, because in contrast, the inner poverty can be seen more clearly. Outside there is light all around and inside you are a dark island.The rich man knows his poverty more than the poor person, because the poor person has no contrast. Outside there is darkness, inside there is darkness; he knows darkness is what life is. But when there is light outside, you become desirous of a new phenomenon: you long for inner light. When you see that richness is possible outside, why can’t you be rich inside?Live in joy,without possessions,like the shining ones.Buddha says to enjoy the world, enjoy the sun, the moon, the stars, the flowers, the sky, the earth. Live in joy and peace, without possessiveness. Don’t possess. Use, but don’t possess, because the possessor cannot use. The possessor really becomes possessed by his own possessions. That’s why so many rich people become very miserable, they live a poor life. They have all the money in the world, but they live in a poor way.The richest man in the world, just fifty years ago, was the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was the richest man in the world; in fact, his riches were so great that nobody has ever been able to estimate how much he had. His treasuries were full of diamonds; everything was made of diamonds. Even his paperweight was the biggest diamond in the world; even the Kohinoor is only one third the size of his paperweight.When he died, his paperweight was found in his shoe. The diamonds were not counted because there were so many. They were weighed, not counted – how many kilos, not how many diamonds – who could count?Each year the diamonds were brought out of the basement. He had the biggest palace in India, but all the roofs were not enough, because his diamonds were spread on the roofs of his palace just to give them a little sunlight every year.But the man lived a life of such misery, you cannot believe it; even beggars live far better. He used to collect cigarettes which others had already smoked and thrown away, just the ends. He would not purchase cigarettes for himself; he would collect those cigarettes and smoke them. Such a miser! For fifty years he used only one single cap which was dirty and stinking; he died in the same cap. He never used to change his clothes. And it is said that he used to purchase his clothes from the secondhand marketplace where old, rotten things, used things, are sold. His shoes must have been the dirtiest in the world, but he would only send them once in a while for repair, he would not purchase new shoes.Now, the richest man in the world living in such misery and miserliness! What had happened to this man? – possessiveness. Possessiveness was his disease, his mania. He wanted to possess everything. He would purchase diamonds from all over the world; wherever there were diamonds his agent was there to purchase them. Just have more and more! But you cannot eat diamonds, and he was eating the poorest kind of food. He was so afraid that he was unable to sleep at all; in constant fear that somebody might steal from him.That’s how the paperweight – the costliest diamond that he had, three times more in weight than the Kohinoor – was found in his shoe. When he was dying he had hidden it in his shoe so nobody could steal it; otherwise the paperweight would be too visible, too much in the eyes of people. Even dying he was more concerned with the diamond than with his own life. He could never give anything to anybody.This happens to people who become possessive: they don’t use things, they are used by things. They are not masters; they are servants of their own things. They go on accumulating and they die without ever having enjoyed all that they had.Live in joy, without possessions, like the shining ones. Live like the buddhas who don’t possess a thing but can use everything. The world has to be used, not possessed. We come empty-handed and we go empty-handed, so there is no point in possessing anything. To be possessive is ugly. But use everything: while you are here use the world, enjoy everything that the world makes available, and then go without looking back, without clinging to things.This is the way of the buddhas. Aes dhammo sanantano: this is the inexhaustible law of the buddhas. A buddha can be a beggar if he chooses to be so, if that is his way; or a buddha can be an emperor. There have been emperors who were buddhas.In India there has been one man, Janaka, the father of Sita, Rama’s wife, who was a buddha. He lived in the palace with all the richness of a great king and yet he was absolutely nonpossessive, he possessed nothing. It was just as if you are staying in a hotel; you don’t possess anything. You stay for a few days and then you are gone. You use.The intelligent person uses life and uses it beautifully, aesthetically, sensitively. Then the world has many treasures for him. He never becomes attached, because the moment you become attached you have fallen asleep.The winner sows hatredbecause the loser suffers.Let go of winning and losingand find joy.How to find joy? Let your ambition disappear; ambition is the barrier. Ambition means an ego trip: “I want to be this, I want to be that. I want more money, more power, more prestige.” But remember: The winner sows hatred because the loser suffers. Let go of winning and losing and find joy. If you want to find joy, forget about winning and losing. Life is a play, a game. Play it beautifully, forget all about losing and winning. The real sportsman’s spirit is not that of winning or losing. That is not his real question. He enjoys playing; that is the real player. If you are playing to win, you will play with tension, anxiety. You are not concerned with the play itself, its joy and its mystery; you are more concerned with the outcome. This is not the right way to live in the world.Live in the world without any idea of what is going to happen. Whether you are going to be a winner or a loser doesn’t matter. Death takes everything away. Whether you lose or win is immaterial. The only thing that matters, and has always been, is how you played the game. Did you enjoy it? – the game itself – then each moment is of joy. Never sacrifice the moment for the future.There is no fire like passion…Buddha says: “Beware of lust. Love is beautiful, but lust is just fire. It burns you and burns you badly. It wounds you.”A marine regiment was sent back for rest after a rough tour of duty at the front. At the base they discovered a contingent of WACS billeted and awaiting assignment to various posts.The marine colonel addressed himself to the WAC commander, warning her that his men had been in the front lines a long time and might not be too careful about their attitudes toward the WACS. “Keep them locked up,” he told the WAC commander, “if you don’t want any trouble.”“Trouble?” said she. “There will be no trouble. My girls have it up here.” She tapped her forehead significantly.“Madam,” barked the marine, “it makes no difference where they have it, my boys will find it. Keep them locked up!”Lust is madness, lust is fire, lust is poison. It keeps people blind to the truth. It keeps them foolish, it keeps them unaware, it keeps them drunk.It was sundown, and the young athlete was doing push-ups on the beach when a drunk appeared. The drunk weaved his way to within a few yards of the perspiring young man, sat down on the sand, and laughed and laughed. “What in the devil are you laughing about?” asked the annoyed young man.The drunk laughed and laughed and then sputtered, “Don’t look now, but somebody stole your girl!”A man who lives through lust, lives absolutely unconsciously. Whatsoever he is going to do is going to be wrong. Whatsoever he is going to say and see is going to be wrong. He can’t see; he is blind. He can’t hear; he is deaf. Nothing makes people more ugly and animal-like than lust. Hence, Buddha says: There is no fire like passion……no crime like hatred…Why …no crime like hatred…? – because everything else, other crimes, arise out of it; it is the very source. And there is no virtue like friendliness, love, because all other virtues arise out of it. Love is the greatest virtue and hatred the greatest sin.…no sorrow like separation…Buddha says that the only thing that is making you so sad is the separation from existence. In your unconsciousness you have believed that you are separate. You have started living a life of the ego. You are not following the ultimate law, the dhamma. You are not flowing with the river; you are resisting, fighting.Do not resist, do not fight. Flow with the river. Go with the dhamma, the law. Be in harmony with the whole. Don’t think yourself separate, you are not. No man is an island; we are all parts of a vast continent of consciousness: …no sorrow like separation…And a very significant statement:…no sickness like hunger…Now, how can Buddha support poverty? He cannot. If hunger is the worst sickness in the world, then poverty is the cause of it. All kinds of crimes, immoralities, sins, vices, arise out of poverty.I have no respect for poverty; I have absolute condemnation for it. It is the ugliest wound on the human soul. It has to disappear. We have to make the earth rich, and now it can be done. It was not possible in the past, now it is possible. If it is not happening it is only because of our old, stupid ideas.Now in India, which is one of the poorest countries, those stupid ideas are so dominant that people still believe that by spinning your own clothes you are doing something spiritual. The spinning wheel has become a symbol of saintliness. All the Indian politicians, once in a while, pose for photographs with their spinning wheels. Once a year they go to Mahatma Gandhi’s samadhi, and then they sit there for an hour or so at the spinning wheels so that photographs can be taken.Why this spinning wheel, and why so much praise for clothes made by your own hands? If you try to wear only clothes made by your own hands then the whole world is going to remain poor. Machines can do it in a far better way. Machines can become a great liberation to man, but they have to be used rightly. If you don’t use them rightly they can be dangerous; they can pollute all of nature, they can destroy the whole balance, ecology can be disturbed by them. But if you use them consciously, meditatively, then all slavery can disappear from the world, because machines can do the work that man has been doing for ages. They can provide food, clothes, shelter.Hence, I am all for science, I am not against science. And I am all for religion too, because I can see a possibility of a great synthesis arising in the future. It has to arise now. If it does not arise, then man is doomed and finished and man has no future, no hope. The world can be made rich outwardly with technology and science, and the inner world can be made rich by meditation, by prayerfulness, by love, by joy. We can create a new human being, fulfilled both within and without.…no sickness like hunger,and no joy like the joy of freedom.Buddha says the greatest joy in life is freedom: freedom from all prejudices, freedom from all scriptures, freedom from all concepts and ideologies, freedom from all desires, freedom from all possessiveness and jealousy, freedom from all hatred, anger, rage, lust. In short, freedom from everything, so that you are just a pure consciousness, unbounded, unlimited.That is the greatest joy, and it is possible; it is within everybody’s grasp. You just have to grope for it a little. The groping will be in the dark, but it is not far away. If you try, if you make an effort, you are bound to find it. It is your birthright.Health, contentment and trustare your greatest possessions,and freedom your greatest joy.The whole: that is health. Be contented: that is desirelessness. And trust: that is, drop your separation, your fight with nature. These three things are to be remembered: be whole, be one, be contented, desireless. Whatsoever is, is beautiful; enjoy it to its totality, squeeze all the juice out of it. Each moment drink of reality as totally as possible, so you need not look back, you need not ever think that you missed that moment.Never plan for the future, because when the future will come, it will come. Just go on living each moment as totally as possible, so when the future becomes present you can live that totally, too. Don’t plan for it, because it is unpredictable. All your planning is going to be irrelevant. And once you have planned for something and it doesn’t happen, then you are frustrated. And it never happens.There is a proverb: Man proposes and God disposes. Yes, that’s how it is felt, but the reality is not that God is sitting there and disposing whatsoever you propose. The fault is not of God; the fault is yours because you propose. And out of your unawareness what can you propose? Whatsoever you project out of your mind is going to be something different than the whole. It is still a fight with the whole. Hence trust, no need to fight. We are part of the whole. We arise out of the ocean of the whole as a wave and we disappear back into the ocean. Enjoy the sunlight and the wind for the moment, and then disappear. Appear beautifully, joyously, dancing, and disappear beautifully, joyously, dancing. Live with immense joy and die with immense joy. This is how a sannyasin has to be: he knows the art of living and he knows the art and ecstasy of dying.Look within.Be still.Free from fear and attachment,know the sweet joy of the way.Look within… The sutras are simple; intellectually very simple, but existentially arduous, because we have become so accustomed to looking outward. We have forgotten completely that there is something like the within too.Look within. Be still. And the way to look within is: be still. Learn to sit silently, at least for a few hours, doing nothing, just being, breathing, watching your thoughts. That too without a strain, in a very relaxed way as if you are not much concerned with what is passing by; an indifferent watchfulness, aloof, unconcerned, cool. Go on seeing the traffic of the mind.Slowly, slowly as your coolness deepens, as your indifference becomes bigger, more crystallized, the thoughts will be coming less and less. And one day you are simply sitting there with no thought at all. You look around: no thought, the mind is empty. In that moment of inner emptiness all fear disappears, all attachment disappears, and one comes to …know the sweet joy of the way.How joyful to look upon the awakened…How joyful to look upon the awakened… Even to look upon the awakened is joyful, what to say about when you will become awakened. How sweet it will be, how joyful to be a buddha yourself. Just to see a buddha is such a joy. It brings such hope; it triggers a new process in you. It makes you aware of what you are supposed to be, what nature in the first placed wanted you to be. Buddha becomes your future, your possibility, your potential; he provokes your potential, he calls you forth out of your grave.How joyful to look upon the awakenedand to keep company with the wise.If you are fortunate to keep company with the awakened, with the wise, with the shining ones, then nothing better than that can ever happen to you. Because it is only in the company of the buddhas, the awakened ones, the wise, that there is a possibility of your change, of your transformation.How long the road to the manwho travels with a fool.We are not traveling with one fool or two fools. We are traveling with a whole load of fools; a whole crowd of fools surrounds you. By the fools, Buddha means those who are not yet awakened. Even if they want to do good they are bound to do something evil; they can’t do good. A fool is a fool, he lives in unconsciousness. But you trust the fools; you trust them more than you trust the buddhas, for the simple reason that the fool speaks your language, because the fool seems just like you.A new superintendent came to the mad asylum and the old one was retiring. So they had a ceremony to say good-bye to the old and welcome the new. They really rejoiced, they danced.The old superintendent was a little bit surprised. In his entire time there he had never seen them so joyous. He asked them, “Why are you so joyous?”Those mad people said, “It is simple. You are not one of us, but this man looks just like one of us. The new superintendent looks crazier than we are, that’s why we are rejoicing. You never really belonged to us, you were an outsider, but this man is an insider. Just in the two, three days he has been here he has become a friend. We can understand him, he can understand us.”The mad people are happy with another mad person. The fools are happy with other fools. And when you are with fools you feel very good, because they are not superior to you, your ego is not hurt. But when you live with a buddha, sometimes you feel very disturbed because he is so superior to you, and if you start feeling hurt you will have to escape from him or you will have to kill him.I receive letters and telegrams from all over the world. Just the other day Laxmi brought a telegram from Milan, Italy. This is the third from the same man, who goes on sending a message: “I want to kill you!” Now Milan is so far away, why he is so worried about me? And he means business – three times in a month he has telegrammed. I hope that he comes sometime.So many letters come, saying, “We would like to kill you.” Why are people offended by a man who never leaves his room? Why am I disturbing people in Milan and Berlin and New York and Delhi and Kolkata? Why? – for the simple reason that they feel hurt.Now it depends on your interpretation. You can rejoice in the presence of a buddha; then you start growing. You can feel hurt in the presence of a buddha; then you start feeling offended, humiliated, you become angry. And it has happened many times: Jesus is crucified, Socrates is poisoned, Mansoor is butchered. The same men, the same people, have been doing the same thing again and again. One is fortunate if one can feel joyful just by looking at the way a buddha is; and more fortunate of course are those who can keep company with him.Your mind will suggest to you many ways to escape. Your mind is cunning, very devious: it will find such beautiful reasons that you could not even conceive of. Unless you are very alert, you are bound to be deceived by your own mind. To keep company with your mind is to keep company with a fool.How long the road to the man who travels with a fool. And you are traveling with fools on the outside and you are traveling with the fool – the real fool – inside: your own mind.But whoever follows those who follow the waydiscovers his family, and is filled with joy.That’s why I say to be a sannyasin is to come back home, to find your family. But whoever follows those who follow the way discovers his family… Your real family is not your father, your mother, your brothers, your sisters, your wife, your husband, your children; they are just accidental. Your real family is the family of a buddha.If you are fortunate enough to feel joyful in the company of a buddha, then dissolve into that company – you have found your family. Don’t miss the chance, because the chance is very rare. Only once in a while somebody becomes enlightened.Follow then the shining ones,the wise, the awakened, the loving,for they know how to work and forbear.Be with the buddhas – the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving – because they know how to work on you and they know how to be patient with you. They know how to transform you. They have been to the highest peak. They come back to the dark valley just to call you forth, to take you with them to the highest peak of life, freedom.Follow themas the moon follows the path of the stars.Be courageous, be adventurous. Risk all, because less than that won’t do. Risk all and trust. And if you want to be with a buddha, then the only way is to become more meditative so that you can start understanding his ways, his methods. Become more loving so that you can understand his love, because his love is totally different than you have known. His love is cool; it is not hot passion, it is a very cool breeze. To those who don’t understand, it will look cold. Those who understand will rejoice in its coolness. They will be rejuvenated by its coolness, they will be refreshed; they will be reborn.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Unimagined ecstasy, unimagined pain.It is natural. Ecstasy and great pain happen together, because it is a new birth: the joy of being born, the joy of entering into the unknown, the great adventure into godliness. But pain is also there, great pain: the pain of leaving the old, the familiar, the known; the pain of leaving the secure, the safe; the pain of dying – dying as the ego. If the ecstasy is true, it is bound to happen that there will be great pain. This is one of the criteria by which to judge whether ecstasy is true or not.It is like uprooting a tree from its known soil and transplanting it into a new climate, into a new country. The tree will have to learn to live again from ABC, and it is hard to unlearn and it is hard to learn again. There is bound to be pain. Great pain and agony precede great ecstasy. It can continue for months, for years too, it all depends on you.Now, don’t look back. That which is gone is gone, and gone forever, never to return again. Whatsoever you do, you cannot bring it back.The child cannot enter the womb again; howsoever pleasant it was, comfortable, convenient, secure, safe. The child may have great nostalgia for the womb, for those beautiful, eternal nine months. Yes, I say eternal, because the child feels them as eternity, not as nine months; he has no idea of calculating time. Those long, long nine months of such warmth, of such protection, of such unworried existence, of such tremendous rest and relaxation – the nostalgia hangs around. The child would like to go back to the womb, but it is not possible.Going back is not possible at all; it is not in the nature of things. One always has to go forward, and when you look forward everything is so unfamiliar that great fear arises. One never knows where one is. One loses one’s identity, one passes through a great crisis of identity. The known is no longer there to cling to, and the unknown seems to be ungraspable.But don’t look back; that which can’t happen, can’t happen. Look forward, and don’t interpret the new and the unknown as unsafe. Interpret it in terms of adventure, exploration. Interpret it as great freedom. Buddha talks again and again about freedom. It is freedom from the past, freedom from the mother, freedom from the parents, freedom from the society, freedom from the church, the state.What I am giving to you is absolute freedom. Yes, fear can arise, but fear arises because of your interpretation. Deep down somewhere in the unconscious you would still like to go back, to close your eyes to the new sunrise. You would like to go back even though there was nothing very valuable, nothing significant, but at least one was safe. The territory was familiar; one lived surrounded by walls. We call it a prison, but you used to call it your home; and I have taken you out of your home because it was not your real home, it was only make-believe. This freedom, this ecstasy that is arising, is your real home.Now, if you cling to the past, which is no longer possible, and you don’t allow the future to happen smoothly, the pain can continue. The agony can continue, for months, for years. And you will be split: a part of you clinging to the no-more and a part of you longing for the not-yet.Now be courageous, take the quantum leap. Just as the snake slips out of the old skin, slip out of the old. It has fulfilled its function; it has brought you to the new. Gratefully say good-bye to it and plunge into this exploration that is becoming available to you. Plunge into this insecurity, into this danger, because life is where insecurity is; life is where danger is. There is no way to live totally unless you learn to live dangerously: the more danger, the more aliveness; the less danger, the less aliveness.I am making peaks upon peaks available to you. This is an unending chain. You will reach one peak thinking that this is the end and now you can rest, but by the time you have rested a little bit you will become aware of a higher peak challenging you, calling you forth. A new pilgrimage starts. And this goes on and on.Life is an eternal pilgrimage. There is no goal to it, it is a pure journey; hence, the joy of it. If there were a goal to it, that would mean a full stop to your life. Then what are you going to do? After the full stop there is nothing, nothing more. Life knows nothing of full stops. Life is a continuum, a song that never ends, a story that goes on unfolding. Each moment something new is ready to happen if you are available.Your observation is true. You say, “Unimagined ecstasy, unimagined pain.” That’s how it has always been. I don’t talk much about the pain, because it will make you so afraid that you will not take the jump. I talk about ecstasy to persuade you, to seduce you into taking the jump. Once you have taken the jump you will know that there is great pain too, but that pain is a blessing in disguise. That pain is the pain the gold passes through when it goes through the fire: it purifies, it makes you more and more integrated, it gives you centering, it creates a soul in you. Without this pain there is no soul, and without this pain no ecstasy is possible. You would like to bypass the pain and reach the ecstasy, but that cannot be done.Aes dhammo sanantano: this is the law and the law has to be followed; you can’t go against the law. But once you have known the ecstasy, it is worth going through all the pain. You can sacrifice everything for the ecstasy, because ecstasy is another name for existence approaching closer to you. Your melting into existence is what ecstasy is all about.The word ecstasy is beautiful; it simply means “standing out.” Out of what? Standing out of your ego, your personality, your mind; getting out of the whole structure in which you have lived, and not only lived but with which you have become identified. Standing out of all this, just a pure witness, a watcher on the hills, and everything is left deep down in the valley.Drop the nostalgia. Drop this dreaming about the valley. You have lived in the valley long enough, and what have you gained? For many, many lives you have lived in the valley, in all those chains, thinking that they were ornaments. Maybe they were made of silver and gold, maybe they were studded with diamonds and emeralds; but whether a chain is made of iron or gold makes no difference. In fact, a golden chain is far more difficult to break because you become more attached to it.You have lived in the valley so long, for so many lives, now try to live on the peaks. Be totally with the peaks; forget all about the valleys, because that will be a disturbance. That disturbance is creating pain. You are looking back again and again: there is still some desire, some longing, some hope that you may get back to your old structures again.But let me make it absolutely clear to you: there is no going back. Now you have crossed that point from where a person can still go back, so it is an exercise in futility to feel pain for something which is no more. But it will keep you occupied and you will miss the joys of the peak, the fresh air of the peak, the unpolluted atmosphere of the peak, the closeness of the sun and the clouds. Now is the time to whisper with the clouds and with the sun and the stars; it is a beautiful moment.Decide in favor of ecstasy, and whatever pain happens through that decision, accept with joy, with thankfulness. The more gratefully you accept it as part of growth, the sooner it will disappear, and it will not leave even a trace on you; you will be unscratched by it. If you cling to it too long, it will leave wounds. Even if they heal, the marks will remain.In these moments, when one passes from one stage of being to another stage of being, one is very vulnerable. In these moments one is very soft, impressionable. Don’t pay much attention to pain. That’s what you have been doing for a few months. I have been silently watching. Many times I have to be just a silent watcher, because I hate to interfere. Even though I know you are in need, still I respect your freedom so much that, unless you ask, I will keep quiet; I will not say a word. I will feel great compassion for you – I am perfectly aware of your tears and the anguish that you are passing through – but I have been keeping myself aloof deliberately, because this is the only way to give the disciple a chance to grow.If I go on interfering at every stage, helping, supporting, you will start depending on me too much. Then you will never be able to walk on your own feet; you will always need crutches. I don’t want to give you crutches; I don’t want you to be dependent on me. The only gift that I can give to you is that of total freedom, of independence.Hence I have been silent, waiting for the day when you would ask the question. Today you have asked the question. Now I can speak, I can share my understanding with you, but still the decision remains always with you. You can go on crying and weeping over spilled milk, or you can gather yourself and take a plunge into the new world that I have made available to you.Don’t waste time. Time is really precious, far more precious than money, far more precious than anything in the world, because it is through time that you can contact eternity. And these moments are rare: if you miss them once, you never know when they will come back again. Maybe after lives you will come across a buddha again, but then there is every possibility you will repeat the same mistakes, because mind wants to repeat. Mind is repetition, and even after lives it repeats the same mistakes.It happened once…A young prince asked Buddha to initiate him as a bhikku, as a sannyasin. Buddha was a little reluctant. This was very rare as buddhas are never reluctant, or very rarely; they are always happy if somebody is asking for initiation.Ananda, Buddha’s chief disciple, immediately became aware that Buddha was a little hesitant. He asked, “Bhagwan, why are you hesitating? I have never seen you hesitate. You persuade people, you help people, you do everything possible to bring them to the way, and this man himself is asking. And not an ordinary man, a great prince, with great potential. If he becomes a disciple, many more will follow. Why are you hesitating?”Buddha said to Ananda, “Because this young man has been initiated in the past at least seven times by other buddhas, and he has committed the same mistake again and again. And mind is repetitive. I know I can give him initiation, but he is bound to repeat the same mistake. But if you say so, I will initiate him. Now watch what happens.”The young man was initiated, and of course since this whole dialogue with Ananda had happened in front of him, he was very conscious not to repeat anything. But he did not remember anything of his past lives, and when you don’t remember, how can you avoid repetition? If you remember, you can avoid it.He asked Buddha many times, “Please tell me what the mistake is that I have been repeating again and again. And you say I have lived with seven other buddhas? I don’t want to miss this opportunity.”Buddha said, “That won’t help very much, because you have asked the sixth buddha the same question and the fifth also, and they answered. I am not going to do it. I will tell you only when the time arrives.”And the time arrived within a few days. They had traveled to another city and were staying in a small caravanserai – ten thousand sannyasins – there was no space. It must have been as overcrowded as it is here! Now when I look at you, I completely forget whether you are sannyasins or sardines. I have to go on reminding myself, “No, these are my sannyasins.”The older sannyasins of Buddha were given a little better space, a little more space as they were old, senior. This young man was the latest addition to the Buddha’s sangha – his order; he got the place at the outermost circumference, just on the porch where people used to put their shoes. He had to sleep there. A prince, sleeping on a porch where people put their shoes? He was very hurt.In the night he could not sleep, for the same reasons that you suffer – mosquitoes! They are the ancientmost enemies of meditators. If you are not meditating they will not take any notice of you; once you start meditating, they suddenly become interested in you. The blood of a meditator has a certain sweetness.There were mosquitoes and he was unable to sleep; and the caravanserai was so overcrowded, and people were coming and going the whole night – somebody was coming, somebody was leaving. How can you sleep on a porch? In the middle of the night he said, “This is stupid, this is just nonsense. I have not become a sannyasin for all this. I had a beautiful palace, every facility. Tomorrow morning I will say good-bye to Buddha.” In fact he wanted to leave at that very moment, but that would not be right. At least he had to say to Buddha, “I am finished.”But before morning, Buddha came to him and said, “Now the time has come. I can answer your question. This has happened to you again and again: you have been initiated seven times, but you have always become so disturbed just for small things that you have gone away. You can go; this is your old habit. Because of this habit I was hesitant.”He had brought Ananda with him and he said, “Look! What do you say now? This man wants to leave tomorrow morning.”The young man had not said a single word. He fell at Buddha’s feet. He said, “How did you come to know this in the middle of the night?”Buddha said, “That is not your business. That’s what makes me a master. In the morning if you want to go, you can go. But go with this awareness: that this is how you have been losing the track again and again.”The young man never left. It was difficult – Buddha gave him many, many uncomfortable situations – but he was a man of integrity; he belonged to a very famous family, ancient, noble. He belonged to the warrior race. It was against his whole upbringing to leave Buddha. And now that Buddha had told him what the cause had been in the past, and as meditation deepened, he started remembering his past associations with other buddhas. Slowly, slowly he became aware that yes, for small things he had left buddhas; for such small things he had lost the way many times.Yes, the pain is there, and it is not only for you; others will also pass through the pain. Many have passed through it, many will have to pass through it. Pass through it joyously. Keep your eye on the ecstasy. Don’t focus yourself on the pain; that is the wrong approach. Focus yourself on the ecstasy, and think that the pain is the price we pay for the ecstasy. Soon the pain will disappear, and the energy released from the pain will bring you to even higher realms of ecstasy; will bring you to greater altitudes of ecstasy. Be watchful.The second question:Osho,Are you a black magician or a white magician?I am an orange one.The third question:Osho,How to become more aware?By becoming more aware, one becomes more aware. There is no other method to it. It is a simple process. Whatsoever you are doing, do it with such consciousness as if it is a question of life and death; as if a sword is hanging over you.There is an ancient story in India…A great sage sent his chief disciple to the court of King Janak to learn something which was missing in the young man.The young man said, “If you can’t teach me, how can this man, this Janak, teach it to me? You are a great sage, he is only a king. What does he know about meditation and awareness?”The great sage said, “Simply follow my instructions. Go to him, bow down to him. Don’t be egoistic, thinking that you are a sannyasin and he is only an ordinary householder; he lives in the world, he is worldly and you are spiritual. Forget all about it. I’m sending you to him to learn something; so for this moment, he is your master. And I know, I have tried here, but you cannot understand because you need a different context to understand it. And the court of Janak and his palace will give you the right context. Simply go, bow down to him. For these few days, he will represent me.”Very reluctantly, the young man went. He was a brahmin of high caste, and what was this Janak? He was rich, he had a great kingdom, but what could he teach a brahmin? Brahmins always think that they can teach people. And Janak was not a brahmin, he was a kshatriya, the warrior race in India. They are thought to be second to brahmins; the brahmins are the first, the foremost, the highest caste. To bow down to this man? This has never been done. A brahmin bowing down to a kshatriya is against the Indian mind.But the master had said it, so it had to be done. Reluctantly he went, and reluctantly he bowed down. And when he bowed down, he was really feeling very angry with his master, because the situation in which he had to bow down to Janak was so ugly in his eyes.A beautiful woman was dancing in the court and people were drinking wine. And Janak was sitting in this group. The young man had such condemnation, but still he bowed down. Janak laughed and said, “You need not bow down to me when you are carrying such condemnation in you. And don’t be so prejudiced before you have experienced me. Your master knows me well, that’s why he has sent you here. He has sent you to learn something, but this is not the way to learn.”The young man said, “I don’t care. He has sent me, I have come. But by the morning I will go back, because I can’t see that I can learn anything here. In fact, if I learn anything from you, my whole life will be wasted. I have not come to learn drinking wine and seeing a beautiful woman dance and all this indulgence.”Janak still smiled and he said, “You can go in the morning. But since you have come and you are so tired, at least rest for the night, and in the morning you can go. And who knows? – the night may become the context of the learning for which your master has sent you to me.”Now, this was very mysterious. How could the night teach him anything? But okay, he had to be here for the night, so don’t make much fuss about it. He remained. The king arranged for him to have the most beautiful room in the palace, the most luxurious. He went with the young man, took every care about his food, his sleep and when he had gone to bed, Janak left.But the young man could not sleep the whole night, because as he looked up, he could see a naked sword hanging with a thin thread just above his head. Now, it was so dangerous that at any moment the sword could fall and kill the young man. So he remained awake the whole night, watchful, so he could avoid the catastrophe if it was going to happen.In the morning, the king asked, “Was the bed comfortable, the room comfortable?”The young man said, “Comfortable? Everything was comfortable, but what about the sword? And why did you play such a trick? It was so cruel! I was tired, I had come on foot from the faraway ashram of my master in the forest, and you played such a cruel joke. What kind of thing is this, to hang a naked sword with so thin a thread that I was afraid that a small breeze comes and I am gone, and I am finished. And I have not come here to commit suicide.”The king said, “I want to ask only one thing: you were so tired, you could have fallen asleep very easily, but you could not fall asleep. What happened? The danger was great, it was a question of life and death; hence you were aware, alert. This is my teaching too. You can go, or if you want, you can stay a few more days to watch me.“Although I was sitting there in the court, where a beautiful woman was dancing, I was alert to the naked sword above my head. It is invisible; its name is death. I was not looking at the young woman. Just as you could not enjoy the luxury of the room, I was not drinking wine. I was just aware of death which could come any moment. I am constantly aware of death. Hence, I live in the palace and yet I am a hermit. Your master knows me, understands me. He understands my understanding too. That’s why he has sent you here. If you live here for a few days, you can watch on your own.”You asked me how to become more aware. Become more aware of the precariousness of life. Death can happen any moment. The next moment, it may knock on your door. You can remain unaware if you think you are going to live forever. How can you live unaware if death is always close by? – impossible. If life is momentary, a soap bubble, just a pin prick and it is gone forever, how can you remain unaware?Bring awareness to each act. Walking on the road, walk fully alert; eating, eat with awareness. Whatsoever you are doing, don’t let the past and the future interfere. Be in the present. That’s what awareness is all about. Taking a shower, just take a shower; don’t let the mind go far away, into the past, into the future. Don’t allow the mind these faraway excursions, these journeys. Taking a shower, just take a shower.Bokuju, a great Zen master, was asked, “What is your fundamental teaching? What is your fundamental practice? How did you become enlightened?”He said, “My teaching is simple: when hungry, eat; when sleepy, sleep.”The man was puzzled. He said, “I have never heard of such a practice. I am asking about the fundamental practice and you are saying, ‘When hungry, eat and when sleepy, sleep.’ What kind of teaching is this?”Bokuju said, “That I don’t know, but that’s how I became enlightened, and that’s how many of my disciples are becoming enlightened. You can go and ask them.”But the man said, “That’s what we all do. Hungry, we eat. Sleepy, we sleep.”Bokuju said, “No, there is a difference – and a great difference. When I am eating, I am simply eating and doing nothing else. When you are eating, you are doing a thousand and one things in your head; you are doing everything else except eating. Eating is done mechanically. When you are sleeping, are you really asleep? How can you be asleep when you are dreaming? Dreaming so many dreams; the whole night waves upon waves of dreams go on coming. Only for a few minutes, here and there, dreaming stops and you fall into deep sleep; otherwise, dreaming continues. Dreaming is a sleep distraction: you are distracted by a thousand and one things. But you are not asleep. You are not doing only one thing.”To be aware, one needs to do one thing at a time. And do it with full awareness, watchfulness.A progressive kindergarten teacher wanted her charges to learn about life through firsthand experiences. So after much red tape, she was able to persuade her superiors to let her take the class of all boys to a horse racing track to learn about the pitfalls of gambling.After they had been there a while, several of the children asked to go to the boys’ room. She escorted them there under the guidance of a track employee who guarded the door for them. She saw to it that the boys had no problems and in some cases had to help them unbutton their trousers. As she moved helpfully down the line, she suddenly saw something that made her do a double take.“Are you only five years old?” she gasped.The object of her contentions replied, “What do you mean, lady? I am riding Dandy Charger in the third race.”People go on doing things almost in sleep. Just become a little more alert. Do whatsoever you are doing, but bring the quality of consciousness to your actions – there is no other method. You can bring that quality to small things and it is helpful. Sitting, just watch your breathing. The breath goes in, watch; the breath goes out, watch. Just go on watching your breathing. And it is of great help because if you watch your breathing, thinking stops.This is something to be understood: either you can think or you can watch your breathing. You can’t do both together. Breathing and thinking are such processes that in awareness only one can exist in you. In unawareness, both can continue. You can go on breathing and you can go on thinking. But if you become aware, either you can think or you can watch your breath; and when you breathe with awareness, thinking disappears. Your whole consciousness becomes focused on breathing. And breathing is such a simple process: you need not do it, it is already happening. You can just bring your consciousness to it.Buddha became enlightened through this simple method. He calls it vipassana, insight. Breathing brings great insight and when you are aware of breathing, the whole thought process simply comes to a stop, and great stillness arises. After watching your breathing it will be easy to directly watch your thinking, because breathing is a little gross.Thinking is more subtle. Thoughts have no weight, they are weightless; they can’t be measured, they are immeasurable. That’s why the materialists cannot accept them. Matter means measure: that which can be measured is matter. So thought is not matter because it cannot be measured. It is, and yet it cannot be measured; hence it is an epiphenomenon. The materialist says that it is only a by-product, a side effect, a shadow phenomenon – just as when you walk in the sun, a shadow follows you. But the shadow is nothing. You walk in life and thinking arises, but it is only a shadow. If you watch this shadow, this epiphenomenon, these thoughts and the processes of thought, it is going to be a more subtle phenomenon because it is not as gross as breathing.But first learn the process of awareness through breathing and then move to thinking. And you will be surprised that the more you watch your thinking, either you can watch or you can think. Both cannot be done simultaneously; if you watch, thinking disappears.If thinking appears, watching disappears. When you have become alert enough to watch your thoughts and let them disappear through watching, then move to feeling which is even more subtle. These are the three steps of vipassana: first breathing, second thinking, third feeling. And when all three have disappeared, what is left is your being.To know it is to know all. To conquer it is to conquer all.The fourth question:Osho,If Buddha did not really need to leave his wife and children in order to attain enlightenment, then can enlightenment happen anywhere? Why do I feel that I need to be in your buddhafield?Buddha also realized it only after he became a buddha – that it could have happened anywhere. He had not realized it when he was not a buddha. Then he had to go, leave the palace, his children, his wife, his parents and move to faraway caves in the mountains, into faraway jungles – to live alone with nature so that the society and all its conditionings could be left behind.Yes, when he became a buddha, then he knew that it could have happened anywhere. But when you have become a buddha, it is a totally different perspective. It is very easy to say things like that when you have attained, and that is one of the greatest problems: what the buddhas say, they are saying after they have attained, to people who have not yet attained.Communion becomes difficult, very difficult. The buddhas say, “You are already buddhas,” and when you hear that “We are already buddhas,” you say, “Then why be worried about it? Then why meditate? And why be a sannyasin?” Then you have missed the whole point. And Buddha is not saying anything wrong – he is absolutely correct – and yet before you can realize the truth of his statement you will have to experience it on your own.One day you will have become a buddha. Then you will also be able to say that there was no need to leave anything. Then you will say, “There was no need to be in the buddhafield of a master.” But right now it is a need, an absolute need. A buddhafield facilitates many processes which can happen without the buddhafield, but it would take long, long arduous effort. It is the same as when the wind is blowing and going toward the other shore: you need not row your boat; you can simply leave the boat and the winds will take it to the other shore. In a buddhafield the winds are blowing toward the other shore; you can simply surrender to the winds and with no effort you will reach the other shore. You can reach the other shore alone too, but then you will have to row the boat. Then you will have to take the risk of being alone in the uncharted sea.In a buddhafield you are not alone, there are many who are moving. A few are ahead of you, a few are behind you; and you know that people are moving, that people are gaining new insights, that people are evolving, that people are reaching closer to the other shore. And those who are ahead of you can always assure you, “Don’t be worried. Go on. Come on! The other shore is visible from our state; soon it will be visible to you too.” And you can say many things to those who are behind you. Those are the people who need great assurance. Moving into the unknown is not an easy process; a buddhafield becomes a chain.Yes, fundamentally it is true that you can be a buddha anywhere, but being in a buddhafield things will be far easier. Being with a master in deep love and trust things start happening, just as the spring comes and flowers start blossoming. Out of season you can also manage to bring flowers to the plants, but then it takes great effort, unnecessary effort. When the spring is there, things happen of their own accord. Once it has happened, then it looks easy for everybody.When Copernicus discovered some laws, people said, “We could have found them; they are so simple.” But nobody had found them before him.When Columbus reached America, discovered America and came back, people started saying, “This is not such a great thing. Don’t make such a fuss about it. The earth is round. Anybody could have reached there!”The queen of Spain invited Columbus for a dinner; the whole court was invited. And everybody was jealous of Columbus, so they were saying, “This is not something big that the earth is round.”Columbus said, “But just three years ago when I was saying the earth is round, nobody was ready to listen to me. In fact, I was surprised when the queen agreed to help me.”It has happened many times: when the man has not been able to understand something of the unknown, the woman has been able to understand. Man goes with a slow, logical process toward a conclusion. Woman is intuitive: she does not go by a slow process, she simply jumps to the conclusion. That’s why it is so difficult to talk with a woman, to argue with a woman. Man always finds himself at a loss, because he goes with very skillful logic, prepares the whole ground and the process step by step. He “logics” to the conclusion, and the woman suddenly jumps with no premise, with no process she simply arrives at the conclusion. They live in totally different worlds.The queen of Spain agreed. She said, “Okay, go ahead, and I will bear the expenses.”Everybody had laughed at the foolish queen, and people had said, “A woman is after all a woman – mad, crazy! What does she understand about geography, astronomy? This man has befooled the queen.”Now everybody was saying that it was so easy. Columbus did one thing: he took an egg from the plate and told the people of the court, “Can anyone make it stand upright on the table?”Everybody tried, but it would fall down; it would not stand upright. They said, “This is impossible. This can’t be done. How can you make the egg stand? It is so round, it is bound to fall down.”When everybody had tried and agreed that this was impossible, Columbus took the egg in his hand, hit it hard on the table so the bottom became flat, and the egg was standing. They all said, “This is cheating! Why didn’t you say so before? We could have done it!”Columbus said, “It is always easy when a thing has been done. I have not prevented you, I have not said you can’t do it, but none of you ever imagined doing it. Now it is simple, now everybody can do it, now it is nothing much.”When you become a buddha you will be surprised how simple the whole phenomenon is. You will be puzzled why it had not happened before, why it took so long, so many lives? In India they say millions of lives, and they are right. “Why did it take millions of lives? And the process was so simple!” One simply laughs at human stupidity and ridiculousness.And yes, buddhas are bound to say things which can be dangerous to those who are not yet awakened. For example, you are listening to this, that Buddha could have become enlightened anywhere, and you may find a rationalization to go away from here. That will be a trick of your mind. And I am not saying that you cannot become a buddha; you can become a buddha anywhere, even in California, but it is going to be more and more difficult. If it cannot happen here it will be very, very difficult for it to happen anywhere else, although I don’t say that it is absolutely impossible. It is not absolutely impossible. It is possible – but whatsoever is possible is not necessarily going to happen. Even the possible can be missed if you don’t have the right context.In fact the very idea of buddhahood, of becoming a buddha, has arisen in you because you are here. In the West people worship Christ, but nobody thinks that he is going to become a christ. That is blasphemy. There is only one Christ, the only begotten Son of God. It is enough to be a Christian; the very idea of becoming a christ looks crazy.It is an Eastern contribution to human consciousness that you can become a buddha, that you can become a christ, that you can become a krishna, that you can reach the highest peak that anybody has ever reached, that you carry the transcendental within your being like a seed. But the seed also needs a right soil, a gardener. The master is a gardener, and his field of energy is the right soil.Beware of the mind’s tricks. It can always find consolations, rationalizations. And those who are following the path have to be aware of rationalizations and consolations.A farmer drove to town with some produce to sell. Afterward he decided to have a good time for himself by going to see a burlesque show. The show inspired him so much that afterward he decided to buy himself a complete new set of clothes, including a suit, hat and shoes, to surprise his wife. He put them under the driver’s seat and set off for home.When he got to a river, he got out and threw all of his old clothes in. Returning to his car he looked under the seat – the new clothes were gone. “Well, what the heck,” he said to himself as he drove off, “I will surprise her anyway!”The mind can always console you. “If it does not happen there,” the mind can say, “who knows? – it may not have happened anywhere else either. If it happens here,” the mind can say, “it could have happened anywhere else.”But I cannot deny the ultimate truth, although the ultimate truth is not yet your territory. The ultimate truth is that you are already buddhas. It is not a question of it happening, so where it happens does not matter. It can happen in the home; it can happen in the forest; it can happen in the marketplace; it can happen in a monastery. It can happen with a master; it can happen without a master. It can happen to the sinner; it can happen even to the saint. Yes, I know a few saints to whom it has happened – believe me. So the ultimate possibility is there, but to make the ultimately possible immediately actual is a totally different process. How to make it immediately actual?A master is of tremendous help, especially if the master also has a buddhafield. A master may be moving alone, not creating a buddhafield. To create a buddhafield, the master has to create thousands of disciples. He has to create a multidimensional energy in which all kinds of people contribute, pour their energies. He has to make an ocean of energy, so tremendously powerful that whosoever enters the ocean is bound to be transformed, sometimes even in spite of himself; sometimes not even knowing what is happening.It is easier for it to happen with a master. It is even easier for it to happen with a master who has a buddhafield. And my effort is not only to create the buddhafield here but to create small oases all over the world. I would not like to confine this tremendous possibility to this small commune only. This commune will be the source, but it will have branches all over the world. It will be the root, but it is going to become a big tree. It is going to reach every country; it is going to reach every potential person. We will create small oases; we have started creating small communes, centers, all over the world.Almost two hundred small families are functioning around the world, but this is only the beginning. Thousands of communes are bound to happen once this commune has become really and totally established. It is going to create such an impetus, it is going to create such a longing all over the world, that we will have many, many communes in the world. And wherever my sannyasins are together, I am there. Wherever they will sit in meditation, my presence will be felt.So first we have to create the root, and then the branches. The whole world cannot come here, but we can send our messengers, our apostles; we can send our branches far and wide. We can cover the whole earth. We are going to cover the whole earth.This is of such immense importance today that if it doesn’t happen, humanity has no future. The old man is already dead: you are carrying a corpse. The new man is absolutely needed – only then can this earth go on living; only then can this planet remain alive.Man has the capacity to renew himself, to die to the past and to be reborn. Man has the capacity for resurrection. But the earth is almost like a desert today and small oases are needed everywhere, so those who are thirsty cannot say, “What can we do? The water is not available. How can we quench our thirst?” We have to make these oases available to every possible seeker all over the world.Yes, even in countries like China, Russia, and Communist countries, my effort is to create small oases there too. They have started. They are underground there; they have to be underground there. You will be surprised to know that in one Russian town we have twenty-five sannyasins, of course not in orange. They have made their own malas, and when they meet in some underground basement they wear orange clothes, listen to the tapes, meditate, study books. They have translated a few books into Russian; now those translations are going around.Just a few days ago I received a letter from the woman who has organized that underground group saying, “We are ready to become sannyasins. Just a hint from you and we will assert ourselves, whatsoever the cost.” And of course, in Russia it can be dangerous. It can only mean imprisonment or a lifelong sentence in Siberia. So I have given her a message saying, “There is no need right now. And if you want to make orange clothes, don’t make them orange; make them red, let them look Communist! I can function through red as much as through orange; don’t be worried. I don’t like unnecessary suffering. I don’t want to create unnecessary martyrs, for no reason at all. And continue to work; the work is more important.”This is going to spread. Soon you will see communes sprouting everywhere, and then it will be possible for me to function on a wider scale. But the root commune has to be here, and the root commune needs at least ten thousand sannyasins. That is the minimum to create enough energy to pulsate the whole earth.You can become a buddha anywhere, but to become a buddha here will be easier, will be possible in this life. To become a buddha somewhere else, nothing can be said – one life, two lives, three lives or many lives. You will be working alone; you will not have any help.There are a few people who are loners; they would like to go alone. If you feel like that, I will be absolutely happy. You can go on your own. But you are not that type. That’s why you say, “Why do I feel that I need to be in your buddhafield?” – because you do need to be here, because you are not a loner. You love the same type of energy pulsating around you. Your path is love and not meditation. And love is possible only where you can find lovers of high quality. You can find lovers everywhere in the world, but that love will be only lust.Here you will find lovers whose love is not lust, whose love is a sharing of joy, whose love is a help to you, a hand stretched out to you so that you can be pulled out of your mud.The fifth question:Osho,I am in love with a woman, but I want to be absolutely sure that she has never loved anyone before. Why am I so worried about it?Just the old male chauvinist attitude. You are not worried about yourself, whether you have loved any woman before or not. About that you are not worried, that’s okay; boys are boys and everything is forgiven them. Why are you worried about the woman you love? In fact, the very desire that the woman should not have loved anybody before is unintelligent, because a woman who has not loved anybody before will be inexperienced. And life even with an experienced woman is hell. So what to say about an inexperienced woman?If you want a driver for your car, you don’t look for one who has never driven a car. If you want a typist, you don’t advertise for somebody who has never been a typist. If you want a cook you ask for somebody who is experienced. Then why do you have a different logic about love? It is stupid.The woman who has loved a few people is far more understanding. She will understand you better, she will create less trouble for you, she will help you in every possible way to come out of your own ego, unintelligence, mediocrity.In fact, there are a few primitive societies where an experienced woman is much in demand. In India there are a few primitive tribes in Bastar where a woman will not get a husband if she has not been known to be a great lover of many, many people.A woman who has not been loved by anybody simply shows that either she is ugly or something is basically wrong with her. She must be unattractive, because nobody ever felt attracted toward her. A woman who has been loved by many people simply shows that she has some beauty, some magnetic force, some grace.But the male chauvinist mind has for centuries desired it for a single reason, which has now become irrelevant. The reason was: “My property should belong to my son, not to somebody else’s son.” That was the real fear. People were not interested in the woman, they were more interested in their inheritors. Hence, they were very worried: if the woman has been in some love affair before, who knows, she may be carrying somebody else’s child.Two young men were pacing up and down in the corridor of a maternity home. The one said to the other, “You look so worried, what is the matter?”He said, “Worried? I am in a mess! This is my vacation and this is the time my wife has chosen to give birth to a child. My whole vacation is destroyed.”The other said, “Hoo! That’s nothing, this is my honeymoon! And my wife is giving birth to a child. I should be worried, not you!”A young man was asking the doctor, “Does it happen often? My wife is giving birth to a child and we have been married only seven months.”The doctor must have been a wise old man. That type of doctor has disappeared. Now there are specialists, the ENT specialist and the dental surgeon; and somebody knows about one part and somebody else knows about another part and nobody knows about the whole man. The old physician was a wise man.The old man said, “Yes, the first time it often happens, but never again.”People have always been very anxious, the fear is that the wife may be carrying somebody else’s son. What difference does it make? In fact, when you make love to a woman, millions of living cells are released; millions, and you will not be able to recognize which is yours and which is not yours. They are so tiny, you cannot even see them with the naked eye. You will need some mechanical device, a microscope or something to see them.Those millions of living cells start the first race of life; they struggle, they start running toward the woman’s egg, which is deep down inside the womb. And one of these fellows who is going to win the race, who is going to reach first, will enter the egg. And once one fellow has entered the egg, then the egg closes. Sometimes it happens that twins are born and sometimes three, four, five, six, seven, eight children also, but it happens very rarely.You don’t know which, but out of these millions of people only one is going to be your child. All other cells will die within two hours, and you will never be aware who those others were. A woman may give birth to twelve children in her whole life or eighteen at the most, but a man has the potential of creating as many children as there are people on the earth today. A single male has so many living cells that he can populate the whole earth. If all his cells can find an egg, attain to life and are born, then one person, just one person, is enough to fill the whole earth.You will never know how many of your children have died. Millions and millions of your children have died. And what is the difference whether it comes from some other body or your own body? It comes from existence.But this foolishness has persisted. You should drop it.“Darling,” he breathed passionately, “am I the first man to make love to you?”“Of course you are,” she snapped, “I don’t know why you men always ask the same silly question.”You are not alone, feel good! The whole earth is full of such silly people.He held her close against him, a warm glow of satisfaction covering them both.“Am I the first man you ever made love to?” he asked.She studied him reflectively. “You might be, your face looks very familiar.”The last question:Osho,I have heard it said many times that love is God, existence is God, God is existence, God created the world and that God is a supernatural power who administers the world.I have tried to feel all this, but could not. All these statements are more and more confusing.Kindly tell me what is God. And when you use the word God in your talks, what does it mean?Don’t try to imitate what others say. They may be saying a profound truth, but by imitating them you will never reach that truth; because they never reached to that truth by imitation. They reached that truth by being original.Jesus says: “God is love.” I say that love is God. My statement is far more penetrating than what Jesus says. Jesus says: “God is love.” That means God may have many other qualities, one of the qualities is love. I say: “Love is God.” There is no other quality; love is the only quality that is divine.And you listen to these things and you try to understand, but what are you going to do? Do you know what love is? You become worried about God, but first you will have to know what love is, and the love that you know is nothing but lust. We are not talking about lust, neither Jesus nor I, we are talking about love. And love is something so mysterious that nobody has ever been able to define it precisely, only fingers pointing to the moon.Now what can you do? Hearing that love is God you jump into so-called love, whatsoever you think love is. And that is just unconscious sexuality, lust parading as love. And you will not find God; on the contrary, you may encounter the Devil, and then you are puzzled.Imitation has to be avoided. Understanding should be the only law, never imitation. So the first thing, stop imitating. Listen to me and to others, to Krishna, to Jesus, to Buddha, to Zarathustra, just to understand, but don’t start imitating. Don’t be in a hurry, let the understanding soak into you; in a hurry you are going to do something wrong.The traveling salesman, when marooned in the country by bad weather, was permitted to share a bedroom with the farmer’s son. In due time the two of them retired. The boy dropped on his knees beside the bed, his head in his hands in prayerful attitude.The salesman thought of the quotation, “And the little child shall lead them.” He felt bad, having failed to say his prayers for many months; he dropped out on the other side of the bed and knelt.The boy raised his head and said, “What are you doing, mister?”“Same thing as you are, son,” he replied.“Well, mama is going to give you hell then, because the pot is on this side.”You missed it. I will wait, so you can get it; get it a little more!Imitation is not going to help, imitation will create trouble for you. Understand. Why be in such a hurry to practice? Let understanding soak so deep that it transforms your being. That is the only way of arriving at truth. Imitating is never the way.And that’s what you have been doing. You say, “I have tried to feel all this, but could not.” How can you feel all this? – it is not a question of feeling, it is not a question of thinking; it is a question of being. And being is arrived at through understanding. Just listen silently, attentively, as open as you can be. Be open to me. Let there be no hindrance, no obstruction.Now this constant idea of practicing, of immediately doing something, is becoming a hindrance between me and you. There is no hurry. I say: understanding is liberation. You need not do anything at all. If you allow me to penetrate to your very core, if you let me touch your heart, I will give you my dance, I will give you my song, I will give you my music.You need not do anything, being with a master is enough. Doing is needed if you go into scriptures; then you have to do something, because understanding can never arise out of scriptures. But understanding can arise by being with a master. Just a little more open heart is needed.And you ask me what I mean by the word God. I don’t mean a person. I simply mean a quality, a presence. By God I mean godliness; the whole existence is full of godliness. And when you will come to know, you will not see a God standing before you, you will see the trees as divine, the rocks as divine, the people as divine, the animals as divine. Godliness is spread all over the place, from the pebble to the star, from the blade of grass to the sun, it is all divine.Whenever I use the word God it is never meant to be a person; it simply means a presence, a silent absolute presence of intelligence in existence. But first you have to become aware of this intelligence in you, only then can you know this intelligence in others.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Do not let pleasure distract youfrom meditation, from the way.Free yourself from pleasure and pain.For in craving pleasure or in nursing painthere is only sorrow.Like nothing lest you lose it,lest it bring you grief and fear.Go beyond likes and dislikes.From passion and desire,sensuousness and lust,arise grief and fear.Free yourself from attachment.He is pure, and sees.He speaks the truth, and lives it.He does his own work,so he is admired and loved.With a determined mind and undesiring hearthe longs for freedom.He is called uddhamsoto –“He who goes upstream.”When a traveler at last comes homefrom a far journey,with what gladnesshis family and his friends receive him!Even so shall your good deedswelcome you like friendsand with what rejoicingwhen you pass from this life to the next!An inmate at the insane asylum was being examined for possible release. The first question the examining doctor asked him was, “What are you going to do when you leave this institution?”“I am gonna get me a slingshot,” said the patient, “and I am gonna come back here and break every goddamn window in the place!”After six more months of treatment, the patient was again brought before the examining doctor for possible dismissal, and the same question was put to him.“Well, I am going to get a job,” the patient replied.“Fine,” said the doctor. “Then what?”“I am going to rent an apartment.”“Very good.”“Then I am going to meet a beautiful girl.”“Excellent.”“I am going to take the beautiful girl up to my apartment and I am going to pull up her skirt.”“Normal, perfectly normal.”“Then I am gonna steal her garter, make a slingshot out of it and come back here and break every goddamn window in the place!”Man moves almost in the same circles. Man as he is, is not sane, cannot be called sane. But because insanity is so widespread, is so normal we don’t become aware of it. Once you become awakened you are surprised how people are living, what they are doing to themselves and to others. Their whole life is nothing but sheer madness. Somebody is mad after money, somebody is mad after power, somebody is mad after fame, and all these things are futile.Death comes, and the whole edifice that you have built with such labor collapses. Death comes and takes you away, and all that you have created has been in vain.The sane person is one who creates something which even death cannot destroy. Let this be the definition of the sane: one who knows something of immortality, deathlessness, eternity. He is sane, is a buddha. To be a buddha simply means to be sane. One who is not aware of immortality and lives in time and thinks only in terms of this world is insane. He is not aware of himself, how can he be sane?We have not yet been able to create a sane society for the simple reason that we have not been able to create many buddhas. The more buddhas there are in the world, the greater is the possibility of humanity rising to higher altitudes of being, understanding, love, compassion. Otherwise you go on moving from one nightmare to another.A big businessman was praying in the synagogue, pleading to God to help him get a fifty-thousand-dollar deal. Just then a very poor man entered and began praying to God for two dollars.Angrily the big businessman pulled out two dollar bills, pushed them over to the poor fellow and whispered to him, “Here, take them and get out of here, you fool. Just stop distracting him from my business!”The poor and the rich, the ignorant and the knowledgeable, the famous and the anonymous, are all in the same boat. Whether you ask God for two dollars or fifty thousand dollars does not make any difference. To go to God desiring is not to go to him at all, because it is only non-desiring that becomes a bridge. To desire is to create a wall between you and the whole.The moment you desire something you are saying: “I am wiser than the whole.” You are saying: “You don’t know what has to be done and I have come to advise you.” You are telling the whole: “The way things are is not right: they should be according to me.”Prayerfulness is just the opposite of desire. Prayerfulness means: “The way things are is absolutely perfect, they are as they should be; hence, I have nothing except a deep gratitude.” Real prayerfulness is bowing to existence in tremendous thankfulness because whatsoever is, the way it is, is the most perfect way it can ever be. A prayerful heart knows that the universe is perfect each moment; it is moving from perfection to more perfection.The world is not moving from imperfection to perfection, remember: it is moving from perfection to more perfection. That’s the understanding of the prayerful heart. But we are full of desires.If you go to the synagogue and the church and the temple you will find the same people, with the same mind, with no differences at all. They function with the mind in the marketplace; they go to the temple with the same mind. And how can you go to the temple with a mind that functions perfectly well in the marketplace? The marketplace is an insane asylum! You will have to learn a different language. But people go on repeating the same kind of stupidity. You cannot even shake them, shock them, out of their sleep, because they become very angry.Mulla Nasruddin was complaining of seeing striped camels whenever he tried to sleep.“Have you ever seen a psychiatrist?” I asked him.“No, never,” he said, “just striped camels.”People go on living in their own small worlds, their own ideas, prejudices. They go on functioning in every situation in the same way. In the temple they speak the same language that they speak in the marketplace. In love also, they are always businesslike.I asked Mulla Nasruddin, “Nasruddin, I hear you just had an accident?”He said, “Yes, it was pretty bad, but I collected twenty thousand rupees, and my wife who was in the accident with me, got five thousand rupees.”I asked him, “Did she get hurt?”Nasruddin laughed and said, “No, but I had the presence of mind to kick her in the face during the confusion!”Now, even in an accident the mind goes on doing its thing. All the buddhas have been trying to pull you out of your mind. The way is simple. In these sutras Buddha is talking about the way to get out of this stupid mind.Do not let pleasure distract youfrom meditation, from the way.Pleasure is a momentary titillation of the body. It is not joy, it is not bliss. Pleasure is getting intoxicated for the moment with the physical, getting identified with the physical.When you become identified with the body and when you start listening to the body and its instincts, a certain kind of titillation, a momentary state of intoxication, arises in you. The intoxication is created within your own body chemistry.One can take drugs from the outside, get intoxicated and forget all the worries, anxieties, burdens, and responsibilities of the world. One can completely forget the world; it is too much sometimes, it is too heavy. Just slipping out through alcohol, mescaline, marijuana, LSD, gives you a sense of pleasure; it is not real pleasure, it is only absence of pain.Let this be understood clearly: what you call pleasure is only a state of intoxication where you become so unconscious that you can’t be aware of the pain. This can happen by taking a drug from the outside; it can also happen by releasing some drugs in your inner body chemistry. That’s what happens when you are sexually intoxicated: your body secretes its own drugs. It is not much different.Your body is also outside of you. You are not your body, you are consciousness inside your body; your body is only a resting place, a house. One day you enter it and one day you will have to leave it: a caravanserai, an overnight stay. You are not your body, your pilgrimage is eternal. But being in the body one can become identified, one can start thinking, “I am the body.” And this is happening more today than ever before.For centuries man has been aware that he is not the body, but within the last two, three centuries, a scientific approach about everything has destroyed that long, long-cherished understanding. Science is a good method to know about matter, but it is absolutely impotent as far as the world of consciousness is concerned. Because science can only know matter it is bound to deny consciousness; it is beyond its grasp.If you are trying to see light through your ears you will not be able to see it, and the ears will say, “There is no light.” If you try to listen to music through your eyes you will not be able to hear it, because your very method excludes it. Eyes can’t hear music, ears can’t see light, your hands cannot smell, your nose cannot taste. Every sense has its own limitation. It is perfectly valid within its own circumference; beyond it, it is utterly irrelevant.This is the case with science and this is the case with religion. In the past, religion denied – absolutely denied – the existence of the body, matter and the world. The mystics used to call the world illusory, maya, a dream. That is one extreme; I am not in support of it. That is going beyond the religious approach, saying something which does not come into its vision. Now the same thing is being done by science, the same extreme: that consciousness is an illusion and the body is the only truth.As I see it, both attitudes are half-truths, and half-truths are far worse than absolute lies because half-truthfulness can deceive many, many people. For thousands of years man was deceived by one half-truth: that consciousness, God, brahman, is the only reality, and everything else is just dream stuff. Now the pendulum has turned entirely to the other extreme. Science says: consciousness is illusion, body is the only reality. Both are fallacies.The whole truth is: the body has its own reality, and consciousness has its own reality. And the miracle is, the mystery is, that these two separate realities are together, that these two separate realities are functioning in deep synchronicity. This is the mystery: matter dancing in tune with consciousness, consciousness dancing in tune with matter. This mystery I call godliness, this mystery I call truth, the whole truth.But if one has to choose between two fallacies – the religious fallacy and the scientific fallacy – if there is no other way and you have to choose one out of these two, then I will say: choose the religious fallacy, because at least it will take you to the other shore, to eternity.But for three centuries we have decided to choose the scientific fallacy, which makes you more and more confined to the body. And when you are confined to the body, then “Eat, drink and be merry,” becomes the very goal. Just think of yourself as a being whose whole life is nothing but “Eat, drink and be merry.” It will be meaningless; it will be without any significance, it will be utterly mediocre. It will not have any ecstasy. Yes, there will be pleasures when you get lost in the body chemistry and there will be pains when you have to come out of that forgetfulness. So you will go on moving between pain and pleasure.Pleasure is getting lost, getting unconscious in the body; and pain is again becoming aware of the non-body reality, again becoming aware of the world that surrounds you. So pleasure means forgetfulness and pain means remembrance. Have you observed that you remember only when there is pain? If you have a headache you become aware of the head, otherwise who thinks of the head? Only a headache makes you remember the head. If your shoe pinches, then you become aware of the feet; if the shoe is not pinching, you remain unaware of the feet. When your stomach is disturbed, you become aware of the stomach. When everything is going well, smoothly, you don’t become aware.Pain brings awareness; awareness makes you aware of pain. Losing awareness gives you a false idea that there is no pain anymore. And many people have found many ways to become unconscious; those are all ways of getting drugged. You have found many anesthesias: chemical, physical, religious – yes, religious too.If a person goes on chanting a certain mantra – what you have come to know as Transcendental Meditation – it is a drug, psychologically produced. If you repeat a certain word again and again and again, it goes on hitting your psychic sources and the continuous repetition creates a state of unconsciousness. It becomes like a lullaby; you start falling into deep sleep. It is soothing, it is restful, but it is not meditation. It is just the opposite of meditation; it is a psychological drug.Do not let pleasure distract you from meditation, from the way. Be aware that pleasure can distract you: it can distract you from meditation and it can distract you from the way. And what is meditation in Buddha’s vision? Meditation is awareness, so anything that makes you unaware is a distraction; where it comes from does not matter. Whether you create it inside yourself by chanting a mantra or by ingesting some drug, by smoking, by injecting something, how you manage it does not matter. If it distracts you from awareness, it may create beautiful dreams, but you are no longer conscious. You may feel the world becoming golden, the trees are greener, the roses are rosier, and everything seems to be tremendously beautiful, psychedelic – but you are unconscious, you are no longer in your consciousness. This is the distraction.A buddha is against drugs, or if I am against drugs, it is only for this reason. It is not because it is against the so-called morality, it is not because it is against the priests and the puritans; it is not because tradition says so. Buddhas are against drugs not because drugs are sin but only because they take you away from yourself, they distract you.You will be surprised to know that the root which the word sin comes from means forgetfulness: the root means forgetfulness. If you can remind yourself that to forget is to sin, then you will have a right approach: then to remember is virtue. George Gurdjieff used to call it self-remembering. Buddha calls it sammasati – right mindfulness. Krishnamurti calls it awareness. But all these words mean only one thing: Don’t be distracted from your innermost core; remain rooted there, remain consciously there.Do not let pleasure distract you from meditation, from the way. And meditation is the way: there is no other way to godliness, there is no other way to truth. Truth is not something ready-made. Truth is something that you have to discover by becoming more and more aware. And you have to discover it not somewhere else, but within your own being. You are truth covered by unconsciousness, covered by forgetfulness, so anything that distracts, anything that takes you away from yourself, is irreligious, is unspiritual.Free yourself from pleasure and pain.Now the second sutra is very significant. You will be surprised that he says to free yourself from pleasure and pain because who wants pain? Nobody wants it, at least apparently, nobody wants pain. But that is not true. There are two kinds of people: those who want pleasure and those who want pain. Those who want pleasure are called the worldly, and those who start wanting pain are called the otherworldly, the saints, the ascetics, the holy people. Pain becomes their pleasure; they start enjoying torturing themselves.The whole history of humanity is full of these stupid people, and they have been worshipped. Who has been worshipping them? – the people who desire pleasure. For them, those people look as if they are from some other world, because they desire pleasure and those people escape from pleasure. On the contrary they inflict pain upon themselves: they go on fasting, they go on sitting naked when it is ice-cold or they may sit by the side of a fire when the sun is already showering fire all over the place. These masochists, these self-torturers, are pathological.Ninety-nine point nine percent of your saints are simply pathological, and because of these pathological people religion has remained ill; it has not been possible to make religion healthy. Buddhas have been trying, but up to now they have failed because nobody listens to them.Man’s mind has a strategy: it moves to its opposite very easily. You are running after money, then one day you see the whole stupidity of it and you start escaping from money. Now, this is again remaining obsessed with money; money still remains the center of your focus. First you were moving toward it, now you are moving away from it, but it is your reference; your whole life still has that context. You still think in terms of money – how much you have or how much you have renounced, but you go on counting.Once a man came to Ramakrishna with a bag full of golden coins. He poured those golden coins onto the feet of Ramakrishna. There were many people sitting around; they were all surprised by how much money this man had brought, and he was pouring it onto the feet of Ramakrishna. What devotion, they thought.But Ramakrishna was not happy. He said, “You are pouring it in such a way that it seems you want to impress people. You are performing. Fill the bag again with the money and go to the Ganges” – the Ganges was just behind Ramakrishna’s temple – “and throw all the money into the Ganges. You have given it to me; I give it to the Ganges.”The man was very puzzled, worried about throwing so many gold coins into the Ganges. And he had come with great expectations that Ramakrishna would say, “You are a great religious man. What renunciation, how pure you are, how holy.” And Ramakrishna had not taken any note. On the contrary, he said, “Go and throw all this rubbish into the Ganges.” He did not want to do it, but now he could not say no to Ramakrishna. Once he had offered, how could he say no? So reluctantly he went to the Ganges.Hours passed and he was not back. Ramakrishna asked, “Where is he?” Ramakrishna went to see. The man had gathered a big crowd on the bank. From a rock he would first toss up a coin, make much noise, look at the coin, and then throw it into the Ganges. And many people would jump into the Ganges to find the coin. He was making a great show of it. Hundreds of people had gathered and he was counting, “One, two, three, four.”Ramakrishna went there and said, “You fool! When one collects money one counts, but when one is throwing it into the Ganges what is the point of counting? For two and half hours you have been doing it. Why waste your time? Throw the whole bag; what is the point of counting?”But this is how human mind functions: even if it renounces it counts. It is the same mind which was accumulating; now it is renouncing. One is after power, prestige, then one day one escapes to the mountains as far away from the capital as one can go. But the capital remains the point of reference.Hence Buddha says to free yourself from both pleasure and pain. He is not saying, “Free yourself from pleasure,” because if he says only that then he knows perfectly well – he is perfectly alert about you – you will choose pain. And you will be in the same trap again from the back door because pleasure is of the body and pain is of the body. Whether you enjoy eating or you enjoy fasting makes no difference; eating and fasting are both physical activities. There are people who enjoy eating and there are people who enjoy fasting, but both are rooted in the physical. They have not yet raised their eyes toward the beyond. Hence to remind you, he says: Free yourself from pleasure and pain.For in craving pleasure or in nursing painthere is only sorrow.Yes, people go on doing both. There are people who go on wounding themselves. You will be surprised to know that there was a Christian sect, thought to be very ascetic and pious, whose followers would wear belts with nails in them. The nails continuously wounded their bodies. These people would wear shoes and inside the shoes there would be nails, and they would keep their feet always bleeding. They were thought to be great ascetics. People would count how many nails this saint had in his shoes; the more nails he had, the greater he was.There have been Christian saints whose only prayer was to whip themselves early in the morning, and thousands would gather to see them whipping themselves. Their entire bodies would bleed, and when thousands are watching you whipping yourself, of course you will do the best you can, the most you can. People would faint, but until they fainted they would go on hitting themselves. And these people were thought to be spiritual people.These are the people who are against me because I am teaching you a healthy religion, a religion which does not believe in any nonsense.If you crave pleasure you will be in sorrow; if you nurse pain you will be in sorrow. To be in sorrow is to be irreligious. Hence, Buddha says again and again: “Joy is the quality of the really spiritual man.” Jesus says: “Rejoice!” Not pain or pleasure, but joy. Joy is something spiritual; it does not come from your body. One can be joyous even when the body is ill, one can be joyous even when the body is old, one can rejoice even while dying. Joy is something inner. Pain and pleasure are both body-oriented; joy is being-oriented.Like nothing lest you lose it,lest it bring you grief and fear.Go beyond likes and dislikes.Likes and dislikes simply say that you think yourself separate from existence. A man who has dropped his ego has no likes and no dislikes. Then whatsoever is the case he rejoices in it. If he finds himself in poverty he rejoices in poverty, because there are beauties, a few beauties, which can be found only in poverty. If this man finds himself rich he rejoices in richness, because there are a few beautiful things which can be found only when you are rich. If this man finds himself young and healthy he rejoices in it, because a few things are possible only when you are young. And this man rejoices in old age too, because there are a few things which only old age can impart to you. One thing is certain: he has no preferences; he does not hanker that this should be such and such. He makes no conditions on existence; he lives unconditionally, rejoicing in whatsoever happens.To carry likes and dislikes is to carry prejudices, and everybody goes on carrying prejudices. That’s why nothing ever makes you contented.Even Buddha’s father was not happy. He was unhappy because his son had moved onto a wrong path; meditation to him was a wrong thing. He was desirous that his son become a great emperor; that was his deep ambition. Buddha was his only son, and one day Buddha escaped. I have every suspicion that the reason for his escape must have been his father. When you have only one son and then too, he is born when you are very old… And Buddha’s father was very old when Buddha was born. That was his last chance; one or two years more and there would have been no son at all. And Buddha’s mother died immediately upon giving birth to him; she was also getting old and this birth must have been too much for her.Buddhists have made a beautiful story out of it. They say that whenever a buddha is born his mother is bound to die. That’s how people create stupid stories. There have been many buddhas. Mahavira’s mother did not die, but if you ask the Buddhists they will say, “That simply proves that Mahavira is not a buddha.” Jesus’ mother did not die, Lao Tzu’s mother did not die, but to the prejudiced mind that simply proves that these were not buddhas. Whenever there is a buddha the mother has to die; that has become the definition.The real reason was that the mother was old, the father was old; this was their last chance. And they had lived a very miserable life because they had no son. They had created a big kingdom: “Now to whom is this kingdom going to belong?” And when you have a child in your old age you cling to the child too much. The father must have been too possessive: that’s my feeling of why Buddha had to escape. The father must have been the cause; he must have been too much of a bondage. He had made great palaces for Buddha and he wouldn’t allow him to leave them. He had made every arrangement in the palaces, all kinds of pleasures. In fact he made too many arrangements and Buddha got fed up very quickly; he was only twenty-nine when he left the palace.People usually become fed up by the end of their lives; it takes time to experience life. Buddha’s father managed to provide him with all possible pleasures. All the most beautiful women in his kingdom were brought to the palaces to serve Buddha. He was given the best wine, the most beautiful women, marble palaces, musicians, poets, dancers; a continuous merry-go-round. Twenty-four hours a day Buddha was drowned in pleasures. Anybody who had any intelligence would escape. It became too tiring, it became too boring, it became such an ugly scene. He was fed up with it, so he escaped.Buddha’s father was angry, very wounded. He wanted him to become a king and he became a buddha. He was not happy. In his own mind, to be a king was a greater thing than to be a buddha. To have more money and more fame – worldly fame – was more important to him than to be a meditator and attain to samadhi. These words must have looked like nonsense to him; he must have been a down-to-earth materialist.But this is not only so with Buddha; people are never contented with anything. If your son turns out to be a thief you are angry, if he turns out to be a buddha you are angry. It seems it is not possible for you to be happy. If your wife is too faithful you are fed up, if your wife is not faithful you are angry. If your husband is absolutely obedient you are finished with him; if your husband is continuously quarreling, fighting, you are finished with him, too. It seems man’s mind has such likes and dislikes that it is impossible for him to be in a contented state.An old woman died and went to heaven. When she arrived there Saint Peter asked her where she would like to stay. She said, “I would like to be near the Virgin Mary.”So Saint Peter put her into the same apartment house as the Virgin Mary. One day she walked over to the Virgin Mary and said, “There is one thing I have always wanted to say to you.”Mary said, “Yes, what is it?”The old woman said, “It must have been wonderful to have given birth to a man who is proclaimed a god throughout the world!”Mary said, “Well, I would have liked it better if he had been a doctor.”Yes, that’s how man is – nothing seems to satisfy. Nothing ever seems to give you joy, because you are already carrying some likes and dislikes. Existence has no obligation to fulfill them; it has never promised to fulfill your likes and dislikes.If you really want to be blissful you have to drop likes and dislikes. Then you have to learn a different language to commune with existence. Whatsoever happens, enjoy it. Don’t bring your likes and dislikes. Your life can be a continuous dance, a celebration; otherwise you will live in hell.Like nothing lest you lose it, lest it bring you grief and fear. One thing: if you like something and you get it, there is bound to be great fear – the fear of losing it. And nothing is permanent in this life; everything that you have is bound to be lost. So the fear arises, and when you lose it you are in deep grief.Go beyond likes and dislikes.From passion and desire,sensuousness and lust,arise grief and fear.Free yourself from attachment.Why do people live in such misery? – for the simple reason that they cling to things. The moment you cling you are creating misery for yourself, because nothing is going to be permanent here. Life is a river; it goes on moving, changing. You can’t even predict the next moment. So if you cling to something and the next moment you find it slipping out of your hands, you will be in great pain, great misery.And the irony is: if you don’t lose it and it remains with you, fulfilling your desire, then too, one day you are going to be very fed up, because the mind always requires the new to remain distracted. The mind is always searching for novelty, for something new. You love a woman, but still, once in a while an ordinary woman, who may not even be as beautiful as your own woman, attracts you. You seem puzzled: “Why does it happen?” Just that the mind always wants something new.The mind cannot remain with one thing for long, so if you lose it you are in grief, if you don’t lose it you are in grief. Either way grief happens. Buddha says: Free yourself from attachment.Nadine, a pretty maid, was alone in the apartment where she worked and decided to lie down and rest for a while on the couch. After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door.“Who is there?” she asked.“The grocer,” was the reply.“What do you have for me?”“Some staples.”“Leave them in the hall, will you?”A few minutes later there was another knock. “Yes?” she asked.“It is the egg man.”“Oh, what do you have for me?”“Four dozen eggs.”“Please leave them with the groceries.”A few minutes after, still another knock. “Now what is it?”“The superintendent.”“What do you have for me?”“I’ve got an urge.”“Well, come in then. That won’t keep.”There are urges and urges; you are exploding with urges, desires. You don’t have one desire, you have many desires. Not only do you have many desires, you have contradictory desires. If one is fulfilled, the other, which is its contradiction, remains unfulfilled and you are in misery. If the other is fulfilled, then something else remains unfulfilled.A politician came to see me; he wanted peace of mind. I said, “Then get out of politics.”He said, “That is difficult. I am just coming closer and closer to becoming the chief minister of my state. For twenty years I have worked hard. Now I am the education minister and within two or three years I will be the chief minister. I am the next man in the cabinet, so I cannot leave politics now.”Then I said, “Drop this idea of peace of mind, because being a politician, it is impossible to have peace of mind.”He said, “In fact, that’s why I need it, that’s why I have come to you, because it is becoming so much of a burden on me that I am falling apart. I am afraid that before I become the chief minister I may go mad. That’s why I have come to you. Help me, teach me some method so I can be a little more peaceful, at ease, relaxed. But I cannot leave politics.”Now, this man wants two contradictory things together: he wants peace and he is ambitious. It is impossible. If you are ambitious, then your mind is bound to remain restless. If you want peace, then the first requirement is to drop all ambition. Unless you drop ambition you cannot be at ease, at peace, you cannot be relaxed. He could see the contradiction, but he said, “I will think it over.”I said, “If you can see the contradiction right now, what you are going to think about it? Your thinking is not going to make any difference.”It has made one difference: he has stopped coming to me. Since then I have not seen him. I have heard now that he goes to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, because Mahesh Yogi says both can be fulfilled together. The more meditative you become, the more is the possibility of fulfilling your ambitions. Now this is utter nonsense. The more meditative you become, the less ambitious you will be. There is no question of fulfilling ambition; ambition will start disappearing from your consciousness.But if you look around your mind you will find many contradictory things: one part going to the south, another to the north. It is a miracle how you go on managing yourself. Otherwise a part of you will be in Tokyo, a part in Timbuktu; you will be all over the earth in fragments. It is really a miracle how you go on managing to keep yourself together. It is really only apparently together; deep down you are divided and split.Buddha says: “If you really want to transform your being into a peaceful consciousness, into serenity, into bliss, then you will have to: Go beyond likes and dislikes. From passion and desire, sensuousness and lust, arise grief and fear. Free yourself from attachment.”A few distinctions have to be made: when Buddha says “sensuousness” he does not mean sensitivity. In fact, a sensuous person is a gross person; the sensitive person is subtle. Sensitiveness is beautiful, sensuousness is ugly. Love is beautiful, lust is ugly. Love is sensitivity, lust is sensuousness. Love gives what you have; lust tries to snatch away something from the other. The sensuous person exploits the other, and the sensitive person shares himself with the other.Be sensitive but don’t be sensuous. Be loving, but get out of lust. Lust and sensuousness are animal; love and sensitivity are human. And there is still a world above the human – the divine – where even sensitiveness, love, and all these things disappear. There remains only one thing: a witnessing consciousness. That is the state of buddhahood, christhood. One becomes just a pure mirror of existence. Then stars are reflected and the flowers are reflected. Then you see God in his original face – this whole existence is his original face. This mirrorlike consciousness, this witnessing self, is the goal.Buddha says that in this state: He is pure… The seeker becomes pure.He is pure and sees.He speaks the truth, and lives it.He does his own work,so he is admired and loved.Remember always the goal: the goal is to become a pure witness. By purity Buddha never means moral purity; by purity he means childlike innocence. There is a great difference between moral purity and childlike innocence. Moral purity is cunning, clever. It is not really purity, it is something imposed. It has a motivation. The moral person is trying to attain to heaven, to otherworldly joys; he wants to become immortal. The moral person is not desireless: his object of desire has changed and he is ready to sacrifice everything for his new object of desire. He imposes purity upon himself, but that purity is not even skin-deep. Deep down he is cunning, manipulating. In fact, he is trying to manipulate God according to his desires.The moral person is too knowledgeable; he is too deep in the scriptures. He is not wise but only knowledgeable. He knows nothing, because for knowing you need a childlike innocence, for knowing you need great wonder and awe. For knowing you need to drop all concepts, ideologies, scriptures. Only then will your eyes be utterly empty, nude, and when your eyes are nude they can see.The knowledgeable person thinks that he knows because he has heard or read beautiful words; but his knowledge is utterly superficial, borrowed. It has no roots in his being; it is in fact stupid. People cannot see that his knowledge is nothing but stupidity masquerading as knowledge, because people are as blind as he is. But when he comes to a buddha, the buddha can see that what he is saying is not his own.Once I was invited to a religious conference where many saints were invited. A Jaina monk spoke before me. He talked about the soul, freedom from all attachment, and the attainment of bliss, moksha, nirvana. All that he spoke of was beautiful, but I was sitting behind him and I could see through and through that that man was just a parrot. He was repeating scriptures, he knew nothing, but he was very much respected by the Jainas.When he had finished I whispered in his ears, “I have to tell you, even if it hurts, that whatsoever you have said is all borrowed, it is all stupid. You don’t know a thing. You have never meditated, you have never tasted any bliss. You have never known what enlightenment is, but you were describing it beautifully, you were defining it beautifully. You are a clever person, but beware: this cleverness is not going to become the boat to the other shore.”He was shocked. In the afternoon a man came to me from him and said, “He wants to meet you, but in absolute privacy.”I said, “Why in privacy? I have got my people, he has got his people, and they would all like to listen to what transpires between the two of us. Let it be a public thing.”But he insisted. Still, at least two hundred people had gathered, but he said, “I want absolute privacy.” So we went into a room; he locked the door, started crying.I said, “Why are you crying?”He said, “You are the first person who has been so frank and truthful toward me. I cannot accept what you have said before the people because they respect me. You will destroy my whole life’s attainment. But before you I can confess that you are right, I have been simply repeating. Now what should I do?”I said, “The first thing is, come out and confess before the people: ‘You have been respecting a wrong person.’”He said, “That is too much – I cannot do that.”“Then,” I said, “get lost! If you cannot drop your ego, then I cannot be of any help to you because that is the first requirement.”He said, “I will think it over.”He is still thinking, and twenty years have passed. In these twenty years I have sent people many times to inquire, “Have you come to any conclusion yet or not?” The last time when I sent a man to him he told the man, “Tell him, don’t torture me. He has been torturing me for twenty years. I know he is right, but at this age” – now he is almost seventy – “I cannot risk my reputation. I have to continue this life; next life maybe I will listen to his advice.”But I know that next life he will also not listen. I will not be there; somebody else may be there, but he will not listen.A little girl answered the knock on the door of the farmhouse. The caller, a rather troubled-looking, middle-aged man, asked to see her father.“If you have come about the bull,” she said, “he is fifty dollars. We have the papers and everything and he is guaranteed.”“Young lady,” the man said, “I want to see your father.”“If that is too much,” the little girl replied, “we got another bull for twenty-five dollars, and he is guaranteed too, but he does not have any papers.”“Young lady,” the man repeated, “I want to see your father!”“If that is too much,” said the little girl, “we got another bull for only ten dollars, but he is not guaranteed.”“I am not here for the bull,” said the man angrily. “I want to talk about your brother, Elmer. He has gotten my daughter in trouble!”“Ah, I am sorry,” said the little girl. “You will have to see Pa about that, because I don’t know what he charges for Elmer.”The little girl is simply repeating what she has heard. The father charges fifty for one bull, twenty-five for another, ten for another. She does not know exactly what he charges for or what is going on, but she has heard. She is simply repeating.And this is how your knowledgeable people are. They have heard about God, they have not seen. They have heard about truth, they have not experienced. They have heard about love, they have not lived. They can talk and they can argue and they can prove themselves great scholars, but they are stupid people. Beware of them – they are not pure. They can even impose a certain discipline upon themselves out of this borrowed knowledge, but their idea of purity will also be something foolish.Somebody will eat only vegetarian food; that will be his idea of purity. Somebody will not even eat all vegetables but only fruits – he will be a fruitarian – and fruits only when they become ripe and fall on their own so no harm is done to the tree. Now he will think that he is really pure. Somebody will think that just drinking milk is the purest thing.In India milk is thought to be the purest food, sattvik, the most pure. Now that is strange, because milk is animal food. It is like eggs, it comes out of the animal’s body. And certainly it is not for you: it is for the young of the animal. And it is dangerous too, because the cow gives milk for her young, and her calf is going to become a bull! Now in India people think that if you drink milk you will attain celibacy. That is utter foolishness – you will become a bull! How can you attain celibacy? Milk is the most sexual food possible.But people can go to extremes. I have come across a few people who are trying to live only on water.Once I came across a man who was trying to live only on water. He was dying, not living, but one can live for at least three months on water too, because one has enough emergency flesh accumulated in the body so one can go on eating it for three months. In fact to live just on water is to eat your own meat, because every day one pound of your weight will disappear. “Where has it gone?” I asked the man. “Who has eaten it?”He was very much disturbed. He said, “You are the first man who is disturbing me, because everybody says that this is the best, the most sattvik, the most pure food – water, and Ganges water, not ordinary water.”Now, the water of the Ganges is the most impure in India, because people throw dead bodies into the Ganges – and into no other river – because if you throw a body into the Ganges, the person to whom the body belonged goes directly to heaven. So the Ganges carries all kinds of germs, dead bodies; they may have died from cancer, tuberculosis, this and that.And he said, “I am drinking only Ganges water, and you are making me very afraid. You are saying: ‘You are eating your own meat.’ Now I will not be at rest at all.”I said, “What can I do? – you are eating it! Otherwise, where does your weight disappear to?”But these are the ideas people go on carrying. Purity becomes something very foolish. You change your eating habits and you think you have become pure, or you change your clothes and you start living in rags and you think you have become pure. You leave your house and start living in a cave and you think you have become pure. Or you take an early bath and think you are pure, or you take four, five baths every day and that is your purity, or you don’t sleep and that is your purity. But these are all ideas gathered from others. You can impose them on yourself and you will be worshipped, but this is not what Buddha means.When he says: He is pure… he means he is innocent, he is not knowledgeable. He is functioning from the state of not-knowing. He is not bookish; he does not live according to the books.Mr. Goldberg, a prosperous furrier, sent his daughter to Europe to get some culture and maybe meet a rich fellow.A few months later she wrote and asked Papa to send her a book on etiquette.“Real fine people she is meeting,” he thought to himself.Five months later she wrote for another book on etiquette.“Princes she is going with,” said Goldberg and jumped for joy.After two years Becky came home. Mr. Goldberg met her at the pier and was taken aback when she appeared with a child in her arms.“Whose baby?” he asked.“Mine,” she replied.“And the father?”She shook her head. “I don’t know, Papa.”Goldberg wept in despair. “Two books on etiquette you got and you don’t even know to ask, ‘With whom have I the pleasure?’”Books can’t help; even two books on etiquette won’t make you cultured. A thousand books on spirituality and you will not become spiritual. It is not a question of becoming more informed. It is a question of transformation, not of information.He is pure, and sees. When you are innocent you have eyes to see the truth as it is, because you don’t have any idea to distort. You have no prejudice, no like, no dislike. You are neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian. You are simply a consciousness, full of wonder, great inquiry. There is exploration; you reflect reality. In innocence reality is reflected and seen.He speaks the truth… And when you know, you cannot do otherwise. He speaks the truth… whatsoever the cost. Even if you are to be killed for saying the truth; you would rather be killed but you will not stop speaking the truth.Socrates was told by the judges that if he would stop talking about truth he would be forgiven, but then he had to make a promise to the court that he would never talk about truth.Socrates said, “I would rather die than stop talking about truth.”The judges were puzzled. They said, “But why? Life is so precious.”Socrates said, “Not more precious than truth. If I cannot speak the truth, then there is no point in living at all. I live to convey the truth. My life is only a means to spread whatsoever I have come to know. If I cannot do that, then there is no point in living, so please kill me. And I cannot make that promise for one more reason: even if I want to stop I cannot. I will go on saying what I see. I will go on living it. I can’t do otherwise. Knowing the truth is being it.”He speaks the truth, and lives it.He does his own work,so he is admired and loved.What is his work? His work is to shout; his work is to call you out of your sleep. His work is to wake people up. Yes, those who understand him will admire and love him. And there will be many who will not understand him; they will condemn him, they will even kill him. But Buddha takes no account of those. He is simply taking account of those few rare souls who will be able to understand what he is saying and what he is living. And in fact only those few people mean anything. Only they are worth counting; the crowd is not worth counting at all.With a determined mind and undesiring hearthe longs for freedom.He is called uddhamsoto –“He who goes upstream.”Uddhamsoto is a beautiful word that Buddha uses many times. Uddham means great endeavor; soto means the source. The English word source comes from the same root as soto. The Sanskrit word is shrot; from shrot comes the English word source and the Pali word soto. Buddha speaks Pali; he is using soto. Uddhamsoto means a man who is trying, with all his being, to reach to the source, to the very source of being. His whole effort is to know the ultimate, the very ground of existence, because that is where truth is, godliness is, nirvana is.Great effort is needed, laziness won’t do, and people are really lazy. Because people are lazy, priests could exploit them for centuries, and they are going to exploit you if you continue to remain lazy. Because people are lazy they leave it to the priests: “You do the prayer, you do the worship for us on our behalf. We will pay you, but you do it on our behalf.” They know that their priests are as blind as they are, as lazy as they are. They have not worked upon their beings.Work is arduous. Many chunks have to be cut out of you and dropped; only then can you come to your original face. It is almost like a sculptor carving a statue out of a marble rock; with chisel and hammer in his hands he goes on cutting the rock, taking out all the unnecessary pieces. Slowly, slowly the formless rock starts attaining a form, the ordinary rock starts becoming something extraordinary, beautiful. A buddha can be found in it, a christ can be found in it, a krishna can be found in it. But before you can find a buddha in the rock much has to be destroyed. Unless you are ready to do great work upon yourself it is not going to happen. You cannot rely on agents.Your priests, your bishops, your popes, are all agents – agents between you and God. You don’t know God, and the agents go on saying, “Don’t be worried, we know. We will convey your messages.” They don’t know either; they are simply exploiting your ignorance.But people are lazy. Laziness is one of the problems.Manuel was the new man on the railroad crew, so naturally he got the worst jobs around the camp. Among the laborers, the most hated job was that of the camp cook.During the first day on the job, Manuel complained bitterly about the horrible food only to be informed that whoever complained about the food had to be the cook. Manuel argued long and loud but the foreman would not yield: Manuel would have to cook until somebody else complained.The next day Manuel got a brilliant idea. After washing the breakfast dishes he went off to the prairie and soon located exactly what he sought – a freshly deposited pasture pastry, a steaming green moose turd. Carefully Manuel collected the fragments, putting the fragrant treasure in a large box he had brought along for the purpose, and returned to the camp cook shack. He carefully prepared a large pie crust, inserted the moose turd, and baked the pie until it was a golden brown.That night he gleefully served the tender pastry as his pièce de résistance, and waited for the complaints to start. The faces of the crew were delightfully twisted as the diners choked down the delicate offering.Finally one man rose to his feet, his face a twisted mass of disgust. “My God!” he roared at Manuel. “That is moose turd pie! It sure is good, though.”Man is so lazy that he will go on as he is, rather than working and trying to change, trying to bring some change to his circumstances. It is easier to remain contented, to remain insensitive, to go on pulling, somehow existing. But it is not life. And what is true about the outer circumstances is far truer about the inner, because the outer circumstances don’t need much effort to be changed but the inner lethargy is centuries old. The unconsciousness is so primitive, its roots are so deep, that it needs a total determination on your part, a tremendous determination, a commitment, a deep involvement. You have to risk all. Unless that happens it is impossible to change yourself, you will remain the same. You can go on reading, you can go on accumulating knowledge, you can go from one teacher to another teacher, but deep down you will not change. This is not the way to change.The way to change is: With a determined mind and undesiring heart he longs for freedom.He is called uddhamsoto – “He who goes upstream.” It is almost going upstream, because not to follow the crowd, not to follow tradition, not to follow the scriptures, not to follow the religion you are born in, the church you are born in, is going against the stream. Great effort is needed; otherwise ordinarily it seems easier, more comfortable and convenient to follow the crowd; whatsoever they are doing, you go on doing. They will not give you trouble, but remember, you are simply destroying a great opportunity. This life is going to disappear soon, why not bring all your energies to such a point of integration where you can take a quantum leap from the known to the unknown, from time to eternity?Unless you are determined, and that’s what sannyas is all about: a determination, a commitment, to transform oneself, not holding back anything. I cannot change you unless you are totally determined to be changed. You cannot throw the responsibility on me. I am here to help, but I can help only those who are really committed, who are not halfheartedly here.Fred was admitted to a madhouse because he always felt he was a mouse and was totally paranoid about cats.After years and years of treatment he was finally declared normal again and the doctor said, “So you know now that you are not a mouse, you are a human being like me and there is no need to be afraid of cats.”Fred agreed and was released. But as he stepped out of the gates he saw a cat walking on the opposite side of the road. He totally freaked and ran back inside in total shock.The doctor said, “But Fred, I thought that it was clear to you that you are not a mouse.”Fred replied, “Doctor, you know I am not a mouse, I know I am not a mouse. But how the hell do I know that the cat knows?”Nobody can help you from the outside. Yes, you can be convinced, but deep down you will remain the same. You can be silenced through arguments, but arguments cannot change you. You will have to bring all your energies to a single point, to an absolute determination: “This life I am going to make it. I am ready to do whatsoever is required. I will not shirk any responsibility. I will not shrink from any responsibility. I will not find any excuses, rationalizations. I will not be a victim anymore of the old mind.”Once this determination is total, transformation immediately starts happening. In fact to be totally determined is almost half the journey.Buddha says:When a traveler at last comes homefrom a far journey,with what gladnesshis family and his friends receive him!I am creating a family here, a family of friends. The day any of you will burst forth into a flame, the whole family will rejoice. And it is not only that this small commune of sannyasins will rejoice; the whole existence participates in rejoicing. Whenever a man becomes a buddha, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the stars, all rejoice, because at least one of us has reached home.And Buddha says:Even so shall your good deedswelcome you like friendsand with what rejoicingwhen you pass from this life to the next!And whatsoever you have done to transform yourself – he calls it “the good deed” – that is real virtue. Whatsoever you have done to transform yourself, that is your treasure. And you will be surprised that when you reach to the other shore, the beyond, your treasure will be awaiting you there, to rejoice, to receive, to welcome you.Either you can collect money, power, prestige – which will be left on this shore – or you can accumulate a totally different kind of treasure: of meditation, of love, of bliss, of understanding, of awareness, of godliness. If you attain to this treasure, you will be surprised: when you reach to the other shore, when you go beyond this body, when death happens to this body, you will be received by all the treasures that you have accumulated. They will all rejoice.Buddha means that there is a treasure that goes with you to the ultimate, and there is a momentary treasure which is left behind. Those who are wise accumulate that which will be theirs forever, and those who are foolish accumulate the momentary, which will be taken away from them by death.Remember, each moment, what you are accumulating. Is it going to be taken away by death? Then it is not worth bothering about. If it is not going to be taken away by death, then even life can be sacrificed for it, because one day life is going to disappear. Before life disappears, use the opportunity to find that which never dies.Become an uddhamsoto. Find the source of existence, of your own being, of all that is. That source is godliness, that source is nirvana.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,To me, the most beautiful passage in the Christian scriptures ends with the words, “And Jesus wept.” It occurs when he approaches Jerusalem for the last time, looks down on it in his compassion, sees all of the foolishness, futility and pathos of mankind – and weeps.Osho, does Buddha weep?It certainly is one of the most beautiful passages in Christian scriptures because it shows the humanity of Jesus, which is his unique quality. Gautama the Buddha is not so human.Jesus is both the son of man and the Son of God. He knows the dark valley, he also knows the sunlit peak, and he has a very human heart. That humanity remains with him to the very end. All the buddhas are unique. In the same situation Lao Tzu, looking back, would have laughed at the foolishness, at the ridiculousness, at the absurdity of human beings. And in the same situation Gautama the Buddha would not even have cared to look back; that is his uniqueness, he never looked back; the past did not exist at all. Mahavira would have looked back but would have neither wept nor laughed.This fact has to be remembered: never compare two buddhas, otherwise you will create great confusion for yourself. Although their experience is the same, their expressions are different, are bound to be different. They have different individualities; they have different forms of expressing their experience.Jesus remains human, very human. If you ask a Buddhist, he will say, “If he wept, then he is not a buddha.” Just when he is going to be crucified and he is raised on the cross, he looks at the sky and says, “Have you forsaken me?” There is great complaint, the complaint of the human heart, complaining to God as a child would complain to his mother or father: “Have you forsaken me? What are you trying to do to me?” He is angry too, there is a little anger, which is part of being human: a little anger, a little love, a little joy.When he enters into the great temple of Jerusalem he feels so offended by the presence of the money-changers in the temple that he takes a whip in his hand and, alone, he drives all the money-changers out of the temple, turns their money-changing boards upside-down, creates chaos. That too is very human. That is Jesus’ specialty.In the same situation you can’t think of Buddha looking at the sky because for Buddha there is no God outside. God is within, you are looking at an empty sky, there is no one to respond. God is in the crucified person, there is no way to pray to God. Prayer is absolutely meaningless for a Buddha; he would have accepted the crucifixion without any grudge, without any complaint, without any anger. He is suprahuman, his expression is absolutely suprahuman; not for a single moment will he allow human weakness to enter in.When he was dying, he stopped his disciples from weeping and crying; he said, “You can do it when I am gone, you will have enough time then, but right now, at least while I am still alive, don’t do such a stupid thing. There is nothing to weep about because there is nobody to die. Why are you weeping?”Ananda, his disciple, said, “Bhagwan, we have loved you so much, how can we avoid feeling sad?”Buddha said, “You loved a nothingness. I was never a person but only a presence, and I have been telling you again and again, don’t think of me as a person. The person died the day I became Buddha. Gautama Siddhartha died the day enlightenment happened. Since then there has been nobody inside the house, the house is utterly empty; hence nobody is dying, stop crying and weeping. Later on when I am gone you can do whatsoever you want, you will have enough time. Don’t waste these precious moments in weeping.” This is a totally different expression. Existence is multidimensional. When it is experienced there are going to be many expressions of it.Mahavira is absolutely indifferent to everything. He will not laugh, he will not weep either, because for him this whole world is nothing but a dream. If you know that something is a dream, how can you weep?There is an ancient Chinese parable that Chuang Tzu used to tell again and again…A great king had only one son and the son was dying of a disease for which there was no medicine available. All the physicians had said, “There is no way to save him. It is only a question of a few hours or at the most one or two days and he will be gone.”The king loved the son so much. He was his only son; the king was getting old and there was no possibility of another son. The king was sitting by the side of the bed the whole night because this might be his son’s last night.Nearabout four o’clock the old king fell asleep and had a dream. In the dream he saw a beautiful marble palace; he had never dreamed of such a beautiful palace. And the kingdom was so vast; he was the king, and he was sitting on a golden throne studded with big diamonds and emeralds. He had emeralds and diamonds but not this big, not this pure, without any flaw. And he had beautiful women and twelve sons; maybe the idea of losing his only son had created the desire for twelve sons, maybe it was just a reflection of his actual state. This dream might have been just wish fulfillment, but he felt so blessed. And all his sons were so wise, so healthy, such great warriors.Then suddenly his son on the bed died. The wife cried so loudly that the king’s dream was shattered; he opened his eyes, looked at the dead body of his son and didn’t say a word, remained like a statue. His wife was shocked, she shook him and said, “Do you understand or not? Your son is dead!”The king said, “I can see it but now I am puzzled for whom to cry. Just a minute ago I had twelve beautiful sons, very handsome, very wise, in every way skillful. Because of your crying my dream was shattered, those twelve sons have disappeared; and the golden throne and the marble palace and the great kingdom, have all gone. Should I weep for them or should I weep for this son because when I was dreaming I had completely forgotten my son, you and the kingdom?“Now I am awake, I have forgotten the dream and the beauties of the dream. Which is true, which should I cry for? Because when I was seeing the dream it was true, at least it appeared to be true. Now I am seeing my dead son, it appears true, but how to decide which appearance is really true?”Chuang Tzu says the same thing in another parable. He says, “Once I dreamed that I had become a butterfly, moving from one flower to another, enjoying the sun and the wind. And then somebody awakened me; it was morning and getting late and the sun was shining in my face. As I opened my eyes the butterfly disappeared, I was again Chuang Tzu. Since then I have been in confusion. The confusion is, if Chuang Tzu can dream that he is a butterfly, why can’t the butterfly dream that she is Chuang Tzu?”He seems to be very penetrating; this puzzle is something worth meditating over. If Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly in a dream, a butterfly too may have fallen asleep, sitting on some tree, under the shade of a tree and dreamed that she is Chuang Tzu. Now who is right and what is a dream? Both seem to be similar.A man like Buddha knows the falseness of the whole world; he will not weep, he will not laugh, he will not even look back. That is his way of expressing his experience of the total. Mahavira will look back because he also has great compassion, but different from Jesus; he will not weep, because it helps nobody. If you weep for the world, it does not help the world. If you weep at the stupidity of people it makes you look silly, that’s all. It does not help people.But Lao Tzu would have certainly laughed because looking at people’s absurdity, their ridiculousness, what else can you do? Lao Tzu used to ride on a water buffalo, moving from one place to another. He was a jolly fellow, telling jokes, telling stories to people, always in a laughing state.If you see the statues of Buddha that have been made in China and in Japan you will be surprised. They don’t look like Buddha, particularly not like the Indian statues, not at all. The Indian statues have a very athletic form, Buddha has a big chest and a very small belly, no belly at all; his body seems to be very proportionate.But the Chinese Buddha has a big belly; the chest is completely sunk in, the belly is too big. Not only is the belly big, even in the marble statues you can see the belly laughing, there are ripples of laughter on the belly. It has been conceived according to the Taoist idea; because China could understand only if Buddha was presented in the form of Lao Tzu. They knew Lao Tzu, they were acquainted with this enlightened man, and he was always laughing. To him there is nothing to weep for. What reason is there to weep at the ridiculousness of man?Three college boys, upon entering their favorite cafe to sit at their usual table, found it to be occupied by an older woman. After debating what to do about the situation, they finally decided to embarrass the woman into leaving.Sitting next to the old lady, the first student started, “Say, John,” he said, “did you know that I was born three months before my parents were married?”“Why, that’s nothing,” said the next one. “I was born six months before my parents were married.”“Fellows,” replied the last of the hungry men, “I was born without my parents being married.”The old lady finally looked up from the table and pleasantly asked, “Will one of you bastards please pass the salt?”Life is ridiculous. You never know what is going to happen, it is absurd.An artist’s model arrived at her boss’s studio and was waiting for him to arrive. When he walked in the door she headed for the dressing room to get undressed.But he said, “No, don’t bother getting ready. I have got a terrific hangover and really don’t feel like working today. But why don’t you stay and join me in a cup of coffee?”The model said, “I would love to.”Just then the artist heard familiar footsteps approaching the door.“Oh my gosh,” he gasped. “Here comes my wife. Get your clothes off – quick!”Lao Tzu would laugh; Jesus wept. Now it is for you to choose. I love both the men; in fact laughing and weeping are two sides of the same coin. And because of the story that Jesus wept, I say something which Christians have denied down the ages. Christians have been saying that Jesus never laughed. Now a man who is capable of weeping is bound to be capable of laughing, it is impossible to weep if you cannot laugh. In fact laughter and weeping are not opposites, but complementaries – two extremes of the same spectrum.Christians say Jesus never laughed. That is an invented story, I can’t believe in it because Jesus was not an ascetic. Yes, I can understand some ascetic saint never laughing because he is so desert-like, so dry, so dull and so dead. But Jesus is a juicy man, he is not an ascetic; he enjoyed good food, good company, he enjoyed drinking wine, he enjoyed being festive with his friends. And his friends were all sorts of people, his friends were not Rotarians; they were gamblers, thieves; even a prostitute, Mary Magdalene, was part of his company. He enjoyed real people.If you want to see unreal people you can go to a meeting of the Rotary Club. There you see pseudo people, all with masks, all smiling and saying hello to each other. These are not their real faces, they always keep their real faces locked in their cupboards, they never take them out. Only once in a while can you have a glimpse of their real faces. It happens only when they are unconscious; maybe when they have drunk too much you can see their real faces. The unconsciousness may give you a glimpse of their truth.Gurdjieff used to give as much wine as possible to his new disciples; he would go on forcing. And when the master forces you to drink, you drink. Just think of me asking you to drink, and I go on pouring and pouring, can you say no? And trust is the first thing.Gurdjieff would force them to eat and drink so much that their real faces would show; that was his first contact with the disciple. The disciples were very puzzled; they had never seen such a master. They would fall on the ground and would start saying incoherent things. Then Gurdjieff would sit by their side and listen to what they were saying, what their faces were showing, because these were the real faces, these were their realities.You cannot think of Buddha telling people to drink, but Gurdjieff did. I cannot believe that Jesus never laughed; he lived with such alive people: fishermen, carpenters, poor people. He was not keeping company with the rabbis, the pundits, the scholars and the professors. He was moving with raw people, real people of the earth. It is impossible to think that he was a sad man, that he never laughed; and if he was incapable of laughter, he would be incapable of weeping too.This statement, that he wept, shows with absolute certainty that he must have laughed too. That is one of the most beautiful things about Jesus; I love that he is very human. Buddha is a little cold, has no warmth, is far away – that is his beauty. We need all kinds of masters, we need all kinds of flowers in the garden. A rose has its beauty and a lotus has its beauty. The lotus will need a lake, a different situation to happen in; it will have a different fragrance. But all kinds of flowers enrich the garden. The garden of buddhahood is full of strange, unique, incomparable beings: Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Mohammed, Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ.Now, Christ is on the cross. Whenever you think about Christ, you think of the cross too. It is impossible to think of them separately, they have become inseparable. If you see the cross you will think of Christ, if you think of Christ the cross is always there in the background. With Krishna it is not the cross but the flute. Now, Krishna is a dancer, a singer; you cannot think of Buddha dancing, singing, it is impossible to conceive. And it will look very ridiculous too; with Krishna it fits, his whole vision of life is such that the flute fits with it.Remember this and don’t become too attached to one form of buddhahood. There are as many forms of buddhahood as you can conceive. Many more buddhas will happen in the future, who will have a totally different quality which was never available in the past. If you become too attached and obsessed with a certain form, you will miss other buddhas.In Holland there was a conference arranged by Krishnamurti followers. Krishnamurti was coming there to stay with the people for seven days. His disciples had gathered from all over the world. A woman went from India but after two, three days she was back.She came to see me. I said, “You came back so early? Is the conference finished?”She said, “No, the conference is not finished but I am finished with Krishnamurti.”I asked, “What happened?”She said, “I had gone shopping and I saw Krishnamurti purchasing a necktie, and not only purchasing a necktie but making such a fuss. At least two hundred neckties were spread all over the table and he liked nothing. Something was wrong with everything: the color was wrong, the size was wrong, this was wrong, that was wrong.” And she said, “I simply watched what he was doing. Is he a buddha? A buddha purchasing, shopping? A buddha looks good with a begging bowl but a buddha purchasing, and a necktie! And then making such a fuss.”Krishnamurti is very fastidious about his clothes. She became so frustrated, she did not attend the conference: “What is the point now? This man is not a buddha.” Now, what to do with this woman – to weep for her or to laugh at her? One can weep for her stupidity because Krishnamurti is Krishnamurti; he is not Gautama the Buddha, he is not Jesus Christ. He has his unique way of living, of expressing. He is not a renunciate, he lives in the world. And to see the point, that he lives in the world and yet is not of it, needs great understanding inside. This woman missed.What to do with this woman? To weep for her that she went to Holland and returned without even listening to a single talk of Krishnamurti? Or to laugh at her stupidity? And one never knows – Krishnamurti may have managed the whole thing only for this woman. Seeing that she was watching he may have made such a fuss because people like Krishnamurti always want to get rid of the rubbish type of people, the stupid type of people.Gurdjieff used to do many things to get rid of unnecessary people. Sometimes he would behave so absurdly that the person who had come to see him would never come again, thinking that he was mad. One day he was sitting drinking tea with two, three disciples and a journalist came to see him. He was always against journalists entering his ashram because his understanding was that they are bent upon misunderstanding.He asked the journalist, very courteously, to sit and have some tea, some cake. The journalist was very happy because he had heard that Gurdjieff always throws journalists out, telling them in no uncertain terms to get lost! He was very happy that he was being received with such love and compassion.And then Gurdjieff asked the woman sitting by his side, “What day was yesterday?”She said, “Friday.”“And what day is today?”Then the journalist became a little confused – this man cannot manage! If yesterday was Friday, then there is no point in asking, “What day is today?”The woman said, “Of course today is Saturday.”And he shouted at the woman, he said, “How it can be? If yesterday was Friday, how it can be Saturday today? Impossible! Go and find out what day today is.”The journalist escaped, thinking that this was something insane, this man was insane; he never even looked back. When he had gone, Gurdjieff had a good, hearty laugh. He said to the woman, “You see how I got rid of that man. Now he will never come back and he will spread the story around and many more will be prevented from coming.”One never knows how an enlightened person is going to behave, what devices he is going to use. Your feeling that you love these words, this beautiful passage, is good, but remember that man is worth both weeping and laughing over. Yes, he is in great misery but the misery is created by himself. He is trapped and he suffers much, but the trap is made by himself. He is like the small child who was playing outside the house with a pile of bricks. He started making a house of bricks, standing in the middle he went on putting brick upon brick around himself. When they came up to his neck then he became puzzled, then he started shouting to his mother, “I am imprisoned, come and save me!” Now he cannot get out of it, but he himself has created it.This is the situation of man: we create our misery, our hell. If you see that we go on creating it, it is worth laughing at; but if you see: “Maybe we create it but still we are suffering,” then it is worth weeping over.But Buddha will not do either. He will remain detached, cool. He will not suffer because you are suffering and he will not even think your misery worth laughing about. He will keep his cool; he will do whatsoever he can to help you and will go on his way. Whether you are helped or not is not his business. His business is to say what is, and even that he had agreed to very reluctantly.When he became enlightened he remained silent for seven days. The story is that the gods became very worried because it rarely happens that a man becomes enlightened: “Now this Siddhartha has become enlightened and he has not spoken a single word for seven days.” They looked deep into the consciousness of Siddhartha and they saw that he was not going to speak at all.They came down to the earth, bowed down to Buddha and asked him to speak because there were many who could be helped. Buddha said to them, “I had thought about it but there are only two alternatives. One is: I will speak but I will be understood only by a very few people. The majority will not understand, maybe ninety-nine percent of the people will not understand at all; so ninety-nine percent of my effort is going to be a sheer waste.“Of the one percent who will be able to understand me, my insight says that even without me, sooner or later they will find their own way. Their intelligence is such, their courage is such, their search is such, and they are passionate lovers of truth. That’s why they will be able to understand me.“The ninety-nine percent will never understand, the one percent who are capable of understanding me will understand it anyway, whether I speak or not. In fact it will be easier for them to understand if I don’t speak. My silence will be more of a communion with them. So what is the point of speaking?”The gods were worried how to answer this. They gathered together, they discussed among themselves, then they came again with a new argument and they said, “Listen. You are right, there are people who will never understand you and there are people who will understand even without your saying a single word. But can you deny that there are people between these two? Can you say there is not a single person who is just between these two categories, a third category, who will understand if you speak, and who will never understand if you don’t speak? Can you deny – it may be a very small minority, it may be one in a million, but can you deny that one single person, that link between the majority and the minority? The non-understanders and the understanders are linked.”Buddha could not deny it. He said, “You are right, there are a few people; yes, one in a million who will be helped.”“Then,” those gods said, “even if it is only one in a million, it is your to duty help him.”It is because of this argument that Buddha started speaking; otherwise he was not going to speak. And remember, there have been many buddhas who have not spoken. They remained silent their entire lives, you will never hear about them because they have never spoken. No scripture exists to describe them.One point I would like to make very clear to you: each individual, when he becomes enlightened, becomes part of the universal, but his expression still remains individual. His experience is universal, but his expression is individual. If he was a poet before, like Kabir, when he becomes enlightened he will sing songs. If he was a poet, if being a poet was part of his individuality – now knowing the universal, his understanding, his light, will start flowing into the old patterns of poetry. He will be like Kabir, Nanak, Farid. But if he was a painter, not a poet, and he becomes enlightened, then he will paint – that will be his natural way of expressing. If he was a sculptor then his expression will be different.Each buddha lives in the universal but expresses himself individually. This is Jesus’ expression, he is all too human. Maybe that is his appeal – now almost half the earth is in love with Jesus. The reason is his humanity. Buddha is a faraway star; Jesus seems to be very close to the heart. Buddha appeals to the very sophisticated; Jesus’ appeal is for the masses.Whenever a country becomes sophisticated, cultured, educated, rich, affluent, Jesus’ appeal starts disappearing. That’s what is happening in America. Buddha is becoming more and more powerful: more and more Zen centers are being opened, more and more people are becoming converted from prayer to meditation, more and more people are becoming interested in the sayings of Buddha.Jesus is losing ground in America; he is still gaining ground in India, but he is losing ground in America. America is now in the same affluent state as India was in the time of Buddha. The country was rich, people were well-educated, sophisticated, cultured; they knew what philosophy was. They knew all the flights of metaphysics; they knew the highest peaks, at least intellectually. And Buddha was speaking to this intelligentsia; it was a totally different communication.Jesus was talking to the poor villagers, farmers, gardeners, fishermen. He was speaking to the lowest, the poorest of the poor. His language is different, it is very human, it has to be.Buddha’s language is very pure, philosophical, metaphysical. It is less concerned with whether you understand it or not, it is more concerned with being true, being closer to truth, as close as possible. Hence their expressions are bound to be different.You ask me, “Osho, does Buddha weep?” Some buddhas do, some buddhas don’t. It all depends on the individuality.It happened when Basho’s master died – Basho is a buddha, a buddha who writes poetry, a buddha who paints beautiful pictures, a very aesthetic buddha. His master died, thousands of people gathered. His master was very famous; more famous because of Basho, because Basho was a famous poet and painter and he was Basho’s master. Thousands of people gathered and they were very much surprised when they saw Basho crying, big tears rolling down his cheeks.A few close disciples of Basho’s master came to him and said, “It does not look right. Thousands of people are coming and they are getting confused. They don’t think a buddha should be crying and weeping, and you are the man who has been saying to them again and again: there is no death and the innermost core lives forever. Then why are you weeping? Your master is not dead, he has only moved from the small body to the universal body of existence. So why are you weeping?”Basho wiped his tears and he said, “Listen. This is nobody’s business. I live according to my inner feelings, I cannot pretend. When my innermost core wants to weep, I will weep, and I don’t care whether people think it right or not. If they think that I am not enlightened it’s okay, but I cannot pretend. I cannot do something which is not really there. And yes, I have said that the soul is immortal and my master has not died, he has disappeared into the universal. That’s why I am crying, not crying that he is dead but crying that now I will never be able to see his form. Now he has become formless, and his body was beautiful. I will never be able to look again into those deep eyes, I will never be able to hold his hand and touch his feet. I have lost his form; I am crying for his body, for his form; I am not crying for the formless soul. And I am not concerned whether people think me enlightened or unenlightened, that is their business. Who cares?”No, this is Basho’s approach, and he too is true. But never compare. Let each buddha be a Himalayan peak separate from other peaks. Let each buddha be understood according to his own way, never impose any other pattern on him. That has been done down the ages again and again. The Christian can’t believe that Buddha is a christ, because he does not serve the poor, he does not heal the wounded, he does not make the blind see, he does not do miracles like Jesus did. Lazarus died and Jesus came, and after four days he revived Lazarus. Buddha does nothing like that; on the contrary, he does something absolutely different.There is a beautiful story:A woman lost her young son just a few days after her husband had died. Kisa Gautami was her name, and she was in great despair, naturally, now her only son had died, and the child had been her only hope. Buddha was staying in the town. People said, “Don’t cry and don’t weep. Why don’t you take the child to Buddha? He is so compassionate; he may revive him back to life.”The woman rushed with the dead body of the child. Buddha looked at the woman, told the woman to put the child in front of him and said to her, “Yes, I will revive him, but you will have to fulfill one condition.”The woman said, “I am ready to give even my life. Say any condition and I will fulfill it.”Buddha said, “It is a simple condition, I never make big requirements of people, only small requirements; this is a very simple thing. Just go into the town and bring a few mustard seeds. Just remember one thing: the mustard seeds should come from a house where nobody has ever died.”The woman was in an insane state, she could not see the point. How can you find a house where nobody has ever died? She rushed with great hope and she knew that every house has mustard seeds because that was the only crop the people were growing. The whole village was doing the same work, growing mustard seeds so there was no problem.She knocked on many doors, the people said, “A few mustard seeds? We can bring cartloads of mustard seeds, but we cannot fulfill the condition; many people have died in our house. So our mustard seeds won’t do.”By the evening the woman came to her senses. She had knocked on many doors; slowly, slowly she saw the point that death is inevitable – it happens to everybody, nobody can escape from it. She came back that evening a totally different woman. The child was there, Buddha was waiting. He said, “Where are the mustard seeds?”The woman laughed, fell down at his feet and said, “Initiate me into your path, because I have understood your message that everybody has to die. Today my son has died, a few days ago my husband died, a few days afterward I am going to die. Before I die I want to see the deathless. Now I am not interested in my child being raised from the dead. Now I am interested in seeing the eternal life.”Buddha initiated Kisa Gautami.Now, these stories are the same, almost the same. Lazarus’ sisters were Jesus’ disciples, they sent for him. He was away – it took four days for him to reach there – and he raised Lazarus from the dead. But what happened to Lazarus then? He must have died again because we don’t see him anywhere. So what is the point?If you ask Buddha he will say, “What is the point of raising the man? He will die again. You are simply creating another opportunity to die. Once is enough, why twice?” Buddha would have responded in a totally different way. Christians can’t understand it because they are obsessed with the idea of Christ. They would like Buddha and Mahavira and Krishna to be the same way. That is not possible.Buddhists cannot understand Christ either, because they have the idea of Buddha, the image of Buddha, and Jesus does not fulfill it. In fact there is no need for Jesus to fulfill anybody’s idea, or for Buddha to fulfill anybody’s expectation. They are unique people. We should stop this continuous comparison. Thousands of books are written every year comparing, and every comparison is going to be wrong, it is going to do some injustice to somebody or other. Either you will be unjust to Buddha, or to Christ. You cannot be just to both.My effort here is to make you aware of the varieties of buddhahood, of the multidimensionality of enlightenment. The world is rich because there are so many birds and so many trees and so many flowers. And the same is true about the inner world; so many possibilities of growing, so many different, unique expressions when you become mature – different flowers. The world is richer because there is a Buddha and a Christ and a Lao Tzu. The world would have been really very poor if there were only Ramas, just Ramas; the world would have been very poor. In each village and town you could find a few Ramas, carrying their bow. Or if there were millions of Christs everywhere it would not be beautiful, it would be boring.It is good that Jesus has the touch of humanity and Buddha has pure divinity.The second question:Osho,What is “coincidence”?There are three things to be understood. One is the law of cause and effect. That applies to the material world and because science believes only in the law of cause and effect, it denies everything else. The law of cause and effect is mechanical, there is no coincidence. You heat water to one hundred degrees and it evaporates, there is no coincidence. It is not that one day it evaporates at ninety-nine degrees, another day at ninety degrees. There is no question of mood, the water cannot decide, the water is mechanically ruled by a law of cause and effect.Those who believe in the law of cause and effect will not believe in any coincidence. Everything is predetermined, there is nothing like coincidence. Everything has inevitability.Then there is another law – Carl Gustav Jung called it the law of synchronicity. Two things can happen together although they are not related as cause and effect. For example if somebody is singing a beautiful song, some cord in your heart is touched, but it is not inevitable, it is not cause and effect – it may happen, it may not happen; it may happen to a few people, it may not happen to a few others. It may happen to you one day, it may not happen to you another day.Today you are feeling happy, you have met your woman, your friend; you are riding on the winds. Somebody is singing a song, suddenly it strikes a note in you; you also feel like singing. Somebody is dancing, your feet suddenly have the feel to dance, the mood to dance.But your wife has died, you are sad and somebody is singing and it hurts. The moon has risen in the sky, a full-moon night, and you are sad – the moon also looks sad, not beautiful. You are in such a sad state that the full-moon night looks like it is ridiculing you; it looks so indifferent to you, so unconcerned, so hard. You are in such a sad state and the moon is still shining the same way it used to, and the roses are blooming and the birds are singing. Nobody seems to be concerned about you; nobody seems to care about you. The universe seems to be very neutral, very cold. You feel hurt, you feel alienated; you feel a stranger, an outsider. Now there will be no synchronicity.The law of synchronicity means sometimes you fit and sometimes you don’t fit. It is fluid. The law of synchronicity belongs to the world of mind; just as cause and effect belong to the world of matter, body, the law of synchronicity belongs to the world of mind, heart. Beyond these two there is a possibility of coincidence too. That means no law pertains, or you can call it the law of freedom. That is the ultimate, the law of your innermost core; in fact it is not a law because it is a law of freedom. Things can happen which are not caused by anything and which are not created by the law of synchronicity, just coincidences.Coincidence simply means that there is a possibility of freedom. Now there are people here of all three kinds. There are people here who have come according to the law of cause and effect; they had to come, it was inevitable, unavoidable. There was something pulling them like a magnet, they could not resist it.There are people here who have come not through the law of cause and effect, but they felt a synchronicity, a harmony with me, a deep accord. If they wanted to resist they could have resisted very easily, if they wanted not to come they could have remained. There was no gravitational pull, they had to choose. It is out of their choice that they are here.There is also the third category of people who have just come as a coincidence, accidental. A friend was here, and you had come to see your friend, not to see me, not to listen to me, not at all concerned about me; you had come just to see your friend, but then you got caught. The friend may not be here anymore, the friend may have escaped. Now this is coincidence.Your husband was coming here, and you simply followed him as a dutiful wife. Now there are many children, many kids who are coincidentally here. Their parents are here, so they are here; their being here is not their choice, just a coincidence. Their parents are Christian, they are Christian; their parents are Hindu, so they are Hindu; their parents have become sannyasins, they have become sannyasins. This is just coincidence.All three things happen. The higher you rise, the higher your consciousness is, the more aware you become of freedom. At the lowest point everything is determined, at the highest point nothing is determined.Buddha renounced his palace and the first day, when he was walking on the bank of a river, he created much confusion in the mind of a great astrologer.The astrologer was coming from Varanasi; he had achieved the highest degrees possible in those days. He had become the most famous astrologer; now he was going back to his part of the country. He saw Buddha’s footprint on the wet sand; he could not believe his eyes, because it was against all his astrological knowledge. The feet of the Buddha had a few marks which were clearly there on the sand. Those marks were thought to belong only to a man who is the ruler of the whole world, a chakravartin, who is the ruler of six continents.Now what is the ruler of six continents doing in this poor village, on this dirty bank? And why should the emperor of all the six continents walk barefooted? He could not believe his eyes. He studied them very minutely and there was no suspicion, no doubt. Either his astrological books were not right or some emperor had passed here. He followed those footprints in search of the man and he found Buddha sitting under a tree. Now he was more puzzled; the man looked as if he was the emperor of all the six continents, and yet he was a beggar with a begging bowl.He bowed down to Buddha and he said, “I would like to see your feet. I am an astrologer, you may have heard my name.” He looked at the feet and he said, “Now you have created such confusion in my mind, I have never been so confused. For twelve years I have studied astrology, should I throw my scriptures in the river and forget all about it? You should be the emperor of the whole world. What are you doing here? How can you be a beggar?”Buddha laughed and he said, “Yes, there is no need to throw away your books, there is no need to be so confused. Your books are right. I was meant to be a great king, but that belongs to the law of cause and effect. If I had simply followed the pattern in which I was born, then I would have been the king, a great king, a chakravartin. But because I renounced, I took a conscious, deliberate step against the pattern that was imposed, imprinted in my being. I revolted against it, I rebelled against it, I became free of it. I became a witness of it. I dropped my identification with my mind, and once you drop your identification with your mind you are no longer under the law of cause and effect.”First you enter the world of synchronicity and then, ultimately, you enter the world of freedom. In the world of freedom there are only coincidences. Nothing is absolutely certain, everything is possible. Nothing is impossible. Napoleon is reported to have said: “Nothing is impossible.” Napoleon could say that, but he should not say it. A Buddha can say: “Nothing is impossible, all things become possible.”You ask me, “What is ‘coincidence’?” It simply means that life is not just mechanical. It is not determined by fate and it is not determined by history. It is not determined by your past or by your past karmas. It is not determined, as Karl Marx says, by historical necessity. Life is not determined. It is determined only for those who live unconsciously; otherwise it is freedom. You can choose and you can choose to be anything. You can even choose to be a nothingness, that is the ultimate freedom.And coincidences are always happening in ordinary life too. Life is not as logical as you think, it is very illogical. Only the surface looks logical.The preacher decided to enumerate the Ten Commandments to his flock.When he got to “Thou shalt not steal,” he noticed a fellow in the first row acting nervously. When the preacher got to “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” he noticed the fellow brighten up and smile. After the service, the preacher approached the man and asked him the reason for his unseemly conduct – to which the happy one replied, “When you said, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ I discovered my umbrella was gone. But when you said, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ I remembered where I had left it.”A bachelor named Clem showed up at his weekly poker game with a black eye.His friend Joe asked what had happened to him.“Well,” Clem replied, “when I was getting dressed this morning a button came off my pants. I don’t know how to sew a thing, so I went to the next apartment and asked the woman there if she would sew it on for me.”“Oh boy,” Joe said, “she probably thought you were making a pass and socked you, huh?”“No, that was not it,” said Clem. “She was as nice about it as she could be. Got out a needle and thread right then and there. She sat down in front of me and sewed the button on while I was standing there. But just as she finished and was biting the thread off, her husband walked in.”Life is not only logic. It does not follow a clean-cut path, it goes zigzag. And it is good that it is not simply logical, otherwise there would be no joy, there would be no surprise; you would be simply machines, not men. Coincidences never happen to machines, they can’t happen to machines, they can happen only to man. It is your being conscious that makes them possible. Remove man from the earth and all coincidences will disappear, things will be following simple, logical law. But remove man and life loses all its beauty, because life loses its ultimate peak of evolution.The third question:Osho,Why do you go on speaking against knowledge? I have never heard you speak against ignorance.Knowledge hinders, ignorance never does. Knowledge makes you egoistic, ignorance never does. Knowledge is nothing but hiding your ignorance, covering it up. If there is no knowledge, you will know your ignorance because there will be nothing to hide it. To know “I am ignorant” is the first step toward real wisdom; hence I never speak against ignorance, ignorance has something beautiful about it. One thing that is beautiful about ignorance is that it can give you the right direction to move.Socrates says, “I know only one thing, that I know nothing.” But Socrates is one of the wisest men of the world.It happened that a few people had gone to the temple of Delphi, and the oracle at Delphi declared that Socrates was the wisest man, the greatest wise man ever. Those people rejoiced greatly because they had come from Athens. They went back, went to Socrates and they said, “You should also rejoice. Have you heard or not? The oracle at the temple of Delphi has declared you the greatest wise man on the earth.”Socrates said, “There must be something wrong, some misunderstanding, because I am the most ignorant; I know only one thing, that I know nothing. Go back and tell the oracle that Socrates says he is the most ignorant person in the world.”They went back, they told the oracle and the oracle laughed and said, “That’s why I have declared him the wisest man in the world.”I never speak against ignorance. Ignorance also has another beautiful thing about it: that it is yours. Knowledge is always borrowed. Something that is yours cannot be taken away from you. It cannot be stolen, robbed, but knowledge can be taken away from you very easily because it is borrowed.And when you are ignorant you don’t have any pretensions, you are simple, you are innocent. Ignorance has the quality of innocence about it. That’s why children are so innocent, because they are so ignorant. Primitive people are so innocent because they are so ignorant; they are not cunning, they cannot be. They don’t have enough knowledge to be cunning. Before you can be cunning you have to be educated. Before you can be cunning you need a university degree; the more universities there are, the more cunningness there is in the world. The more people become knowledgeable, the more they are deceptive, cunning, oppressive, the more they find ways to exploit others.Ignorance is pure, unadulterated. From ignorance move toward wisdom, not toward knowledge. If ignorance becomes meditative it becomes wisdom; if ignorance becomes interested in more and more information then it becomes knowledge. To be knowledgeable is not going to help at all. Wisdom liberates. Wisdom is as much yours as your ignorance is yours.Knowledge not only deceives others, it deceives you too. When you know answers parrotlike, you start thinking that you really know. Because you can read and you can write, you start to think that you know; because you can understand words, you start thinking that you know; because your intelligence is covered with intellectuality, you start thinking that you are intelligent, but you are not intelligent, only intellectual.Intelligence is part of wisdom, intellectuality is part of knowledge.Yes, I speak against knowledge because there is nothing more dangerous than knowledge. It hinders you from knowing yourself. Knowledge hinders you from knowing, because it gives you plastic, synthetic, false things to play with and you forget all about the real thing. Don’t start believing in words; it is the most dangerous game one can play. Don’t be a parrot, otherwise you will be going farther and farther away from your inner source.One very hot day a dog was walking along a road when he saw a take-away food shop. He went in and asked for a can of lemonade.“Get out!” said the shopkeeper. “Dogs are not allowed in food shops.”“But look here,” said the thirsty canine, “you’ve got a big sign outside that says, ‘We Serve Hot Dogs!’”Just knowing words is not enough; the more words you know, the more confused you are going to become, because you don’t know. Your words are just on the surface. If somebody scratches a little bit more, your ignorance is bound to show. People go on pretending.When I was a student in the university, I had a professor who was not even very knowledgeable – wisdom was out of the question. But he had this habit of pretending. Whenever anybody would mention the name of any philosopher, author, poet, mystic or the name of some book, he would immediately say, “Yes, I have read the book, it is beautiful,” or this or that, he would make some comment. But I could see in his eyes that the answer he was giving was hollow, he had not read the book, he knew nothing about the person and nobody had ever seen him in the library. I had also gone to his house, and I had not seen any books there. I inquired in the library – he had been in the university for ten years – not a single book had been taken out in his name, and nobody had ever seen him reading, except the newspaper. He was not reading anything else, and that too, he used to borrow from the neighbors. I inquired everywhere, and I became absolutely certain that he was simply pretending.One day I invented three names, just invented. I told him, “Have you read, sir, Nomineo’s book?”He said, “Yes.” Now, there is no such person as Nomineo.I asked him, “Can you tell me the name of his book?”He looked a little puzzled; he said, “I must have read it many years ago, I have forgotten the name. You can inquire in the library.”I said, “You come along.” In the library there was no name like Nomineo and no book that he had written, because he has never been – so how could he write a book?I told him, “The other two names were also inventions and you have agreed, and a few other books also you have agreed that you read and they don’t exist!”He took me aside and said, “Listen, don’t tell anybody, but I don’t know a thing about these books. But one has to keep one’s face. I don’t want to look stupid.”People go on trying to pretend to be what they are not. Knowledge gives you the greatest pretension; you can quote Buddha, Jesus. And you don’t understand what they are saying and you will always do something wrong. You will interpret them in a wrong way.In India there are thousands of commentaries on the Bhagavadgita. Now if Krishna was either mad or insane then there could be thousands of meanings to his words. But Krishna was very particular about what he wanted to say. How then can you explain those thousands of commentaries? Those people are imposing their meanings on Krishna. If he comes back and looks at the commentaries he himself will be puzzled, he himself will be in some difficulty trying to decide what his meaning really was. And those people are very argumentative.Anybody can prove anything. Shankara proves that the Gita is the philosophy of renouncing the world; the world is illusion, and the Gita preaches renunciation – and he proves it beautifully. His contemporary, Ramanuja, proves just the opposite: that the Gita teaches one to live in the world and be a devotee of God. It does not preach renunciation, it teaches the art of living in the world with prayerfulness. And Lokmanya Tilak finds something else; he says the Gita preaches action, of course with great detachment, but you have to act.These are the three paths, ancient paths: The paths of no-action, inaction which is Shankara’s finding in the Gita; the path of action which is Lokmanya Tilak’s finding in the Gita; the third is the path of devotion, Ramanuja’ finding in the same book. And then there are different variations of the theme.Knowledgeable people can go on imposing their own ideas on those who have known. The right way to come across a book like the Bible, Gita or Koran is not to have any ideas, not to have any knowledge. Encounter them with great silence, just like a mirror: just reflecting, not interpreting. Then you will be able to see the real meaning, their meaning – not your meaning imposed on their meaning. And the man who can become a mirror need not go to the Gita, the Koran or the Bible, he can find the message in the trees, in the song of the birds, in the clouds, in the sun, in the moon. He can find it anywhere, because God’s message is written all over existence. His signature is on each leaf; you just have to be mirrorlike, silent, meditative, with no thought, with no knowledge.That’s why I speak against knowledge. It is knowledge that has become your imprisonment.Betty was constantly losing her boyfriends because of her grandmother’s tendency to say the wrong things to them in her attempt to be modern.One day, her current boyfriend arrived while Betty was upstairs changing, and the old lady started to brag about her granddaughter.“I think Betty would rather screw than eat,” Granny chatted cheerfully to the young man. “There is hardly a young man around she has not screwed with, and she even has a record to screw by.”The young man blushed, stammered, grabbed his hat, and beat it out the door.A moment later Betty came downstairs, noted his absence and said, “Alright, Granny, what did you say this time?”“Nothing,” protested the old lady, “I was just telling him how much you liked to screw, when he ran out the door.”“Oh my goodness, Granny, how many times must I tell you, the word is not screw, it is twist!”What happens to Jesus in your mind, what happens to Buddha in your mind is exactly something like that. Your mind does both the things, it twists, it screws. Put your knowledge aside, just go in deep innocence, in deep ignorance, and then you will be able to find what truth is. Truth is not found by knowledge, it is found by silence. And knowledge is noisy.The last question:Osho,Is it really difficult to understand you?It is the same old story. It has always been difficult to understand people like me. Not that you are not intelligent enough to understand, but because you are too knowledgeable. You already think you know and that is the trouble. Come to me not knowing anything, don’t come to me as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians; otherwise you will misunderstand. I am saying simple things, but if you have a preoccupied mind, you are going to miss them.“It was terrible, mother,” complained the curvy teenager. “I had to change my seat four times at the movies.”“Some man started bothering you?” asked her mother.“Yes,” said the girl. “Finally.”An American girl visiting England went to a posh party. She was dancing with a rather stuffy Englishman when her necklace became unfastened and slipped inside the back of her gown. So she asked her partner to retrieve it.Though he felt rather uncomfortable about it, he courteously attempted to reach the necklace. After a couple of tries, he finally said, “I am awfully sorry, but I am having trouble getting to it.”“Try further down,” she instructed.Just then he noticed that all eyes in the room were on him, and he blushed beet-red. He whispered to the lovely American, “I feel such a perfect ass!”“Never mind about that,” she said. “Just get the necklace!”We have different languages – I speak one language, you speak another. By the time my words reach to you they have a totally different meaning. Unless you start listening to me in the same silent space in which I am speaking to you, misunderstanding is inevitable. But it can be avoided. Be a little bit more meditative, learn the ways of being more silent – and many of you are learning, and many of you have become aware of it, and many of you are tasting me without misunderstanding me at all.It is going to happen to you too. You are new; just get a little seasoned, a little ripe and mature. And the only maturity required here is to sit with me absolutely empty, so I can resonate within you, so I can touch your heart, so I can play upon the harp of your heart.Then the sounds created will not come from your mind; otherwise, if you keep the mind between me and you, then whatsoever meaning you arrive at is your own; I have nothing to do with it, it has nothing to do with me either.Wait a little, become a little more silent; learn how to be in communion with me. It is a love affair to be with a master, a love affair which is inexpressible in words; but one can get attuned, it is an attuning. Slowly, slowly the disciple falls into accord with the heart of the master. He breathes the way the master breathes, his heart beats in the same rhythm as the master’s heart. Then understanding comes so naturally. Just as your shadow follows you, understanding follows silence.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Let go of anger.Let go of pride.When you are bound by nothing,you go beyond sorrow.Anger is like a chariot careering wildly.He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer.Others merely hold the reins.With gentleness overcome anger,with generosity overcome meanness,with truth overcome deceit.Speak the truth.Give whatever you can,never be angry.These three steps will lead youinto the presence of the gods.The wise harm no one,they are masters of their bodiesand they go to the boundless country.They go beyond sorrow.Those who seek perfectionkeep watch by day and nighttill all desires vanish.Listen, Atula. This is not new,it is an old saying –“They blame you for being silent,they blame you when you talk too muchand when you talk too little.”Whatever you do they blame you.The world always findsa way to praise and a way to blame.It always has and it always will.But who dares blame the manwhom the wise continually praise,whose life is virtuous and wise,who shines like a coin of pure gold?Even the gods praise him,even brahma praises him.Beware of the anger of the body.Master the body.Let it serve truth.Beware of the anger of the mouth.Master your words.Let them serve truth.Beware of the anger of the mind.Master your thoughts.Let them serve truth.The wise have masteredbody, word and mind.They are the true masters.The first sutra:Let go of anger.Let go of pride.When you are bound by nothing,you go beyond sorrow.The most important thing to be understood is that Buddha is not saying, “Repress anger, repress pride.” And he is not saying, “Drop anger, drop pride,” either. He is using the words: Let go of anger. Let go of pride. The key is in the words let go.There are people who are full of anger, possessed by anger, possessed by pride. They are insane; insanity is the climax of pride and anger. And there are people who are afraid of anger and pride, hence they repress them. But a repressed insanity is far more dangerous, because it accumulates. Then you are sitting on a volcano which can erupt any moment; it will destroy you, and it will destroy others who are related to you. It is poison.If one has to choose between the two, expressing or repressing, then expressing is far better, because at least the poison never accumulates. It is thrown out in mild doses, homeopathic doses. But if you accumulate, it is no longer homeopathy, it becomes allopathy. Then the doses are big and, sooner or later, your repressed anger will be so powerful that you will not be able to keep it repressed anymore. Then it will simply explode and you will be absolutely helpless.Humanity has been taught by the priest, the politician, the pedagogue down the ages to repress anger. Society is not concerned with you; it is concerned only with your outer appearance. What happens to your inner world is nobody’s business; whether you suffer, live in hell inside, that is left to you. Just keep a beautiful appearance, learn etiquette, behave in a cultured way and if you are carrying a hell that is your problem.But the person who is carrying a hell within, howsoever cultivated, sophisticated he becomes, remains a wild animal within. Scratch him a little bit and his humanity will disappear, his character will disappear and you will find just the opposite kind of man inside. That’s what happens when somebody drinks too much. Once a very cultured man is intoxicated, he starts being very uncultured. That is his truer self. Alcohol has not created it; it has only removed the barriers, it has only removed the rocks that were repressing it.In the East there has been a secret tradition of tantrikas who practice meditation, and side by side they take drugs in greater and greater amounts for a certain reason. They are not interested in drugs, they are interested in meditation. But they go on increasing the amount of the drug slowly, slowly so that they can remain alert with it. It takes a long time; it is a very subtle process of awakening.In the hands of fools it will be destructive, it will be suicidal; hence it is a sacred tradition. Only the master gives it to the disciple, and then very rarely. If he finds a disciple of much integrity, only then does he give this process: “Meditate and go on increasing the amount of the drug so slowly that it never overpowers you and your watchfulness remains intact.”But the drug will start removing all rocks and it will bring up all that you have repressed down the ages in your many lives. Watching it you will be allowing it to disappear. That is the magic of watching. If you watch something, either it is going to disappear totally from your being, or it is going to be dissolved into your being. If it is something natural, spontaneous, it will be dissolved into your being. That too is beautiful. If it is something not part of your being, extraneous – has come from the outside, is a parasite on you – it will evaporate.The real definition of good and bad can only be this: the good is that which grows with meditation, watchfulness, and the bad is that which disappears as you grow in watchfulness, as you grow in awareness. Awareness has to be the decisive factor. When you become aware of your anger a let-go happens because anger is not part of your natural being, neither is pride. They start evaporating; as the sun of awareness rises in you, they start evaporating like dewdrops in the early morning sun.And the second thing to remember… Buddha makes these two statements together: Let go of anger. Let go of pride. Why? There is a reason: pride is ego. “I am superior, I am holier, I am greater, I am something special, I am.” Ego is the root cause of anger. If you think you are superior, higher, holier, special, you will be constantly angry, because the world is not going to accept it. In fact everybody else also thinks in the same foolish way, and when there are so many great people, conflict is bound to arise. Everybody is trying to prove, “I am greater than you.” How can you avoid conflict? And that conflict brings anger. It is ego hurting, it is ego feeling the wound; it is unsatisfied ego that creates anger. And nobody’s ego can be satisfied, that is impossible.Even a man like Napoleon could not feel his ego absolutely satisfied, for the simple reason that he was not very tall – only five feet five inches. That was always heavy on him because he had many servants, guards who were much taller than himself. And whenever he would see a tall person he would become angry; he would not be able to control himself.The great Russian leader, Lenin, had very small legs. His torso was big, his upper body was big; his lower body was very small, disproportionate. That kept him always angry. Even if somebody looked at his feet – which was natural, because they were so disproportionate that anybody looking would notice – he would become angry immediately. Anybody looking at his feet would arouse his anger.He used to sit on a big chair – so big that his feet wouldn’t touch the ground – so nobody would notice that he had small feet. But people had become aware of his big chair; they would look more closely and that would again create anger, because they would see that his feet were not touching the ground at all. Now, to be the dictator of the greatest country in the world, Russia, the largest country in the world and yet feel hurt for the stupid reason that you have small legs…!You cannot have all and everything. You can arrange to have a few things, but a few other things will be missing. You may be tall, but you may be ugly. Any small thing is enough to hurt the ego. You may be very tall and very handsome, but unintelligent – you may have a very mediocre mind. You may have a very intelligent mind, but a very ill body. You may have a very strong body, a very good physique, but have little intelligence. You can’t manage to have everything. You may have intelligence, a beautiful body but no money. The world is vast and there are a thousand and one things and nobody can manage to have it all; nobody has ever been able to.And the ego is bound to be wounded; the ego is very sensitive, very fragile, because it is very false. It is ego that creates the space in which anger arises. Hence, Buddha says: Let go of anger and immediately adds Let go of pride because unless you let go of the ego you will not be able to let go of anger. Anger is a by-product. And one has to see very clearly the causes of things. Your minds are so jumbled up, in such a mess; you don’t know what is cause and what is effect.A woman used to come from a faraway village to the city each year to give birth to a child. When she came for the seventeenth time the doctor said, “We always wait for you. You are the only one we can depend on each year that you will be here. When will you be coming the next year?”She said, “I’m not coming anymore, because we have just discovered what is the cause of it all.”Seventeen children and they have just discovered the cause of it all! She said, “I am not coming anymore.”But that too is early. You may have lived thousands of lives and you have not yet been able to find the cause. Why this anger? Our minds are in such a mess that you cannot make head or tail of it. You cannot sort it out. Everything is so mixed up with everything else: causes pretending to be effects, effects pretending to be causes, things which are not related at all have become accidentally associated with each other.Betty Engrove, the singer, switched on her radio one morning and tuned in on two stations at once: one broadcasting calisthenics exercises and the other giving out cooking recipes. Here is what she heard:“Hands on hips, place one cup of flour on your shoulder. Touch your toes and mix them in one half cup of milk, repeat six times. Inhale one half teaspoon of baking powder, lower the legs and mash two hard boiled eggs, exhaling into a bowl and breathing naturally. Lie flat on the floor and roll in the white of an egg until it comes to a boil. In ten minutes lift your head from the fire and scrub briskly with a rough towel. Bend your knees, shake powdered sugar on them and serve it with soup.”And your mind is tuned to many stations, not just two. All kinds of things are going on inside the mind. One day just sit down and write whatsoever is coming into the mind. And don’t cheat, just write exactly whatsoever comes in and you will be surprised that this is your mind; this is from where you have been living your life. You will find it absolutely insane.It is good that we don’t have windows in the head, otherwise other people would look inside and they would be surprised; they would not be able to believe that this was you. You also will not be able to believe that this is what your mind is.But this is the reality. People never look inside; in fact, as if unconsciously, they suspect that if they look inside they will find insanity there. It is better not to look: avoid, keep the mind in the dark and remain occupied with something in the outside world. People keep themselves busy without business for the simple reason that it helps them not to look in. They have become alienated from their own minds.If you look in, in the beginning of course it is going to be a chaos; but if you start watching the chaos, slowly, slowly things start settling and you will be able to see what are the causes and what are the effects. Once you have known the causes, you are on the right track. Many people are fighting with the effects. You can never win, you are bound to lose. Effects are only symptoms. You cannot fight with anger, because it is only an effect; the cause is ego.You cannot fight with causes either, until you find: “This is the ultimate cause.” Anger is an effect; for anger, ego is the cause. But if you go deep down, watching your ego you will be surprised, it is also in its own turn an effect – an effect of unawareness. Unawareness is the cause.You can go on from anywhere – from greed, from lust, from anger, from jealousy, from possessiveness and you will always come to the ultimate cause: unawareness.So the only way to get rid of this mess, this chaos, is to be aware. And once you are aware you need not repress anything, you need not even drop anything; things start dropping on their own, they start disappearing on their own. That’s what Buddha means when he says: Let go of anger. Let go of pride. When you are bound by nothing, you go beyond sorrow. These two things are keeping you tethered in an insane state; they are the two things which are creating all your sorrow and misery. Ego, hidden behind, goes on working, poisoning you. Anger is either expressed and then poisons your relationships with people, or it is repressed, and then poisons your own being.Slowly, slowly you find yourself in a state in which many people would prefer to die; many people contemplate suicide for the simple reason that life is so painful and death seems to offer a relief. Millions of people around the earth contemplate suicide – many of them try, many of them succeed too. And those who don’t contemplate suicide contemplate murder; they think that others are creating their trouble, so destroy others. Either they want to destroy others, or they want to destroy themselves, because they find no joy in life. When you don’t find joy in life, when you are not blissful, you become destructive, either a sadist or a masochist.When your life is full of joy, unbounded joy, it is creative; then great creativity is born in you. Then you do something to contribute to the evolution of humanity, to the evolution of the whole universe. You add some beauty to it; you share your celebration with it. You make at least a few flowers bloom.You leave the world in great contentment because creativity brings contentment. You leave this world joyously, because it has been such a beautiful opportunity to grow, to mature, to become aware. It has been such a joy to create a few things and share those things with people; otherwise you live in sorrow and you die in sorrow.Anger is like a chariot careering wildly.He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer.Others merely hold the reins.If you look at people or at yourself, you will find that anger is as if it is a chariot without a driver.Just the other day I was reading a book…A man who has lived in the desert writes of many experiences he had there. He tried this experiment:There were no roads, there were no people, no trees, no rocks, no hills; just a desert, spread out for thousands of miles. And for centuries it had been so infertile, it had become hard. It was not a sand desert, the crust was very hard. He was driving his car when suddenly a whimsical idea arose in him. He moved to the passenger side of the front seat and as he was the only one in the car, let the car run on its own, because there was no road, no people, and there was no fear of any accident. The car started moving. It was a rare experience. Then he jumped out of the car.Greater ideas came to his mind as the car was still moving. He ran after the car, jumped in again, took out his bicycle and went in the opposite direction of the car on his bicycle till the car was just a speck far away on the horizon. It was still moving, going nowhere, still going.Then he again bicycled toward the car. It was strange. He writes it was thrilling that the car was still moving, going nowhere.Reading his notes, I suddenly remembered Buddha’s sutra: Anger is like a chariot careering wildly. He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer. Others merely hold the reins. They may not even be holding the reins, they may be simply sitting there with the car running on its own. Your body is running on its own, your mind is running on its own. You are not needed at all. You can jump out of the window, take your bicycle, go away from the car and it will still be moving. And one day you can come back to meet yourself.Yes, this has been tried. People down the ages have tried out-of-the-body experiences; they are exactly the same. You can try it. If you go a little deeper into meditation, one day you can find a way to get out of the body, to run in the room. Even running is not needed, you can float in the air, look at the body lying down there, sleeping, snoring; you can listen to the snoring. Everything is functioning perfectly well, the engine is humming; you can come close to the heart and listen to the beat. The body is breathing.You are not needed at all. You can escape through the window, go around the neighborhood, come back, enter the body, you are still fast asleep. It makes no difference, as if the body does not really care whether you are in or out. The body is a very complicated, subtle mechanism; it is automatic, it does not need you. You have not done anything, that’s why you are not needed.If you become a real charioteer then you will be needed. If you are a meditator you will be needed. Then there are a few things the body cannot do. It cannot meditate on its own; that is impossible. It can snore, it can sleep on its own, but it cannot be aware on its own. For awareness you are needed.Remember it: only that thing is worth doing for which you are needed. Things which can be done without you are nonessential things. To devote your whole life to them is to miss the whole point.“Take me to the railway station,” said the drunk, stumbling into a waiting taxi.“Look mate, we are at the railway station,” said the cabby.“Thanks,” murmured the drunk, handing over a five-dollar bill. “And next time, don’t drive so bloody fast.”The taxi had not moved even an inch. Your life may remain exactly where it was when you were born. It may not move even an inch. Millions die exactly as they are born. No growth happens; no flowering comes to their lives. Whether they are or are not simply makes no difference. They come and go like shadows. Their life is not worth calling life; they simply vegetate.A farmer munching on a cookie was watching a big rooster chasing a hen and gaining ground at every lap. The farmer threw a piece of cookie in front of the racing pair.The rooster came to a sliding stop and gobbled up the tidbit.“Gosh,” said the farmer, “I hope I never get that hungry.”But the rooster, the lion, the tiger, the dog, the cat and you, are not in any way different unless something of buddhahood starts arising in you. The rooster is dominated by his hunger, by his lust; so are you.B. F. Skinner, the modern prophet of the behaviorist school of psychology, says that man is a machine, and about ninety-nine point nine per cent of people he is correct. George Gurdjieff used to say that man is a machine. He was not a behavioral psychologist; he was one of the greatest spiritual giants who ever walked on the earth. But still he used to say that not everybody has a soul. It is very rarely that a person has a soul.I can understand B. F. Skinner. It is impossible for him to come across a buddha and to study a buddha. He studied rats and you; and he finds no difference. The instincts possessed by the rat are the same instincts possessed by man. Of course man is a little more complicated, true, a more complicated machine, that’s all: a computer.One day I was reading a fictitious story about the future, when scientists will be able to make mechanical men, robots. They look exactly like men, except that they have no soul. But from the outside you can’t see any difference: they talk, they make love, they eat, they get tired and they go to sleep. And if you meet a robot who looks exactly like a man, how are you going to judge whether or not he is a robot? Are you holding the hand of a robot or a man? Only once in a while will you be able to know: when the battery runs down and the robot starts, “Grrrr, grrrr, grrrr.” Otherwise there is no difference.You are making love to a robot and the robot suddenly says, “Grrrr, grrrr, grrrr,” then you become aware that this is not a man! But up to now he was perfectly all right. He was reciting great poetry, discussing great ideas, philosophy, quoting Socrates and Aristotle and he was hugging you and telling you, “I love you, and I will love you forever.” And these are all recorded things that he has been saying to every woman he meets. The moment he sees a woman something triggers in him and he starts talking poetically and saying, “I love you and I will die without you.”I have heard of a psychoanalyst who was very much puzzled. He was in love with a woman, but the woman was a little strange. Whenever he would say to her, “I love you,” she would look down.He asked her, “What is the matter? Whenever I say, ‘I love you,’ are you feeling ashamed, embarrassed or what? Why do you start looking down?”She said, “I look down to see whether you really mean it because I can’t trust your mind. I can only trust your body.”It is very difficult to lie through the body. One can learn it, actors do that, but very few people are actors. It is a very difficult art to make the body lie. The mind is perfectly at ease in lying; it can say things which it doesn’t mean. But the body is still far more authentic, far truer. What irony that the body seems to be authentic and your mind seems to be simply a fraud.You can attain to the soul only by becoming more watchful of all that is happening in your body and in your mind. Unless and until the witness arises in you, you are a robot.Sheela has written a question to me: “When I go away from you, I am such a rat, but when I come back to you I become just a mouse.”I know what she means. People think there is much difference between rats and mice; there is not much. The mouse is just a sophisticated rat, college-educated, a hypocrite. The rat is far more authentic, the rat is whatsoever he is. The mouse has a facade. But there is not much difference between the rat and the mouse. There is not much difference between the mouse and man, and there is not much difference between man and the machine.The difference arises – the only difference that makes a difference – in meditation. Before it, you can never have any differences. All the differences are only formal.That’s why psychologists study rats, particularly white rats, because they are simple people and it is easier to understand them. Once you have understood the mind of the rat, you have understood the mind of man too. They infer all their knowledge about man through studying rats. It is really a condemnation of man that rats supply information about you. And that information works, it is perfectly applicable to you because you behave in the same way.That information will not be applicable to a Buddha, to a Jesus, to a Krishna. But where is B.F. Skinner going to find a buddha? And even if he can find a buddha, who is going to study whom? The buddha will study Skinner, not vice versa. Skinner will not be able to study a buddha; he will not have the right context, he knows only how to study rats.A buddha will be absolutely incomprehensible to him, and when something is incomprehensible, the ego simply denies it. That is the ego’s way of protecting itself. The incomprehensible, the mysterious has to be denied, overlooked, bypassed. One does not take note of the incomprehensible, because to take note of the incomprehensible means you are taking note of the limitation of your mind, and that hurts the ego.Hence, buddhas are born once in a while, but nobody takes note of them. That is the difference between the Eastern and the Western psychology. Western psychology is based on the understanding of rats. Eastern psychology is not based on the understanding of rats or even on the understanding of man. Eastern psychology is rooted in the psychology of the buddhas. We think from the highest and then we come downward. First we think of the ultimate and from there we infer about those who are on lower ranks; it is respectful.Trying to observe the lowest and inferring about the higher is humiliating; it is ugly and it is going to be wrong. It is like studying a seed and inferring about a flower. Now, studying a seed, how can you infer about a flower? You can dissect the seed, you can look into it; you will not find any color and you will not find any beauty and you will not find any fragrance. Although the seed contains them all, they are still in the unmanifest.If you decide about the flower by the seed you will say that the flower doesn’t have any fragrance, cannot have, because if the fragrance is not in the seed, how can it be in the flower? And the flowers are not beautiful, because the seed is not beautiful. And then everything has to be reduced to the lowest denominator; then the flower has to be simply denied – it is just poetic imagination and nothing else. That’s what has been done about buddhas. The materialists go on denying their existence, they say it is poetic imagination. Such people have not existed, cannot exist; it is impossible for them to exist, because the seed does not show any sign of them.The psychology of the buddhas starts from the other extreme. It starts from the highest: it studies the flower and then infers about the seed. Because the flower has fragrance, it says the seed must have it; it is unmanifest. If the flower is beautiful, the seed must have beauty in it, covered, hidden. The flower has color therefore the seed must have it, just waiting for its right time, for the spring, to explode into color, into fragrance, into beauty. Now this is the right way to understand man: not through rats, not even through ordinary man, but through buddhas.This is the difference between the Eastern and the Western approach. The Western approach has reduced man to a very ugly phenomenon. The Eastern psychology has raised man to the height of the gods. And then the very process of both the psychologies becomes different. Western psychology goes through analysis; thinking is its method. Eastern psychology follows the method of no-mind, of meditation; not of analysis, not of thinking, but of silence. Because to see the beauty of the flower you need silence, not analysis; beauty can never be understood through analysis. The dance of the flower in the wind, in the sun, in the rain, cannot be understood by the head; the heart has to be open for it.With gentleness overcome anger…This sutra is also tremendously important. Now Buddha is saying that anger contains energy. You cannot simply throw it away; it is your energy. Throwing it away will make you weak. Energies are not to be thrown away, but to be transformed. With gentleness overcome anger… Let your anger be transformed into gentleness.…with generosity overcome meanness,with truth overcome deceit.He is saying that meditation is an alchemical process, not morality. It is alchemy; it is the science of the soul. Through meditation anger slowly, slowly disappears, and its energy becomes available and becomes gentleness.You will be surprised to know that if you suffer from great anger you have great potential for gentleness. Anger simply shows that you have great energy. A man without anger is impotent, he has no energy. A man who cannot be angry cannot be gentle either. …with generosity overcome meanness… Don’t repress meanness, don’t destroy meanness, but with generosity transform it into a generous consciousness, into sharing.…with truth overcome deceit. Don’t fight with darkness, bring light in. That is the essence of this sutra. Don’t fight with the negative, bring the positive in, and the positive comes through watchfulness. The negative is already there; your society prepares you for the negative, your society needs you to be negative. Your society wants you to be angry, full of anger, so that you can be forced into war, into crusades: religious, political, ideological conflicts; so you can be manipulated into killing people. Or, you can be manipulated into becoming martyrs; destructive to yourself.Millions of Christians have died, Mohammedans have died, killing each other for the simple reason that so much anger is repressed, it needs some outlet. You will be surprised to know that Buddhism is the only religion in the world which has not shed blood, the only religion in the world which has converted millions of people without coercion of any kind.Christianity has converted thousands of people, but with coercion. In the beginning it was by the sword. Mohammedans have converted millions of people, but it was forcibly, violently, through the sword. This is not conversion; this is something absolutely ugly and irreligious.Now the sword is no longer used, because to use the sword directly will be condemned all over the world, so subtle means of coercion are used. In poor countries you can go with bread and butter, with clothes, with better facilities for life and you can convert people. Christian missionaries are doing this all over the world, particularly in the poor countries. It is not a conversion to Christ. It is not a conversion at all, it is simply purchasing people with bread and butter. People are starving and whosoever can give them food, they are ready to go with him.Buddhism is the only religion in the world which has really converted people without the sword, without bread and butter, without any coercion, positive or negative; which has simply converted through its understanding of people, bringing them more light, bringing them more understanding of their minds, their bodies.This is of great importance: never fight with the negative. Your society prepares you for the negative. Transform the negative into the positive; transformation is possible. The medium that has to be used is meditation. Just become more watchful of all your mind things – anger, greed, meanness; otherwise you can cultivate, you can deceive others and you can deceive yourself, but you will remain mean. A miser can donate, giving to charity, but he is giving with calculation. His miserliness is there. Now he is opening a bank account in the other world. He wants to have a bank balance there too.A blind man was standing in a bus queue, when his neighbor was startled to see a dog calmly cock his leg and piss all down the blind man’s trousers.When the blind man realized what was happening, he put his hand into his pocket and produced a bar of chocolate that he held downward for the dog.“That’s a very charitable thing to do,” said his neighbor.“Oh,” replied the blind man, “I am just finding out where his mouth is so I can kick him in the balls.”Don’t be deceived about what people are doing on the outside, deep inside they may be calculating something else. Their act may be generous, but their motive is the thing that really matters; not the act, but the intention.A man picked up a woman in a bar one night and took her home to his apartment.When they got there, she started to disrobe, but he stopped her, saying, “No, let us just sit here on the couch together, and if you will keep both of your hands on my head while you are here, I will give you twenty dollars.”The girl thought this a little unusual, but did as he requested. Finally, she could not restrain her curiosity any longer and asked, “But what kind of a thrill do you get out of having my hands on your head?”“No thrill,” he answered. “I just get a sense of security knowing that your hands are on my head and not in my pocket – for twenty dollars it is worth it.”The people who are miserly will remain miserly, even in their sharing. If you look deep down you will find they are trying to bargain for something, there is some business hidden in it. The priests go on telling people, “If you give to poor people here, you will get a thousandfold in the other world” – a thousandfold, it is like a lottery! And who would not like to have it? Give a little bit here and you will get a thousandfold there.Priests have been cheating people, because people are mean, because people are miserly; otherwise priests would disappear from the world. If people are really generous there will be no need for the priests, nobody can exploit generous people. They give for the sheer joy of giving. They don’t think that giving is a means to some end. If you think giving is a means to some end you miss the whole point. Unless giving becomes a joy in itself, you don’t know what it is.Speak the truth.Give whatever you can,never be angry.These three steps will lead youinto the presence of the gods.Speak the truth, whatsoever the cost. It is going to cost you much, because the world lives in lies. People are brought up in such a way that truth never crosses their paths. And they are forced to believe in something which their society, their church, their state wants them to believe in; it is not a question of truth. People love lies, because lies are very consoling. And people love lies because others are also believers in the same lies, and you feel part of the others, you feel a kind of belonging, you don’t feel alone.The man of truth feels alone. A Socrates, a Pythagoras, a Heraclitus find themselves alone, very alone. In this world if you say the truth and you live the truth, you will have to live alone. You will not find many people who would like to be with you. You will not find great company in the world. You will find few people who are lovers of truth. And you will always be in danger, because your truth will be a dangerous thing for those who live in lies. They will not tolerate you; you will become an unbearable phenomenon for them. They will be bent upon destroying you.But still, even if life is sacrificed, truth is worth it. A moment of truth is more valuable than a hundred years of life, because a moment of truth makes you part of eternity, part of existence.Speak the truth. Give whatever you can… It is not a question that you have to give money or you have to give this and that; whatever you can, whatever you have share it. If you have a song, sing the song, share it; if you can dance, dance and share it. Give whatever you can – and – never be angry, because people may not accept your gift. Don’t get angry about that. People may never thank you; they may not feel grateful to you. On the contrary, they may feel offended by you.It has always been so; they were offended by Jesus, they were offended by Buddha. Why? – because those people look so different from the ordinary that people become aware of their own ordinariness and it hurts. They bring great treasures to share, but it hurts, because they have that great treasure and people don’t have anything. People will not be thankful to you, in fact they will never be able to forgive you. They may crucify you; they may stone you to death.Hence Buddha reminds you again: remember, don’t expect anything, otherwise anger will be natural. If you expect even gratefulness from people and they don’t show any gratefulness – on the contrary, they show great ungratefulness – you may feel angry. Beware, your joy is in giving. It is not for you to be worried about whether what you give is accepted or is not accepted, is accepted with gratefulness or is accepted indifferently.If you do good to people, they may do bad to you, still, don’t be angry. Remember this is how things are, this is how people are. Remembering it will help you not to become enraged.The wise harm no one… but the fools enjoy harming others. And who is wise? Not the one who knows much, but the one who understands much. The wise is not one who has all the scriptures at the tip of his tongue; the wise is one who has seen his own reality, and seeing it has become aware of the universe and its beauty and its intelligence. The wise is one who has seen the wisdom of existence; he is not knowledgeable, but he is absolutely innocent. How can he harm anyone? It is impossible, because he can’t see others as different from himself. He sees the whole as one. Beware of knowledgeable people, beware of the so-called experienced, they are not wise.Two women were sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, comparing notes on their various disorders.“I want a baby more than anything in the world,” said the first, “but I guess it’s impossible.”“I used to feel just the same way,” said the second, “but then everything changed. That’s why I’m here; I’m going to have a baby in three months.”“You must tell me what you did!”“I went to a faith healer.”“But I have tried that. My husband and I went to one for nearly a year and it didn’t help a bit.”The other woman smiled and whispered, “Try going alone next time, dearie!”The experienced people, the people who have lived life appear wise; they are not wise, they are only mature fools. And mature fools are more dangerous than the immature fools, because the mature fool has all the arguments to support his foolishness, all his experience is at his disposal.The professor of criminal law was concluding his final lecture before the holidays. “Remember, gentlemen, if you have an affair with an underage girl, with or without her consent, it is rape! If you have an affair with a girl of age without her consent, that is rape; but if you have an affair with a girl of age with her consent, Merry Christmas!”These people are wise in a way, wise in the ways of the world; they can give you good advice, but they are not wise in the sense Buddha uses the word. They are as foolish as you are, just a little bit more experienced, and foolishness does not disappear with experience.“I am looking for adventure, excitement, beautiful women,” cried the young man to his father as he prepared to leave home. “Don’t try to stop me! I’m on my way.”“Who is trying to stop you?” yelled the father, “take me along!”The wise harm no one,they are masters of their bodiesand they go to the boundless country.They go beyond sorrow.As you become a witness, as you become aware, you simply come to know that you are not the body, not the mind, not even the heart. You are simply a watcher, different from all that surrounds you. The body is your outermost boundary; the mind a little more inner, the heart still more inner, but at the innermost core you are just a consciousness.Knowing this you become detached from your own body, your mind, your heart; and that detachment brings mastery. Not that you become destructive to the body, you take every care of it, it is a beautiful instrument, it is a great gift of existence. But now you know that it is only the house you live in. Just as you take care of your house, you take care of your body; it is a temple.Your consciousness is your reality; you become disidentified, and to be disidentified is to be the master.Those who seek perfectionkeep watch by day and nighttill all desires vanish.Buddha expects only one thing from you: keep watch day and night till all desires vanish. Make your watchfulness so integrated, so powerful, so strong and so unwavering that it helps all the desires to evaporate, vanish. Desires are not to be dropped, but allowed to evaporate. Let go of anger, let go of pride. When you are bound by nothing, you go beyond sorrow.Listen, Atula. This is not new…Atula is a disciple of Buddha. Buddha is saying to Atula,Listen, Atula. This is not new,it is an old saying –“They blame you for being silent,they blame you when you talk too muchand when you talk too little.”Whatever you do they blame you.Why does Buddha suddenly address Atula? He was addressing all his sannyasins, and out of nowhere he suddenly addresses Atula. You may not be able to see the point immediately. Atula may be the one who was not listening, who was hearing, but not listening. And when you are in communion with a buddha, he knows perfectly well who is listening and who is only hearing. This happens here every day. When new people come, it is so clear that they are only hearing, not listening. As you live here a little longer, slowly, slowly you start listening.Listening is a totally different phenomenon than hearing. Hearing is physiological; because you have ears you can hear. Listening is a deep phenomenon. You listen only when you are in absolute silence. Those who have been here long enough are falling into that silence.Atula must have been only hearing, must have been a new disciple; hence Buddha specifically mentions his name, Listen, Atula. And it is also possible that Atula was thinking that Buddha was saying something very new, very strange. In fact what buddhas say is, in a way, the eternal truth, as ancient as the Himalayas; and in another way it is as fresh as the flower that has blossomed just this morning, as fresh as the dewdrops and as old as the Himalayas.All the buddhas in the past have said the same thing; maybe in different languages, with different expressions, in different ways. “There is nothing new under the sun.” It is a truth, but only half. The other half is, “There is everything new under the sun.” Truth has the capacity to renew itself continuously, to be reborn again and again. So buddhas always speak the ancientmost truth, and yet they speak the most rebellious truth possible.Buddha says: “This is not new, Atula, it is an old saying.” People are such that they will always find reasons to blame you. They blame you for being silent and if you are silent they will blame you: “Why are you silent?” If you are talking too much they will blame you: “Why do you talk so much?” If you talk too little, they will blame you: “Why do you talk so little?”Whatever you do, they blame you, because by blaming you their egos feel satisfied. Nobody looks at his own faults and everybody is capable of seeing the faults of others; not only seeing them, but magnifying them as much as possible.Mother called upstairs, “Caroline, please stop that shouting and screaming. Why can’t you play quietly like Tommy, who is not making a sound?”“He’s not supposed to make a sound,” said Caroline. “We’re playing our family. He’s Daddy, after getting home late for dinner, and I’m you.”It is very simple to see others’ faults, because one wants to see the faults of others. If they are not there, then one invents them. Your ego can live only by feeling superior; so you make every possible use of others’ faults to feel superior. Blaming others is nothing but a strategy of the ego to feel superior. Beware of it.The world always finds a way to praise and a way to blame. It always has and it always will. Yes, sometimes it praises too, but it praises only when you are helping other people’s ego, then it praises you. For example, if you say to the Hindus that their religion is the greatest religion in the world, they will praise you.How can they praise me? Impossible! Because I am simply saying the truth: that no religion is greater than any other religion; that all religions are in the same trap of the priests. You may call the priest the shankaracharya, you may call the priest the pope, it does not matter. All the religions are in the grip of politicians. Hinduism and Christianity and Mohammedanism are all no longer religions, but just politics – power politics hiding behind the name of religion. No religion is greater than any other, superior to any other. In fact, a really religious person is neither Christian, nor Hindu, nor Mohammedan. He is simply religious.Indians will praise you if you praise India: if you say that this is the greatest land in the world, the most spiritual land in the world, then their egos are puffed up and they will praise you. They will blame you to puff up their egos, and they will praise you if you puff them up. The whole game is of the ego.But who dares blame the manwhom the wise continually praise,whose life is virtuous and wise,who shines like a coin of pure gold?Don’t be worried about the praise and the blame of the ordinary masses, of the crowd. Yes, if you have to pay attention, then pay attention to the wise. If they say that something is wrong with you, listen carefully, because they are trying to help you. They have no egos to fulfill from your faults. They are just like mirrors; they reflect your face. If you have an ugly face, don’t destroy the mirror; simply try to change your face.And the wise ones praise too, but they praise not to puff up your ego. In fact they praise you only when they see that you are becoming a nobody; their praise showers like flowers on you. When you are becoming a nobody, when you are becoming a nothingness, you are coming closer and closer to the divinity hidden within you.Even the gods praise him,even brahma praises him.A person who is praised by the wise, by the enlightened ones, is praised by the gods, is praised by the whole universe, by the creator himself, by brahma. Their praise is worth much. If even a single buddha smiles at you, it is enough. The whole world may condemn you; don’t be worried about it. If all the blind people of the world gather together and praise your beauty, will you be happy about it? They can’t see, they have no eyes to see; you will not be very happy by being praised by the blind.In India we have a saying that the best couple is when the husband is deaf and the wife is blind. The husband can go on doing whatsoever he wants – fooling around – and the wife can go on saying whatsoever she wants; the husband is deaf and the wife is blind. The saying says it happens only very rarely, with the blessings of God. It doesn’t happen ordinarily. But what is the point of being praised by blind people? They can’t see. And why be worried about their condemnation as they can’t see your faults either?But if a buddha, an enlightened one, praises you, that means he has seen your ego disappearing. If he finds fault with you, that simply shows he is trying to help you so you can drop the fault.Beware of the anger of the body.Master the body.Let it serve truth.Anger has three layers. The first layer is the anger of the body. Beware of the anger of the body. You may not have seen that the body accumulates anger, and has its own ways of accumulating anger. When you feel angry you gnash your teeth, you clench your fists – why?In fact, in the East there have been devices to help you. Those are temporary helps, but of great value because they can make you aware of many things. When you feel angry, just gnash your teeth, clench your fists and you will be surprised: as you gnash your teeth and clench your fists and just fight with the air – shadow boxing – within five minutes the anger will be gone. Something has happened, something has been released.Now, Postural Integration, Rolfing, and methods like that are becoming very much aware that your repressed angers, sexuality, greed and all kinds of poisons accumulate in the body, in the muscles. By deep massage those poisons can be released. Rolfing is really a great contribution. Deep massage of the body can be of great help. It can make you aware that your body is carrying many things; and your body drives you into things which you may not have gone into if the body was not driving you there.Beware of the anger of the body. Master the body. Let it serve truth. How can you master the body? The first thing is to learn relaxation. Buddha taught his disciples how to relax. In the East, particularly, in the science of Yoga, there is a special posture, shavasana. This is the posture: lie down on the ground as if you are dead. Let the body slowly, slowly die. Start from the feet. In fact, communicate with your body; say to the feet, “Die, please die.” And then go on upward.A psychoanalyst had told one of his patients, “All that you need is relaxation, so from tonight start relaxing. Start from the feet: say to your toes, ‘Toes relax, feet relax,’ and go on upward, talking to each limb and then finally, tell your mind to relax.”The man went home. He was very thrilled by the idea; the whole day he waited for the night. The night came, he was lying on the bed. He had taken a good, hot shower as the psychiatrist had suggested, and was feeling a little relaxed lying down on the bed.He started: “Toes relax, feet relax, legs relax, thighs relax,” and so on, and so forth.He was just coming to the mind to say, “Mind relax,” and his wife came out of the bathroom absolutely naked, ready to go to sleep. Suddenly the man shouted, “Wake up! Everybody wake up!”This won’t help, hence Buddha does not say to relax, to go to sleep, because then you can wake up and you can call everybody else to wake up! He says, “Feel dead. Let the body die for the moment, as if you are just a corpse.” You cannot do anything. An ant starts crawling on you; you can’t do anything.And it is really a great experience, to feel like a corpse, and the ant crawling on your face or a mosquito biting; but you can’t do anything, you are simply a watcher. It is a rare experience to go through it. Slowly, slowly you become a master by relaxing your body. The more tense your body is, the more it is a master of you.Beware of the anger of the mouth.And when you have learned how to relax the anger of the body, the rage of the body, then start becoming aware of what you say. Sometimes, unconsciously, you say a word. You were not aware of the implications of the word. You may not have ever thought that it would create such trouble for you.A young man arranged for his fiancée to meet his parents over cocktails at a swanky hotel. After his family left, the girl asked if she had made a good impression on them.“Well, frankly, darling,” he said, “my mother told me privately that she found you a little vulgar.”“But did you tell her that I went to one of the best finishing schools?” she asked.“Yes, of course I did.”“And did you tell her of my interest in art and culture?”“Certainly.”“And did you tell her how important my family is in the neighborhood?”“Naturally, I did,” he replied.“Then what is this ‘vulgar’ crap all about?” the delicate young lady asked.People go on saying things, not really aware of what they are saying. In fact, their minds are like gramophone records. They simply repeat.Now science has discovered that holes can be made in your head and electrodes can be put in; certain points can be pushed and a very strange thing happens. For example, an electrode is pushed into your brain at a certain center and you start saying something for no reason at all. Nobody has asked it, there is no context for it, but you start saying it. Then the electrode is taken out and you stop saying it. Again the electrode is pushed in; you start the same thing again from the very beginning, and again the same sentences, the same words. It can be done a hundred times and each time you will do it again, as if the electrode is nothing but a needle on a gramophone record.Your mind is a great recording mechanism. You have recorded all kinds of things and you go on saying them, thinking that you are saying them; that is not true. Unless you are really watchful, you are not saying things. Your mind goes on repeating old patterns and you go on getting into old problems, again and again.Beware of the anger of the mouth.Master your words.Let them serve truth.Beware of the anger of the mind.And finally, slowly, first the body, then the word, then the mind.Master your thoughts.Let them serve truth.The wise have masteredbody, word and mind.They are the true masters.If you can watch the body, the mind and all their functioning, you will become so separate from them that you can master them. You can master something only when you have a distance from it. If you are identified with it you cannot master it. And Buddha says one who is master of his own self is the master of the whole existence; he has entered into a different plane of life. You are slaves, he is a master; you are machines, he is a real man; you function unconsciously, he functions consciously.And to function consciously is to go beyond all sorrow, is to go beyond all misery, is to go beyond all anguish, is to go into the beyond. Other religions call that beyond “God”; Buddha calls it simply “the beyond.” Prepare for the beyond; become masters of your own beings.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 6 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 6 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Why does misery feel so safe and happiness so threatening?Happiness is threatening and misery is safe – safe for the ego. Ego can exist only in misery and through misery. Ego is an island surrounded by hell; happiness is threatening to the ego, to the very existence of the ego. Happiness rises like a sun and the ego disappears, evaporates like a dewdrop on the grass leaf.Happiness is the death of the ego. If you want to remain a separate entity from existence as almost everybody is trying to do, you will be afraid of being blissful, cheerful. You will feel guilty in being blissful. You will feel suicidal because you are committing suicide on the psychological level, on the level of the ego.It almost always happens that people enjoy a few moments and then afterward feel very guilty. The guilt arises because of the ego. The ego starts torturing them, “What are you doing? Have you decided to kill me? And I am your only treasure. Killing me? You will be destroyed. Killing me is destroying yourself.”You are so identified with the ego that when the ego says such things, they have a great appeal, attraction, conviction in them. The reality is just the opposite: you are not your ego. In fact because of the ego you are not growing, the ego is like a rock preventing your growth. Remove the rock and you will start growing, growing into a big tree with great fulfillment, flowering.But in the beginning it will feel as if throwing the rock away is throwing away all safety. The rock was preventing many things. It was preventing rain from coming to you and you were thinking it was safer. In fact the rain is nourishing. If it had reached you, you would have started growing. The rock was preventing the sun and you were thinking it was a shelter: it prevented the heat of the sun from reaching to you. But that heat is needed, that heat is life.What is destructive to you, you have been told by the society is not destructive; not only that it is not destructive but it is a shelter, a protection, a security. That idea has become deeply rooted in you; hence you feel misery is safe. Everybody feels like that. That’s why everybody chooses to be miserable; it is your choice. Everybody chooses hell. It is your responsibility. If the whole earth is living in hell it is nobody else’s responsibility. It is a deliberate decision to live in hell because in hell the ego can remain.The ego can remain when it is dark, dismal, no sun on the horizon. When the sun arises on the horizon, the sun of awareness, then the ego starts disappearing like the darkness. Of course if you feel identified with the darkness then the sunrise is threatening. But if you disidentify yourself with the ego then you will be able to welcome the sun, it is not threatening anymore. It is a thrill, an adventure, it is new life, new birth, it is resurrection.The ego is a grave; to come out of the ego you will need to come out of the grave. Don’t think that the grave is safe. It appears safe because you have never ventured outside it. You have never been adventurous. You have not known the taste of danger, insecurity. Once you have tasted danger and insecurity you will never go back to the grave. It is better to live totally for a single moment than to lie down in a grave for a thousand years.That is not life, it is avoiding life. Come out of your misery, come out of your ego, come out of your grave and accept the threatening happiness. Accept the danger of going to the heights, because those who go to the heights can fall – they are risking.Risk all because life is only for those gamblers who can risk all. But by risking all you become the beloved of existence. By risking all you become worthy, by risking all you become a soul. Without risk there is no soul in you, you are just hollow, nothing inside you. Without risking there is no significance, no poetry, no song, no dance, no ecstasy in your life. No celebration at all.Celebrate, dance, let joy fill your heart, let it overflow. And if the ego dies, let it die. Help it to die because it is not you. You are something transcendental to body, mind, ego and all. You are part of existence, part of eternity.Don’t be worried, you cannot die. Even if you want to die, you cannot die; you are eternal. So, in fact there is no fear, no need to be afraid. Death is impossible, only the ego can die. So if you remain identified with the ego then the fear remains. Once ego is dropped, death disappears and fear disappears, anxiety disappears, anguish disappears; and the energy that was involved in fear, anxiety, and anguish is released.That same energy becomes your dance, your celebration.The second question:Osho,What does love mean?Love has different meanings for all. To writers, love is words. To artists, love is color. To a comic, love is laughter. To a baby, it is mother. To bees, it’s nectar. To flowers, it is sunshine. And to cows, it is a lot of bull.It all depends on you what love is going to mean. Love is a ladder with many rungs. At the lowest it is physiology, biology, chemistry. It is nothing but a play of hormones. A man is attracted toward a woman, a woman is attracted toward a man. They think they are falling in love, but if hormones could laugh they must be laughing inside you; you are befooled. What you are calling love is nothing but attraction between male and female hormones. It is pure chemistry; at the lowest point it is not more than that. It is animal, it is lust.And millions of people know love only at its lowest. Because of these people there has arisen a great tradition of renouncing love. The people who think that lust is love have created great religions in which love has to be renounced. Both are wrong, because both have accepted the lowest rung as if it is all. It is not so.If you go a little higher, a man’s love for music is not chemistry, it is not hormonal, it is not physiology; it is psychological. A man’s love for flowers cannot be reduced to sexuality nor can a man’s love for painting. There have been painters who have sacrificed their whole lives just to paint.Vincent van Gogh, one of the greatest painters, sacrificed himself totally just to paint: painting was far more important than life itself. Because of the painting he could not work; he was continuously painting so there was no time to work. His brother used to give him just enough money to live on, because nobody was interested in his being a painter. And he was a strange painter too, a very great genius. Whenever there is a genius it takes hundreds of years for him to be recognized. Van Gogh was not a traditional painter. He was bringing to painting something new, a new vision.So nobody was able to appreciate his paintings, they were not selling. You will be surprised to know that not even a single painting was sold while Van Gogh was alive; now each of his paintings is worth millions of dollars. Only a few paintings have survived, two hundred at the most, and he painted thousands. All are lost, because nobody cared to preserve them.He used to give his paintings to friends for free, because nobody was interested in his paintings; not only were they not interested, they were not even courageous enough to put his paintings in their sitting rooms because people would laugh at them. His approach toward life and nature was so new. His brother used to give him money weekly; just enough to live on. He would eat for only three days in the week; four days he would save money to paint. Now how long can you live in this way?By the time he was thirty-seven, only thirty-seven, he committed suicide. And the note that he left is of tremendous significance. He has written, “I am not committing suicide against anybody – I have no complaint against anybody or life – life has been a great fulfillment to me. I am committing suicide because all that I wanted to paint I have painted; now there is no point in living. I have done what I had come to do; my work is finished.”He wanted to paint the sun in all its possible phases. For one year he was continuously painting the sun. He was continuously standing in the open under the sun. His stomach was empty, he was hungry, and the sun was hot. He was continuously painting because there was not much time left. The sun drove him mad, it was too much. And then he committed suicide, because he had painted the sun from the sunrise to the sunset, all the phases, all the faces, all the colors, all possible clouds. He had done his work; he died contentedly.Now, this love for painting, this love for art, is something higher – higher than biology, higher than chemistry, higher than physiology. It is not lust, you can’t call it lust. It is as passionate as lust or more so, because very few people die for a woman and very few people die for a man. But this man died for his paintings. This is psychological; this is far better.But there is a still higher state: the spiritual love, the love of Buddha, the love of Jesus, the love of Krishna. It is totally different. It is not even aesthetic, psychological; it is spiritual. Now love has the expression of compassion; passion has turned into compassion. Buddha loves the whole of existence, because he has too much and he has to share it. He is burdened by the love released in him; the love has to be shared with the trees, with the birds, with people, with animals, with whosoever comes by.At the lowest when love is just lust, physiological, it is an exploitation of the other; it is using the other as a means. Soon it is finished. Once you have exploited the woman or the man you lose interest; the interest was only for the moment. The moment the woman is well-known to you, you are finished with her. You have used the other human being as a means, which is ugly, which is immoral. To use another human being as a means is the most immoral act in existence, because each human being is an end unto himself.Psychological love knows how to sacrifice. The art, the poetry, the painting, the music, the dance, becomes the end, they are no longer means. You become a means. The biological love reduces the other to a means; the psychological love raises the other as the end.But in the spiritual world there is no question of means and ends, there is no question of the other; there are not two. Buddha loves existence because Buddha has become existence itself. There is no question of “I” and “thou,” it is not a dialogue. At the point of the ultimate consciousness love is not a dialogue; there is no I–thou relationship, it is not a relationship. It is pure overflowing of love.Prem Jyoti, that is the meaning of your name: Prem means love, Jyoti means flame. A buddha is a flame of love, just pure flame with no smoke. The smoke comes from lust. When there is no lust, when you don’t want to get anything out of your love, when you simply want to give, when you feel obliged because others accept your love, the flame is without smoke. It is pure, it is pure gold.And do you know? – love rises always upward, just like a flame always rises upward. A flame never goes downward. Lust is like water, it goes downward; love is like a flame, fire, it always goes upward. And between the two is the psychological phenomenon: something of lust in it, passion, and something of compassion in it. It is just in the middle.It has some quality of the lower and some quality of the higher to it; hence when the poet is in his poetic mood he is almost like the mystic, but it is only a question of mood. When he is not in his poetic mood he is just as ordinary, or maybe more ordinary, than the so-called ordinary people. You may have observed it: when a musician drowns himself in his music he rises to such peaks, such ephemeral peaks, that you can feel the presence of great mystery. And you can see the same musician sitting in some hotel drinking tea, talking all kinds of nonsense. He looks too ordinary; you cannot believe that this man was creating such beautiful music, such celestial music.If you read the poetry, the poet seems to be like a seer, a Kahlil Gibran. If you read The Prophet it is almost like a prophet, but if you meet Kahlil Gibran and see him in his ordinary moods you will be surprised: he is a very angry person, jealous, quarrelsome. He goes into very childish tantrums, throws things, is very possessive. If you meet Kahlil Gibran you will be surprised that this man could write a book like The Prophet because the book rises to the same heights as the Bible, as the Koran.But the man is not abiding on those heights; only once in a while are clouds not there and the poet can see the sun, the ocean, can see the open sky and can give you a glimpse of it in his poetry, in his music. But soon the clouds are there again and the sun is no longer available, and the poet is as ordinary as you are or even more ordinary, because when you fall from a glimpse you fall into depths, just to keep balance.So you can find a poet drunk, lying down in the gutter like a dog, shouting nonsense, and the same poet brings such beautiful flowers from the unknown. So in the middle both things will be together; it is a mixed phenomenon. Rise from the lower, but don’t stop in the middle; go on rising to the highest.When I talk about love I always mean the highest, with one difference: when others speak of the highest they deny the lowest; I don’t deny it, I accept it. I want to use it as a stepping-stone. The lower has to be purified by the higher. The lower has to be transformed by the higher, not denied, not rejected. If you reject it, it persists. If you reject it, if you repress it, it takes revenge. It makes you uglier than you ever were before.A woman with a baby, next in line in the crowded anteroom of a station of the Infant Welfare Society, was shown into the doctor’s office by the nurse in charge.The doctor examined the baby, and then asked the woman, “Is he breast-fed or bottle-fed?”“Breast-fed,” she replied.“Strip down to your waist,” he ordered. She did, and he examined her. He pressed each breast, increasing and decreasing pressure. He squeezed and pulled on each nipple. Suddenly he remarked, “No wonder this child is suffering from malnutrition – you don’t have any milk.”“Naturally,” she replied. “I am his aunt. But I’m glad I came.”If you go on repressing things, then on the surface you may look like a saint, but only on the surface. It is better to be a sinner on the surface and a saint in the center than vice versa.The old maid was walking down a dimly lit street when a robber jumped out of the bushes. “Give me your money!” he demanded.“I don’t have any,” she managed to reply.He proceeded to search her thoroughly. Every possible place of concealment was explored.“I guess you were telling me the truth,” he finally muttered angrily. “You don’t have any money on you.”“For heaven’s sake,” she wailed, “don’t stop now! I’ll write you a check!”I am not in favor of repressing the lower. The lower has to be raised to the heights; the lower has to be given wings. With insight, with understanding, it is possible. If you deny the lower you will never be able to reach the higher, because the lower rung is a necessary step. Yes, go beyond it, but you can go beyond it only if you don’t reject it. Use it, but remember not to become obsessed with it. These two things have to be remembered: one is not to be obsessed with it, not to stop at it, and the second is not to reject and deny it but to use it as a stepping-stone.Be skillful. Buddha’s word is upaya – skill. And when he says upaya, he means be very artful in transforming your life. It is only a potential, a seed, but it can become a great tree and it can blossom in its own time. And when a tree blossoms, when thousands of flowers have arisen on the tree branches, there is great joy in the being of the tree, great ecstasy.You are also a seed; become a tree. The seed may be ugly, seeds almost always are; the roots may be ugly, but remember, it is on the roots that the tree has to grow. The roots have to be used; without roots there will be no flowering.Without physiological attraction there will be no psychological growth. And without psychological love affairs with art, music, sculpture, there is no possibility of spiritual love. Poets and painters and dancers and musicians are a necessary step toward becoming a buddha.The third question:Osho,What is tathata – total acceptance?Tathata is one of Buddha’s most significant contributions to the world. Tathata means total acceptance: whatsoever the situation is, don’t fight with it. Accept it wholeheartedly, because it is through total acceptance that transcendence happens. If you fight with it you will be unnecessarily wasting your energy. Accepting it you preserve your energy. Accepting it you become capable of understanding it, because only one who accepts can understand; one who rejects cannot understand.Anything that you reject, anything that you become inimical to, you become incapable of understanding because we avoid that which is rejected. We are really afraid of it so we keep it at the back and we escape from it; we find ways and means to escape from it. And if you try to escape from something, how are you going to understand it? And without understanding there is no liberation, no transformation.Buddha says “Tathata” – accept it totally. Whatsoever is the case, accept without denying, without condemning, and in that acceptance many things happen, many doors open. The first is: your energy is preserved, which is a great blessing. In fighting you dissipate energy, your energy leaks, you remain always energyless. And to go to the heights you will need great energy, you will need vitality. If you want to reach to the sun, the journey is long and arduous. You cannot go to the sun, you cannot fly that far away, without energy in you.The man who is fighting his sex, anger, greed, jealousy, possessiveness – and there are a thousand and one things to fight – remains entangled in his fight; he cannot go anywhere. He is constantly disturbed and distracted by these things. He fights with one, represses one, something else raises its head, because he is one and the enemies are many. If you fight anger, you will become greedy. All the energy you repress from anger turns into greed. If you fight greed, you will become very sexual. If you fight sex, you will become very angry. You repress one thing, and the same thing with a new face, with a new mask, arrives from the back door. You will go insane.That’s how the whole of humanity has gone insane. Insanity is very pervasive, which is why we don’t think that people are insane. Everybody is insane; it is very rare that there is a sane person. To be sane in this insane society is really a great work of understanding, courage, rebellion.If you drop all the conditionings that the society has imposed on you, only then will you be able to remain sane; otherwise society turns everybody into an insane person. The society turns everybody according to its own mode, mold, pattern, structure. It gives you ideas, ideologies, religions. It poisons you from the very beginning; the poisoning starts when you are in your mother’s womb.Now they are finding scientific ways of conditioning the child while it is in the mother’s womb. Yes, certain things can be done to condition the child. For example, they have tried using a certain type of tight belt on the mother’s belly; that belt is made in such a way that it keeps the child in a tight situation. And they have discovered that these children are very obedient; when they are born they are more obedient than other children, because for nine months they have lived almost in a tight corner, in a prison.In Russia they are trying the belt on many women. Now, the poor child who is not even born yet is already being conditioned, prepared for a certain society; he will be obedient. Certain music can reach to the womb. A soothing kind of music which lulls the child is helpful in creating a slave. And so many drugs are available which can drug the child even before he is born – he is born drugged. He will live his whole life in a kind of unconsciousness; but that’s how the society wants him to live. Conscious people have proved dangerous; a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra have all proved dangerous.The story is that the first thing that Zarathustra did when he was born was to laugh loudly. Can you think of a more rebellious child? Children are not supposed to laugh when they are born; they are supposed to cry, but not supposed to laugh. He must have shocked his parents and the neighborhood and the people who heard his laughter. Why did he laugh? And such a person is not reliable, not reliable at all – this is a dangerous man. He has done his first act of rebellion. He has already said “I am not going to be a part of the crowd, enough is enough. Many children have cried, I won’t follow them. I will start my life with laughter.”Whether it really happened or not is not the question. In fact it is difficult to laugh immediately after you are born, but the story is significant because it says something about Zarathustra’s whole philosophy of life: it is that of great rebellion.Zarathustra is one of the greatest teachers of the world – he has accepted life in its totality. He is not a renunciate, he is against renunciation. That’s why the few Zarathustra followers that have survived had to escape their original motherland, Persia. They had to leave, because Mohammedans were coercing them, converting them; they converted Persia into a Mohammedan country. Persia is now known as Iran.A few people escaped who were not ready to accept this coercive violence. They came to India and they live in Mumbai and around Mumbai; they are the Parsis. They are the only followers of Zarathustra; they are very life-affirmative people. Many Parsis have become interested in me; to them I have a great appeal because I also affirm life. I am not in favor of escaping life.It is because of Zarathustra’s total affirmation of life that Friedrich Nietzsche loved him tremendously and wrote his great book, Thus Spake Zarathustra. He wrote the book to appreciate life and the love for life. He could not find any other master as life-affirmative as Zarathustra; a man who begins his life with laughter, whose whole life is a laughter. There is no pessimism, not even a strain of pessimism in him.That’s exactly the meaning of tathata – accept the whole of life as it is. In your acceptance you will be preserving your energy, and you have inexhaustible sources of energy if you accept.Secondly: when you accept everything, your life becomes cheerful. Nobody can make you miserable, nothing can make you miserable.A man with three hairs on his otherwise bald head came into a hair saloon and asked to get his hair shampooed and braided. The hairdresser got on with his job but just as he was about to finish combing it, one of the hairs fell out.The hairdresser was very embarrassed but the man only said, “Well, what to do? I guess I will have to part my hair in the middle!”The hairdresser very carefully put one hair to the right side and was about to put the other to the left side when that one fell out too. The hairdresser could not apologize enough but the man took it really coolly.“Well,” he said, “I guess now I will have to run around with my hair all ruffled up.”This is tathata, this is total acceptance. You cannot disturb such a man; he is always contented, he always finds a way to be contented. It is a great art. And a man who is always contented and always finds a way to remain contented has the capacity to see things transparently.Discontent clouds your eyes and your vision; contentment makes your eyes unclouded and your vision clear. You can see through and through, you can understand things as they are.Tathata is also translated as suchness; that too is one of its meanings. You see things as they are in their suchness; you don’t impose any idea of your own on them.That is a miracle, a magic key. If you can see anger as it is, without any judgment, you will be surprised. Seeing anger without judgment, without condemnation, without saying it is bad or good, should be or should not be, without bringing any “shoulds” in – if you can see your anger as it is, with no prejudice for or against, a miracle happens: anger disappears and its energy becomes absorbed in you. Just by pure insight you transform anger, greed, jealousy, and all that goes on dragging you hither and thither, keeps you running, never allows you rest and relaxation, is absorbed. More energy becomes available to you.And slowly, slowly when there is no anger – not that you have rejected it but you have absorbed it, digested it – no greed, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no sexuality, you have digested all these phenomena in you. You are becoming greater and greater and you have energies available to rise higher; you have fuel enough to keep your fire burning bright and without smoke.Tathata is a method of transforming your energies into your friends. Ordinarily you are taught such stupid ways that your own energies become your enemies and you are constantly fighting with yourself. Now there can be no greater stupidity than this; this is the most stupid act in the world that people go on doing: fighting with themselves. You cannot win, you cannot defeat yourself. You will remain quarreling with yourself; you will destroy yourself in quarreling your whole life. You will die, and you will never know what life was. You will never know the glories of life, the grandeur of life and the tremendous gift that life was, and could have been if you had lived with right mindfulness, with tathata, with acceptance.The fourth question:Osho,I want to throw this ugly mind out of my system. How to do it?Nothing has to be thrown out of your system; everything has to be transformed and absorbed. The mind is not ugly; your use of the mind is ugly, change your use. Mind is not ugly; you are unconscious. The chariot is beautiful, it is a golden chariot, but the charioteer is drunk and fast asleep and he calls the chariot names, condemns the chariot. When he finds himself in a ditch he beats the horses, he condemns the chariot, he condemns the chariot-maker, and he never thinks that it is not the fault of the chariot, not the fault of the horses, not the fault of the chariot-maker. It is his fault – he was drunk, he was fast asleep. If the chariot has fallen into a ditch it is natural, the whole responsibility is yours.It is not a question of destroying the mind or throwing the mind out. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, the most beautiful mechanism in existence, but you have become a servant to the mind. You are the master and the master is functioning as a servant; the mind is a servant and you have made the servant the master.I have heard an ancient story…A king was very happy with one of his servants. He was so devoted, so totally devoted to the king; he was always ready to sacrifice his life for the king. The king was immensely happy, and many times he had saved the king, risking his own life. He was the king’s bodyguard.One day the king was feeling so happy with the man, he said, “If you desire anything, if you have any desire, just tell me and I will fulfill it. You have done so much for me that I can never show my gratitude, I can never repay you, but today I would like to fulfill any of your wishes whatsoever it is.”The servant said, “You have already given me too much. I am so blessed just by being always with you, I don’t need anything.”But the king insisted. The more the servant said, “There is no need,” the more the king insisted. Finally the servant said, “Then it’s okay. Make me the king for twenty-four hours and you be the guard.”The king was a little apprehensive, afraid, but he was a man of his word and he had to fulfill the desire. So for twenty-four hours he became the guard and the guard became the king. And do you know what the guard did? The first thing that he did, he ordered the king to be killed, sentenced to death!The king said, “What are you doing?”He said, “You keep quiet! You are simply the guard and nothing more. It is my wish and now I am the king!”The king was killed, and the servant became the king forever.Servants have their own devious ways to become masters.The mind is one of the most beautiful, the most complex, the most evolved mechanisms. It has served you well, it serves you well. Because of its services you have repeated the same story in your life, everybody has repeated the same story: you have made the mind the master and now the master treats you just like a servant.This is the problem, not that the mind has to be thrown out. If you throw the mind out you will go insane. Without the mind there is only one profession you can be in: that is politics!I have heard…A politician was going through a brain operation. His brain had been taken out, they were fixing his brain and he was lying on the stretcher waiting.Suddenly a man came in and said, “What are you doing here? You have been chosen the prime minister of the country!”So he got up. The surgeon said, “Where are you going? – your brain is here!”He said, “What am I going to do with the brain now? I am already the prime minister, I don’t need it. You can keep it. When I need it I will come back.”Once you are a prime minister you don’t need the mind.I have heard another story too…A man – it must be a future story – a man went to the hospital because his brain was damaged in a car accident and he wanted a new brain. So he asked the surgeon to show him all the kinds of brains available. The surgeon took him around; there were many brains.The first brain belonged to a professor, a mathematician. He asked the price – fifty dollars. He was surprised: a famous mathematician, a Nobel laureate, just fifty dollars’ worth! Then there was a musician and his was only thirty dollars. Then there was a businessman’s brain and it was only twenty dollars. And so on, so forth.Finally they came to the brain of a politician – it was five thousand dollars! The man was puzzled. He said, “Why does it costs so much?”The surgeon says, “Because it has never been used. All the other brains are secondhand, this is brand new.”If you throw the brain out, then you will have to go into politics, that’s all. Then you cannot be a sannyasin: a sannyasin needs more intelligence than anybody else. So please don’t ask me how to do it. And don’t do it on your own – because sometimes people do, and then fixing it is very difficult.William had a big problem with his wife, Lisa. Every night before she went to bed she would stop at the door, start running and then with a big jump leap into the bed. He got so upset about this habit of hers that he decided to do something about it. So one night when she was asleep he got up, went to the fridge, got a big piece of beef liver out of it and placed it on the floor in front of the bed.The next morning he got up and said, “My God, Lisa, look what has happened – your uterus has fallen out! I always told you to stop your jumping.” Lisa was very shocked.When he came home that evening from work he said, “Now, Lisa, you see what can happen with a bad habit like this.”She replied, “Oh, that was not so bad. You should have seen how much trouble it was to get it in again.”So please don’t do it! It is easy to throw it out; it is very difficult to get it back in. You will need all the mind that you have. Just be the master of it. Use it, and don’t be used by it.And that’s what meditation is all about: the art of moving away from the mind, being above the mind, becoming transcendental to the mind, knowing “I am not the mind.” That does not mean that you have to throw out the mind. Knowing “I am not the mind” makes you again the master. You can use the mind. Right now, mind is not within your hands. You are not a good charioteer.Just the other day, in his sutra, Buddha was talking about a good charioteer. And he says: “Others only hold the reins in their hands and the chariot goes on moving wherever it wants to, the horses go on moving wherever they want to.” You are simply holding the reins, but you are not really in control.Be a good charioteer. And the first step is to know that you are not the mind. If you are the mind then you cannot be the master, because there is no separation between the mind and you, no distance. Create a little distance. Watch the mind, its functioning, and create a distance. Watching automatically creates a distance; hence Buddha’s insistence again and again: watch, watch day and night. Slowly, slowly you will see that you are consciousness and mind is just an instrument available to you. Then you can use it when needed and when not needed you can put it off. Right now, you don’t know how to put it off; it is always on.It is like a radio in your room which is always on and you don’t know how to turn it off, so you have to sleep with the radio on and it goes on shouting all kinds of advertisements and all kinds of songs that you have heard a thousand times, but you don’t know how to turn it off. The whole day you are tired, many times you want to get rid of the radio, but you cannot because you don’t know how to turn it off. It is like sleeping with the lights on because you don’t know how to turn them off.Freud remembers that when electricity came to Vienna for the first time, a friend, a villager, came to visit him. Freud took every care of the visitor, took him to the room where he was going to sleep, left him there, said good night.The villager was very much puzzled by only one thing – the electricity, the electric bulb. He knew how to put a lamp off, how to blow a candle out, but what to do with this electric bulb?He tried all that he knew: standing on a chair he blew on it many times, but nothing would happen to it. He looked at it from everywhere; there was no hole, there was nothing. And how could he imagine that just on the wall there was a switch? That was impossible for him to imagine, he had never seen electricity. But he was also afraid to go and ask Freud or somebody else because they would think that he was a fool. “You can’t even put the light off – what kind of man are you?”So, feeling embarrassed, he tried to sleep with the light on. He could not sleep. Many times he stood up again on the chair, tried again. The whole night it continued; sleep wouldn’t come because of the light – too much light, too bright a light, he had never seen such bright light. He had known a candle, and the bulb must have been of a hundred candles or more. In the morning he was dead tired.Freud asked him, “You look very tired. Couldn’t you sleep?”He said, “Now there is no point in hiding it, because I am going to stay three days – this bulb is going to kill me! Even to look at it a shiver goes up my spine. How do I turn it off?”Freud said, “You fool! Why didn’t you ask me?”He said, “I was just feeling embarrassed – so foolish to ask such a simple thing!”Freud took him to the wall, showed him the switch. He tried it, put it on and off, and laughed. And he said, “Such a simple thing, and the whole night I tried and could not find it!”He may have tried his whole life and may not have connected the switch with the light.This is how it is happening to you; your mind is continuously on. They say that the mind is such a magnificent mechanism that it starts working the moment you are born and it goes on working till you stand before an audience – then suddenly it stops, then something happens to it. Otherwise it continues till you die. And very few people need to stand before an audience, so the mind continues unhindered, and it keeps you utterly tired, exhausted, weary, bored. And it goes on saying the same things again and again. Why are people so bored?Life is not boring, remember. Life is always a tremendous mystery, it is always a surprise, it is always new; it is constantly renewing itself. New leaves are coming, old leaves are falling; new flowers are appearing, old flowers disappearing. But you cannot see life because you are constantly bored by your own mind. It goes on saying things which it has said thousands of times. You look so tired, for the simple reason that you don’t know how to turn it off.The mind has not to be thrown out. The mind has to be put in its place: it is a beautiful servant but a very ugly master. Take the reins in your hands, be the master. And the first act, the first step is: become detached from the mind. See that it is not you, create the distance; the greater the distance, the more is the capacity of turning it off.One more miracle you will come across: when you turn the mind off, it also remains fresh and more intelligent; because the mind is also tiring. Just think: from the day you are born it starts and goes on working till you die. And one never knows, it may be even working when you are in the grave, because a few things continue to happen there. Nails go on growing even when you are in the grave; hair goes on growing, so some kind of mechanism still continues. Even in a dead body nails and hair go on growing. Something is still working, maybe some local mechanism, not the mind itself, but the body also has small, local minds to support the big mind, agents of the big mind. Maybe they have not known yet that the big guy is dead and they go on doing the old thing continuously. They know nothing else so they continue repeating their old job. Hair goes on growing, nails go on growing – just small, local minds, mini-minds.The mind has to be put into its right place, and when you need it you use it; just as you use your legs when you need them. When you don’t need to you don’t use your legs. If sitting on a chair you go on moving your legs up and down, then people will think you are mad. And that’s exactly what is happening in the mind and still you think you are not mad.A meditative awareness comes to know the key. Whenever it wants to put the mind off it simply says, “Now shut up!” and that’s it. And the mind simply keeps quiet and great silence prevails inside. And the mind can also rest in those moments, otherwise everything becomes tired.I have heard…A man brings his computer to the mechanic and says, “What is the matter with the computer? It is not working well lately.”The expert looks inside the computer and says, “Metal fatigue.” Just as you go to the psychiatrist and he says, “Mental fatigue,” he says, “metal fatigue – a metal case!”Everything tires, everything gets tired – even metals get tired. And your mind is made of very delicate tissues, so delicate that there is nothing more delicate in the whole existence. In your small skull millions of small fibers are functioning; so thin are they that your hairs, if compared with the nerves that function in your brain, are very thick, one million times thicker. Such a delicate phenomenon, but we don’t know how to use it; it needs rest. Hence, a meditative person becomes more intelligent, he becomes saner. Whatsoever he does there is an art to it. Whatsoever he touches he transforms into gold. Mind is a blessing with meditation, otherwise it is a curse.Add meditation to your being and the curse disappears, and the curse itself becomes the blessing; it is a blessing in disguise. You have not yet learned the art of how to use it and how to be a master. It is not a question of throwing the mind out; that will not help. That will make you even more hollow, more useless. If the brain, if the mind, is thrown out, you will be just a cabbage – or if you don’t like the word cabbage, then cauliflower. And they say that there is not much difference between a cabbage and a cauliflower – a cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education. You can choose, you can be a cabbage or a cauliflower, but you will not be a man. Very few men are men in reality. A man is one who is a master of his mind.The English word man comes from a Sanskrit root which means mind; man. To be master of your mind is the meaning of being man. If you are not master of your mind, there is no man inside you, only a computer functioning, a machine functioning, without any master. This is the situation. That’s why the world looks so berserk, so insane.The fifth question:Osho,Why are there so many Jews here?The Jews are very intelligent people, one of the most intelligent peoples on the earth. They had to be intelligent; otherwise they would not have survived. And because they are intelligent they are always searching for new pastures, new worlds, new life-styles, new ways of seeing, living and being. It surprises everybody.Almost fifty percent of the people here are Jews. This may be the only place in India where there are so many Jews, because in India there are not any Jews, none at all. And if things go on growing as they are growing, soon you will find another Israel here! And why are Jews coming? – because they are intelligent, they are always ready to accept anything new and they are ready to drop the old.In fact, seeing the intelligence of the Jews it seems almost unbelievable that they killed Jesus. The more I have come in contact with the Jews – and I have thousands of Jews as my sannyasins – the more I have become puzzled about the phenomenon. Why could they not accept Jesus? Maybe it was not really the Jews who killed him but the Roman emperor, Roman imperialism. Romans have always been cruel and they have not proved themselves very intelligent either. It may have been just that Jews were used as an excuse and the Romans wanted to kill Jesus.The Jews were not independent people in those days; they were part of the Roman Empire. It is possible that the Romans used the Jewish priests as a facade. They would not have liked to kill Jesus directly because that might have created a revolution in the country, a rebellion. It was a simple diplomacy to use the Jews themselves to kill Jesus; then there would be no rebellion, no revolution, no problems arising.In fact, they pretended on the surface that they were not interested in killing Jesus, and from the back door they may have insisted. To the public they showed: “We are absolutely out of the game. If Jews want to kill him, they can kill him; if they don’t want to kill him we are ready to forgive him.” And from the back they may have been goading the Jews to kill Jesus. That’s more likely, because Jews are not such unintelligent people that they would destroy their own greatest flowering.Jesus was their greatest flowering. He was the climax of the Judaic approach to life. Jesus was born a Jew and died a Jew – he was not a Christian, remember; he had not even heard the word Christian. And if he comes back he will find himself more in tune with the Jews than with the Christians, because he lived the life of a Jew. He was well acquainted with Jewish scriptures, he quoted Jewish scriptures. He said again and again: “Whatsoever has been said before by other prophets I am saying to you” – giving it a more contemporary expression, of course, but he was not against Moses, Abraham, Ezekiel. He was not against the old prophets; he was fulfilling their prophecies, he was the very fulfillment.Why should the Jews kill him? There is every possibility that the Romans did it. They were afraid of his growing power.The political powers always become afraid of anybody who starts becoming powerful in any way. Although Jesus was not interested in politics, not interested in political power, his language could be misinterpreted very easily. He was talking about the kingdom of God, but the Romans started thinking that he was talking of bringing the kingdom of Jews: “He wants to become the emperor himself.” They must have been apprehensive of his growing popularity.Many, many people were turning to him, coming to him, listening to him, becoming disciples, becoming initiates. Of course it was by now a religion, but at any moment religion can take a turn and become politics; hence the politicians always become very alert and cautious.They are doing the same to me. I am not interested in politics, I am not interested in that stupid game at all, but they are very much afraid. And the best way to kill me will be to find a sannyasin, a Judas, to kill me; that will be the best way. Then there will be no problem.If a sannyasin kills me, then the whole responsibility falls on my own shoulders or on the shoulders of my sannyasins. The sannyasin may not be a true sannyasin, he may be just a detective, a spy, a government man, who has taken sannyas just to kill me. That will be the easiest and the most diplomatic way.There are many spies here: German spies and Italian spies and Indian spies. One Indian spy took sannyas. I gave him sannyas – not only did I give him sannyas, but I told him, “Become part of this place. Why live outside?” He was a little puzzled. Not only that, I told him: “Because you are an LL.B., a practicing advocate, and we need a department, a law department… There are at least twenty-five cases against me in the courts, so we need our own legal department. You be in charge of it.” I had made him the head. He escaped after one month, because he became more and more interested in me, became more and more interested in meditation, and I gave him access to all the files and everything, because he was the head of the law department. I gave him every access, so if he wants to report anything to the government he can, there is nothing to hide. My trust in him became such a heavy burden on the poor man. If I had suspected him he would have remained here; but because I trusted him so deeply, he escaped. He said that he would be coming back, but he has not come, and almost eight months have passed.He became so afraid of me that he sold the house where he used to live, because I was sending my sannyasins to his house in Patiala, in Punjab, to find out what happened to him – we need him! He has sold his house and escaped from Patiala too, and he has not given his address to anybody in Patiala. But I am in search; I am going to find him, wherever he is. Now I have told my sannyasins in Delhi to search for him. We need him; I never allow people to escape so easily.The Jews are intelligent people; hence they are always the first to accept new ideas, original ideas, new visions, new dreams.A Jew and a Catholic were sharing the same compartment on a train. The Jew took an apple out of his suitcase and ate it, core and all. The Catholic looked a little surprised and asked, “Do you always eat the core as well?”“Of course,” explained the Jew. “That’s why we are so intelligent – we get that way by eating the core. And you happen to be a lucky fellow, because I have just one apple left which I will sell to you for fifty dollars.”The Catholic accepted the offer, thinking to himself that fifty dollars for intelligence was a good deal. He bought the apple and ate it, core and all.After sitting silently gazing out of the window for a while he said, “Now that I think of it, for fifty dollars I could have bought a whole crate of apples.”“See,” said the Jew, “it has started working already!”The Jews have survived out of sheer intelligence. They have lived without a country, without a homeland. They have lived through all kinds of tortures, all kinds of concentration camps, gas chambers; still they have survived. The people who were bent upon destroying them are no more. Where are the Nazis? – gone down the drain. The people who wanted to destroy the Jews absolutely, to annihilate them, are no longer anywhere, but the Jews are here.In fact, all those tortures, gas chambers, concentration camps, imprisonments, all those things have given them an integrity, a solidity. A tremendous intelligence is released in them; it is always released when you have to face great challenges. In fact, no other race has been facing such great challenges as the Jews.Naturally they are always the first to accept anything that is new, they are always the first to drop the old. That is the sign of intelligence.Two Jews meet on the street.“How are you, Solomon?” says Irving.“Terrible!” says Irving. “Ah, what a catastrophe! My son is converting to Christianity.”“Funny thing,” says Irving. “My son too is converting to Christianity. Let us go to the synagogue and pray.”Irving and Solomon run into their friend Myron who asks where they are going. When they tell Myron that their sons are converting to Christianity, Myron says, “Funny thing, my son is converting to Christianity too. I will go with you to the synagogue and pray.”Well, Myron and Irv and Sol meet their friend Herman, tell him their story and Herman says, “Funny thing, my son is also converting to Christianity. Let us go and pray.”This goes on for a while until a large group of Jews reach the synagogue. There they see the rabbi sitting on the front steps with his head in his hands. When the rabbi hears their story he replies. “Funny thing, my son is converting to Christianity. Let us all pray.”The group goes into the synagogue, lift their eyes to heaven and the rabbi says, “Oh God, please help us. All our sons are converting to Christianity”Suddenly they hear thunder, lightning flashes across the sky, and a deep voice intones, “Funny thing…”The last question:Osho,You really get us! We are all running around like heads without chickens! Is it love – or is it meditation? Ah dear. Squack squack! Osho, what is a path?You are really becoming a sannyasin now – going cuckoo! That’s what sannyas is all about.In the Osho Meditation Center in Zurich, Switzerland, there was a clock-making contest. Many beautiful clocks were made.The third prize was won with a clock which had a cuckoo coming out every hour saying, “Osho, Osho.”The second prize was won with a clock which had a cuckoo all dressed in orange with a mala around his neck coming out every half hour saying, “Osho, Osho.”The first prize was given for a clock which had Osho coming out every fifteen minutes saying, “Cuckoo, cuckoo.”Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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“Everything arises and passes away.”When you see this, you are above sorrow.This is the shining way.“Existence is sorrow.”Understand, and go beyond sorrow.This is the way of brightness.“Existence is illusion.”Understand, go beyond.This is the way of clarity.You are strong, you are young.It is time to arise.So arise!Lest through irresolution and idlenessyou lose the way.Master your words.Master your thoughts.Never allow your body to do harm.Follow these three roads with purityand you will find yourself upon the one way,the way of wisdom.Sit in the world, sit in the dark.Sit in meditation, sit in light.Choose your seat.Let wisdom grow.Cut down the forest,not the tree.For out of the forest comes danger.Cut down the forest.Fell desire.And set yourself free.The way of Gautama the Buddha is the way of intelligence, understanding, awareness, meditation. It is not the way of belief; it is the way of seeing the truth itself. Belief simply covers up your ignorance; it does not deliver you from ignorance. Belief is a deception you play upon yourself; it is not transformation.The people who think themselves religious are only believers, not religious. They have no clarity, no understanding, no insight into the nature of things. They don’t know what they are doing; they don’t know what they are thinking. They are simply repeating conventions, traditions: dead words spoken long, long ago. They cannot be certain whether those words are true or not. Nobody can be certain unless one realizes oneself.There is only one certainty in existence and that is your own realization, your own seeing. Unless that happens, don’t become contented; remain discontented. Discontentment is divine; contentment through beliefs is stupid. It is through divine discontent that one grows, but it is the path which is arduous. The path of belief is simple, convenient, comfortable. You need not do anything. You have only to say yes to the authorities: the authorities of the church, of the state. You have simply to be a slave to the people who are in power.But to follow the path of Buddha one has to be a rebel. Rebellion is its essential taste; it is only for the rebellious spirit. But only rebellious people have spirits, only they have souls. Others are hollow, empty.These sutras of today are of immense beauty, truth. Meditate over them.The first sutra:“Everything arises and passes away.”When you see this, you are above sorrow.This is the shining way.Life is a flux, nothing abides. Still we are such fools, we go on clinging. If change is the nature of life, then clinging is stupidity, because your clinging is not going to change the law of life. Your clinging is only going to make you miserable. Things are bound to change; whether you cling or not does not matter. If you cling you become miserable: you cling and they change, you feel frustrated. If you don’t cling they still change, but then there is no frustration because you were perfectly aware that they are bound to change. This is how things are, this is the suchness of life.Remember Haldane’s Law: the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine. And remember, you are not alone. The world really is like this.It is a very strange world. Everything is momentary, yet every momentary thing gives you the illusion of being permanent. Everything is just a soap bubble, shining beautifully in the sunrays, maybe surrounded by a rainbow, a beautiful aura of light – but a soap bubble is a soap bubble! Any moment it will be gone and gone forever, but for the moment it can deceive you.And the strangest thing is that you have been deceived thousands of times, yet you don’t become aware. Again another soap bubble and you believe. Your unintelligence seems to be unlimited! How many times do you need to be hammered? How many times do your dreams have to be crushed and shattered? How many times does life have to prove that clinging is nonsense? Stop clinging and then you go beyond sorrow. It is clinging that is the root cause of sorrow.The world is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. Just watch your own life and you will see it happening within your mind too. You understand things which you don’t manage; it is easy to understand things which you don’t manage.Somebody asked George Bernard Shaw, “Do you believe that nothing is impossible?” Bernard Shaw is reported to have said, “Yes, I do believe that nothing is impossible, provided somebody else is going to do it.”It is easy to understand what you don’t manage. What you manage you don’t understand at all. Do you understand your life? You understand about God and you don’t understand about your life energy. You understand about heaven and hell. There are people who know how many heavens there are and how many hells.A man came to me and he said, “In our religion we believe that there are fourteen heavens. Mahavira has reached only up to the fifth; Buddha up to the sixth; Jesus, Mohammed, etcetera, only up to the fourth; Kabir, Nanak, up to the seventh. And my guru,” the man said – he belonged to the Radhaswami sect – “my guru has reached to the fourteenth.”I said to the man, “Yes, I know. I have seen him in the fourteenth, because I have reached to the fifteenth. I am acquainted with the guy.”He said, “Fifteenth? But in our scriptures there are only fourteen heavens, not fifteen.”I said, “How can there be fifteen in your scriptures? – because your teacher has reached only up to the fourteenth!”Foolish people! But they go on knowing how many heavens there are and how many hells there are. Jainas believe in seven hells. They have thrown Krishna into the seventh because he was the cause of the great war, Mahabharata. He persuaded Arjuna, his disciple, to fight and kill people. He was the cause of great violence so they have thrown him into the seventh, into the last. But in the days of Mahavira, one of the disciples of Mahavira, Makkhali Gosal, revolted against the master and declared that there are not seven hells but seven hundred.People go on talking nonsense – seven and seven hundred – and they are not aware about their own inner life, from where this breath comes, to where this breath goes. They are not aware of the closest truth of their being, and they go on talking about ultimate things. This talking about ultimate things is simply to avoid the real problems of life. This is a strategy of the mind to keep you occupied with utter nonsense. Beware of the mind and its cunning ways!Buddha says: “Everything arises and passes away.” When you see this… He is not saying, “Believe this.” He is not saying, “I have become the enlightened one, so whatsoever I say you have to believe.” He is not saying, “Because scriptures are in my favor you have to believe me.” He is not saying, “Because I can prove it logically you have to believe in me.”See the beauty of the man. He says: When you see this, you are above sorrow. In that very moment when you have seen this – that everything is momentary and everything is a flux and everything is bound to change… Do whatsoever you want to do, but nothing is going to become permanent in this life. When you have seen this with your own eyes, and you have understood it through your own intelligence, suddenly you are beyond sorrow.What happens? A great revolution happens in that seeing; that very seeing is the revolution. Then you don’t cling. The moment you see that it is a soap bubble you don’t cling to it. In fact, clinging to it will force it to burst sooner; if you don’t cling to it, it may remain there dancing in the wind for a while. The non-clinger can enjoy life; the clinger cannot enjoy life.Gussie had lived a good life, having been married four times. Now she stood before the Pearly Gates.Father Abraham said to her, “I notice that you first married a banker, then an actor, next a rabbi, and lastly an undertaker. What kind of a system is that for a respectable Jewish woman?”“A very good system,” replied Gussie. “One for the money, two for the show, three to make ready and four to go!”If you see, you can enjoy; then it is just a game. Then everything is totally different; then it is a big drama. Then the whole earth becomes just a stage and everybody is acting his part. But if you don’t see, you become obsessed: you start clinging to things, and deep down you know that they are slipping out of your hands.“I had everything a man could want,” moaned a sad-eyed friend of ours. “Money, a handsome home, the love of a beautiful and wealthy woman. Then, bang! One morning my wife walked in!”You can’t remain in the same state for long. Life changes just like dreams. Hence the mystics have been calling life nothing but a dream; a dream seen with open eyes, a dream shared by others too. In the night the dream is private; nobody can share it. In the day the dream is public; everybody can share it. In the night the dream is subjective; in the day the dream is objective. But the quality of both is the same – writings on water. You have not even finished writing and they start disappearing. Not even writings on the sand – because on the sand the writing may stay a little longer. It will have to wait for the wind to come or somebody to walk over it. It is writing in water. You go on writing and it goes on disappearing.Seeing it …you are above sorrow – immediately. Then nothing else has to be done. The moment you have seen it, where is sorrow? The cause has disappeared; you have removed the very cause. Cling, and you create the cause. Non-clinging is liberation.Hence Buddha says: This is the shining way – so simple, so luminous, that unless you are utterly blind, spiritually blind, you can’t miss it. He is not talking about great metaphysical truths. He is not philosophizing. He is not using complex words and systems and theories. He is simply stating a fact that he has seen – and you can see it. It has nothing to do with Buddha, it is not his invention, it is not his idea. It is the facticity of life.Look around. Everything is changing. It is like a river moving and moving – and you want to catch hold of it? It is mercury; if you try to catch hold of it, you will lose sooner than before. Don’t try to catch hold of it. Watch joyfully, silently. Witness the game, the dream, and …you are above sorrow. Buddha is not saying you will go beyond sorrow. He says: …you are above sorrow.“Existence is sorrow.”Understand, and go beyond sorrow.This is the way of brightness.“Existence is sorrow.” First he says that sorrow arises out of clinging to momentary things which you cannot make permanent. It is not in the nature of things. It is against the universal law. It is against dhamma, it is against Tao. You cannot win. If you fight with the universal law you are fighting a losing battle; you will simply waste your energies. What is going to happen is bound to happen: nothing can be done about it.Your consciousness is all that you can do something about. You can change your vision. You can see things in a different light, with a different context, in a new space, but you cannot change things. If you think of the world as very real you will suffer; if you see the world as a strange dream you will not suffer. If you think in terms of static entities you will suffer. If you think in terms of nouns you will suffer. But if you think in terms of verbs you will not suffer.Nouns don’t exist; they exist only in languages. In reality there are no nouns. Everything is a verb because everything is changing and everything is in a process. It is never static, it is always dynamic.The second thing Buddha says is: “Existence is sorrow.” To be is sorrow. The ego is sorrow. First he says: “See the world as dream, fluctuating, changing, moment-to-moment new.” Enjoy it, enjoy its newness, enjoy all the surprises that it brings. It is beautiful that it is changing, nothing is wrong about it; just don’t cling to it. Why do you cling? You cling because you have another fallacy: that you are.The first fallacy is that things are static. And the second fallacy is that you are, that you have a static ego. They both go together. If you want to cling you need a clinger; if you have no need to cling, there is no need for a clinger. Go deep into it. If you don’t need to cling, the ego is not needed at all, it will be pointless. In fact, it cannot exist without clinging.The dancer can exist only if he dances. If the dance disappears, where is the dancer? The singer exists only in singing. The walker exists only in walking. So is the ego: the ego exists only in clinging, in possessing things, in dominating things. When there is no domination, no desire to dominate, no desire to cling, no desire to possess, the ego starts to evaporate. On the outside you stop clinging and in the inside a new clarity starts to arise. The ego with all its smoke disappears, the ego with all its clouds disappears. It can’t exist because it cannot be nourished anymore. For it to exist it has to cling. It has to create “my” and “mine,” and it goes on creating “my” and “mine” about every possible and impossible thing.The ego says, “This is my country,” as if you have brought it with your birth, as if the earth is really divided into countries. The earth is undivided, it is one. But the ego says, “This is my country” – and not only “This is my country,” “This is the greatest country in the world. This is the holiest land.”Ask the Indians. “This is the most spiritual country in the world. Everybody else is materialist and we are spiritualists.” And everybody else has his own ideas. They are great. Ask the Germans. Nobody is of pure blood, only they are – Aryan blood, Nordic blood, purest blood. God has created them to rule the whole world. And ask the Japanese. They have descended directly from the sun god; they are not ordinary mortals. The sun is their source, and the sun is the source of all life. And ask anybody. Everybody has his own ideas how his country is great, how his religion is great. Religion also becomes your possession: “My religion, my Christianity, my Hinduism.”Who can claim religion? Who can claim that religion is a possession? You can be religious, but you cannot claim that Christianity is yours; you cannot claim that Hinduism is yours. But the ego is so stupid, it goes on claiming all kinds of things.Mr. Ginsberg came home one day from the garment district where he owned a company and said that he must get a mistress.“Why?” gasped Mrs. Ginsberg.“Well,” replied her husband, “all the owners have them and it looks bad for my business that I don’t.”“Well, if it is for business, all right,” said Mrs. Ginsberg.Sometime later Mr. and Mrs. Ginsberg were enjoying an evening at the opera when suddenly Mr. Ginsberg said, “Look, Miriam, there is Mr. Pincus and his mistress sitting across from us in a box.”Mrs. Ginsberg studied the pair for a long time with her opera glasses and then said, “Ours is better!”Anything and everything will be claimed by the ego. And, “Ours is always better,” whatsoever it is. The ego exists only through such claims. The “I” exists only as an island in the ocean of “my” and “mine.” If you stop claiming things as my and mine, the ego will disappear on its own accord.Neither the wife is yours, nor the husband, nor the children. All belong to the whole. Your claim is foolish. We come empty-handed into the world and we go empty-handed from the world. But nobody wants to know the truth – it hurts. Empty-handed we come and empty-handed we go. One starts feeling shaky, one starts feeling scared. One wants to be full, not empty. It is better to be full of anything – any garbage – than to be empty. Emptiness looks like death, and we don’t want the truth. Our whole effort is to live in convenience, even if that convenience is based on illusions.“I demand an explanation and I want the truth!” shouted the irate husband upon discovering his wife in bed with his best friend.“Make up your mind, George,” she calmly replied. “You can’t have both.”Either you can have the explanation or the truth. And people are more interested in the explanation than in the truth, hence so many philosophies. They are all explanations to explain away things, not to give you the truth; explanations to create great smoke so you need not see the truth. And Buddha’s insistence is: “See it! – because without seeing it you can’t go above sorrow.”James, to his wife: “I am in the mood and you are so beautiful!”Katherine: “What makes you think I am beautiful?”James: “When I am in the mood, everybody is beautiful!”The whole question is of your mood. If you are in the mood of an ego trip, then you will not listen to the buddhas, or you will listen in such a way that you can manage, distort, interpret those truths according to yourself, to support you. If you are still interested in the ego you cannot understand these sutras.If you have become fed up with the ego, if you are tired of its games, if you have seen that it brings only suffering and nothing else, then these truths are so simple to understand that in fact no explanation is needed. And I am not explaining them to you. I am simply hammering them on your head, from this side and from that side. You try to dodge, you try to escape, you try to close your eyes, but I go on shouting in your ears, hoping that sooner or later you will be able to understand – because without this understanding happening to you, your life will be a nightmare. And you have wasted many lives in nightmares. It is time to wake up!“Existence is sorrow.” Understand, and go beyond sorrow. This is the way of brightness. Buddha says: “This is the way of intelligence. This is not for dull, unintelligent, mediocre minds.”The way of Buddha is for those who are intelligent. And who is not intelligent? If you decide to be intelligent, you are intelligent. You are born with great intelligence, but you keep it repressed. You are afraid of your own intelligence because your own intelligence will disturb your settled routine of life. Somehow you have managed to settle, and your own intelligence will keep you moving forward. It will go on telling you, “This is not the truth. Again you have fallen victim to a dream. Move on. Unless you reach the truth, there is no way to rest in peace. Move on!” Because intelligence goads you to move on, you repress it.Everybody is born intelligent. I have never come across a child who is not intelligent, but it is very rare later on to find intelligent people. What happens in the meantime? Every child turns out to be stupid later on. By the time you come from the university you are fully established in your stupidities. The university is a guarantee that you are now intelligence-proof. Nobody can make you intelligent again – they have sealed you.Socrates says: “Know thyself.” Buddha also says: “Know thyself.” And both have been misunderstood, Socrates more than Buddha. When Socrates says: “Know thyself,” people think there is someone inside who has to be known. There is nobody inside. When Socrates says: “Know thyself,” he is simply saying, “Go in and see what is there.” He is not saying that there is someone that you will come to know; he is simply saying go in. But he does not make you so scared.Buddha says clearly that there is no one: “Go in and see.” There is only seeing, but not a seer. There is understanding but nobody who understands, knowing but not a knower. This has to be understood. This is Buddha’s very emphatic message: that there are processes, certainly, but there is no center to those processes. Yes, there is love but no lover, and there is meditation but no meditator, and there is liberation, but nobody is liberated. It looks very strange, but now modern science agrees with it.As far as objective reality is concerned, modern science agrees with Buddha more than with anybody else. Hence Buddha has a great future, because science will come closer and closer every day to Buddha. Science is going to speak in the same language as Buddha. Science says there is energy but no matter. That’s what Buddha is saying for the inner world: there is energy, movement, processes, but no entity, no ego.“Know thyself” means: know that you are not. Great courage is needed to know this. People want to know that they are immortal souls. Then they are very happy: “We are immortal souls.” And Buddha says, “Don’t talk nonsense. You are simply not. Immortality is there, but you are not immortal. When you disappear completely, whatsoever is left behind… That cleanliness, that purity, that innocence, that nobodiness, that nothingness, that shunya is immortal. It has no beginning and no end, no birth and no death.”But rather than going in and finding the basic illusion of the ego, rather than going in and finding the root cause of all your misery, you go on throwing the responsibility on others.Murphy’s famous maxim: the man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.Everybody is trying to blame his misery on somebody else. And that’s how we remain in misery, because this blaming is not going to help. In the first place it is wrong – nobody else is the cause of your misery; the cause is within you. You are living with a fallacy. But even if you are living with a fallacy, the mind enjoys the idea that somebody else is responsible – “I am not responsible”; you feel relief.“Doctor, you’ve got to do something about my husband.”“What seems to be the problem?”“He’s convinced that he is a refrigerator.”“That’s terrible!”“You’re telling me!” snapped the wife. “He sleeps with his mouth open, and the light keeps me awake all night.”A woman called a psychiatrist on the phone and cried, “Doctor, you’ve got to help me. My husband is driving me crazy. He keeps insisting that he is Moses.”“That sounds serious,” replied the psychiatrist. “I think you should bring him to my office tomorrow.”“Ah, I will,” she replied, “but in the meantime how do I keep him from parting the water every time I try to take a bath?”Even if you are mad, the mind would like to believe that somebody else is responsible, somebody else is mad. People are ready to believe that the whole world is mad, but not themselves. In fact, a madman never accepts that he is mad. You can go to a madhouse and you can ask all the mad people, and you will be surprised: not a single mad person will agree that he is mad. The whole world is mad, he is perfectly sane.In fact, those who understand mad people say that once a madman accepts that he is mad he is no longer mad; sanity has already started coming into his being.That’s what all the buddhas have been saying: the moment you understand “I am ignorant,” the first glimpse of knowing has happened. The moment you say “I am not,” for the first time, real existence has penetrated you. The first time you say “I don’t possess anything,” the whole world is yours. The first time you say “I am not separate,” “I am one with the whole,” you become the whole. The dewdrop does not really disappear; it becomes the ocean. By knowing one’s emptiness, one’s egolessness, one loses nothing, one gains all.And the third sutra:“Existence is illusion.”Understand, go beyond.This is the way of clarity.Buddha does not give you doctrines, he does not give you dogmas. He is not a bit interested in giving you philosophies of life. His whole concern is one: how to make your mind clear, how to impart clarity to you so that you can see unhindered, so your eyes no longer carry any dust, so your eyes are without dust and you can see through and through as things are.Ordinarily whatsoever you see is your projection. That’s what you call existence – you project. Existence functions only as a screen and the projector is inside you; and you go on projecting your desires, your imaginations, your hopes, your dreams, and you go on seeing things which are not there.People go on projecting to the very end. Even if you meet them after their death you will find them in the same mess.Business had been terrible for Blum and he cut down on his help. In a month he had to cut down still further, and everyone said that this terrible strain became a fixation that hastened his death a few weeks afterward.As they were carrying his body down the aisle of the chapel, Blum suddenly sat up in the coffin and asked, “How many men are carrying me?”“There are eight pallbearers, Mr. Blum,” said the undertaker.“Better lay off two,” said Blum, lying down again.Even after death the old obsession continues! And don’t take it as a joke – this is how things are. People go on believing in the same things after death; they go on continuing the same desires. That’s how they go on coming back again and again to the earth to fulfill the same unfulfilled desires. And those desires are unfulfillable, so they go on coming again and again, millions of times.Buddha calls it a vicious circle, a wheel which goes on moving. You are just like a spoke in the wheel. Sometimes you come up and sometimes you go down. But the wheel goes on moving up and down, up and down; life and death, life and death; one moment of success, another moment of failure; one moment of hope, another moment of despair. It goes on and on, and it has been going on for eternity. And this whole thing is your own projection – it is not reality.Reality can only be known when you have nothing to project. That state of non-projection Buddha calls clarity. Clarity means you have no desire, you don’t want things to be in a certain way, you are ready to see them as they are. You are simply a mirror, not a projector.When you are a mirror, this is samadhi, this is satori. You simply reflect like the silent, clear, cool water of a lake reflects the full moon and the stars. When you are absolutely clear, no dreams, no desires, no imaginations, no memories, the whole mind put aside – the mind is a mechanism to project – then there is clarity and things are reflected as they are. And for the first time you know what is real. Otherwise: “Existence is illusion.”Understand this: that whatsoever you think as existence is illusion. Understand it, and go beyond. This is the way of clarity.You are strong, you are young.It is time to arise.So arise!Lest through irresolution and idlenessyou lose the way.In ancient India, when Buddha was delivering these sutras to his disciples, this was the accepted tradition, that a man should become a seeker only in the last stage of his life. If you assume life to be a hundred-year span, then the Hindu idea is to divide life in four parts of twenty-five years each.The first twenty-five years are for education, brahmacharya. You go to the university, you live with a master to learn the skills of the world, the arts, the craft, the science. And after twenty-five years you come back into the world, you get married. And for twenty-five years now – the second stage – you live as a householder, as a husband, as a father, fulfilling the duties of life.And then comes the third stage, again of twenty-five years: you prepare to renounce the world. The third stage is called vanaprastha. First is brahmacharya – celibacy – so that you can devote your whole mind to your studies, no distractions. All your sexual energies have to be concentrated in studies. Then the second stage is called grihastha – the stage of the householder. You devote all your energies to family life: make a house, create a big business, earn money, raise children. And then the third is called vanaprastha. Vanaprastha means: “facing toward the forest.” Now prepare yourself to leave the world – prepare for twenty-five years! Live still in the house, but turn toward the forest. Slowly, slowly disconnect yourself. Go on giving your responsibilities to your children, who will now be coming back from the university.And the fourth stage – after seventy-five years – the last twenty-five years, you become a sannyasin. This was the routine, accepted, conventional thing in India.In the first place, people don’t live a hundred years, and particularly in those days not at all. All the scientific research that has been gone into proves that people in Buddha’s time lived at the most an average of forty years; forty years was the average life. And it does not seem too bad because even now in India, sixty years is the average life. With all the new medicine, medical help, hospitals, if India has only sixty years as the average life, then in those days, with no science, with no medical facilities, if people lived an average of forty years they were doing perfectly well. So people were not living for a hundred years. By the time one was seventy-five, one was gone. So for the majority of the people, the time for sannyas would never come.It seems it was just an effort to postpone it. And even if somebody lived after seventy-five – a few people lived, Buddha himself lived for eighty years – if a few people lived after seventy-five, their lives would be almost without energy. They would be dead, walking corpses. They would not have energy enough to meditate, to rise to the highest peaks of consciousness. They would not be able to transform their beings into buddhahood; that would be impossible for them.Buddha brought a great revolution and India has never forgiven him for that. He destroyed the whole nonsensical idea of stages. It is nonsense, because there are a few intelligent people who can be sannyasins even while they are young, and there are a few superintelligent people who can be sannyasins even when they are small children.Shankaracharya became a sannyasin when he was only nine years of age. Buddha became a sannyasin when he was twenty-nine years old. So it is foolish to postpone it. And why go on postponing truth to the very end when you will be almost a corpse, no energy left? And then you will try to soar high into the sky? When the days have come to go into the grave, you will try to take flight toward the sun? It is impossible.Buddha was the first in India to introduce the idea of a young sannyasin. His emphasis was that youth is the best time to be a sannyasin because great energy will be needed for the inner transformation, for inner work. It can’t be postponed. And who knows about the future? Who knows even about tomorrow or even about the next moment? He says: You are young, you are strong – then this is the time. It is time to arise. Don’t postpone. There is no need to postpone. Don’t say “I will wake up only after seventy-five years of age.” A person who has been dreaming for seventy-five years will find it very difficult to wake up after seventy-five years of dreaming. Dreaming would have become almost a second nature to him.As you grow old you become more and more stubborn, less and less flexible. As you grow old you become more and more mechanical, less and less alive. Your ways of life become so settled, your ways of thinking become so fixated, that it becomes impossible to change them. That’s why it is so difficult for an old man to learn anything new. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Children learn very easily; old men find it very difficult to learn because they already think they know. Their whole life’s experience is there, and their life’s experience starts dominating them; it goes on dominating them to the very end.Zeb and his wife, Addie, had had a reputation for being the stingiest couple in the hills. Zeb died a few years back, and his kin had been downright embarrassed about the way Addie went on about the cost of the funeral. She even insisted on having the coffin closed so she would not have to pay the undertaker for a room to hold the viewing.A few years later, Addie got sick and it looked like she was going to meet Zeb in the hereafter. Addie called her only friend to her side and made her promise to see to the funeral.“Promise you will bury me in my black silk dress,” she said weakly. “But you may as well cut the material out of the back of the skirt. It is good material and it surely is a sin to waste it.”“Now, Addie,” replied her friend, “I just couldn’t. When you and Zeb walk through those Pearly Gates, you surely don’t want to go with no back to your dress.”“Don’t give it another thought,” replied Addie. “They will all be looking at Zeb anyway.”“Why do you say that?”“Because I buried him without his pants.”If you are miserly your whole life, then even in death you will be the same. As you grow old you become more and more settled.Youth is the best time for inner transformation because youth is the most flexible time. Children are more flexible than young people, but they are not as understanding. They need a little experience. Youth is exactly in the middle; you are no longer a child, no longer ignorant of life and its ways and not yet settled as an old man. You are in a state of transition, and the state of transition is the best time that you can jump out of the wheel of life and death. Youth is the most significant time to take any jump, because the jump needs courage, it needs energy, it needs risk, it needs daring.Buddha says: You are strong, you are young. It is time to arise. To be a youth, to be young, to be fresh, is a great benediction. It is the time of rebellion. And if you miss your youth, it will be more and more difficult later on. Not that it is impossible – it can happen even when you are old – but it will take more arduous effort and things will not be so easy. It is just like climbing a mountain: when you are young it is easier, when you become old it becomes difficult. Breathing is hard, climbing up is tiring, you perspire, you feel exhausted very soon, you will need more rest and the journey will look very long. When you are young you can run up; you can run up to the peak and each step will release more energy in you, because to be young is to be a reservoir of energy.Many people come to me and ask why I am giving sannyas to young people – because of this reservoir of energy. Youth is the time for sannyas, because sannyas is the greatest rebellion; no other rebellion is so great. Don’t waste your youthfulness on other ordinary revolutions – political, social, economic. Don’t waste your life energy on those stupid games. Put your total energy, focus your total energy, on a single point: the spiritual revolution – because that is a radical change, and other changes can follow that change.If your inner being changes, your whole outer life will be totally different. It will have a different fragrance, a different beauty, a different grace. And when your inner being is changed and becomes a flame of light, you will become a light unto others too. You will become a beckoning light, a great herald of a new dawn. Your very presence will trigger revolutions in other people’s lives.Buddha says: So arise! Don’t waste a single moment! – Lest through irresolution and idleness you lose the way. The only danger is irresolution. A life uncommitted, uninvolved, is not worth calling life. It is only through commitment, involvement, that your life attains sharpness, your intelligence becomes a sword. Through idleness you gather rust; your sharpness disappears. You become old even while you are young. And if you remain sharp and you remain rebellious, even when you are old you will not be old. You will be physically old, but your inner being will remain young.And that is one of the greatest experiences of life: when your body becomes old, but your inner being keeps its youthfulness. That means you have not lost track of life, that you are keeping yourself in step with life. You are not left behind, you are not lagging behind.Buddha says:Master your words.He says… Ordinarily a mind is full of words – relevant, irrelevant, rubbish; all kinds of words go on gathering inside you. Two persons are talking; you simply listen, and those words become part of your mind – for no other reason, accidentally. You heard two persons talking. You have become burdened. You travel and you read the signboards, and those words become part of your being. You read unnecessary advertisements. In magazines, people read advertisements more than anything else. Or you go on gossiping with people, knowing perfectly well that it is just useless, a sheer waste of time and energy. But words are gathering inside you like dust, layers upon layers, and your mirror will be covered by them.Buddha says: Master your words. Be telegraphic. Listen only to that which is significant, read only that which is meaningful. Avoid the unnecessary, the irrelevant. Speak only that which is to the point. Make your every word your heart. Don’t just go on saying things as if you are a gramophone record.Mary was sitting alone on the couch when her mother came in and turned on the light.“Why, what is the matter, dear?” asked her mother. “Why are you sitting here in the dark? Did you and John have a fight?”“Oh, no, nothing like that,” replied Mary. “As a matter of fact, John asked me to marry him.”“Well, then why do you look so sad?”“Oh, mother, it is just that I don’t know if I could marry an advertising executive.”“But what is wrong with marrying a man who is in advertising?”“Well, how would you feel if a man who was proposing to you told you that it was a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated, special offer?”Just like a gramophone record! He may not be aware at all of what he is saying, may be repeating his habit. He is skillful in it, it has become part of his mind. It may be repeating itself; he may not be conscious at all of what he is doing.When Buddha says: Master your words, he means, be conscious. Why are you saying something? To whom? And what is the purpose of it? Be clear, otherwise be silent. It is better not to burden others with your garbage. If you can enlighten, good; if you can unburden, good; otherwise it is better to be quiet.Master your thoughts.For a few minutes watch any thought which goes on inside your mind and you will be surprised: the mind seems to be crazy! It jumps from one thought to another thought for no reason at all. Just a dog starts barking in the neighborhood and your mind takes the clue from it: and you remember the dog that you used to have in your childhood, and the dog died… And you start feeling sad. And because of the death of the dog you start thinking about death, and the death of your mother and the death of your father. And you become angry because you were never at ease with your mother; there was always conflict. The dog is still barking, completely unaware what he has done. And you have traveled so far!Anything can trigger a process in you. This is a kind of slavery: you are at the mercy of accidents. This is not mastery. And a sannyasin, a seeker, should be a master. He thinks only if he wants to think; if he does not want to think he simply puts off his mind. He knows how to put it on and how to put it off.You don’t know how to put it on, you don’t know how to put it off; it goes on and on. It starts working in childhood and goes on working till you die. Seventy years, eighty years, continuously working – so much work, and then you cannot expect anything great out of it because it is utterly tired. It has not much energy left; it is leaking from everywhere. If you can put it off… That’s what meditation is all about: putting the mind off, the art of putting the mind off. If you can put it off, it will gather energy.If you are without the mind for a few hours every day, you will gather so much energy that that energy will keep you young, fresh, creative. That energy will allow you to see reality, the beauty of existence, the joy of life, the celebration. But for that you need energy, and your mind has very little energy. Somehow you just manage your life. You live a poor life for the sheer reason that you don’t know how to accumulate your mind energy, how to make a reservoir of your inner being. It goes on and on leaking and you don’t know how to stop those leakages.Never allow your body to do harm.Three things, Buddha says: “Be careful about words; be master of your thoughts; never allow your body to do harm. Because the body comes from the animals, the body is animal. It enjoys harming, it is violent. Be conscious of it. Don’t allow it to go into violence. Don’t allow it to harm anybody, because if you harm others the harm will come back to you sooner or later.”That’s the whole theory of karma: whatsoever you do to others will be done to you. So do to others only that which you would like to be done to you.Follow these three roads with purityand you will find yourself upon the one way,the way of wisdom.The last advice Buddha gives is: don’t follow these three paths out of calculation. Follow them innocently, in a childlike way, exploring, inquiring. Make it an adventure, but don’t be calculative, don’t be businesslike. We are all businesslike, and that is one of the basic reasons we go on missing the joy of life. A businessman can never know what joy is; he is always thinking about profits.People come to me and they ask, “If we meditate, what will be the profit out of it? What are we going to gain out of it?” If I say to them, “Meditate for meditation’s sake,” they look puzzled. They say, “Then what is the point?” They can’t understand that, in life, a few things should be done without any calculation.Love for love’s sake, art for art’s sake, meditation for meditation’s sake. All that is beautiful and great can never be reduced to a means to something else. And the businessman knows only that. The businesslike mind always reduces everything to a means to some end. And these are ends. Meditation is an end unto itself, not a means to anything else. Hence, be childlike, innocent, non-calculative. Be pure …and you will find yourself upon the one way – the only way, the true way – the way of wisdom.Sit in the world, sit in the dark – these words are tremendously pregnant:Sit in the world, sit in the dark.Sit in meditation, sit in light.Choose your seat.Let wisdom grow.Sitting in the world means to be in the mind and sitting in meditation means to be in no-mind. To be in the mind is to be in the dark and to be in no-mind is to be in light. If you have understood the previous sutras you will know how to be a no-mind – and then there is light and only light. You are flooded with light, you become luminous. And that’s how wisdom grows.Cut down the forest,not the tree.For out of the forest comes danger.Cut down the forest… means cut out the root, the very source of it all; …not the tree, because the tree is only a symptom. If you cut down one tree, another tree will grow. Don’t fight with the symptoms; look into the root and destroy the root.The root is the ego. The root is the desire of the ego. The root is the clinging of the ego. Cut down the whole forest: the ego, the desire, the clinging, the cunningness, the cleverness, the calculativeness, the politicalness – cut out all these. Don’t go on fighting with small things.Somebody comes and asks, “How can I get rid of anger?” Now, without getting rid of the ego you cannot get rid of anger, and if you try you will be only repressing it. People come to me and they ask, “How can we get rid of sexuality?” You cannot get rid of sexuality if you don’t get rid of the ego and its continuous hankering for more and more. You can’t get rid of sexuality if you cannot see the inner nothingness. In that seeing, sexuality is transformed into spirituality. Go to the root, to the source.But people go on pruning the trees, thinking that this is how they are going to transform their lives. Yes, they can become more sophisticated, more cultured, more civilized, on the surface more polished – but this will be only on the surface. Deep down they will remain the same: as ugly as before or even uglier, because all that is repressed will make them more and more perverted.Cut down the forest.Fell desire.And set yourself free.If you want to cut down the forest: Fell desire. See the point, that desire is futile. Live in the moment and don’t try to live in the future. Nobody can live in the future. How can you live in a future which is not yet? And desire gives you the illusion of living in the future. Sitting, you start thinking you have become the president of a country. You start living a dream, a daydream, thinking that you have found a great fortune; a lottery has been opened in your name. And you start thinking and become very disturbed, really disturbed: “What to do with it?”I had a friend, a doctor, and he was very obsessed with crossword puzzles. Every month he would fill in crossword puzzles, and every month he would hope that this time he was going to get five lakh rupees, ten lakh rupees. I had been watching it for years. And the month would pass and nothing would happen, and he would start preparing for another crossword puzzle.One day I was sitting in his dispensary, and I told him, “Look, you don’t seem to have a great fate!”He said, “What do you mean?”I said, “I have been watching you for so many days, for so many years, and nothing happens. Join with me and this month you will get ten lakh rupees.”He was ecstatic. He said, “Why didn’t you say so before?”I said, “But there is a condition. The library of this city needs five lakh rupees. You will have to give five lakh rupees to the library. Then I can join with you. Then my fate will be with your fate – and you know my fate!”He said, “That I know! But,” he said, “five lakhs is too much.” He started bargaining: nothing had happened yet, but he was so disturbed! He started bargaining, “Five lakhs is too much, and I am a poor doctor, and you know how difficult it is and what great competition there is – twenty doctors in this small town and I am the poorest. You are demanding five lakh rupees! Make it one lakh.”I said, “Okay, so it is agreed: one lakh I will get for the library, nine lakhs you get.”He said, “Yes.” But he said yes in such a sad way: “One lakh rupees, going just like that!”Twelve o’clock in the night he knocked on my door. It was summer and I was sleeping on the terrace so I asked from the terrace, “What is the matter? Who is there?”He said, “I am your friend. I could not sleep, I had to come. One lakh is too much! This time just fifty thousand. Next month we will join forces again and then I will give one lakh.”I said, “Okay – because I don’t want to disturb my sleep. Go away. Fifty thousand is okay, but now don’t change it!”Next morning he changed it. He said, “You know my situation. This time, let me keep the whole amount. Next month, whatsoever you say I will give to the library.”I said, “Then I withdraw my hand. Then you do it on your own.”The month passed. Nothing happened. He came to me and he was crying, just tears. And he said, “I am such a fool! I should have agreed with you. You were only asking fifty thousand rupees, but I did not agree. This month I am going to agree.”I said, “But now I am not going to do this business at all, because I know it will happen again the same way – great bargaining, and your nights will be disturbed and you will disturb my sleep. Do it on your own.”People even start living in imagination. Watch yourself. Desire keeps you occupied in the nonexistential and goes on destroying that which is present. And the present is the only life. Now and here is the only life.Live it in totality, live it with your whole being. Put your mind aside and jump into the now with no-mind. And all the blessings of existence will shower on you.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What is the golden rule in Gautam Buddha's philosophy?Once George Bernard Shaw was asked, “Is there a golden rule in life?” He said, “There is only one golden rule: that there are no golden rules.”Life is not mechanical; that’s why there is a possibility of religion. If life was mechanical, totally rooted in rules, in cause and effect, in causality, then science would have been enough. And science is not enough.Science only touches the periphery of life; the innermost core remains untouched. Science only knows the rudimentary; it does not know the highest peak. It knows only the bodily part of existence but not its spiritual center. It is concerned with the circumference and utterly unaware of the center.Hence there are no golden rules. Life is freedom, it is consciousness, it is bliss, it is love – but not law.That’s why I am very reluctant to translate Buddha’s word dhamma as the “universal law”; it misses something very significant. Dhamma has freedom in it; freedom is the goal of dhamma. And law is absolutely without freedom. Law is like a goods train running on tracks, and dhamma is like a river descending from the peaks of the Himalayas, going zigzag, in absolute freedom, spontaneity, with no fixed routine, unpredictable, toward the ocean.Life can be lived in rules, but then life becomes superficial. Live life, not according to laws, but according to consciousness, awareness. Don’t live life according to the mind. Mind has rules and regulations, mind has rituals. Live life from the standpoint of no-mind so that you can bloom into unpredictable flowers.Buddha has no golden rule in his philosophy.According to Peter’s Principle, the golden rule of life is: whoever has the gold makes the rules.And Buddha has no gold – he can’t make a golden rule. And secondly, he has no philosophy either. He has a vision, a darshan, a philosia, but not philosophy. A philosia simply means the capacity to see. Philosophy is thinking, philosia is seeing. Buddha is not concerned with thinking at all; his whole emphasis is on seeing. See the truth, don’t believe in it. Don’t think about it. You can go on thinking about it and about it, but you will never arrive at it by thinking about it.Thinking about godliness has nothing to do with godliness. Thinking about light has nothing to do with light. In fact, only a blind man thinks about light. The man who has eyes enjoys light, he does not think about it. Have you ever thought about light? You enjoy it, you live it. It is dancing everywhere among the trees: you feel it, you experience it. Buddha is not a philosopher, in the Western sense of the word. He is a seer who has seen. And because he has seen he has become free: free of mind. The mind is needed only if you are a thinker.Plato and Kant and Hegel and Marx and Bertrand Russell are philosophers. Lao Tzu, Buddha, Zarathustra, Jesus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Eckhart are not philosophers; they are seers. These are two totally different currents.Belong to the seers. Be a seer, because without seeing the truth there is no deliverance.The second question:Osho,The other day I understood that you don't know each and every one of us. But isn't it really important that you know us personally? The master leads the disciple by the hand toward the abyss, but how is this possible if you don't know us, and who is who?The personality is false; the master never knows his disciples by their personality. He never knows them personally, he knows them essentially. And there is a great difference between the two. To know you personally is meaningless. What is your personality? – the accident of your birth, the accident of your upbringing – as a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian – your name, your face, your color, your country. All these things make your personality; and all these things are false, all these things are accidental.I am concerned with the essential core of your being – and that is not different. It is the same core in everyone. The original face is the same behind all the faces. It has no color; it has no form, no shape. It has nothing to do with your father and mother, with your country. It has nothing to do with your name. I am concerned with your original face.You come into the world without a name. The name has a certain utility in the world. The master knows you not by your accidents; he knows you by your essence. He does not know you personally; he knows you spiritually.So I don’t know who is who, but I know the “who” behind all “who’s” – the essential one.You say, “The master leads the disciple by the hand toward the abyss…” I have got only two hands, and if I go on leading disciples by the hand toward the abyss, then it will take much time to finish all my disciples! That won’t do. Jesus may have done it – he had only twelve disciples – but how can I manage that?I have to work out a different way. I cannot take you by your hands. I catch hold of your souls; for that, hands are not needed. And I know you perfectly: you, as you are before existence, in your utter nudity, in your bare essence.So don’t be worried. If I have to know everybody personally I will have to carry a big book, who is who. And then too it will be very difficult to find out.The more and more you become meditators, your differences start disappearing, you become more and more alike. Your faces, your eyes, your climate, become more and more similar.The moment you come close to the abyss to take the ultimate jump, you are no longer a separate entity. You are one with the whole. I have to persuade your essence to take the jump; and that’s what I am doing. You need not be worried, you need not become concerned.Yes, you would like to be known by your personal name, you would like to be recognized. That is nothing but a deep, deep ego desire. And that’s what I want to shatter completely. So even if I know you, I pretend not to know you.The third question:Osho,How can one drop an obsession? Or is it not to be dropped at all, but enjoyed?An obsession simply means a wound in your being, which keeps attracting you again and again, which goes on declaring itself, which wants your attention. You cannot drop it. How can you drop your wound? An obsession is a psychic wound, you cannot drop it. Understand it. Watch it. Pay attention to it. Be meditatively with it. And the more you are meditatively with it, the more it will be healed.Meditation is a healing force. The words meditation and medicine are derived from the same root; they both mean healing forces. Meditation is medicine – medicine for the soul.So if you have an obsession, don’t name it. The moment you call it an obsession you have already started condemning it. And if you condemn something you cannot watch it – you are prejudiced against it. How can you watch the enemy? No need to condemn; whatsoever is the case is the case. Just by condemning it you can’t change it; by condemning it you can only repress it. You can avoid seeing it, but the wound will continue; it will become cancerous, it will go on growing inside.Rather than condemning it, rather than calling it names, giving it labels, watch it – without any conclusion. See what it is. See as deeply as possible, with great friendliness toward it, with intimacy. It is your obsession, your wound; it says something about you, it is part of your biography. It has arisen in you, just as flowers arise in trees. It is essential because it says something about your past. Go deeply into it, with care, with love, and you will be surprised: the more care you show about it, the less it hurts, the less it dominates, the less it forces itself upon you.Yes, in a certain way, enjoy it! But by enjoying I don’t mean become identified with it. If you become identified with it you go insane. If you condemn it, if you repress it, you go insane. Avoid both extremes. Keep yourself exactly in the middle, neither condemning nor identifying. Just be a pure witness.And slowly, slowly it will be healed. Slowly, slowly it will lose all its poison. Slowly, slowly you will see it changing into a positive energy rather than a negative force. It will become helpful. Each obsession is a knot in your being. Once it is opened, great energy is released.And everybody is carrying obsessions; our whole society is obsessive. A few obsessions are accepted by the people; then you don’t call them obsessions. If they are not accepted, then they become obsessions. In one society one thing is thought to be obsessive, in another society it is not obsessive. It may be even respected, may be thought saintly, holy.For a Jaina monk, to take a bath is an obsession. People who are taking baths every day once or twice are obsessive; they are too concerned about their bodies, body-oriented. The Jaina monk condemns them. The Jaina monk does not take a bath. Jaina monks used to come to see me. It was really a difficult time for me because they stink! But they think they are doing great austerity.They don’t clean their teeth either – that too is an obsession. Morning, evening and before you go to bed… And a few people will clean their teeth after each meal, so four, five, six times a day. This is obsession! You are madly concerned about your teeth. And all the arguments that you can give are pointless to the Jaina monks because they will say “Look at the animals. Without any cleansing, without any toothpaste, without any toothbrush, their teeth are absolutely clean. Nature takes care, there is no need to worry about it. You are obsessed.”According to them, you are too concerned about your body odor, about your breath, about your teeth. And this is materialism, and they are spiritual people! But except a Jaina, nobody will think that these are obsessive things.Remember one thing: obsessions differ from society to society, from country to country, from religion to religion. What really is obsession? Anything that becomes a dominating force upon you, that dominates you, that becomes master of your being. Anything that reduces you to a slave, that’s my definition of an obsession.Watch it, meditate. Be silently with it, because that is how you will become master again. Silence makes you a master of everything. Don’t fight, and don’t become identified. If you become identified you are mad. If you fight you are mad from the other extreme.The director of a well-known mental hospital decided to resign his post after many years of service. This decision brought the local press out for an interview.“Tell us, Doctor, what are your plans? Will you resume private practice?”“Well, I have given it some thought,” replied the doctor. “I may go back into private practice, but on the other hand I may become a tea-kettle.”Now, living with mad people for so long, with so many tea-kettles, he has also become impressed with the idea.If you want to become anything in your life, that is obsession. It is not a question only of becoming a tea-kettle: if you want to become the president of a country or the prime minister, it is the same – other names for becoming tea-kettles! There are people who are obsessed with the idea that they will not rest unless they become the president. Then when they become the president they are at a loss; they don’t know what to do now because all that they know is how to become the president. They have devoted their whole life to a single purpose: how to become the president. Now they have become the president and they are certainly at a loss; they don’t know what to do.There are people who want to become rich; they become rich. If you persist, you can fulfill any kind of stupidity. Man has immense powers. Yes, you can become a tea-kettle if you persist; nobody can prevent you. But then? Then you are suddenly empty. Then suddenly you find yourself without any goal, lost.All obsessive people will feel lost when their obsessions are fulfilled. If you become identified with an obsession, sooner or later you will feel lost. If it is fulfilled you will be the loser; if it is not fulfilled, certainly you are the loser.The other way is to repress it, to throw it into the basement of your being, somewhere deep in the unconsciousness, so you don’t come across it. But it goes on growing there, and it goes on affecting you and your behavior; it goes on pulling your strings from the back. And the enemy is more powerful when it is hidden. You don’t see it, but still you have to follow its dictates – it becomes a dictator.Both extremes have to be avoided. That’s what Buddha also would have suggested: be exactly in the middle, watchful, choicelessly watchful. Neither choose to be identified nor choose to be repressive. Just see. It is a fact of your psychic life, whatsoever it is. Don’t say good, bad, XYZ – whatsoever it is, it is. Watch it. And see the tremendous power of watchfulness: how it transforms wounds into flowers, how it releases entangled energy knots into great forces, positive forces, nourishing forces.The fourth question:Osho,Will you please explain the time-lapse between the clocks in the main office and the front gate reception?Have you heard about the famous Segal’s law? It says: a man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.Watches have no reason to agree with each other; they are not conformist. Watches are revolutionaries! And what are you talking about? You think you have a problem? You should ask me!I have five clocks in my room, and the whole day I am working out, figuring out, what time it is – and of course I am never right!The fifth question:Osho,Since you spoke about the difference between a disciple and a devotee, I keep feeling that I am a lousy devotee, yet at the same time it seems that I have never been so devoted and in love with you as now. Could you please say more about being a devotee?Even to be a lousy devotee is something tremendously important. It is better than to be a very keen student. It is better than to be a very attentive disciple. Even to be a lousy devotee is better than anything else. And as the devotion will grow the lousiness will disappear, because love cannot allow lousiness for long. Love is fire; it burns all that is nonessential, all that is rubbish.I know it is happening, and I am immensely pleased with you. The lousiness will go. When the sun has started rising in the east, how long can the darkness of the night remain? It is already disappearing. In fact, that’s why you have become aware of it.We become aware of a few things only when they start leaving us, because when they are there we will not become aware of them; they have always been there. If you are becoming aware of your lousiness, that simply shows it is disappearing, it is leaving, it is going. Some change is happening; that’s why you have become aware of it.It is said that many people become aware that they were alive only when they are dead. When they are dying, suddenly the idea arises in their mind, “Gosh! So I was alive!” Otherwise it was impossible for them to know that they were alive; some background, some contrast is needed. Death becomes the contrast.You are becoming aware of some lousiness; it is a good indication. Lousiness is on the go – say good-bye to it. And once love enters the heart, lousiness cannot reside there; it is impossible. Love is never lousy. They can’t exist together. They are just like light and darkness.The sixth question:Osho,Is it true that some people wake up and find themselves famous?Yes, it is true. Some people wake up and find themselves famous; others wake up and find themselves late for the morning discourse.The seventh question:Osho,My previous life with my mother, father, sister and brother was a period filled with unhappiness. Why did I choose to be born into this family?You have not chosen, because you died unconsciously. How can you choose? If you had chosen, you certainly would not have chosen such a family. It was unconscious. You moved into the womb robotlike. That’s how it happens.Ordinarily whenever a man dies – except the buddhas – he dies in unconsciousness. He lives in unconsciousness, how can he die in consciousness? Death is the culmination of your whole life. If you have lived in unconsciousness, you will die in unconsciousness. It is the condensed moment: your whole life becomes condensed.If you have lived in unconsciousness, your death is going to be of tremendously condensed unconsciousness. You will die unconscious; then you don’t choose. How can you choose?But millions of stupid people are making love all over the world; millions of wombs are ready to receive you. They are also as unconscious as you are. They don’t know why they are making love. They don’t know why a certain man is with a certain woman. They don’t know what is happening. Something takes a grip, something drives them toward certain acts. They are making love not out of awareness, they are making love out of unawareness. And if a couple has exactly the same kind of unawareness as you have, then immediately you will enter that womb. That fits with you.You say, “My previous life with my mother, father, sister and brother was a period filled with unhappiness.” You must have deserved them! We only get that which we deserve. It is fair too; it is not unjust.Now you are asking, “Why did I choose to be born into this family?” You could not have done otherwise. And beware! If you don’t become alert you will do the same again. You have done it many times; this is not the first time. You have not chosen the womb, it is not your choice at all.A wealthy widower and his daughter were traveling to Europe on the S.S. United States. The girl fell overboard. Berman, aged seventy-three, hit the water and saved her. After the two were brought back aboard the ship, the widower threw his arms around Berman.“You saved my daughter’s life!” he exclaimed. “I am a rich man. I will give you anything. Ask me for whatever you want!”“Just answer me one question,” said Berman. “Who pushed me?”It is not your choice. Your whole life must have pushed you into a certain womb. You can choose only when you are aware, and to die in awareness is the greatest experience of life. There is nothing more ecstatic than that.In life, three things are the most important: birth, love and death. Birth has already happened; now nothing can be done about it. Something can be done about love: you can become a conscious lover, and by becoming a conscious lover you will be preparing for a conscious death, because love and death are very similar. In love also you die in a certain way; your ego dies.The first experience of death is love. And once you have known the beauty of dying in love you will not be afraid of death at all. In fact, you will wait and you will welcome it when it comes. You will sing a song when it comes. You will dance. Death will not be your enemy but a friend, a great friend, because you knew a small death in love and it was so beautiful. Now it is a big death; it is bound to be a thousandfold more beautiful.Love prepares a man to die – but only conscious love, because only in conscious love do you die; in unconscious love you don’t die. Unconscious lovers quarrel continuously, fight. They try to dominate each other.Conscious lovers surrender. In fact, surrender is not to each other; surrender is to the god of love. Both the lovers surrender to some unknown energy in which they dissolve their egos, and they experience small deaths. Each time, each orgasm brings a deeper death. As love deepens, death deepens, and they become prepared for the ultimate death. The day the final death comes is a day of rejoicing. They go dancing into death, singing, their hearts full of the thrill of the adventure.Then they can choose. Then they can move into a certain womb of their own choice. Now they have eyes – where to go, from what door to enter.Love is the beginning of consciousness. Death gives you the great experience – but still only ninety-nine percent, one percent is still left. That one percent is fulfilled by conscious birth. A conscious birth is one hundred percent death. The ego simply disappears, totally disappears. Love is one percent death, death is ninety-nine percent death, birth is one hundred percent death. And once you are born consciously, then there is no more love, no more death, no more birth.This is the goal of all the buddhas: to be free from the wheel of life and death.The eighth question:Osho,I have been doing meditation for almost forty years, but I am as far away from the goal of god-realization as ever. What should I do?To make God a goal is to start in the wrong direction. God is not a goal; because if you think in terms of goals God becomes your desire, an object of desire. Then god-realization is nothing but the ultimate glorification of the ego. Hence you have been missing.And I don’t know what kind of meditation you have been doing for forty years; it must be some wrong kind. It can’t be right mindfulness – what Buddha talks about – it must be some wrong mindfulness. You must be doing some kind of concentration and thinking that this is meditation.This is one of the greatest fallacies, very much prevalent in the so-called religious circles of the world, particularly in India. Concentration is thought to be meditation, and concentration is not meditation; it is just the opposite of meditation. Concentration is a mind phenomenon. To concentrate upon something means you are focusing your mind on something. It has its own benefits, but those benefits are scientific, not religious. In science, concentration is needed; concentration is a scientific method.And your schools, colleges, universities, all prepare you for concentration because their preparation is for scientific goals, not for religious experience. Concentration means excluding everything from the mind except the one thing on which you are focusing.Meditation simply means not focusing on anything at all, not even on God – not focusing at all. Hence it does not exclude anything, it includes all. In meditation you relax, in concentration you become tense. In meditation you are in a deep rest, just alert about whatsoever is happening. A bird starts singing in the woods, a dog barks in the neighborhood, a child starts crying; the traffic noise on the road, delicious smells floating in the air from the kitchen… Your five senses are receiving, alert to all this, everything that is present, that surrounds you.Concentration can be disturbed because you are trying to focus on one thing; anything can disturb it. You are repeating “Rama, Rama, Rama,” and a dog starts barking. Now you will be angry at the dog. The dog will look like the enemy who always disturbs you; whenever you meditate it starts barking. Must be an agent of the Devil! Or a child starts crying or the wife starts shouting at the kids, or something or other… And thousands of things are going on all around. You cannot stop the whole world because you are doing a foolish repetition: “Rama, Rama, Rama.” You cannot stop the whole world for this. The world will continue.And who knows? The dog may also be doing his concentration in his own way. Barking may be his Transcendental Meditation! They enjoy barking so much and they feel so exhilarated. Have you observed dogs when they bark, why they bark? Either they bark at the policeman or the postman or the sannyasin. They are against uniforms – a very revolutionary approach! Any uniform, and the dog starts barking. He is never at ease with a uniform; he is always against, suspicious. Or they start barking at the moon. Maybe that is their way of appreciating beauty. And who are you to prevent them? They have as much right to bark as you have.I have heard…In an exhibition in Paris all kinds of dogs were exhibited. A couple of Russian dogs had also come and they were talking to the French dogs. The French dog said, “How are things in Russia?”They said, “Things are beautiful, just beautiful! You can’t imagine how beautiful things are. The food is perfect, medical care is perfect; everything that dogs have always imagined is fulfilled. We have attained utopia.”The French dogs felt very jealous, but when the time came for the Russian dogs to leave they asked the French dogs, “Can we renounce our Russian citizenship? Can we stay in France?”The French dog said, “But why? You are enjoying utopia. Why should you want to stay here? For what?”They said, “For only one reason: once in a while we want to bark, but barking is not allowed there. No freedom of speech! And once in a while we would like to bark, and we are ready to risk everything for it.”The dog is barking and you are chanting a mantra. He is not disturbing you – he is doing his thing. But you will feel disturbed, not because of his barking but because of your effort to remain focused on one thing. It is because of your effort to focus that you feel distracted.A meditator is never disturbed, is never distracted. You cannot distract him because he starts watching the distraction too. He is just a watcher; he watches everything, distractions included. How can you distract him? He transforms even distractions, disturbances, into deep silence.My feeling is you must have been doing some kind of concentration; otherwise, forty years is a long time. You must have followed some stupid pundit, some scholar. You may yourself have become a scholar. Forty years is a long time. You may have read the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and you may have read other books on meditation – and they all talk about concentration.Buddha is the first person in the history of humanity who has not talked about concentration but about meditation. And he changed the whole phenomenon of meditation; he gave it a totally new color, a new form, a new life.You must be reading people who have not experienced anything but who go on writing.Murphy’s advice will be helpful to you. Murphy says: when all else fails, read the instructions.I think for forty years you have been doing meditation without reading the instructions. Try to understand what right mindfulness is.In India people go on doing all kinds of things. They concentrate, they chant mantras, they fast, they torture their bodies, and they hope that through all these masochistic practices they will realize God. As if God is a sadist! As if God wants you to torture yourself; as if he demands that the more you torture yourself, the more worthy you become. God is not a sadist; you need not be a masochist.I have come across people who think that without long fasting there is no possibility of meditation. Now, fasting has nothing to do with meditation. Fasting will only make you obsessed with food. And there are people who think celibacy will help them into meditation. Meditation brings a kind of celibacy, but not vice versa. Celibacy without meditation is nothing but sexual repression. And your mind will become more and more sexual, so whenever you sit to meditate your mind will become full of fantasies, sexual fantasies.These two things have been the greatest problems for the so-called meditators: fasting and celibacy. They think these two things are going to help, and they are the greatest disturbances.Eat in the right proportions. Buddha calls it “the middle way”: neither too much nor too little. He is against fasting, and he knows it through hard experience. For six years he fasted and could not attain to anything. So when he says, “Be in the middle,” he means it. About celibacy also: don’t enforce it upon yourself. It is a by-product of meditation, hence it cannot be enforced before meditation. Be in the middle there too, neither too much indulgence nor too much renunciation. Just keep a balance. A balanced person will be healthier, at ease, at home. And when you are at home, meditation is easier.What then is meditation? Just sitting silently doing nothing, witnessing whatsoever is happening all around; just watching it with no prejudice, no conclusion, no idea what is wrong and what is right.Start from ABC. Forget all those forty years. It is good that you have survived those forty years.A peddler told a friend that the food for his horse was using up all his profits. The friend suggested that he slowly, slowly reduce the horse’s diet by one straw at a time.Sometime later he ran into his friend again.“So, Abe, how are things?”“Terrible!” exclaimed Abe. “I got the horse down to where he was only eating one straw a day and then suddenly he died!”You have survived – good! Existence is gracious. Otherwise, forty years of the wrong kind of meditation, austerities, can kill anybody. You are a strong man – you have survived.And, if you have come here, please put aside all your knowledge. It has not worked, now don’t let it disturb you. Put it aside completely. Start afresh with me. Still there is hope, there is always hope.My meditation is simple; it does not require any complex practices. It is very simple. It is singing, it is dancing. It is sitting silently. It is being at ease with existence. It is accepting existence as your home.Forget about god-realization. By your thinking you will never realize godliness. Simply enjoy life, celebrate life. And one day, when the celebration reaches to its peak, suddenly the curtain disappears from your eyes and the whole existence is nothing but divine. There is no God, but the whole existence is full of godliness. That is god-realization, that is nirvana.The ninth question:Osho,Any marks for choiceless unawareness?Anand Buddha, even if you are aware of that, that will do. Are you aware of choiceless unawareness? That will destroy that choiceless unawareness. Make it an object of awareness and it will disappear, evaporate.And no marks can be given for it, because if marks have to be given for it then everybody will succeed in getting marks – everybody, because everybody is living it.A huge bully sauntered into the dimly lit saloon. “Is there anybody here called Kilroy?” he snarled. Nobody answered. Again he sneered, “Is there anybody here called Kilroy?”There was a moment of silence and then a little Irishman stepped forward. “I am Kilroy,” he said.The tough guy picked him up and threw him across the bar. Then he punched him in the jaw, kicked him, slapped him around and walked out.About fifteen minutes later the little fellow came to. “Boy, didn’t I fool him,” he said. “I ain’t Kilroy!”A pretty young girl stretched out on the psychiatrist’s couch. “I just can’t help myself, Doctor. No matter how hard I try to resist, I bring five or six men with me into my bedroom every night. Last night there were ten. I just feel so miserable, I don’t know what to do.”In understanding tones the doctor rumbled, “Yes, I know, I know, my dear.”“Ah!” the surprised girl exclaimed. “Were you there last night too?”People are living in unconsciousness, doing all kinds of things in unconsciousness. Everybody is an unconscious robot. We are just pretending that we are conscious; we are not conscious.The moment you become conscious, all unconscious actions disappear from your life. Your life starts moving in a new dimension. Your each act comes out of inner clarity; your each response is virtuous, is virtue. To live unconsciously is to live in sin; to live consciously is to be virtuous, is to be religious. And to live in total awareness is to be a buddha, is to be a christ.It will be good if we start calling Christ “Joshua the Buddha.” His real name was Joshua; from Joshua has come Jesus. And christ has become ugly because of the Christian church; the word has lost its beauty. It will be good if we change it, if we start calling him Joshua the Buddha – because they are all buddhas, they are all awakened people. They live through inner light. You only grope in inner darkness.Anand Buddha, I have given you the name Buddha. If you feel you are living in choiceless unawareness, make it a point to be aware of it.A thief asked a great Buddhist mystic, Nagarjuna, “Can I meditate and still remain a thief?”Nagarjuna said, “Yes. Just do one thing: while you are stealing remain alert, aware, conscious.”The thief was very happy. He said, “You are the right master! I have gone to many people, and they all say, ‘First stop stealing, then you can be a meditator.’”Nagarjuna said, “Those are not masters – they must be ex-thieves. I am a master. I am concerned with meditation, not with other things. What you do is your business; whether you steal or donate, that is your business. My business is to tell you to be alert, and do whatsoever you want to do.”Of course the thief was very happy – happy because now he could have both worlds.But after fifteen days he came back, fell at the feet of Nagarjuna, and he said, “You are a very sly fellow! You destroyed my whole profession – because if I try to be alert I cannot steal; my hands simply won’t move. Last night I entered the king’s palace; this was such an opportunity that it happens only once in a lifetime. It was very difficult to enter – my whole life I have tried – but it must be because of your blessings: last light I entered, and all the guards were fast asleep. I opened the treasure and such precious diamonds I have never seen in my life! I could have become the richest man, and everything was within my grasp, but you were standing between me and the treasure. You were telling me, ‘Be aware!’ You were shouting at me, ‘Be aware!’ And if I tried awareness, those precious stones looked just like stones, not worth bothering about. If I forgot about awareness, they were again precious stones, tremendously valuable.“It changed many times. I became aware and they were ordinary stones; I became unaware and they were great riches. But finally you were victorious. I have come back to you. Now initiate me into sannyas.”Nagarjuna must have been a man like me; otherwise, ordinary teachers can’t accept a thief.Sometimes a drunkard comes to me and he says, “I am a drunkard. Can I also be a sannyasin?” I say, “Don’t be bothered about small things. Sannyas will do! First be a sannyasin, then we will see.”He seems to be puzzled, he can’t understand. But once he becomes a sannyasin, things start changing. Sooner or later he comes and reports: “You did the trick. I cannot drink anymore; it has become more and more impossible. It is so repulsive, disgusting.”One drunkard told me – he became a sannyasin just a few months ago – he said, “It has become so difficult. Now I know the strategy and the trick behind these orange clothes, because when I go to the pub people start touching my feet! They say, ‘Swamiji, this is a pub! You must have come thinking it is some other place.’ And I say, ‘Yes – is this a pub?’ And I have to turn back! I can’t even go in.” He was really angry at me; he said, “I can’t even go to the movie, because standing in the queue people start touching my feet, and they say, ‘Swamiji, what are you doing here?’ And I have to escape.”Just a small bit of awareness and it will affect your whole life. Just a small bit of awareness and your total life as you have lived up to now will be shattered, will collapse, and a new life will start arising around that small center of awareness.The tenth question:Osho,I just had a general anesthetic. The space was so familiar – like being in lecture or darshan. Is this what you are doing – anesthetizing us so that you can operate?I don’t use anesthesia, but I have my own ways of making you unconscious so that I can operate.In the first place, you are already unconscious enough; sometimes you have just a little bit of flickering consciousness. I have to prevent that. No anesthesia is needed for that.A man who had just undergone a very complicated operation kept complaining about a bump on his head and a terrible headache. Since his operation had been an intestinal one, there was no earthly reason why he should be complaining of a headache. Finally his nurse, fearing that the man might be suffering from some postoperative shock, spoke to the doctor about it.“Don’t worry about a thing, nurse,” the doctor assured her. “He really does have a bump on his head. About halfway through the operation we ran out of anesthetic.”And I don’t have any anesthesia with me so I go on using the same method – just a good hammering on the head! Yes, for a few days you will have a little headache and a bump! You are not conscious, so you don’t need anesthesia – just a little hammering and you fall flat! Then any operation can be done on you. And this operation is not physical; this surgery is spiritual. Some weeds from your spirit have to be taken out, uprooted. And that’s what is happening in the talks, in the evening darshan.So I can perfectly understand your experience: that in anesthesia you felt the same space, “…like being in lecture or darshan.” Being here with me you lose track of your ego. Being here with me you lose track of your mind. You enter a vast space, a great freedom, a tremendous silence, a deep ecstasy; hence only those who are in deep love with me will be benefited. Those who come as outsiders, spectators, yes, they will gather a few words and they will think they have understood the point. They have not understood the point. Unless you start feeling this space that I am, you have not understood – you cannot.My message is not in the words that I use but in the silence from where those words come. My message is not verbal, philosophical. It is a communion, a deep communion of the hearts, a meeting, a merger, an orgasmic experience. It is spiritual orgasm.The last question:Osho,I have lived my whole life as a celibate, but I still suffer from bad sexual thoughts. Why?If you had not suffered, that would have been a miracle! If you have tried to live the life of a celibate, what else can you expect?And why do you call sexual thoughts bad? They are neutral, neither good nor bad. Sexual thoughts are sexual thoughts. Why bring these moral values in? Because of these moral values you remain in a constant fight, in an inner war, a civil war. You go on fighting with your own energy – the sexual energy – and that is the only energy you have. There is no other energy; it is the only energy, which has to be transformed into spirituality. This same sexual energy, which you are calling bad, is going to become a great perfume in you.But trying to live a celibate life without meditation is dangerous. It keeps you obsessed. It keeps you continuously in sexual fantasies. And then naturally you call it bad, because twenty-four hours living with the same ideas is a constant torture.“Police?” came the voice on the phone. “I want to report a burglar trapped in an old maid’s bedroom!”After ascertaining the address, the police sergeant asked who was calling.“This,” cried the frantic voice, “is the burglar!”After rushing into a drugstore, the nervous young man was obviously embarrassed when a prim, middle-aged woman asked if she could serve him.“No-no,” he stammered, “I would rather see the druggist.”“I am the druggist,” she responded cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”“Oh… Well, uh, it is nothing important,” he said, and turned to leave.“Young man,” said the woman, “my sister and I have been running this drugstore for nearly thirty years. There is nothing you can tell us that will embarrass us.”“Well, all right,” he said. “I have this awful sexual hunger that nothing will appease. No matter how many times I make love, I still want to make love again. Is there anything you can give me for it?”“Just a moment,” said the little lady. “I will have to discuss this with my sister.”A few minutes later she returned. “The best we can offer,” she said, “is two hundred dollars a week and a half-interest in the business.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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While a man desires a woman,his mind is boundas closely as a calf to its mother.As you would pluck an autumn lily,pluck the arrow of desire.For he who is awakehas shown you the way of peace.Give yourself to the journey.“Here shall I make my dwelling,in the summer and the winter,and in the rainy season.”So the fool makes his plans,sparing not a thought for his death.Death overtakes the manwho, giddy and distracted by the world,cares only for his flocks and his children.Death fetches him awayas a flood carries off a sleeping village.His family cannot save him,not his father nor his sons.Know this.Seek wisdom, and purity.Quickly clear the way.Niravo asked just the other day, “Is Jesus Christ coming back soon to earth as he had promised?” Such nonsense questions go on in people’s minds and not only in the minds of ordinary, common people: the so-called religious, theological, philosophical intelligentsia too keeps itself involved in such absurdities.Christ is not a person, it is an experience. Jesus had it, you can have it. Christ is synonymous with buddha. What we call in the East the buddha, the awakened, the West has called the christ, the crowned one. Jesus Christ cannot come back, but you can become christ any moment. Christ is already hidden in you as a seed; you are all bodhisattvas, buddhas in essence, in seed. Just a little effort, a little understanding and you can bloom, and your fragrance can be released. Jesus bloomed, Buddha bloomed, so can you. Why wait for Jesus Christ’s coming? That is avoiding the fundamental quest. Why not become a christ? What is the point of waiting for somebody else to come and deliver you – and how can anybody else deliver you?The deliverance that will come from somebody else will not be much of a deliverance. Freedom has to be earned, it cannot be given; if it is given, it can be taken away. If it is given it is not yours, it is not your growth. And anything that is given to you remains only an accumulation on the outside. It never becomes part of your interiority.Hence Buddha says:Know this.Seek wisdom, and purity.Quickly clear the way.Don’t waste time in unnecessary things.Niravo, are you cuckoo or something? Why wait for Jesus Christ? What wrong has he done to you? Enough is enough. The poor man came once and you crucified him; now are you hankering to crucify him again, or what?The pope came before the gathering of cardinals. Rumors had spread as to the reason for this extraordinary meeting.“Beloved cardinals,” the pope began. “I have called this special session to announce incredible news. It is, however, good news and bad news. As to the good: I have personally received a phone call from the Lord Jesus Christ. He has arrived on earth and has returned to fulfill his word.”The cardinals cheered and applauded.“The bad news,” the pope continued, “is that he called from 17 Koregaon Park, Pune, India.”Why are you waiting for Jesus Christ? He is already here, he has always been here in the awakened ones. And the world has never missed the awakened ones. Yes, they have been few and far between, but it is because of them the earth still has significance. It is because of them the earth is not yet dead. It is because of those few flowers that the earth has still the perfume of the beyond, that the earth has salt. Otherwise the crowds are dead. If you look at the crowds the earth is a big cemetery.Only these few people – a Zarathustra, a Jesus, a Lao Tzu, a Buddha, a Kabir, a Nanak… These people who can be counted on the fingers keep the flame burning. But you can become a flame any moment, your heart is ready to burst into flame. But rather than looking inward, you go on looking outward, waiting for Jesus Christ. Rather than searching inward, you go on searching in the scriptures, in mere words. Rather than transforming the state in which you are, you go on hoping that some miracle will happen and everything will be good. These hopes are not going to help you, they are deceptive, dangerous, suicidal.In the first sutra, Buddha says:While a man desires a woman,his mind is boundas closely as a calf to its mother.One very significant thing has to be understood before we enter this sutra. In Sanskrit we use the word kama both for desire as such, and for sexual desire. The same word is used for both, and there is a reason the same word is used for both.To desire a woman or a man, or to desire at all, both are expressed by the same word, kama. The reason is very psychological, profound. Sanskrit is one of the most profound languages of the earth, very deliberately evolved. That is exactly the meaning of the word sanskrit: sanskrit means consciously refined, consciously evolved.In India two languages have existed in the past. One was called Prakrit – prakrit means the natural, unevolved, raw, crude, used by the people – and the other was called Sanskrit. Sanskrit means refined, cultured, evolved, deliberate. That was used only by the intelligentsia, by the brahmins. Hence Sanskrit has many significant clues. It is rooted in great insights.For example, this same word being used for both desire as such, and for sexual desire, has a tremendously important message in it. All desire is basically sexual desire; that is the message in it. Desire as such has the flavor of sexuality in it, and you can observe it. This understanding is based, rooted in great observation. A man who is mad after money – watch his behavior, his being, look into his eyes, and you will be surprised that he loves money in the same way somebody else loves a woman or a man.Now psychologists have performed a few experiments. They have made a deck of cards, one hundred cards, ordinary playing cards. Inside the pack there are just two or three cards of naked women. They give you the whole pack, shuffled in such a way that the psychologist himself is not aware where the cards are which contain the pictures of naked women. But he goes on watching the eyes of the person who is looking at the cards, who goes on looking at cards. When he comes to a naked woman his eyes suddenly change. His pupils become big; that is automatic. He is not aware what is happening, but immediately his pupils become so big, they want to take in the naked woman as much as possible. They open all the doors.The same happens with people who are mad after money, money maniacs. Seeing a hundred-rupee note their pupils become immediately big. They may not be interested in a woman – and women are aware of it, hence so many ornaments, beautiful saris and all kinds of arrangements for these foolish people. They may not look at the face of the woman but they will be immediately interested in her necklace. They may be immediately interested in her earrings, her hair clip; if it has a diamond, a big diamond, they become interested in the diamond, and via the diamond they become interested in the woman.Their sexuality has become perverted, it has become focused on money. This is also the case with power-hungry people, those who are after political power, those who want to become presidents and prime ministers and governors. Just seeing the chair of the prime minister is enough and their whole being is in a state of ecstasy, in a state of orgasmic joy. Just seeing is enough. That is their goal.Buddha is right to use the same word for both. Hence, the misunderstanding in translation. The translator has thought that he is talking about women, so he translated kama as: While a man desires a woman, his mind is bound as closely as a calf to its mother. In fact, Buddha does not mention women. What he is trying to say is: While a man desires, his mind is bound as closely as a calf to its mother. Any desire is a bondage.Desire as such is a bondage, because when you desire, you become dependent on the other, on the desired object. Whether it is a woman, money, a man, power, prestige, it does not matter – it is desire, and desire brings bondage. Why?It is simple. When you desire something, your joy depends on that something. If it is taken away, you are miserable; if it is given to you, you are happy, but only for the moment. That too has to be understood. Whenever your desire is fulfilled it is only for the moment that you feel joy. It is fleeting, because once you have got it, again the mind starts desiring for more, for something else. Mind exists in desiring; hence mind can never leave you without desire. If you are without desire, mind dies immediately. That’s the whole secret of meditation.Create desirelessness and mind is gone, gone forever, never to return. If desire is there, mind will come. Desire is the root from where the mind comes in. Desire is its nourishment, its food, its very life, its breath. So mind cannot leave you without desire. If you desire God – even God – and you meet God, it would be only for a moment that you would be ecstatic. Then suddenly the mind would say, “Now what? Now this goal is achieved, project future goals. You are finished with God, now there is no more in it.”Desire fulfilled only for a moment gives you relief, and that relief has also to be understood. In the moment of a fulfilled desire there is relief. There is relief because in that small moment you are desireless. Desirelessness is joy. When one desire is fulfilled and before the mind projects another desire, between the two there is a small interval when there is no desire. That moment is of meditation.That’s how meditation has been discovered. It has not been speculated upon, it is not given by philosophers, by great thinkers. It is a simple observation, a scientific observation, that whenever desire is not there… You wanted a beautiful house and you have got it. When you open the door of the new house, for a moment you are transported into another world, for a moment there is no desire. A long, long-cherished desire has been fulfilled. It will take a little time for the mind…Mind needs time, remember. Mind cannot function without time; hence mind creates time. Without time there is no space for the mind to function. Mind will take a little time. In fact, mind is shocked. It was not hoping that the desire was going to be fulfilled. The goal was so far away, the house was so big, and it was almost impossible, but now that it is fulfilled mind is in shock. The mind is collecting itself again while you are opening the door of the new house, and you enter the new house and a deep joy arises in you. You say, “Aha!” The time that passes while you say “Aha!” is enough, and mind has projected another desire.The mind says, “The house is beautiful, but where is the swimming pool? The house is beautiful, but the garden is not looked after.” You will have to create a new garden, a beautiful swimming pool, and again the whole process sets in, again you are in the wheel of the mind. But for a moment when there was no desire, there was joy. Joy is always when there is no desire. Whenever there is desire, joy disappears. Desire keeps you a prisoner.Hence Buddha says: While a man desires, his mind is bound… And there is not much difference between one desire and another. So mind is not worried what you desire. Mind’s worry is only one: that you must desire. Desire anything! You can start collecting postage stamps, that will do – but desire. Now, postage stamps are useless, but there are many people who go on collecting them.I know one man who collects cigarette boxes. He has such a collection; he is ready to purchase at any cost. If a new cigarette packet can be given to him, he is ready. He collects beedi labels, and he goes on showing people with such great joy, as if he has conquered the world.I know another man who goes on writing in books, “Rama, Rama, Rama.” He has been doing it for almost sixty years – now he is eighty years old. His whole house is full of books in which is written only one word, Rama, and he goes on showing people and bragging: “Look how many millions of times I have written Rama.”When I was a guest in his house, he showed me too. I said. “You must be a fool. You wasted all these books. You should have given these books to children, poor children. They would have used them in a far better way. You have simply wasted ink, paper, your time, your life. And moreover, whenever you come across Rama, he will hit you on your head, because you must be continuously harassing him: ‘Rama, Rama, Rama.’ Day in, day out you go on harassing him. Avoid him; if you see Rama anywhere, escape.” I asked him, “Do you know why he always carries a bow with him? It is for devotees like you. He is always ready with his bow and arrow, so you cannot escape.”He was shocked. He said, “What are you saying? Are you joking? I have been doing a religious act. Everybody has praised it, great saints have come and praised it.”I said, “Those people must have been fools just like you.”Mind can desire anything. Now, he is not collecting money, but more and more names of Rama. It is the same game.A man went to see his lawyer about getting a divorce.“How much do you charge for handling a case like mine?” he asked.“I really don’t like to handle divorce cases,” replied his attorney. “Why do you want to get a divorce?”“Because I want to marry my wife’s sister.”“Now, a case like that could get pretty messy. It might cost you as much as a thousand dollars. Why don’t you go home and think it over.”So the man went home, and the next day he called his lawyer. “I have talked the whole thing over with my best friend,” he said. “I have decided not to get a divorce after all.”“That’s just fine,” said his lawyer. “Tell me, what did your friend say that made you change your mind?”“Well, he tells me he has been out with my wife and her sister, too, and there ain’t a nickel’s worth of difference between them.”Every desire is the same. The objects differ, but not the quality of desiring. You desire money, somebody else desires godliness; you desire power, somebody else desires paradise. It is all the same. Hence there are no religious desires, remember. Non-desiring is religious. Desiring is worldly, desire is the world. Non-desire is transcendence.But when one is under the impact of a desire, the impact is hypnotic. Every desire hypnotizes you. It makes you blind, that’s why we use phrases like falling in love. That is significant. The love that you know is certainly a fall – a fall from consciousness, a fall from understanding. You start crawling on the earth; you are no longer in your senses, you lose your intelligence, you become stupid. The more you are full of desire and lust, the more stupid you are.Murphy’s maxim… Murphy says: I believe in love at first sight because it saves time.When you are going to fall, then why wait? Fall at the first sight. At least time is saved if nothing else. When a person is in love with someone – and by love I don’t mean the love of the buddhas; their love is totally different. They are talking about prayerfulness, they are talking about compassion, they are talking about a desireless expression of their being. They are sharing their bliss.I am talking about your love. It is lust, it is the lowest energy phenomenon possible. You are in an almost hypnotic state. A man in love with a woman, or a woman in love with a man is no longer able to see clearly. The mind becomes clouded, the desire creates so much smoke, it raises so much dust that you can’t see clearly. And whatsoever you see is your own projection.A young army sergeant was posted to the deserts of Arabia by the French Foreign Legion. After a few days he became restless and asked his officer what form of entertainment took place in the camp – where were all the women and bars and so forth.The officer replied, “Just be patient and wait until the camels arrive.”So the young sergeant waited patiently for several more days and inquired again and the officer replied, “For heaven’s sake, just wait until the camels arrive.”The next night there was an almighty rush, all the soldiers came running out of their tents yelling and screaming.The young sergeant grabbed the officer and asked, “What is going on?”“The camels are coming!” replied the officer.“But why the great rush?”“Well, you don’t want to get an ugly one, do you?”If you are starving in a desert, even camels will start looking beautiful; otherwise you can’t see any difference between one camel and another. But the more your desires are starved, the blinder you become.So remember, Buddha is not saying to starve your desires. He has been misunderstood by people, by his own followers as much as by his enemies. That is the fate of the buddhas: to be misunderstood by both friends and enemies. When he is saying that desire makes you blind, he is not saying to repress desire, because a repressed desire is far more dangerous. He is saying, “Understand desire, meditate over the whole phenomenon of it, and through understanding go beyond it, not through repression. Through meditation, transcend desire. Seeing that desire is misery, seeing that desire is bondage, seeing that desire drags you downward into hell, one is simply released without any repression.”And to be released from desire is to be a buddha, is to be a christ.The greatest mystery is that those who have desires live like beggars. They live in bondage, are bound to live like beggars. And those who have transcended desire live like emperors. It seems existence follows a very paradoxical law.Old Murphy says: in order to get a loan you must first prove you don’t need it.If you want a loan from a bank, prove that you don’t need it. If the bank suspects you need it, you won’t get it.Exactly that is the case with dhamma, with the eternal law of existence. When you don’t need anything, the whole existence is yours, the whole kingdom of God is yours. And when you need anything, nothing is yours – only the need and the wound and the desire and the bondage. And desires are jumping upon you from every direction, there are desires and desires. It is not a question of one desire; desiring is the same, but there are millions of desires. So you live simultaneously in millions of prisons, and they go on destroying you, they go on forcing things upon you which you would not have accepted if there had been a moment of insight, of clarity. You would not have accepted such humiliation as you accept because of desires. You would not have accepted this crawling state. You are meant to fly in the sky. You have wings – wings which can take you to the ultimate. But desires are heavy like rocks; they are crushing you.And how many desires do you have? One day simply write them down and count them, and you will be surprised: they go on sprouting one after the other. And each fulfilled desire brings ten more desires in. Desires don’t believe in birth control; each desire gives birth to as many desires as possible. Desires are never barren, they are never childless.Bobbie Jo, a truly homely gal, came home from the Georgia campus for summer vacation. One evening she calmly confessed to her mother that she had lost her virginity last semester.“How did it happen?” gasped the parent.“Well, it was not easy,” admitted Bobbie Jo, “but three of my sorority sisters helped hold him down!”Just look around at how many desires are holding you down and how you are being exploited, sucked. And if you look miserable, sad, depressed, if you look weak, if you look as if life has no significance, it is not an accident, it is your own doing. You have not understood how you go on creating your own anguish, how you go on creating, feeding your own enemies.Yes, Buddha is right: While a man desires, his mind is bound as closely as a calf to its mother.A Martian landed at a busy intersection in New York City and spent the next two hours crossing the street. He kept going back and forth between the two electric signs that change from “Walk” to “Don’t Walk” and then back again.Finally the weary little Martian stopped at one of the poles and threw his arms around it. “Baby,” he said, “I really do love you, but you’ve got to stop being such a nag.”All desires are a nag, they go on nagging you, they go on forcing you, they go on goading you. You can’t have a moment of rest, you can’t be relaxed – all those desires are there. Rest, relaxation, is known only by those who have understood the art of being desireless. That’s what Buddha is pointing out:As you would pluck an autumn lily,pluck the arrow of desire.It is an arrow, it is hurting you, it is wounding you, it is great pain, it is nothing but misery. But then why do people go on desiring? Why don’t they listen to the buddhas? – for the simple reason that desires are very cunning. They go on promising you. Desires are politicians; they promise you beautiful things. Of course, those things will happen tomorrow, not today. And it seems logical that time will be needed – five-year plans. Within five years everything will be perfectly as you would like it to be. Wait! Hope! Let tomorrow come! – and tomorrow never comes. Again tomorrow the same desires will be there, promising you. This has been so for so many lives.You may not remember your past lives, but you can remember your past in this life at least. It has always been the case. The desire goes on telling you, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, wait, be patient.” And all promises are just toys to keep you occupied; the goods are never delivered.The day you become aware of this cunning game that is being played upon you by your own mind, you throw away all those toys. You stop listening to the continuous promises. You start laughing at your own stupidity, at your own ridiculousness, how you have been such a fool for so long. And the desire starts disappearing, it can’t befool you anymore. It is an arrow, it hurts, but you are ready to suffer the pain in the hope that tomorrow you will be repaid, rewarded. And of course one has to pay for everything. The desire is very logical, it tries to convince you.For he who is awakehas shown you the way of peace.Give yourself to the journey.Buddha says: “Enough is enough. You have listened to desire for thousands of lives and you have been moving in circles, suffering. You have not tasted anything of joy, you have not tasted anything of the beyond. Your mouths are full of dirt. You have not tasted real nourishment, because only godliness can be the real nourishment. Listen to those who are awake.”Even if you listen, you listen to people who are just as fast asleep as you are, or sometimes even more asleep than you are. You can understand them because they speak in the same language.Once I was traveling in an air-conditioned compartment with three other passengers. It was really a great coincidence. I have been traveling for at least fifteen years continuously, and it had never happened like that. It was simply rare, unique. All three passengers were such great snorers.First the one on the lower berth started, and then the second started responding to him, almost answering. It was like a duet. I was surprised. And then the third started and he was something… Those two were nothing, just learners, beginners. And they all snored in such a way as if they were answering each other. It was a great discussion. I could not sleep; for one or two hours I waited, and there was no way.Then I started acting – snoring so loudly, fully awake, that all the three started asking me, “Please, you are snoring too loudly.”I said, “Yes, I know it, because I am not asleep. Unless you all stop, I am going to make this night a hell for you!”But the way they were snoring was something worth witnessing, almost like answering each other. Great messages were being passed, and they followed the general format of a dialogue: when one was snoring the other two were silent. Then the second would start and the other two would listen – and then the third would start, and the remaining two would be silent. They knew how to converse.You can understand people who are asleep more easily because they use the same language, the language of sleep.Florence and Emily, two pretty young housewives, arranged to have cocktails and lunch together. When they met, Emily could see that something serious was bothering her friend.“Come on, out with it. What is depressing you?”“I am ashamed to admit it, but I caught my husband making love.”“Why let that bother you? I got mine the same way.”Try to get it! Don’t all be Germans, just try to get it. No… You need something else:Two colleagues were discussing a patient. “I was having great success with Mr. Green,” said the first doctor. “When he first came to me, he was suffering from a massive inferiority complex. He thought that he was too small, which was of course all nonsense.”“How did you treat this patient?” inquired the second doctor.“I started out with intensive analysis and then group therapy. I convinced him that many of the world’s greatest leaders were men of small physical stature. I really hated to lose Mr. Green.”“What do you mean?” inquired his colleague. “How did you lose him?”“A terrible accident,” replied the physician. “A pussycat ate him.”Now, these are your advisers – more asleep than you are. Now the priests are being replaced by psychoanalysts. Priests were fast asleep; they used to snore, but their snoring has gone out of fashion. Now it is psychoanalysis and different schools of psychoanalysis. Just as there were different schools of theology, there are different schools of psychoanalysis, and you listen to their advice. They are your guides – the blind leading the blind.A beautiful girl was talking to her psychiatrist about her problem. “It is liquor, Doctor. Whenever I have a few drinks I have a compulsion to make love to whomever I happen to be with.”“I see,” said the doctor. “Well, suppose I just mix up a couple of cocktails, then you and I sit down, nice and relaxed, and discuss this compulsive neurosis of yours.”Listen to the awakened ones; otherwise there is no way for you. Buddha says: For he who is awake has shown you the way of peace. What is the way of peace? Understanding desire and transcending desire through understanding, great peace descends because desire is turmoil. Desire is maddening, desire keeps you neurotic.Murphy’s definition of a neurotic: a person who worries about things that didn’t happen in the past, instead of worrying about something that won’t happen in the future, like normal people.So there are two types of neurotic people: those who worry about the past and those who worry about the future. The world consists of these two types of neurotics, and your desire is the cause of all this neurosis. It is desire that keeps you still engaged with the past, which is no more. It is utterly foolish to waste time for that which is no more. To look backward is absolutely meaningless. You can’t go back, you can’t step backward in time; then what is the point of wasting your present for that which cannot be recovered?And then there are people who are too concerned about the future, which is not yet. Future means that which is not. Remaining concerned with that which is not, whether it is past or future, is utterly ridiculous. But desire keeps you – unfulfilled desire in the past keeps you engaged there; hopes of fulfilling desire tomorrow keep you engaged in the future. Only a desireless person lives in the present, and only those who live in the present are alive; others are dead.For he who is awakehas shown you the way of peace.Give yourself to the journey.Listen to the awakened ones. They are pointing you toward a tremendous journey, a journey into truth, a journey into awareness, a journey into bliss, a journey into peace, a journey into godliness, a journey into nirvana.“Here shall I make my dwelling,in the summer and the winter,and in the rainy season.”So the fool makes his plans,sparing not a thought for his death.It is desire that keeps you clouded and does not allow you to see death, which is approaching closer and closer every moment.Buddha says: The fool goes on thinking, “Here I shall make my dwelling, in the summer and the winter, and in the rainy season.” And he is not aware that maybe the next moment he will be gone like a soap bubble and there may not be any more summer, any more winter, any more rainy season. But he is too concerned about making dwellings, dwellings on the earth, homes on the earth. Stay here, but remember you are in a caravanserai, an overnight stay, and in the morning we go. Don’t be foolish.Even if you can make a house for the winter, another house for the summer, another house for the rainy season… Buddha must have remembered this, because his father had made three palaces for him in different places, in different climates: for the summer one palace – must have been on a higher altitude, somewhere in the Himalayas, so he could live without the torture of summer, and another house for winter in some warm climate, and another house for the rainy season.He must have remembered that, but he renounced all that for the search for that which is deathless. Wasting your time in these palaces, and death is coming closer, and death will take you away… Even if you can manage to have all you can desire, mind will not be satisfied.In the first place you will not be able to manage it, because mind desires impossible things. But even if you can manage, you will not be satisfied.Old Mrs. Abramson stood at the Wailing Wall hysterically crying and pounding the bricks. A tourist walked over to her and said, “Madam, there is no need for you to cry. The Jews now have a homeland, a place to go to. After two thousand years you finally have the country you have always wanted. Good heavens, why are you crying?”The old lady said, “I want to go to Miami Beach!”And when she was on Miami Beach she wanted to go to Israel. That’s how the mind functions. It is never satisfied, it knows no contentment. It will always find some fault, it will always find some cause to be tense.Once a tightrope walker wanted to put together an act nobody had ever seen before. He had a rope stretched across the Grand Canyon, refused a net, had himself blindfolded, and then announced he would walk across the rope playing the Blue Danube waltz on a violin. Needless to say, a huge crowd gathered to see this performance, but as he approached the far side of the canyon, this is the conversation he overheard:“Now, admit it, Harry. Have you ever seen anything like that in your whole life? Is he not amazing? Is he not incredible?”“Okay, I admit it,” said Harry. “He is amazing. He is incredible. But I will tell you one thing he is not.”“And what is that?” asked his wife.“Heifetz, he’s not.”This is the way of the mind: it can’t be satisfied. It is impossible to satisfy it; it is a great fault-finder, it is a great inventor of misery. So whether you succeed or you fail, you will remain in misery if you remain with the mind. And the way to remain with the mind is desire. Desire is the glue that keeps you with the mind. Unglue yourself from the mind, become desireless.But when I say, “Become desireless,” I am not saying to let this become your goal. I am not saying that now you have to make efforts to become desireless; I am not saying to make this your desire – becoming a desireless person. No, not at all; otherwise you would have misunderstood the whole point. Try to understand the desire and all its miseries and all its futilities, and in that very understanding is transcendence.Death overtakes the manwho, giddy and distracted by the world,cares only for his flock and his children.Death fetches him awayas a flood carries off a sleeping village.Remember death. Remember death always. Never forget death for a single moment. Why? Why is Buddha so interested in death? – for the simple reason that it is only death that can keep you aware. If you forget death you will become immediately unconscious. It is because of death that only man can become enlightened and no other animal, because no other animal is aware of death. It is only man who is aware of death.Let this awareness become more and more penetrating. Let it sink in your heart, so it remains there like a thorn, continuously reminding you that life is a shifting sand: Don’t make your house here. Remember death is coming and whatsoever you do will be undone by death, so what is the point of becoming so worried, becoming so concerned, remaining in such anxiety when death is going to take everything away?Despite warnings from his guide, an American Jew skiing in Switzerland got separated from his group and fell – uninjured – into a deep crevasse. Several hours later, a rescue party found the yawning pit, and to reassure the stranded skier, shouted down to him, “We are from the Red Cross!”“Sorry,” the imperturbable Jew echoed back, “I already gave at the office!”The Jew is a Jew. He has fallen into a deep pit and the danger of death is all around, but he is more interested in saving a little money. Just hearing the name Red Cross reminds him only of one thing: they must have come for a donation.T. S. Eliot has written these beautiful lines:Where is the life we have lost in living?Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?The cycles of heaven in twenty centuriesbring us farther from God and nearer to the dust.What has happened to us? Why have we lost sight of God? Not only have we lost sight of God, we declared with Friedrich Nietzsche that God is dead. Why are so many people against God? And even those who are not against are not for, remember; they are neutrals. And those who are for are only formally for, they are not truly for. They can’t commit their lives in the search for godliness. What has happened to the modern man?One thing has happened: we have been able to become more and more forgetful of death. The great advances in medical sciences have given us hope, as if we are going to live forever. Medical science has certainly helped us to live a little longer than before, but that simply means a little longer: the same misery, the same desire, the same lust, the same bondage. Medical science may be able…It seems very possible now that man may start living more than one hundred years. There are people who think that man could very easily live at least three hundred years. But what is the point? Whether you live seventy years or seven hundred years, you will be the same stupid man. In fact, in seven hundred years your stupidity will grow very much. And if death is postponed for seven hundred years, who cares? It is not going to happen soon… And man does not have that much insight to look that far.We live surrounded by small things. We see only so far, just a little bit ahead, enough to walk. Seven hundred years… That would make religion disappear from the earth, because man is not so intelligent that he could be aware of death if death is postponed for seven hundred years. He is not even intelligent enough to see it after seventy years, not even after seven years.I have seen people who are seventy and yet not interested in meditation. Strange, very strange. I can’t believe it. A man of seventy is still not interested in meditation? That simply means he has not yet been able to see death, and death is very close. Any moment it can happen.Buddha wants you to remember death continuously. Don’t think that he is a pessimist. Don’t think that he is death-obsessed – no, not at all. He simply wants you to remember death so that the sword of death hanging on you keeps you aware, alert.It happened once…A sannyasin was sent by his master to the court of the great king, Janak. The sannyasin was a little puzzled; he said, “Why should I go to the court of the king?”The master said, “You have to learn one thing, and you can learn it more easily there than anywhere else; hence I am sending you. Go and watch and be very alert. You are going to be tremendously enriched.”The sannyasin was not convinced. If he cannot learn something remaining with such a great master, then how can he learn in the court of the king? He used to think the king a fool because he has so many possessions, such a big kingdom, and he had renounced all, so he had always thought himself holier than the king. Now, going to the king to learn something he felt a little insulted. But when the master was saying it he had to go. So he went, reluctantly, deep down resisting, but he went.When he reached the king’s court he was shocked. In a way, his doubts were confirmed. The king was sitting, drinking wine; beautiful women almost naked were dancing around, and all the courtiers were there, completely drunk. The sannyasin thought, “What kind of lesson have I to learn from these fools?” When he thought this, Janak started laughing.The sannaysin asked, “Why are you laughing?”Janak said, “I am laughing because your old man knows something, he understands something, but you don’t believe in him. You don’t believe in your master. You have come, but reluctantly.”He was surprised: how had Janak come to know this? He asked, “You seemed to be almost drunk and still you can understand? – and I have not said anything.”Janak said, “About this wine we will talk later on. Right now do one thing, otherwise I am going to kill you.” He ordered his soldiers to take their swords out of their sheaths and surround the court, and gave the sannyasin a cup full of oil, so full that it could not contain even a single drop more. And he told the sannyasin, “Put this cup on your head, and go around the court seven times. If even a single drop of oil falls, your head will be cut off.”Now the sannyasin thought, “I’m among lunatics and I cannot even escape.” Those naked swords were all around.And the king said, “Remember it, I mean business. When I say something I do it. So be careful.”Looking at the cup, so full, he could not believe that he would be able to save his head – but there was nothing else he could do. He had to put the cup of oil on his head and go round the court seven times. And the dance continued, and the beautiful women continued, and of course he was an old type of sannyasin, deep down very interested in women. Many times the desire came just to have a look, but the fear of death and those naked swords… He managed seven rounds, although it was almost impossible.Then the king asked, “How did you manage? It was impossible.”The sannyasin said, “I could manage because of those naked swords all around. I have never felt death so close, just a foot from my side. Any moment…”And the king said, “What about these beautiful women? And I know sannyasins; they may not be interested in anything else, but they are bound to be interested in women. And what about this beautiful, delicious food? And the aroma of the food, and the wine… And these are the things that you have suppressed, so they are deep down in your being, they want to surface.”The sannyasin laughed. He said, “Who cares about these things when death is so close by?”The king said, “You have learned the lesson. This was the lesson the master sent you to learn.”Remember death. It is closer than those swords, it is always closer than anything else. You are living surrounded by death, and if this can be remembered, it can become the greatest stimulation for meditation, for awareness.Hence the emphasis. Buddha says: Death overtakes the man who, giddy and distracted by the world, cares only for his flocks and his children. Death fetches him away as a flood carries off a sleeping village.Don’t be a sleeping village; otherwise death will come like a flood and you will be gone. Be awake, be alert, be mindful.His family cannot save him,not his father nor his sons.Nobody can save you except your own awareness. Know this – and don’t only believe in what the awakened ones say. Know this on your own, let it become an existential experience.Know this.Seek wisdom, and purity.Seek the innocence of a child. Drop all your foolish knowledge. All knowledge is foolish.Remember T. S. Eliot again:Where is the life we have lost in living?Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?The cycles of heaven in twenty centuriesbring us farther from God and nearer to the dust.Where is the wisdom that we have lost in knowledge? Knowledge is a poor substitute for wisdom. Knowledge means borrowed from others. Drop all that which you have taken from others. Wisdom is that which grows in your innocence, when you are just like a small child: full of wonder and awe, mystified by existence, knowing nothing, and wisdom arises. Wisdom wells up within your being. Wisdom is not something that comes from the outside, it is your inner growth. Know this. Seek wisdom, and purity.Quickly clear the way.And whatsoever hinders the way for wisdom to arise, quickly clear it.Remove knowledge, information, remove all your egoistic trips. Remove desires, remove memories, imagination, remove the whole mind.Become a no-mind.That is purity, and in that purity wisdom blooms.In the lake of that innocence the lotus of wisdom opens up, and that is the only possible way to be free, to have freedom – ultimate, total.“What are you reading?” asked the prison librarian.“Nothing much,” replied the prisoner. “Just the usual escapist literature.”Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I don't know whether I am losing my mind or my meditation, or both.The greatest blessing is when you lose both mind and meditation. To lose the mind is only half way; the goal is not reached. One who loses the mind starts clinging to meditation; meditation becomes his mind. Meditation becomes his possession, his treasure – far more beautiful than mind certainly, far more joyous, far more blissful, worth achieving.To lose the mind is to lose all your miseries. Then great ecstasies bloom, then great joys well up within your being. But even to be ecstatic is to be disturbed. Even to be joyous is to be not totally at home. One has to go beyond ecstasy, beyond the joy, beyond the exhilaration. One has to become utterly peaceful. Hence, Buddha never talks about bliss; he talks about peace, silence. That is the ultimate goal.Transcend the mind, using the method of meditation. Then do not cling to meditation – because clinging is the same; to what you cling is irrelevant. The moment the mind disappears, let the meditation also disappear. Neither be a mind nor a no-mind. This is the ultimate goal, the goal of buddhahood. Then you have arrived. Then there is peace. You are no more, only peace exists. There is nobody to possess it.Half of you was killed when you dropped the mind, and half of you was killed when you dropped meditation. The worldly part disappeared with the mind and the so-called spirituality disappeared with the meditation. Now you are neither body nor soul. You are not. A tremendous nothingness, a total nobodiness exists. Buddha calls it shunya, nirvana. Everything has ceased: misery and joy, day and night, summer and winter, life and death, all are gone. The whole duality is transcended.Feel blessed. Feel immensely fortunate if both disappear – although in the beginning it will look very crazy. First, to drop the mind looks very crazy. But then meditation is there to give you a new settlement, a new order, a new discipline – higher, better, more sophisticated, more cultured, more inner, more subjective.When you drop meditation, all order, all discipline, all structure, disappears. You take a plunge into the utterly unknown, the ultimate unknown.This is the moment of the real birth – not of you but of godliness. You are no more, now only God is. And by “God” I don’t mean a person; by “God” I only mean an experience.The second question:Osho,You tell us that awareness is enough. Then why discourses, groups, sannyas?How did you come to know that awareness is enough? I have to say it again and again – that awareness is enough, that no discourse is needed. But even that has to be told to you: that nothing is needed. But you are so asleep, you won’t come upon the truth by yourself and you won’t come upon the truth even if repeated thousands of times.Now see the trick of your mind: it is not that you have understood that awareness is enough. On the contrary, you have understood that discourses are not needed, groups are not needed, sannyas is not needed. See the tricky mind, the cunning mind, which goes on creating new hells for you. You missed the point and you have misinterpreted the whole thing.Discourses are to tell you that words won’t do, but even to say that words won’t do, words are needed. There is no other way, because you understand only words.Buddha used to tell a parable:A man had gone to the market. When he came back his house was on fire. His children were playing inside the house, absolutely oblivious of the fact that the house was on fire. It was a big house and they must have been in the innermost part of the house.He shouted from the outside, because he was afraid to enter the house, but the children wouldn’t listen. A great crowd gathered. Then he said to the children, “Come out! See what I have brought for you – many toys. I have brought all the toys that you had asked me for, beautiful toys!”The children came running out of the house – and he had not brought a single toy! They started asking, “Where are the toys?”He said, “Look at the fire! I have not brought any toys, but this was the only way to bring you out of the house. The house is on fire! I shouted ‘The house is on fire!’ and you laughed and giggled. You thought I was playing a joke or something. Yes, I have lied to you that I have brought toys for you, but the lie has worked as a strategy – it has helped you to come out. It has served a great purpose.”Words are not enough, but because you understand only words… Can you understand silence? Then you would not have been here. There is no need to be here. You could have sat by the side of a silent rock or you could have sat underneath a silent tree and you would have understood all the buddhas. Then you will not read the Bible and the Koran and the Gita. You would have gone to the desert to feel the silence, the eternal silence of the desert. And you would have understood all the Bibles, all the Korans, all the Gitas. But you have come here.You can understand only words. And I know truth cannot be communicated through words, but words can be used to bring you out of the house which is on fire. Words can bring you out of the world of words and dreams and desires in which you live. Words can be used in such a skillful way that they can lead you – or at least indicate – toward silence; hence the discourses.Groups are a little rougher. If you don’t listen to me, if you don’t understand words, then real hammers will be needed. I hammer you, but I hammer you with words. I don’t whip you, I only show you the shadow of the whip. If you listen, good; if you don’t listen, then you will need groups. There they use actual whips! To bring you to your senses they hit you hard. With great compassion they are cruel. They do everything that can be done to wake you up.And sannyas? – sannyas is just to make a fool of you! You are too much in your knowledge, in your head. A little foolishness will do! You are too knowledgeable, too clever, too cunning. Sannyas is a surrender of all your cleverness, cunningness, knowledge.Sannyas is a madman’s path; I am a madman’s guide! But before you can really become sane you will have to drop your old kind of sanity – which is not sanity.These are all devices – sannyas, groups, discourses – strategies. Not that only through these strategies will you know what truth is, but they will help you. If you are intelligent you will use them as a ladder, as a boat to the other shore. When you have reached the other shore, the boat has to be left behind. It is not that you have to sit in the boat forever and forever, or that even when you have reached the other shore you have to carry the boat on your head, just out of sheer gratitude.You are utterly unaware, and great effort is needed to make you aware.A guy went to the track and won three hundred dollars. Thinking his luck would hold he went back the next day ready to make a killing.As he was looking over the horses set to run in the last race, he noticed a priest making signs over one of the nags. Thinking that he had really lucked in, the guy bet every nickel he had won and every cent he could scrape up on the horse. Naturally, the horse finished last.Leaving the track he happened to bump into the very priest he had seen blessing the horse. “Father,” he said, “I am a ruined man! I saw you blessing that horse and I bet every cent I had on him.”The priest was horrified. “My son,” he said, “I was not blessing that horse, I was administering the last rites!”I see your life as utterly ruined. You have been betting on dead horses! Your whole life is a mess, and arranging your life from the outside is not going to help. Some radical transformation of your consciousness is needed.The so-called religious people have been just doing the opposite. And that’s why you go to the churches, to the temples, to the synagogues – not to be awakened but to be helped to sleep better. You go there to listen to beautiful lullabies. You go there to be consoled. You go there to be comforted.My work here is not to comfort you, is not to console you, is not to sing a lullaby by the side of your bed. My work is to wake you up.Everything is arranged in such a way – the discourses, the meditations, the groups, sannyas… It is an attack on your sleep from all possible directions. In a single word it can be said: my work is to dehypnotize you.For eight days and nights Schlossberg, the suit-maker, was unable to sleep. No medicine took effect, and in desperation, the Schlossberg family brought in a famous hypnotist.The hypnotist stared at Schlossberg and chanted, “You are asleep, Mr. Schlossberg. The shadows are closing about you. Soft music is lulling you into a state of lovely relaxation. You are asleep, you are asleep…”“You are a miracle-worker!” sobbed the grateful son. He gave the hypnotist a big bonus and the man left in triumph.As the outside door closed, Schlossberg opened one eye, “Say,” he demanded, “is that schmuck gone yet?”But these schmucks are your rabbis, your priests, your popes, your shankaracharyas, your imams, your Ayatollah Khomeiniacs… And because you want more comfortable sleep and sweet dreams, their business prospers.Sigmund Freud has said that it seems man cannot live without illusions. As far as ordinary humanity is concerned he is right. Before Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche had the same insight. He said that the people who destroy people’s illusions are the real enemies of the people, because man cannot live without lies. “Truth is dangerous! Who wants truth?” says Friedrich Nietzsche. We want beautiful lies and illusions, sweet dreams.This is true about ninety-nine point nine percent of humanity. Only very rarely does a person start searching for truth, but then he has to risk all his sleep and the dreams, and the investments that he has made in his dreams.A Buddha, a Jesus, a Moses: they are not people to give you comforts. They shatter all your lies; howsoever comfortable they are, howsoever cozy they appear, they shatter them. They want you to know the truth. In the beginning it is bitter.Buddha has said: “Lies are sweet in the beginning, bitter in the end. In the beginning they look like nectar, in the end they prove fatal, poisonous. Truth is bitter in the beginning, sweet in the end. In the beginning it looks like poison, as if it is going to kill you; in the end it is elixir, it is nectar. It makes you capable of knowing the eternal, the deathless.”The third question:Osho,Do you consider yourself God, God's representative on earth, a prophet, and-or just a very clear individual? Having seen you a couple of times in morning discourse and listening to audios and videos of you, you never seem to answer this question. How and why do you know or feel something I do not?The first thing is that there is no God. Yes, there is godliness, but no God. The idea of God is anthropocentric. The Bible says: God created man in his own image. The truth is just the opposite: man has created God in his own image. God is nothing but a projection of human wishes, desires, longings. God is nothing but the projection of human mind.That does not mean that I am an atheist, but I am not a theist either. My position is exactly that of Gautama the Buddha. He was not an atheist and he was not a theist. He did not believe in God, he did not disbelieve in God. What was his position?His position is very unique, his position is worth sharing. His space is worth communing with. And that is the space of all meditators: they believe in godliness. The whole existence is overfull with spirituality, but there is no such person as God.You ask me, “Do you consider yourself God…?” No, sir, certainly not! Even if I was I would have denied it – because who would take responsibility for this ugly world? I cannot take responsibility for creating you. That will be the real original sin!I am not God, but I have known godliness – in me, in you, everywhere. Godliness is a quality, this fragrance that permeates the whole of existence. The only difference between you and me is that I am aware of it and you are not aware of it; otherwise there is no difference. I am awake, you are asleep. We are exactly the same, participating in the same existence, breathing the same godliness, living in the same ocean of godliness. We are the fish of the same ocean, but you are not aware of the ocean and I am aware of the ocean, both within and without.I don’t know more than you know – you may know more than me. My knowledge is poor; I am not a knowledgeable person. And whatsoever I quote is not reliable! You may know more, you may be well informed. You have a great accumulation of facts. In that way I am utterly poor, as poor as a child. But that is not a real difference; that is not the difference that makes the difference.The only thing that is significant is being aware of the reality.The English language is very poor; it has only one word, God. Sanskrit is immensely rich, it has many words to signify different approaches. The ultimate, the absolute, is called brahman. That is the purest godliness, uncontaminated. It is an abstraction: all matter has disappeared, only pure energy, only pure consciousness remains.The second word in Sanskrit is ishwar; it comes close to God. Ishwar means “the creator,” but it is lower than brahman. It is as illusory as the whole world. If the creation is illusory, how can the creator be the real? You can see the point: the creation and the creator are two polarities. The whole world is illusory, hence the creator too is illusory.You will be surprised to know that you have to go beyond God; only then can you know the ultimate, not before it. To know God is a lower state of understanding.The third word is bhagwan – which cannot be translated as God. Buddha never believed in God, yet we have called him Bhagwan. Mahavira never believed in God, yet we have called him Bhagwan.H.G. Wells has said: “Gautama the Buddha is the man in the whole history of humanity who is the most godless and yet the most godly.”How can this word bhagwan be translated into English? It simply means “the blessed one”; it has nothing to do with God. Literally it means one who has attained; hence he is called the blessed one – one who has arrived, one who has become awakened, enlightened.Bhagwan does not mean a representative. There is no God, so how can you be a representative of God? Buddha is not a representative of God, neither am I. That is a very poor idea, being a representative of somebody – just a salesman! That is very humiliating!Buddha is not a prophet – neither am I. A prophet means one who brings a message from God to the world. He is nothing but a postman – and I don’t want to be a postman. A prophet is not of much value. There is no God; hence there can be no messengers, no messiahs, no prophets.And you ask me, “…and-or just a very clear individual?” One thing will have to be understood: if you become clear, individuality disappears; you are simply clarity. If you are unclear, then individuality is there. Individuality and clarity don’t go together. Individuality is deep down nothing but ego – to feel oneself separate, separate from the whole.I am just clarity, not an individual. It is very difficult to understand how you can be clear if there is no individual. Our language forces us to some unnecessary conclusions.When the dance is total, the dancer is no longer there; only dance is. And you can ask the great dancers… You can ask Nijinsky, Gopi Krishna, and they will agree with it: when the dance comes to the ultimate peak, the dancer disappears. There is only dance, there is nobody dancing. There are not two entities, the dancer and the dance.When the painter is really merged into his painting, absorbed, then there is not painting and the painter, there is only painting. There is no painter left; for a few moments the painter disappears. Only when the painter disappears does painting reach its ultimate beauty.The dancer, the painter, the singer, the musician, the poet, all know those moments, but those are only moments in their lives. In the lives of the buddhas those are not only moments; they have become their reality. The dancer has disappeared forever.I am no longer an individual, but just clarity; not a dancer but only a dance. If you can understand that, only then will you be able to have some communion with this nobodiness, with this nothingness, with this state of nirvana.You ask me, “Having seen you a couple of times in morning discourse and listening to audios and videos of you, you never seem to answer this question. How and why do you know or feel something I do not?” I know only one thing: that I know nothing. And that’s where the difference may be. You know that you know, I know that I don’t know. Only when you come to that state of blissful ignorance does clarity happen. Knowledge is a disturbance; no-knowledge gives you clarity, transparency.Old man Krestenfeld lay on his deathbed for months and finally passed away.Two weeks later, the relatives gathered like vultures to hear the reading of the will.The lawyer tore open an envelope, drew out a piece of paper and read, “Being of sound mind, I spent every dime before I died.”I would like to say only this much: that I am simply soundness – not even sound mind – pure clarity, a sky without any clouds, utterly empty. You can also be that. In your innermost core you are already that.And my effort here is to help you to become nobodies just like me, ignorant just like me. And remember: there is a knowledge that knows not and there is an ignorance that knows.The fourth question:Osho,Yes, the house is on fire. My flames of jealousy, greed and violence are burning me. I see you shining at the doorway, beckoning me to simply come out, yet I hold back, clinging to my misery while my mind races on with desires. Why can't I let go?Dwabha, to be without misery needs great courage. To be miserable is very cheap, very simple; it costs nothing. To be miserable you don’t need any courage, any intelligence. To be miserable is so easy, but to come out of it is difficult, arduous. To come out of it needs intelligence, because you are the creator of your misery, and you create your misery because you are unconscious. You can stop creating it only if you become conscious, and to become conscious needs great effort.Moreover, misery keeps you occupied so that you can avoid your inner hollowness. It keeps you engaged. If you are not miserable you will have to go in, and you are afraid because there is great emptiness. It is a kind of death to go in.The mystics have called it “the great death” – greater than the so-called ordinary death, because in the ordinary death only the body dies. If you go in, your mind dies. And one is afraid to die – your ego dies – and one is afraid to lose one’s identity. And how much effort you have put to attain to a certain identity. One is a famous actor, another is a well-known politician. Somebody is very rich, somebody is very knowledgeable. You have put so much effort, and now I am telling you to come out of it. That means all your effort has been a sheer waste. It will need guts to come out of it and it will need courage to be without identity.The Zen people say: “Before you meditate, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. When you go deep in meditation, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. When you attain to satori, when the meditation is transcended, then again mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”This is a Zen way of saying that before meditation you have a certain identity. You have a name, fame, form, family, race, culture, religion, country; all these give you a certain idea who you are – although that idea is absolutely false, arbitrary, accidental. It is just accidental that you were born as a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan; it has no significance at all. It is just an accident whether you were born a German or an Indian or a Chinese. You are none of these.Your consciousness is simply consciousness, neither Chinese nor Korean nor Japanese. Your consciousness is simply consciousness. It belongs to no country, no race, no color, no religion; all those are conditionings. You have been hypnotized and told that you are an Indian; this is a hypnosis. You have been hypnotized and told that you are a Mohammedan, and that hypnosis is prolonged for your whole life. It goes so deep that you may even be ready to die for it. People die for religion, for country, for flags; they are ready to die for any nonsense. It seems as if their lives have no meaning at all, as if they are ready to die for any excuse – any excuse will do.Your identity is arbitrary. Before meditation you are a little bit certain who you are. As you go into meditation your miseries start disappearing and with those miseries your identity starts evaporating. You fall into a state of chaos, and that chaos creates fear.Dwabha, I have given you this name… Dwabha means twilight; it means neither day nor night, just in the middle. And that’s where you are: afraid to go deeper, standing in shallow water. It feels safe, although you are miserable. But the misery is familiar, well known; you have become accustomed to it. In fact, a kind of family relationship has arisen between you and your misery.There is a Sufi parable:A man used to call every night to God and he would pray the same prayer. Again and again he would ask, “Do one favor for me, at least one favor – and I have been asking my whole life. As far as I can see, I am the most miserable man on the earth. Why have you chosen me to be the most miserable? I am ready to exchange my misery with anybody else, anybody will do – just let me exchange my misery with somebody else. I don’t ask for bliss. Can’t you give me only this single opportunity to exchange my misery with somebody else? This is not asking much!”And one night in a dream he saw God had spoken. A great voice came from the heavens saying, “Gather all of your miseries into bundles and bring them to the temple hall.”So the whole town gathers their miseries into big bundles and they bring them. This man is tremendously happy: “So the moment has come! It seems something is going to happen!”He rushes with his bundle. On the way he finds others also are rushing. By the time he reaches to the temple he becomes afraid, very afraid, because he sees people are carrying bigger bundles than his. People that he had always seen smiling – Rotarians, Lions – in beautiful clothes and always saying nice things to each other, and they are carrying bigger bundles! He starts becoming a little hesitant whether to go or not to go, but he has been praying his whole life, so he says, “Let us see what happens.”They enter the temple. The voice says, “Put your bundles around the hall.” They put their bundles, and the voice says again, “Now you can choose any bundle that you like.”And the miracle of miracles happens: everybody rushes to his own bundle! This man also rushes so fast toward his own bundle, afraid that if somebody else chooses it, then he will be at a loss. Everybody has chosen his own bundle, with great relief and they are all happy, carrying their bundles back to their homes. Even this man is very happy, for the simple reason: “Who knows what is in the other’s bundle? At least we are aware of our own bundle and what it contains. And we have become accustomed, we have become adjusted to our misery.”Dwabha, that’s why you find it very difficult to get out of your miseries. And there may be investments also; your misery may not be just your misery. You may be creating misery for others through your misery. If you are interested in creating misery in others, how can you drop your misery?The husband comes home and the wife simply lies down on the bed and says she has a headache – and I am not saying that she is pretending. In fact, it is almost impossible when you see your husband not to have a headache! She must be having one, I trust. And then the husband becomes miserable. Now the wife cannot drop her headache, because if she drops her headache, then what about the husband? Her headache creates such misery for the husband that she is ready to suffer – to make others suffer.“I would divorce Milton in a minute,” Mrs. Cooper told the woman doing her hair.“Then why don’t you?” asked the beautician.“Because it would kill me to see him so happy.”It is difficult! It is difficult to come out of your misery, because it is not just your misery; it has become entangled with others’ miseries, it has become a cause for others’ miseries. And you enjoy torturing others; you feel powerful whenever you can torture. One is ready to sacrifice if one can create misery for others.People are both sadist and masochist. It is very rare to find a pure sadist or a pure masochist. Those are only types found in psychological books. In reality, everybody is a sadist and everybody is a masochist. People are sadomasochists: they torture themselves in order to torture others; they torture others in order to torture themselves. It is all intertwined, interdependent. You cannot just slip out of it: it is your whole life’s investment. Otherwise, nobody is preventing you, you can come out. You just have to understand. If you cannot even drop your misery, what else can you drop?In the old days, a sannyasin was one who used to renounce life. I have changed the definition of a sannyasin. I call a man a sannyasin who is ready to renounce his misery. But in a way your life and your misery are almost synonymous.What is your life? What you are doing with yourself and with others? You feel powerful whenever you can torture others; torture gives you a great release of power. Why are these Adolf Hitlers, Joseph Stalins and Mao Zedongs born again and again? From where do they come? They represent you. They represent the essential madness of humanity. They erupt again and again and they will go on coming; you can’t prevent them unless we change the very foundation of human existence, unless we change human consciousness from misery to bliss, from tensions to peace. Otherwise you will have to suffer. You deserve… In fact, you ask for them. Germany must have prayed long enough for Adolf Hitler to happen. And now there are again people in Germany who are starting the same fascist movement. You can’t live without these insane people! Something in you needs them. They can do something to you that you cannot do to yourself. They can release great misery into the world.Have you seen, have you observed in times of war people look happier than ever? Their faces are more lit up, they smile more. Suddenly their lives have zest, enthusiasm, energy. They are no longer dragging; their lives have meaning. War gives them meaning. The death and the danger surrounding them helps them to come alive.After each ten years a great world war is needed. If it is not happening now it is not because of humanity and its changed consciousness. It is not happening because of the atom bomb, because the Third World War will be the last, and that is too much. A little bit of misery once in a while is good, but to just commit global suicide seems too much. Nobody will even be there to enjoy it!If a nuclear war happened, then within ten minutes everybody would be gone. Even the newspapers would not have reached you. You would be absolutely unaware what had happened. It would be simply a chaos. And within ten minutes all life would disappear from the earth. Birds, animals, trees, men, women, would all be gone. What is the point if you cannot enjoy? The joy is when you see people evaporating in gas chambers.In Germany, the gas chambers were made in such a way that people could come and see in. The people who were going to die were not able to see the spectators, but the spectators were able to see. Thousands of people were coming to see; they were paying tickets for it. It was great entertainment! A thousand people in the gas chamber will evaporate. Within a single moment, nothing will be left. And these people – thousands of people – came to see. What joy must they have derived out of it? There must be something very ugly deep down…During the French Revolution, when the guillotine was being used almost around the clock, Slutsky lived in a small village outside of Paris. One morning he met Flambeau, who had just returned from the city.“What’s happening there in Paris?” asked Slutsky.“Conditions are absolutely horrible,” replied the Frenchman. “They are cutting off heads by the thousands.”“Oy,” moaned Slutsky, “and me in the hat business!”Man’s ugliness! Heads are being cut off in thousands, but Slutsky’s problem is not the thousands of people dying. His problem is: “So many heads are being cut off, and me in the hat business!”Everybody is concerned about his own small, selfish, ugly ego. That’s why you cannot come out of your misery. Try to come out of the ego and you will be able to come out of the misery. Try to come out of the self.Your so-called religious people go on teaching you, “Don’t be selfish.” Buddha says, “Don’t be a self.” And I also say to you: don’t be a self. The teaching, “Don’t be selfish,” has not helped. It can’t help because it leaves the root untouched. The self is the root, and your religious people go on teaching – your so-called saints and mahatmas – “Don’t be selfish.” That simply means let the self be there, let the root remain. Just go on cutting off the branches and pruning the leaves. “Don’t be selfish” …but then the root is there, it will sprout again; leaves will come again.Buddha is the only enlightened master of the world who has gone to the very root of the problem. He says: “Don’t be a self.” This is a great insight, a great contribution, one of the most precious. He says, “If you are a self, you will be selfish. Your selfishness may become otherworldly, spiritual; it will remain selfish. A self can only be selfish; a self can exist only in the climate of selfishness. If you try to be not selfish with the self intact, you will only be a hypocrite.”The word hypocrisy comes from a root which means play-acting. You will be just acting a game, playing a game, pretending. You can’t be selfish if the self is not there.And how can the self be dropped? In fact, it is not there if you look in, so there is no need to drop it. All that is needed is a deep insight into your own inwardness. Look into your interiority – that’s what meditation is all about – look in, and you will not find any self there. And when you don’t find any self – it disappears like a shadow in the light – all selfishness disappears on its own accord.Then a totally new quality comes to your existence. You are no longer concerned with creating misery for others; hence you can come out of your misery. And the moment you see inward, great intelligence is released, great creativity is released. That intelligence brings bliss and, ultimately, even takes you beyond bliss – beyond mind and beyond meditation. It brings you to the ultimate core of existence; peace, tranquility, silence, stillness.You cease totally and only then you arrive. You enter into the world of God, or godliness, only when you are no more.But before you can go in you will have to drop many stupid ideas that you have been carrying all along. You will have to drop all that you have been told and taught. You will have to drop all that you have been educated for.Your whole society is rooted in, based on the idea of making your life comfortable. Not true, but only comfortable, convenient, so that you can live conveniently and you can die conveniently. Your whole society is based on providing tranquilizers for you. Your religion functions like a tranquilizer. Whenever you are in trouble you go to the rabbi, to the priest, to the imam, and they console you. Your child has died: you go to the rabbi, you go to the priest, and he says, “Don’t be worried. God takes away only those whom he loves.” He is consoling you, “Your child has been chosen by God; your child is one of those chosen few.”If you go to the Hindu priest he will say, “Don’t be worried. The soul is immortal, nothing dies. The child has only changed house and he will get a better house, a new house. It is like changing an old car for a new model. So don’t be worried.” He consoles you. He does not help you with a radical change. His effort is to make your life as comfortable as possible. And you pay for this, naturally. He serves you and you pay for it.Jacobs and Lipkin, two Israeli commandos, were about to be shot by the Arabs.Jacobs said, “I think I’m gonna ask for a blindfold.”Lipkin said, “Jake, don’t make trouble.”People live just with this idea: don’t make trouble. Even when you are going to be shot – at least at that time you can make a little trouble! You won’t lose anything more. But this is our philosophy, our basic philosophy of life: don’t make trouble. So follow the tradition, follow the conventional. Be a conformist. Be a Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian. Go to church. Don’t make trouble. Don’t stir the waters. Just keep yourself somehow alive, and die without making any trouble. Then you cannot come out of your misery.To come out of misery you will have to be a revolutionary. The greatest revolution in the world is to come out of the miserable patterns of life. You will have to change your whole psychology and you will have to risk many things. You will not be accepted by the society. Otherwise why was Socrates not accepted? Why was Jesus not accepted? You will not be respected by the crowd. The crowd gives you respect only when you are part of the crowd. If you want respectability, then you have to be part of the crowd. Then you have to be just a sheep and not a man.You can come out of it. Be a lion! Buddha used to say to his disciples, “Be a lion! Roar like a lion and come out of all kinds of slavery!”And whatsoever the risk, it is worth it.The last question:Osho,The other day in discourse you were scoffing at miracles, yet three thousand people sitting silently feeling your presence, listening to your song and the birds and the wind – is this not a miracle in itself? Or are there really no miracles?Listening to me, listening to the birds and the wind, being utterly silent here in a deep, loving communion is not a miracle in the sense the word is used. It is in fact the most natural thing. Man has become unnatural; hence it looks like a miracle. It is because of man’s becoming unnatural that such a simple thing looks like a miracle; otherwise it is natural, it is spontaneous.You are not doing anything, I am not doing anything. We are together here; something is happening. Something is transpiring between me and you. Nobody is a doer, neither I nor you; it is happening on its own accord. In that sense it is simple, natural; but in another sense, you can use the word miracle. It looks like a miracle because man has become so unnatural that to be silent even for a few minutes seems like a miracle.It is as though a man who has lived in darkness his whole life is brought into light and for the first time sees the color of the flowers and the sunrays passing through the trees and the rainbow in the clouds, and starts shouting, “Miracles, miracles, miracles!”You will say, “These are simple things, natural things. It is just because you have always lived in darkness. That’s why these colors, these butterflies, these flowers, the green and the red and the gold of the trees, look like a miracle.” But for him it is a miracle.To me it is just natural; to you it may be a miracle. It depends from what standpoint you are looking at it.But when I was scoffing at miracles, I meant miracles like Satya Sai Baba is doing: producing Swiss watches. At least produce watches made in India – that would be a miracle! What is there of a miracle in a Swiss watch? I was laughing at these tricks, and I was saying there are no miracles in the sense that the universal law, dhamma, accepts no exception. Everything is natural and according to Tao, according to dhamma, according to the universal nature of things. Nothing is against it; hence there are no miracles. These are all sleight-of-hand. These are just magic.If you find a magician on the street corner producing Swiss watches you won’t call it a miracle. But the same man comes as a holy man, as a mahatma, and then immediately it becomes a miracle. Such miracles don’t happen.But a few miracles really happen. For example, just a few days ago, a Polack became the pope. Now that is a miracle!I would like to suggest to Buddha to make a few exceptions in his universal law. A Polack and a pope! – who has ever heard such a thing?Once old Murphy was asked, “How do you spot a Polack at a cock fight?”He said, “He is the one with the duck.”Then he was asked, “How do you know the Italians are there?”He said, “They bet on the duck.”And then he was asked, “And how do you know the Mafia is there?”He said, “The duck wins.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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There is pleasureand there is bliss.Forgo the first to possess the second.If you are happyat the expense of another man’s happiness,you are forever bound.You do not what you should.You do what you should not.You are reckless, and desire grows.But the master is wakeful.He watches his body.In all his actions he discriminates,and he becomes pure.He is without blamethough once he may have murderedhis mother and his father,two kings, a kingdom, and all its subjects.Though the kings were holyand their subjects among the virtuous,yet is he blameless.The first sutra:There is pleasureand there is bliss.Forgo the first to possess the second.Meditate over it as deeply as possible, because it contains one of the most fundamental truths. These four words will have to be understood, pondered over: the first is pleasure, the second is happiness, the third is joy, and the fourth is bliss.Pleasure is physical, physiological. Pleasure is the most superficial thing in life; it is titillation. It can be sexual, it can be of other senses, it can become an obsession with food, but it is rooted in the body. The body is your periphery, your circumference; it is not your center. And to live on the circumference is to live on the mercy of all kinds of things that go on happening around you. The man who seeks pleasure remains at the mercy of accidents.It is like the waves in the ocean; they are at the mercy of the winds. When strong winds come, they are there; when winds disappear, they disappear. They don’t have an independent existence; they are dependent, and anything that is dependent on the other brings bondage.Pleasure is dependent on the other. If you love a woman, if that is your pleasure, then that woman becomes your master. If you love a man, if that is your pleasure and you feel unhappy, in despair, sad, without him, then you have created a bondage for yourself. You have created a prison, you are no longer in freedom.If you are a seeker after money and power, then you will be dependent on money and power. The man who goes on accumulating money, if it is his pleasure to have more and more money, will become more and more miserable – because the more he has, the more he wants, and the more he has, the more he is afraid to lose it. A double-edged sword: the more he wants – the first edge of the sword. Hence he becomes more and more miserable.The more you demand, desire, the more you feel yourself lacking something, the more hollow, empty, you appear to yourself. On the other hand – the other edge of the sword – the more you have, the more you are afraid it can be taken away; it can be stolen. The bank can go bankrupt, the political situation in the country can change, the country can become Communist. There are a thousand and one things upon which your money depends. Your money does not make you a master, it makes you a slave. Pleasure is peripheral; hence it is bound to depend on the outer circumstances. And it is only titillation.If food is pleasure, what actually is being enjoyed? – just the taste. For a moment, when the food passes the taste buds on your tongue, you feel a sensation which you interpret as pleasure. It is your interpretation. Today it may look like pleasure and tomorrow it may not look like pleasure. If you go on eating the same food every day the buds on your tongue will become nonresponsive to it. Soon you will be fed up with it – that’s how people become fed up.One day you are running after a man or a woman and the next day you are trying to find an excuse to get rid of the other. The same person, nothing has changed! What has happened meanwhile? You are bored with the other, because the whole pleasure was in knowing the new. Now the other is no longer new; you are acquainted with the territory of the other. You are acquainted with the body of the other, the curves of the body, the feel of the body. Now the mind is hankering for something new.The mind is always hankering for something new. That’s how mind keeps you always tethered somewhere in the future. It keeps you hoping, but it never delivers the goods – it cannot. It can only create new hopes, new desires.Just as leaves grow on the trees, desires and hopes grow in the mind. You wanted a new house and now you have it – and where is the pleasure? Just for a moment it was there, when you achieved your goal. Once you have achieved your goal, your mind is no longer interested in it; it has already started spinning new webs of desire. It has already started thinking of other, bigger houses. And this is so about everything.Pleasure keeps you in a neurotic state, restless, always in turmoil. So many desires, and every desire unquenchable, clamoring for attention. You remain a victim of a crowd of insane desires – insane because they are unfulfillable – and they go on dragging you in different directions. You become a contradiction.One desire takes you toward the left, another toward the right, and simultaneously you go on nourishing both desires. And then you feel a split, then you feel divided, then you feel torn apart, then you feel like you are falling into pieces. Nobody is responsible. It is the whole stupidity of desiring pleasure that creates this.And it is a complex phenomenon. You are not the only one who is seeking pleasure; millions of people just like you are seeking the same pleasures. Hence there is great struggle, competition, violence, war. All have become enemies to each other because they are all seeking the same goal, and they can’t all have it; hence the struggle has to be total. You have to risk all – for nothing, because when you gain, you gain nothing, and your whole life is wasted in this struggle. A life which may have been a celebration becomes a long, long drawn out, unnecessary struggle.When you are so much after pleasure you cannot love, because the man who seeks pleasure uses the other as a means. And to use the other as a means is one of the most immoral acts possible, because each being is an end unto himself; you cannot use the other as a means. But in pleasure-seeking you have to use the other as a means. You become cunning because it is such a struggle. If you are not cunning you will be deceived, and before others deceive you, you have to deceive them.Machiavelli advised pleasure-seekers that the best way of defense is to attack. Never wait for the other to attack you; that may be too late. Before the other attacks you, attack him! That is the best way of defense. And this is being followed, whether you know Machiavelli or not.This is something very strange: people know about Christ, about Buddha, about Mohammed, about Krishna; nobody follows them. People don’t know much about Chanakya and Machiavelli, but people follow them – as if Machiavelli and Chanakya are very close to your heart! You need not read them, you are already following them. Your whole society is based on Machiavellian principles; that’s what the whole political game is all about. Before somebody snatches anything from you, snatch it from the other. Be always on guard. Naturally, if you are always on guard you will be tense, anxious, worried. And the struggle is such and it is constant. You are one, and the enemies are millions.For example, if you want to become the prime minister, then millions of people, who also want to become the prime minister, are your enemies. And who does not want to become the prime minister? One may say, one may not say. So everyone is against you and you are against everybody else. This small life of seventy, eighty years, will be wasted in some utterly futile effort. Pleasure is not and cannot be the goal of life.The second word to be understood is happiness. Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Happiness is a little better, a little more refined, a little higher, but not very different from pleasure. You can say that pleasure is a lower kind of happiness and happiness is a little higher kind of pleasure – two sides of the same coin. Pleasure is a little primitive, animal; happiness is a little more cultured, a little more human – but it is the same game played in the world of the mind. You are not so much concerned with physiological sensations; you are much more concerned with psychological sensations. But basically they are not different; hence Buddha has not talked about four words, he has talked about only two.The third is joy; joy is spiritual. It is different, totally different from pleasure, happiness. It has nothing to do with the other: it is inner. It is not dependent on circumstances; it is your own. It is not a titillation produced by things; it is a state of peace, of silence, a meditative state. It is spiritual.But Buddha has not talked about joy either, because there is still one thing that goes beyond joy. He calls it bliss. Bliss is total. It is neither physiological nor psychological nor spiritual. It knows no division, it is indivisible. It is total in one sense and transcendental in another sense. Buddha only talks about two words. The first is pleasure; it includes happiness. The second is bliss; it includes joy.Bliss means you have reached to the very innermost core of your being. It belongs to the ultimate depth of your being where even the ego is no more, where only silence prevails; you have disappeared. In joy you are a little bit, but in bliss you are not. The ego has dissolved; it is a state of nonbeing.Buddha calls it nirvana. Nirvana means you have ceased to be; you are just an infinite emptiness like the sky. And the moment you are that infinity, you become full of the stars, and a totally new life begins. You are reborn.Pleasure is momentary, of time, for the time being; bliss is nontemporal, timeless. Pleasure begins and ends; bliss abides forever. Pleasure comes and goes; bliss never comes, never goes – it is already there in the innermost core of your being. Pleasure has to be snatched away from the other; you become either a beggar or a thief. Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that you invent but something that you discover. Bliss is your innermost nature. It has been there since the very beginning, you have just not looked at it, you have taken it for granted. You don’t look inward.This is the only misery of man: that he goes on looking outward, seeking and searching. And you cannot find it in the outside because it is not there.One evening, Rabiya was searching for something on the street in front of her small hut. The sun was setting; slowly, slowly darkness was descending. A few people gathered. They asked the old woman – she was a famous Sufi mystic – “What are you doing? What have you lost? What are you searching for?”She said, “I have lost my needle.”The people said, “The sun is setting now and it will be very difficult to find a needle, but we will help you. Where exactly has it fallen? – because the road is big and the needle is so small. If we know the exact place it will be easier to find it.”Rabiya said, “It would be better if you don’t ask me that question – because in fact it has not fallen on the road at all! It has fallen inside my house.”The people started laughing and they said, “We had always thought that you are a little insane! If the needle has fallen inside the house, then why are you searching on the road?”Rabiya said, “For a simple, logical reason: inside the house there is no light and on the outside there is still a little light.”The people laughed and started dispersing.Rabiya called them and said, “Listen! That’s exactly what you are doing; I was just following your example. You go on seeking bliss in the outside world without asking the first and primary question: where have you lost it? And I tell you, you have lost it inside. You are looking for it on the outside, for the simple, logical reason that your senses open outward – there is a little more light. Your eyes look outward, your ears hear outward, your hands reach outward; that’s the simple reason you are searching there. Otherwise, I tell you, you have not lost it outside – and I tell you on my own authority. I have also searched on the outside for many, many lives, and the day I looked in I was surprised. There was no need to seek and search; it had always been there.”Bliss is your innermost core. Pleasure you have to beg from others; naturally you become dependent. Bliss makes you a master. Bliss is not something that happens; it is already the case.Buddha says: There is pleasure and there is bliss. Forgo the first to possess the second. Stop looking into the without, look within. Turn in; start looking and searching in your own interiority, in your own subjectivity. Bliss is not an object to be found anywhere else; it is your consciousness.In the East we have always defined the ultimate truth as sat-chit-anand. Sat means truth, chit means consciousness, anand means bliss. They are three faces of the same reality. This is the true trinity – not God the Father, and the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost; that is not the true trinity. The true trinity is truth, consciousness, bliss. And they are not separate phenomena, but one energy expressing in three ways, one energy having three faces. Hence in the East we say God is trimurti – God has three faces. These are the real faces, not Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. Those are for the children – spiritually, metaphysically, for the immature. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh: those names are for the beginners.Truth, consciousness, bliss are the ultimate truths. First comes truth; as you enter in, you become aware of your eternal reality: sat, truth. As you go deeper into your reality, into your sat, into your truth, you become aware of consciousness, a tremendous consciousness. All is light, nothing is dark. All is awareness, nothing is unawareness. You are just a flame of consciousness, not even a shadow of unconsciousness anywhere. And when you enter still deeper, then the ultimate core is bliss – anand.Buddha says: “Forgo everything that you have thought up to now meaningful, significant. Sacrifice everything for this ultimate because this is the only thing that will make you contented, that will make you fulfilled, that will bring spring to your being; and you will blossom into a thousand and one flowers.”Pleasure will keep you a piece of driftwood. Pleasure will make you more and more cunning; it will not give you wisdom. And it will make you more and more a slave; it will not give you the kingdom of God. It will make you more and more calculating, it will make you more and more exploitative. It will make you more and more political, diplomatic. You will start sucking people; that’s what people are doing.The husband says to the wife, “I love you,” but in reality he is simply using her. The wife says she loves the husband, but she is simply using him. The husband may be using her as a sexual object and the wife may be using him as a financial security.Pleasure makes everybody cunning, deceptive. And to be cunning is to miss the bliss of being innocent, is to miss the bliss of being a child.At Lockheed, a part was needed for a new airplane and an announcement was sent around the world to get the lowest bid. From Poland came a bid of three thousand dollars. England offered to build the part for six thousand. The asking price from Israel was nine thousand. Richardson, the engineer in charge of constructing the new plane, decided to visit each country to find the reason behind the disparity of the bids.In Poland, the manufacturer explained, “One thousand is needed for the materials, one thousand for the labor, and one thousand for overhead and a tiny profit.”In England, Richardson inspected the part and found that it was almost as good as the Polish-made one. “Why are you charging six thousand?” inquired the engineer.“Two thousand for material,” explained the Englishman, “two thousand for labor, and two thousand for expenses and a small profit.”In Israel, the Lockheed representative wandered through a back alley into a small shop and encountered an elderly man who had submitted the bid of nine thousand dollars. “Why are you asking that much?” he asked.“Well,” said the old Jew, “three thousand for you, three thousand for me, and three thousand for the schmuck in Poland!”Money, power, prestige – they all make you cunning.Seek pleasure and you will lose your innocence; and to lose your innocence is to lose all. Jesus says: “Be like a small child, only then can you enter into my kingdom of God.” And he is right. But the pleasure-seeker cannot be as innocent as a child. He has to be very clever, very cunning, very political; only then can he succeed in this cut-throat competition that exists all around. Everybody is at everybody else’s throat. You are not living among friends. The world cannot be friendly unless we drop this idea of competitiveness.But we bring every child… From the very beginning we start poisoning every child with this poison of competitiveness. By the time he comes out of university he will be completely poisoned. We have hypnotized him with the idea that he has to fight with others, that life is a survival of the fittest. Then life can never be a celebration. Then life can never have any kind of religiousness in it. Then it cannot be pious, holy. Then it cannot have any quality of sacredness. Then it is all mean, ugly.Buddha says: Forgo the first to possess the second.If you are happyat the expense of another man’s happiness,you are forever bound.Naturally. If you are happy at the expense of another man’s happiness – and that is how you can be happy, there is no other way. If you find a beautiful woman and somehow manage to possess her, you have snatched her away from others’ hands. We make things look as beautiful as possible, but that is only the appearance. Now the others who have lost in the game are angry, they are in a rage. They will wait for their opportunity to take revenge, and sooner or later the opportunity will be there.Whatsoever you possess in this world you possess at somebody else’s expense, at the cost of somebody else’s pleasure. There is no other way. If you really want not to be inimical to anybody in the world, you have to drop the whole idea of possessiveness. Use whatsoever happens to be with you in the moment, but don’t be possessive. Don’t try to claim that it is yours. Nothing is yours, all is existence.We come with empty hands and we will go with empty hands, so what is the point of claiming so much in the meantime? But this is what we know, what the world is: possess, dominate, have more than others have. And it may be money or it may be virtue; it does not matter in what kind of coins you deal – they may be worldly, they may be otherworldly. But be very clever, otherwise you will be exploited. Exploit and don’t be exploited – that is the subtle message given to you with your mother’s milk. And every school, college, university, is rooted in the idea: compete.A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without any comparison with the other. It will not teach you that you can be happy only when you are the first. That is sheer nonsense. You can’t be happy just by being first. And in trying to be first you go through such misery that you become habituated to misery by the time you become the first.By the time you become the president or the prime minister of a country you have gone through such misery that now misery is your second nature. Now you don’t know any other way to exist; you remain miserable. Tension has become ingrained, anxiety has become your way of life. You don’t know any other way; this is your very style. So even though you have become the first you remain cautious, anxious, afraid. It does not change your inner quality at all.A real education will not teach you to be first. It will tell you to enjoy whatsoever you are doing, not for the result but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician…You can paint in two ways. You can paint to compete with other painters; you want to be the greatest painter in the world, you want to be a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Then your painting will be second-rate, because your mind is not interested in painting itself; it is interested in being the first, the greatest painter in the world. You are not going deep into the art of painting. You are not enjoying it, you are only using it as a stepping-stone. You are on an ego trip.And the problem is, to really be a painter you have to drop the ego completely. To really be a painter, the ego has to be put aside. Only then can existence flow through you. Only then can it use your hands and your fingers and your brush. Only then can something of superb beauty be born.It is never by you but only through you existence flows. You become only a passage. You allow it to happen, that’s all; you don’t hinder, that’s all.But if you are too interested in the result, the ultimate result – that you have to become famous, that you have to win a Nobel Prize, that you have to be the first painter in the world, that you have to defeat all other painters hitherto – then your interest is not in painting; painting is secondary. And of course, with a secondary interest in painting you can’t paint something original; it will be ordinary.Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through egolessness. And so is the case with the musician and the poet and the dancer. And so is the case with everybody.In the Gita, Krishna says: “Don’t think of the result at all.” It is a message of tremendous beauty and significance and truth. Don’t think of the result at all. Just do what you are doing with your totality. Get lost in it. Lose the doer in the doing. Don’t be – let your creative energies flow unhindered.That’s why he said to Arjuna, “Don’t escape from the war. Because I can see this is just an ego trip, this escape. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating: that you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great mahatma. Rather than surrendering to God, to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously: as if there will be no war if you are not there.”Krishna says to Arjuna, “Listen to me. Just be in a state of let-go. Say to God, ‘Use me in whatsoever way you want to use me. Use me! I am available, unconditionally available.’ Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it. It will be signed by God, not by you. And you will rejoice because God has chosen you to be a vehicle.”Buddha says: If you are happy at the expense of another man’s happiness, you are forever bound. And happiness, pleasure, depend on exploitation. You are always at the expense of somebody else. You come first in the university – what about those thousands of other students who were also struggling to come first? It is at their expense that you have come first.Jesus says: “Remember, those who are first in this world will be the last in my kingdom of God, and those who are last will be first.” He has given you the fundamental law – aes dhammo sanantano – he has given you the inexhaustible, eternal law: stop trying to be first.But remember one thing which is very possible, because the mind is so cunning it can distort every truth. You can start trying to be the last – but then you miss the whole point. Then another competition starts: “I’m to be the last,” and if somebody else says, “I am the last,” then the struggle, then the conflict.I have heard a Sufi parable…A great emperor, Nadirshah, was praying. It was early morning; the sun had not yet risen, it was still dark. On that day, Nadirshah was to start a new conquest of a new country. Of course he was praying to God for his blessings to be victorious. He was saying to God, “I am nobody, I am just a servant – a servant of your servants. Bless me. I am going on your work, this is your victory. And I am nobody, remember. I am just a servant of your servants.”The priest was also by his side, helping him in prayer, functioning as a mediator between him and God.And then suddenly they heard in the darkness another voice. A beggar of the town was also praying, and he was saying to God, “I am also nobody, a servant of your servants.”The king said to the priest, “Look at this beggar! He is a beggar and saying to God ‘I am nobody’! Stop this nonsense! Who are you to say you are nobody before me? I am nobody, and nobody else can claim this. And I am the servant of his servants – and who are you to say that you are the servant of the servants?”Now you see, the competition is still there, the same competition, the same stupidity. Nothing has changed. The same calculation: “I have to be the last. Nobody else can be allowed to be the last.”Mind can go on playing such games on you if you are not very understanding, if you are not very intelligent.One thing Buddha wants you to remember is: never try to be happy at the expense of another man’s happiness. That is ugly, inhuman. That is violence in the true sense. If you are a saint by condemning others as sinners, your saintliness is nothing but a new ego trip. If you are holy because you are trying to prove others unholy… And that’s what your holy people go on doing. They go on bragging about their holiness, saintliness.Go to your so-called saints and look into their eyes. They have such condemnation for you. They are saying that you are all bound toward hell. They go on condemning. Listen to their sermons; all their sermons are condemnatory. And of course you listen silently to their condemnations because you also know that you have made many mistakes in your life, errors in your life. And they have condemned everything so it is impossible to feel that you can be good – impossible. You love food, you are a sinner. You love your children, you are a sinner. You love your wife, you are a sinner. You don’t get up early in the morning, you are a sinner. You don’t go to bed early in the evening, you are a sinner. They have arranged everything in such a way that it is very difficult not to be a sinner.Yes, they are not sinners – they go early to bed and they get up early in the morning. In fact, they have nothing else to do! And they never commit any mistakes because they never do anything. They are just sitting there almost dead. They are mummies, corpses, full of rubbish! But because they don’t do anything they are holy. And if you do something, of course, how can you be holy? Hence for centuries the holy man has been renouncing the world and escaping from the world, because to be in the world and be holy seems to be impossible.My whole approach is: unless you are in the world your holiness has no worth at all. Be in the world and be holy! Then we have to define holiness in a totally different way. Don’t live at the expense of others’ pleasures – that is not holiness. Don’t destroy others’ happiness – that is not holiness. Help others to be happy. Create the climate in which everybody can have a little joy.And what have your saints done? They have done just the opposite. They have created a climate in which everybody is living in hell – and they are holy. They have condemned God’s world and they have taught you to renounce it.If God is against the world he should have renounced it himself! But he has not yet renounced. Still the spring comes and the flowers bloom, the bees buzz and the birds sing; and the sun still rises, and the night is full of stars. Still new babies go on coming. God has not stopped creation.It is all nonsense that in six days he created the world and since then he has retired – it is all nonsense! He can’t have a single holiday, because if God goes for a single holiday we will all be dead. Then who will breathe life into us? Then who will be the color in the flowers and the wings of the birds? And who will be the light in the sun and the greenness of the grass? If for twenty-four hours he goes on a holiday, if he has a Sunday, finished – everything is finished! He can’t have a holiday – and he need not have.He loves the world; it is his creation. It is not work, it is creativity. It is his joy, it is his play. Do you think on Sunday morning birds don’t sing because it is Sunday and they are not going to do any work? Sunday or Monday, it makes no difference. The birds sing and the trees grow and you breathe and existence continues in its celebration without any gap, without any discontinuity.God has not renounced the world – and your saints are bigger than God, higher than God, holier than God himself! My own feeling is that God must be afraid of your saints. That’s why he never appears before them – because they will condemn him. They will tell him how many mistakes and how many sins he has committed, and they will ask him how many fasts he has done and how many prayers he is doing every day. And of course he will be at a loss – he does not pray and he does not fast and he does not read the holy scriptures! He will look very irreligious.But these saints had to create this idea that your life is a sin. You are conceived in sin and you live in sin, and in death you will be dying as a sinner. You are doomed! That gives them great joy. They feel holier-than-thou, they feel they are saved – the chosen few.I tell you, there is no difference between a sinner and a saint. All are chosen and all will be saved – all are saved. Existence is always surrounding you. What more do you need? Everybody is saved.But if this is the truth, then your saints will start to disappear – with their big egos. It will be very difficult for them to exist. They are living at your expense. The worse sinner they prove you to be, the more saintly they look; hence they have invented many things. Catholics have confession. It is a great joy for the priest to listen to everybody’s sins. The more you talk about your sins, the more holy he feels.If you are happyat the expense of another man’s happiness, you are forever bound. The dumbest kid in class showed up at the reunion with a gorgeous blond on his arm and a Cadillac at the curb. He showered drinks on everybody. Stunned, an old friend asked, “How did you do it, Abe? You were always slow in math.”“Well,” said Abe, “you buy something for a dollar and you sell it for two and that lousy one percent really adds up!”That’s what everybody is doing, whether you know mathematics or you don’t. Everybody is exploiting everybody else. Everybody’s hand is in somebody else’s pocket; and he may not be able to detect it because his own hand is in somebody else’s pocket. But then you will depend on others: …forever bound. Whomsoever you exploit, on the surface you seem to be the master of the situation, but really you are a slave.The new neighbor joined the mahjongg group for the first time, and all the ladies gaped at the huge diamond she wore. “It is the third most famous diamond in the world,” she told the women. “First is the Kohinoor diamond, then the Hope diamond, and then this one – the Horowitz diamond.”“It is beautiful!” said Mrs. Fisch, “You are so lucky!”“Not so lucky,” sighed the newcomer. “Unfortunately, with the famous Horowitz diamond, I am afflicted with the famous Horowitz curse.”“What is that?” asked Mrs. Fisch.“Mr. Horowitz,” said the woman.That’s how it is: if you depend on someone for your happiness you become a slave, you become dependent, you create a bondage. And you depend on so many people; they all become subtle masters and they all exploit you in return. It is a mutual arrangement, remember. Exploitation is never a one-way traffic. The husband thinks he is the master, and the wife smiles because she knows better who the master is.One day Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was running after him with a stick. To save himself he slipped underneath the bed. The wife was a fat woman and she could not enter.Mulla said, “Now you know who the master of the house is!”And then exactly at that moment, somebody knocked on the door; some neighbors had come. The wife started asking Mulla to come out. “We can finish this quarrel later on. Now the neighbors are here.”Mulla said, “Let them come! Let everybody know once and for all, and forever, who is the master of this house! I am the master, and wherever I want to sit I will sit!”What kind of mastery is this – sitting underneath the bed?But every husband thinks that he is the master and every wife thinks that she is the master. Even small children… Parents think they are the masters; they are wrong. The children know how to manipulate you, they know how to create trouble for you – in the right moment. When the neighbors are in the house they start exploiting you, they start demanding this and that. When you are in the marketplace, in the shopping center, they create a tantrum, and you have to purchase the toy they want. If others were not there you would have given them a good beating – but when others are there you are very polite, very cultured. Let the neighbors come, then they will see! They have their own times, opportunities, when to manipulate you.Every child knows – even a small child knows – how to exploit his mother, his father, and when. When his father starts reading the newspaper, he starts asking questions. He won’t allow his father to read the newspaper unless his demands are fulfilled.Everybody in his own way tries to be the master of the other. And in fact, it is a strange situation: everybody has become in a sense the master of others, and also a slave of others. It is a double-bind situation. We are all interdependent; we are both jailers and prisoners.You do not what you should.You do what you should not.You are reckless, and desire grows.Buddha says: “You go on doing that which you should not – and you know it; and you go on doing things which harm you, harm others. Still you persist in doing them because you seem to be almost incapable of remaining conscious. You are so unconscious; that’s why: you do not what you should, and, you do what you should not.”He is not giving you commandments: that you should do this and you should not do that. He is simply making it clear to you that you are so unconscious that you go on harming yourself and others. You have to become conscious. With consciousness, your life starts changing.Women’s liberation has become an integral part of Egyptian society despite the traditional disapproval of girls who date many different men.One night, Sabra was sitting in a car with a boy who began kissing her passionately while removing her dress. She started to sob.“Why are you crying?” he asked.“I am afraid you will take me for the wrong kind of girl. I am not that kind.”“Stop crying – I believe you.”“You are the first man,” sobbed Sabra.“You mean I am the first man to do this with you?”“No. You are the first man to believe me.”People don’t know what they are doing, people don’t know what they are saying. People know only when they have done it, people know only when they have said it. People know only when it is too late to change anything, when the harm is already done.You are reckless, and desire grows. And in this unconscious soil nothing but desires grow. Desires are like weeds. If you don’t look after your garden, roses will soon disappear and there will be weeds and weeds.Mulla Nasruddin had purchased a new house and he planted a beautiful garden, a beautiful lawn. Then a new neighbor moved into the empty house by the side of Mulla’s house. He was enchanted with Mulla’s garden and his lawn. He said, “I would also like to make a beautiful lawn, but how do you know what is grass and what is just weeds?”Mulla said, “Very simple. You pull out both and throw them away. Whatsoever grows again on its own are weeds.”Weeds grow on their own; you need not take any care of them. That’s how it is with unconscious desires: they grow on their own. They are rooted in your biology, in your past, in your physiology, in your hormones, in your chemistry.Consciousness has to be deliberate. One has to make arduous effort to be conscious. And when you are conscious you do that which should be done and you do not do that which should not be done.Buddha is not giving you detailed information about what should be done and what should not be done. That is the difference between Buddha and other masters. He simply gives you the master key which unlocks all the locks; there is no need to go on carrying a thousand keys for every lock.Buddha says: “Be conscious and that’s enough.” Then things will start changing in your life.…the master is wakeful.That is the fundamental key.He watches his body.In all his actions he discriminates,and he becomes pure.Now this word discrimination is not the right translation. Buddha’s word is vivek. Vivek can be translated in two ways: either as “discrimination” or as “awareness.” Whenever Buddha and Mahavira use the word vivek they use it in the sense of awareness, never in the sense of discrimination – because discrimination means thinking. You are thinking, “This is good and this is not good. This I should do and this I should not do.”Awareness is not thinking; it is clear insight. It is not a question of choosing – awareness is choiceless. You simply know that this is the only thing that can be done; there is no alternative. You don’t choose, you don’t weigh which is better. You simply know – your whole heart knows – that this is so, and you can’t go against it.In all his actions he is aware, and he becomes pure. Awareness brings purity, innocence.He is without blamethough once he may have murderedhis mother and his father,two kings, a kingdom, and all its subjects.Though the kings were holyand their subjects among the virtuous,yet he is blameless.In Buddha’s time, these were considered to be the greatest crimes: to kill your own father and mother, and to kill the king.Buddha says: “A man who becomes aware, for him his whole past is like a dream; it disappears without leaving even a trace behind it.” It is as if in a dream you kill your father and mother, and when in the morning you wake up, do you go to the priest to confess that you have committed a great sin – you killed your father and mother in a dream? Or do you go to apologize to your parents: “Forgive me – I killed you last night”? You simply forget all about it. It was a dream, it doesn’t matter. Your father and mother are not killed.Buddha says: “When you become aware, all that you have done in your unawareness, in your unconsciousness, in your sleep, in your metaphysical sleep, is nothing but a dream.”And remember: bad deeds are dreams, good deeds are dreams. Your being a sinner in a dream is a dream as much as your being a saint. When you wake up you are neither a sinner nor a saint. You are simply awareness.Once Buddha was asked, “Who are you? Are you a god?”He said, “No.”“Are you an angel?”He said, “No.”“Are you a chakravartin – a great emperor of the whole world?”He said, “No.”The questioner was very puzzled. He said, “You go on saying no to everything. At least you must be a human being! Now you cannot say no.”Buddha laughed and said, “Yes, I will still say no!”“Then who are you?” the man asked, annoyed.Buddha said, “I am just awareness. All these human beings and angels and gods, they were part of my metaphysical sleep. That sleep is no longer there; I have become awakened.”That’s exactly the meaning of the word buddha: one who has become awakened, one who is enlightened, one who is no longer dreaming. And when you are not dreaming, you have clarity, you can see. And that very seeing becomes the determining factor of your life. Only then do you do that which should be done and you don’t do that which should not be done.It is not a question of discriminating between right and wrong. It is a question of coming out of your sleep.Wake up!Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Yesterday you said that you don't need to know us all personally. I feel that every one of us is at a different place and has a different reason to be here in this life, so am I wrong if I feel that the way for everyone is different but leads to the same goal?There is no goal and there is no way to it. You are already there, you have never been anywhere else. The very idea of the way and the goal is a mind game. First you create a goal, an ambition, a desire far away in the future, a utopia, worldly or otherworldly, Catholic or Communist, and then you start thinking about the ways. But basically there is no goal, hence all ways are false. And once you start trying to achieve the goal, you will get more and more into confusion.All ways are just dream stuff, because in the first place you have never left home, you have only fallen asleep. Adam and Eve have never been expelled from the Garden of Eden, they have only fallen asleep. Eating from the tree of knowledge, the fruit of knowledge, they have become rational beings. That is their sleep; they have lost track of their own heart, they have forgotten about it. But it is there, it has not moved anywhere else.You are still in the Garden of Eden, you are still in existence; where else can you be? There is no other place to be. This is my fundamental approach: that there is no goal, no way, you are not to achieve something. The whole idea of achieving is nothing but an ego trip. First you try to achieve money, power, prestige, and when you fail – which is bound to happen, because the mind goes on asking for more and more – when you are in deep frustration, you start turning into a religious person. But your whole pattern remains the same. You still desire a goal. Now it is no longer money, it is meditation; now it is no longer power but paradise. It is the same game being played with other words. Mind has deceived you, mind has taken you on another trip.How long are you going to be deceived by your own mind? The emphasis is not on going anywhere but on waking up. For example, three thousand people are here right now; if you all fall asleep, you will all be here, nobody will have left the place but you will all dream separate dreams. Dreams are very private things; in fact there is nothing more private than a dream. You cannot even share your dream with your beloved, you cannot invite your friends to participate in a dream – it is impossible, you are absolutely alone there. A dream is not an objective phenomenon, it is not a reality; it is just an idea which has hypnotized you so much that it appears real. The presence of the other will reveal its unreality.So if you all fall asleep, naturally you will be in different places. Somebody will be in Constantinople, and somebody in Tokyo, and somebody in Beijing, but in reality you will all be here and now. Your places will be different: somebody will be a king, somebody a beggar, and somebody will be a man, and somebody will be a woman, somebody will be very famous, somebody will be just a nonentity. But do you think these things make any difference? You can all be awakened, and all your dreams, separate dreams, different dreams, will evaporate alike.You say, “I feel that every one of us is at a different place…” Certainly, but in a dream. One is a sinner, another is a saint; one is a Christian, another is a Hindu; one is white, another is black. All dreams! In your innermost core you are only a pure consciousness, just awareness and nothing else, a pure mirror, not identified with the reflections.That’s the whole effort of a master – to wake you up, not to goad you toward certain goals. If the master goads you toward certain goals he will have great appeal for your mind; your mind will agree with him, because that’s what the mind hankers for: new goals, so the journey continues, and the stupidity of it all remains.The real master shatters all your goals. It is only by the shattering of your dreams that you can be awakened. What do you mean by “persons”? The word person comes from the Greek root persona. Persona means a mask. A person is a false phenomenon, it is a mask, it is not your reality. But the ego wants to be recognized personally. The ego wants to relate personally, the ego wants recognition, attention; otherwise you are not a person. Nobody is, nobody has ever been. It is only on the circumference that the mask can exist and can deceive others. But you must know that it is a mask, a camouflage. Deep down behind the mask are you a person? No, not at all. You are only a presence, not a person.I relate with your presence, not with your personality. How can I relate with your dreams? I relate with you, but not with your dreams. And it is only in dreams that you are separate. In reality we are all one, it is one organic whole.You say, “I feel that every one of us is at a different place and has a different reason to be here in this life…” All nonsense. To be frank with you, just bullshit! But the ego goes on playing with this beautiful idea: “I have a special reason to be here.” Every grass blade also thinks the same way, and every pebble on the shore believes the same. Ask any dog or buffalo or donkey, and they all believe that they are here for a special reason and they have come to fulfill a certain mission, they have brought a message to the world. And those who want to exploit you go on telling you such nonsense.Existence has no reason at all; it simply is. That’s its beauty. It has no cause to it, it has no direction either, it is not going anywhere, it has nothing to fulfill. That’s its beauty, tremendous beauty. It exists for no reason at all; that’s its mystery, unfathomable, immeasurable.If you can know the reason for existence you have demystified it, you have destroyed all its beauty. Then it carries no more meaning, remember. Then there will be no significance. Why is there love? Is there any reason to it? Yes, if you ask the chemist, the physiologist, he will say, “Yes, it is the hormones in the chemistry of your body.” But love is not in the chemistry of the body; lust maybe, but love is not. You are more than the sum total of your parts, and in that more exists godliness. In that irrational element that permeates the whole exists godliness.Tertullian is right when he says: credo quia absurdum – I believe in God because God is absurd. Tertullian is one of those great buddhas of the world who have really seen through and through. “I believe in God because God is absurd,” is one of the greatest statements ever made, one of the most pregnant statements. To believe in God because there are reasons to believe is not much; then anybody will believe. It is not a quantum leap, it is not jumping out of your mind. All arguments convince the mind, and if the mind believes, that is not religious.When your heart is stirred by something you cannot express; which cannot be adequately even put into words; out of which no system can be made, no scripture, no religion; which simply leaves you dumb, in deep awe and wonder, in a kind of tremendous shock, all old notions shattered, in silence – you lose all your reasoning, all your argumentation – only then are you in communion with the whole. It is not a question of argument, and you are not here to fulfill anything. It is just a celebration: life for life’s sake.But our minds want something to be nourished by, so your so-called religious preachers, priests, philosophers, theologians go on giving you nourishment. They say, “You are sent here for special purposes. You have a special place. Some great work is being done by you.” And your ego feels puffed up.I cannot do it. I am not your enemy. The moment I find any chance I am going to destroy these puffed up egos, spiritual egos, pious egos, religious egos. But the ego is an ego; on what it stands does not matter, on what it is nourished is irrelevant.No, I don’t see that you have a different place; yes, a different dream. And I don’t see that you have “…a different reason to be here in this life…” There is no reason at all. It is simple celebration. It is the overflowing energy of existence, or godliness. What is the reason for the waves of the ocean? What is the reason for the rays of the sun? What is the reason for the birds singing? A distant call of the cuckoo? And what is the reason for a dewdrop shining in the early morning sun? What is the reason for a roseflower?Can’t you ever look at life without this business-type mind, always calculating? Can’t you put your mind aside even for a few moments to look at reality as it is? And then you will be surprised: there is no reason at all. Then you can laugh and love and dance and pray, only then will you have a different quality to your being. The whole will start expressing itself through the part.But remember again, I am not saying that it will express some special message, that you will become a messiah. I am simply saying the whole will start playing its tremendously absurd game through you without hindrance. It is exquisite, it is beautiful, but it is not arithmetic. It is poetry, it is music, it is dance – art for art’s sake. So is life, so is existence. And that approach I call religious, sacred.The second question:Osho,Why do people think that to live without politics is impossible?Mind is politics, because mind is ambitious and ambition is the root of politics. If you are ambitious you are political. Your ambition may take the form of religion, but the politics is there. Then you are competing with other saints.The night Jesus departed from his disciples, the so-called apostles were not much worried about what was going to happen to Jesus. Their worry was: after Jesus, when the Day of Judgment comes and they all go to paradise, who will stand next to Jesus? Of course, Jesus will be at the right hand of God; that much they could concede. But who will be next to Jesus? They were quarreling and arguing about this. The last night of the master, tomorrow he may be crucified, but that was not their concern. Those apostles are political, and those apostles have created Christianity, and Christianity is politics and nothing else. So is Hinduism and so is Mohammedanism – all political desires hidden behind religious words.Man cannot live without politics, because of the mind. You are brought up, you are trained to be political. Every child is poisoned from the very beginning, poisoned by ambition. We teach children to be ambitious: be somebody in the world, be somebody special, somebody superior, defeat others! We give the idea to every child that life is a struggle and only the fittest survive. And you have to survive by right or wrong means; which is not important.Twenty-five years of education – almost one third of your life – you are being trained to be ambitious. How can you avoid politics? The only way to avoid politics is to get out of your mind; that means that unless mind is dropped totally, politics will go on clinging to you. You can even be antipolitical but then that will become politics.You ask me, “Why do people think that to live without politics is impossible?” – because they cannot conceive how to live without the mind and without desire, or how to live without ambition. They know only one way to live: compete, fight! If you are not going to dominate the other, the other is going to dominate you; so before the other dominates you, dominate the other. It is certainly better to dominate than to be dominated; it is better to be the master than to be the slave; it is better to be rich than to be poor. And there is great struggle, and millions of people are fighting for the same thing – and things are not so many.How many people can be presidents, and how many people can be prime ministers, and how many people can be Fords, Rockefellers and Morgans and Birlas and Tatas? How many people? Very few. And life is short, and these are the goals to be fulfilled. If you cannot be a Rockefeller, if you cannot be the president of a country, your life is a sheer waste, you are a failure. Unless you understand that even by becoming a Rockefeller, a Morgan, you are not going to achieve anything, you will be farther away from yourself because you will be deeper in dreams.By becoming a president or a prime minister you are not going to achieve any peace or bliss. No music is going to explode in your innermost being. In fact, you will become more and more ugly. By the time a person becomes a prime minister he becomes the ugliest possible, because the whole struggle makes him ugly. He has to be cunning, more cunning than others, otherwise he will not succeed. He has to be cruel, he has to be violent, he has to be very diplomatic. He has to say one thing, think another, do still another. By the time he reaches the highest post of his desire, he is completely destroyed. He is no longer a human being. He is hollow inside; he has no substance, no soul.But these people are thought to be successful, these people are thought to be the makers of history. These people are thought to leave their mark on human evolution. They are the most mischievous people in the world, they are the greatest criminals: Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, are the real criminals in the world. Small criminals suffer in the prisons, big criminals become presidents and prime ministers.But the people who have not been able to achieve these foolish desires also suffer much. They suffer from an inferiority complex, from failure. Your education creates only two kinds of people. First, those who succeed, and by succeeding they come to know that they have wasted their lives. But it is pointless to tell it to others, because then others will laugh and will think you ridiculous. It is better to go on smiling although you know deep down that you have failed, your life has not been of any significance, you have not enjoyed being here. You have not danced, no song has been sung by your heart. Your whole life has been an experiment in futility. You know it but it is too late. You cannot go back, and you cannot say the truth – that would simply reveal your utter stupidity. It is better to go on playing the role of being successful.And then the other kind is those who see these successful people and suffer with great jealousy, envy, are greatly wounded: “We could not make it in this life.” This is politics.My effort here is to teach you a different way of life which is not political at all. Let the mind be dropped. Don’t be a slave of your mind. Become more conscious, more alert of all the nuisance that your mind is doing to you, the mess the mind is creating in you, the chaos the mind has reduced you to. Just watch, be alert. And slowly, slowly as your watchfulness grows – Buddha calls it “right mindfulness” – you will be able to slip out of the mind. Out of the mind and you are out of politics; otherwise, whatsoever you do is politics. If you don’t do anything, that too is politics. You participate, either positively or negatively. If you vote you participate, if you don’t vote still you participate, in a negative way. There seems to be no choice. In every way you will be part of it.During the days of Hitler’s dominance, five Germans sat at a table in a coffee shop, each thinking his own thoughts. One of them sighed, another groaned aloud. The third shook his head desperately, and the fourth man choked down the tears.The fifth man, in a frightened voice, whispered, “My friends, be careful! You know it is not safe to talk politics in public.”Whatsoever you do is going to be politics, except one thing: if you really become a dropout from the world of the mind.People hate this situation, but they don’t know what to do about it. They are caught in such a complex situation, they don’t know how to get out of it. And the whole crowd is going in a certain direction. If you move in some other direction the crowd becomes angry at you. The crowd does not allow nonconformists. It wants total submission, it wants slaves, it respects slaves. It gives all kinds of honors – from the lowest honor to the Nobel Prize – to the slaves, to the conformists, to those who are somehow supporting the status quo.You can see it happening everywhere. Just look at the so-called respectable people, they are the greatest slaves. That’s why they get respect. It is a mutual understanding. You follow the crowd, the crowd respects you, calls you a saint, a mahatma.Adolf Hitler did not trust the reports he had been getting that the people were still loyal to him. One evening he disguised himself and went to a movie house. Soon the newsreel came on. The announcer said, “And now the latest picture of our great, our benevolent dictator.” The commentary went on. The picture flashed on the screen. With one motion, the audience rose in salute, shouting “Heil, Hitler!”Hitler was so pleased with the response that he forgot to get up. The man behind him tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, “I know how you feel about that bastard, but you had better stand up or the police will arrest you.”That’s how everybody feels, but who wants to get into unnecessary trouble?To be a nonconformist is to ask for trouble, because the mob feels offended. Why does the mob feel offended by a nonconformist? – because the nonconformist shows signs of intelligence, he shows signs of individuality, authenticity, responsibility, and then people feel stupid compared to him. They can’t forgive him – and the politicians cannot allow such people to exist at all.The sultan decided to have the Sufi matched against some wild lions in an arena, to entertain and warn the multitude. Many thousands turned up. The Sufi went into the arena, caught the lions by the ears and threw them out of the ring. The crowd went wild. Then the sultan ordered him to be bound hand and foot and elephants to be stampeded over him. By split-second timing he managed to roll away from the elephants’ feet. The crowd roared.Now the sultan had a pit dug, the Sufi buried in it up to the neck, and ordered three powerful and skilled swordsmen to cut off his head. As they struck, he moved his head this way and that to avoid the swipes, so that they started to tire. But by that time the crowd was on its feet, yelling, “Stand still and fight like a man, you tricky mystic!”Now the poor man is buried, just the head is out of the earth! But intelligence can manage. Down the ages the real Sufis, the real Zen people, the real buddhas, the real Hassids, the real mystics of all the countries, of all the races, have been utterly disgusted with this whole nonsense that goes on in the name of politics. They have been teaching their disciples, “Get out of it, it is futile,” and they have suffered much because of it.If you feel that politics is a dirty game, don’t be worried: “Why do people think that to live without politics is impossible?” Don’t waste your time in that. The crowd is going to remain like that forever, but you can come out of it. If you can even manage that, it’s enough. And maybe if you can manage, then a few others will see the light too, because they will see a new joy arising in your being, a new aroma surrounding you, a new aura, a new atmosphere, a new milieu will start touching other people’s hearts.I am not saying to become a missionary. That is a dirty word. But if you are out of these ugly games, your life becomes such a beautiful phenomenon that those who have eyes will be able to see, and those who have ears will be able to hear, and those who have hearts will be able to feel it. And that’s all that you can do. That is real service.The third question:Osho,Why are you so much against thinking, theology, philosophy?Because thinking is nothing but dreaming in words. Dreams are nothing but thinking in pictures.What can you think? You can’t think the unknown; you can only go on repeating the known. Thinking is repetitive, it is mechanical. Thinking never brings you to a new insight, neither in religion nor in science. Nowhere does thinking bring you to new windows to existence. Even in scientific work, real insights have happened not through thinking; they have all been intuitive, they have not been of the intellect. All the great scientists are convinced of the fact that it was not their effort that made them discover new ways of life, new secrets of nature, something of the beyond, something very mysterious. It was not their work, at the most they were only vehicles. Hence I am not in favor of making you great thinkers. In fact, you are already great thinkers. Everybody is a great thinker. So much traffic goes on in the mind; you are continuously thinking, day in, day out, your whole life you are thinking – to what purpose, to what conclusion?And I am more against theology than any other kind of thinking because it is the ultimate in stupidity. Theo means God, logy means logic: logic about God. That is a contradiction in terms. There is no logic about God. Love yes, logic no, a thousand times no. Yes, there can be love for God, but not logic. And if you come through logic to love, your love is also false, pseudo, plastic, synthetic.Love happens, it is not an argument. How then does it happen? It does not happen through thinking. It happens by glimpses into no-thought, by entering into the intervals between two thoughts. Those are the windows, windows of the divine. I am against theology.Philosophy has wasted so many beautiful minds that it is a crime now to go on teaching philosophy to people. People have been philosophizing for at least five thousand years. And what has been their conclusion? Philosophy has not come to any conclusion at all. It confuses people. Bertrand Russell has written in his memoirs that when he was young and went to university, he had the thought that by studying philosophy he would at least be able to solve a few problems. By the end of his life – and he lived a long, very long life, and a very philosophical life of constant thinking – by the end of his life he said, “All that philosophy has done is to create more problems. It has not solved a single one. My old problems are exactly where they were. New problems have certainly arisen out of my philosophical thinking.”And that is the experience of all thinkers, all philosophers. Philosophy is thinking about the unknown, about God, about life after death. You don’t know what life is before death, and you think about the life after death.My emphasis is, please know what life is before death, because if you can have an experience of life before death, death will disappear in that very experience. Death evaporates. Then there is no death; life is eternal.But rather than experiencing, the philosopher goes on thinking, and you have to make the clear-cut distinction between thinking and experiencing. One can think about food, but that is not going to nourish one. Eating is totally a different matter. And you may think about very delicious food with all the vitamins thrown in. Still it is not going to help. And just bread and butter, if really eaten, will do the trick; they will nourish you.The philosopher thinks about love; he does not love, he does not know anything about love. He has not experienced it, but he thinks about it. What can you think about something you have not experienced? And what is the need to think if you have experienced? Hence I am against philosophy. In both ways it is futile. If you have not experienced it, it is futile; if you have experienced it, it is more futile than ever.Just recently an ape escaped from the local zoo. Must have been a philosopher! Several hours later the beast was finally found in the reading room of the library. He was poring over the first chapters of Genesis and he also had a copy of Darwin’s The Origin of Species.When a policeman asked the ape what he was doing, the ape replied, “I am trying to figure out once and for all if I am my brother’s keeper or if I am my keeper’s brother.”That’s how philosophy goes on – words and words. And words can be placed in such a systematic way that they can deceive you, just like playing cards can be put in such a way that they can give you the illusion of a palace. Paper boats can be made to look exactly like boats; you can paint them, but they are of no use. You can’t go to the other shore by a paper boat.Philosophy is a palace made of playing cards, a boat made of paper. Painted beautifully, it looks exactly like a boat but is not a boat.Except existential experience, nothing is going to save you.Two men were sent to define the border between Poland and Russia.One day, in the middle of a big wood, they came to a very old house set right on the borderline. Unable to decide to which country it should belong, they approached the inhabitants. After they rang the bell for a long time a very old but well-known philosopher opened the door. They explained their difficulties and asked him what country he would prefer to belong to.“Oh,” he said, “I have been living here for so long now, I don’t care at all,” and he started to shut the door.Suddenly he opened it again and said quickly, “No, wait, put me in Poland.”The rather hurt Russian went back after an hour to ask the old philosopher what the reason for his sudden decision was.“Oh, no special reason,” he replied. “I just read in the newspapers twenty years ago that the winters in Russia are very cold.”Philosophy is bookish, verbal, has no relationship with existence. My effort here is to help you enter existence. And philosophy is a sheer waste of life and energy – a life which is so invaluable, an energy which can lead you to godliness, an energy which is divine. Avoid philosophy, avoid philosophers.Sit with the wise ones, and they are totally different people. In ancient days the philosopher was a wise man. Socrates was a totally different kind of philosopher from Bertrand Russell, Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Heidegger. Socrates was a wise man, as wise as Buddha. Pythagoras was also called a philosopher, but in those days the word philosophy had its original meaning: love of wisdom. Sophy means wisdom, philo means love. But slowly, slowly that meaning has changed. Now what is being taught in the universities in the name of philosophy has nothing to do with wisdom. It is all rubbish knowledge.Analysis of language is now called philosophy. G. E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein are now thought to be great philosophers. They are linguists, analysts – great linguists and great analysts, but not philosophers at all, not in the sense of Socrates, Buddha, Lao Tzu.George Bernard Shaw had been wearied by the tedious conversation of a philosopher who was trying to impress him with his knowledge.Finally Shaw cut in, “You know, between the two of us, we know all there is to be known.”“How is that?” the philosopher asked delightedly.“You seem to know everything,” Shaw said, “except that you are a bore, and I know that!”The fourth question:Osho,Why do I feel sadness about Christmas when the whole message is rejoice and be merry?Christ’s message is rejoice and be merry. But that is not the message of Christianity. Christianity’s message is: be sad, long faces, look miserable; the more miserable you look, the more saintly you are. Sometimes I really feel for poor Jesus. He has fallen into such wrong company, and I wonder how he is managing in paradise with all these Christian saints, so sad, so dull.He was not a dull man, he was not a sad man – he could not have been. The word christ is exactly synonymous with buddha. He was an enlightened person. He rejoiced in life, in the small things of life. He rejoiced in eating, drinking, friendship. He loved companionship, he loved all of life.But Christians down the ages have painted him as very sad. They have painted him always on the cross, as if for thirty-three years he was always on the cross. And my own understanding is that a man like Jesus would not die sad, even on the cross. He must have laughed before he died. That’s what al-Hillaj Mansoor did before he was killed by the fanatic Mohammedans, because he had declared: “Ana’l haq – I am God.” Mohammedans could not tolerate it, just as Jews could not tolerate Jesus. They killed him – but before they killed him, he looked at the sky and laughed loudly.One hundred thousand people had gathered to see this ugly phenomenon, the murder of one of the greatest human beings who has ever walked on the earth. Somebody asked from the crowd, “al-Hillaj, why are you laughing? You are being killed!” And he was killed in the cruelest way, piece by piece. Jesus’ crucifixion was nothing compared to Mansoor’s: first his legs were cut off, then his hands were cut off, then his eyes were taken out, then his nose was cut off, then his tongue was cut off, then his head was cut off. They tortured him as much as possible, but he laughed. Somebody asked, “Why are you laughing?”Mansoor said, “I am laughing because the man you are killing is somebody else, I am not he. I am laughing at God too. What is happening? – have these people gone mad? They are killing somebody else. Me, you cannot kill; it is ridiculous, your whole effort is ridiculous. So let it be remembered, let it be on record that I laughed at your foolishness!”And that’s exactly what Jesus must have done, laughed. But Christians have tried their best to depict Jesus as sad. They have made a saint out of a real authentic human being; they have cut out everything. The gospels are not true stories; much has been changed, much has been reduced, much has been added. They have become mere fictions.Down the ages, Christians have been trying to paint Christ as more and more sad. Why? – because all over the world religion has been dominated by a neurotic kind of people. It has been dominated by the people who are masochists, sadists. In the East too, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism have all been dominated by the masochistic people, the people who enjoy torturing themselves, the people who are incapable of living life in its totality. The people who are too cowardly to live, escapists, have dominated religion up to now. These escapists have depicted Buddha as not laughing, Mahavira as not laughing.And Christians actually say that Jesus never laughed in his life. Can you believe that? Jesus never laughed in life? – and he enjoyed drinking and eating, he enjoyed gamblers and prostitutes, and he enjoyed all kinds of people, and he never laughed? Can you imagine that a man like Jesus, who would feast for hours with his friends, never laughed? It is inconceivable! How can you go on wining and dining for hours without laughing? He must have joked, he must have told funny stories. They have been edited out. He was a very true man, and very courageous. He accepted Mary Magdalene, a famous prostitute of those days as his disciple. It needs courage, it needs guts. I cannot believe that he never laughed.I can rather believe a very fictitious story about Zarathustra – that the first thing he did when he was born was to laugh loudly. That I can believe, but I can’t believe this story about Jesus, that he never laughed. It looks impossible. A child… Just the first thing he did was a belly laugh. But I can believe it. It has a certain beauty about it, a certain significance. It simply says that Zarathustra was born wise, he was born enlightened, that’s all. Whether he laughed or not, that is not the question.And it doesn’t seem too difficult: if children can cry, why can’t they laugh? Doctors say that children cry just to clear their throats, so that they can breathe easily. But that can be done in a far better way by a belly laugh. And now there are doctors who say that if we take enough care children don’t cry; on the contrary, they smile. That’s a good beginning. Soon Zarathustras will be coming.But up to now doctors have been very Christian. The first thing they do is hang the child upside down and hit him on the buttocks. Do you expect a child to laugh? This is a great welcome to the world, putting the child upside down, giving him a hit – a good beginning, because his whole life he is going to get hit in the pants, again and again. And hanging upside down, how can he laugh? No wonder he cries!Now there are a few doctors working in a different direction. They bring the child out of the mother’s womb in a more natural way; they don’t cut the umbilical cord immediately because that creates crying, that is violence. They leave the child on the mother’s belly with the umbilical cord intact. They give a good bath to the child, a hot bath, they put the child into a hot tub of exactly the same temperature as it was in the mother’s womb.In the mother’s womb the child is floating in water. The water has the same contents as sea water, salty. The child is put in a tub of the same salty chemical solution, of the same temperature. He starts smiling. It is a really beautiful reception. And not with glaring tube lights: that hurts the eyes of the child. In fact, so many people are wearing glasses only because of the foolishness of the doctors. The child has lived for nine months in the mother’s womb in darkness, utter darkness. Then suddenly so much light; it hurts his delicate eyes. You have destroyed something delicate in his eyes. The child should be received in a very dim light, and the light should be increased slowly, slowly so his eyes become accustomed to the light. Naturally the child smiles at the beautiful welcome.I can believe that Zarathustra laughed loudly, but I can’t believe that Jesus never laughed at all. He lived thirty-three years and did not laugh? – that can only be possible if he was absolutely perverted, absolutely pathological, ill. Something must have been wrong if he didn’t laugh. But nothing was wrong with him; something is wrong with the followers. They depict their saints, their messiahs, their prophets, as very serious, somber, sad, just to show that they are above the world, that they are beyond the world, that they are not worldly people. Laughter seems shallow, seems unspiritual.That’s why – because you have been brought up as a Christian. Although the message of Christmas is rejoice and be merry, still there is a sadness, because the whole of Christianity teaches you to be sad. It is not a life-affirming religion, it is life-negative. It is much more life-negative than Hinduism, much more life-negative than Judaism. It has no sense of humor at all. And a religion without a sense of humor is ill, pathological. It needs psychological treatment.Peter, standing in the crowd, looked up at Jesus on the cross. As he watched, he distinctly saw Jesus motioning him forward.“Pssst, hey Peter, come here,” said the Lord.As Peter moved forward, two Roman guards blocked his way and beat him till he fell to the ground.A few moments later, Peter, bruised and bleeding, looked up and saw Jesus again motioning him forward.“Pssst, hey Peter, come here!”Looking around, Peter noticed that the crowd was gone and so were the Roman soldiers. He moved closer to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, what is it? What is it you want?”“Hey Peter,” said Jesus. “Guess what? I can see your house from here!”The fifth question:Osho,Why is the government of India against you?Any government will be, because I call a spade a spade, and that hurts. It has nothing to do particularly with the Indian government; any government will do. In fact, I have chosen to remain in India because the Indian government is the lousiest in the world. In Germany they would not tolerate me even for a single day. The Indian government seems to be in such a chaos that even when they want to do something against me it takes months. By that time I will escape. The Indian government is a phenomenon…There are at least thirty cases against me in the courts. In one court we lose a case, and the government officer doesn’t come to know for months that we have lost it. They think the case is going on. By that time we have moved to another court. It is really a beautiful government, but they are bound once in a while to get angry with me.The occasion was the visit of the Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to India. Prime Minister Nehru was anxious to impress his guest with the great strides India had made under his leadership following the principles of socialism and democracy.They drove through the great park that surrounds the Indian parliament in Delhi, and Khrushchev caught sight of a figure squatting under a tree having a shit.“Look over there!” said Khrushchev pointing to the figure. “You talk about the great strides your country has made, but I see your government has not even provided proper toilet facilities for the masses! What kind of socialist progress do you call this?”It is said that Nehru was deeply embarrassed by this remark.The following year it was his turn to be the guest of Mr. Khrushchev in Moscow. He longed to even the score and find some criticism with which to taunt his host.As the two leaders walked through the park close by the Kremlin, Mr. Nehru caught sight of a man evidently relieving himself.“Look over there!” Nehru shouted. Khrushchev looked, and when he saw the man his face turned crimson with rage.“Arrest that man!” he yelled to his secret service men.A dozen cops rushed to the tree and seized the man. They dragged him to the nearest police center for questioning.The man – it turned out – was the Indian Ambassador!The last question:Osho,I am seventy now, but still the sexual urge is there. What should I do?You should not do anything. Enough is enough. Just the other day I have received from the great Madhuri a beautiful Christmas card. I must have received thousands of Christmas cards, but this is the most beautiful. And particularly for you, it will be helpful. So I will read this card from Madhuri.From twenty to thirty, if you are feeling rightIt is once in the morning and once at night.From thirty to forty, if you are still living right,You skip the morning but continue at night!From forty to fifty, it is now and then…And from fifty to sixty, it is God knows when!From sixty on, if you are still inclined,Believe me, fella –It is all in your mind!Happy Christmas!Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The followers of the awakenedawakeand day and night they watchand meditate upon their master.Forever wakeful,they mind the law.They know their brothers on the way.They understand the mystery of the body.They find joy in all beings.They delight in meditation.It is hard to live in the worldand hard to live out of it.It is hard to be one among many.And for the wanderer, how long is the roadwandering through many lives!Let him rest.Let him not suffer.Let him not fall into suffering.If he is a good man,a man of faith, honored and prosperous,wherever he goes he is welcome.Like the Himalayasgood men shine from afar,but bad men move unseenlike arrows in the night.Sit.Rest.Work.Alone with yourself,never weary.On the edge of the forestlive joyfully,without desire.Three reformed and very progressive rabbis were boasting about the advanced views of their respective congregations.“We are so modern,” said the first, “we have installed ashtrays in every pew so members can smoke while they pray.”“Ah!” snorted the second. “We now have a snack bar in the basement that serves ham sandwiches after services.”“You boys,” said the third, “are not even in the same class as my congregation. We are so reformed, we close for the Jewish holidays.”That’s what has happened to all the so-called followers – Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists. They are not real followers; their being a follower is only a formality. It is just by accident of birth that one is a Hindu and another is a Christian. It is not out of your own choice, it is not your commitment. You have not chosen to be a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist; hence it is absolutely meaningless, it carries no weight. It is at the most a social phenomenon. It has nothing to do with religion, it has no sacredness about it – a social conformity, useful in its own ways.Your church is nothing but a club. Just as there are Rotarians, so there are Christians. You belong to a certain club and the club has a few privileges; belonging to it, you also have the right to have those privileges. It is not a search for truth because the search for truth does not make you part of a tradition. It certainly makes you a disciple, but not a part of a dead tradition, religion, organization. It certainly brings you close to a Christ or a Buddha, but it has nothing to do with the scriptures.A living master is bound to happen to the person who is in search of truth, who wants to know the meaning of life, who wants to go to the innermost core of his being, who wants to know the depth and the height of existence. He will have to hold hands with a master.The master is one who has already known. The master is one who has been to the other shore and has come to this shore to show you the path. But only a master can show the path – a living master, remember. A tradition is just a fossil, a corpse. Yes, once there may have been a light, but the light has gone to the infinite long, long ago.Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha’s flame became one with the universal flame. Now you can go on worshipping Buddha, but you will not be, in the real sense, a disciple – you can’t be. The Buddha you worship is your own invention, your projection. You will have to find a real buddha, a man who is alive, just as alive as you are, who is in the body, whose flame can help your unlit candle to become lit, whose fire can consume you.But churches and temples and creeds and dogmas cannot consume you, they cannot make you aflame. They have no fire left. Two thousand years have passed since Christ. You can go on worshipping in the church, but now what you are doing is a kind of social duty. You are not involved in it, your heart is not there. Superficially, on the periphery, you have a label – Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan – but behind the labels you are all alike; there is no difference at all.The first sutra of Buddha says:The followers of the awakenedawake…Those who are really followers of the awakened are awake. That’s the only way to be a follower of the awakened – to be awake. It is not a question of worship, not a question of respect. It is a question of inner transformation. It is going through inner alchemy.How can you go through inner alchemy if the master is not present? The gap of thousands of years cannot be bridged. But there is no need to bridge it either because whenever there is one who is awakened he is the same, the fire is the same. What lamp the flame is alive in makes no difference. The lamp may be of this shape or that shape, the lamp may be made of this metal or that metal, it is irrelevant. The flame has nothing to do with the metal and the shape of the lamp; the flame is always the same. But you will have to seek a lamp which can still show you the path.The moment you see an enlightened person, if you allow yourself to see the enlightened person, three things happen in your life. The first is you become a student. A student means one who becomes intellectually involved, who becomes intellectually intrigued, who starts feeling that his questions are being answered for the first time, his curiosities are dissolving for the first time. For the first time there is someone who can answer him and his answers are not borrowed; his answers are on his own authority. His answers are not coming from his memory; his answers are welling up from his very center.And you can feel the difference, the difference is great. It is the difference between a plastic rose and a real rose. You can see that his answers are fresh, young, breathing. They have a heartbeat to them, they are not dead information. He has not collected knowledge; he has known, he has seen, he has become. And you will feel his being. The first step is to become a student; that’s how the journey starts.The second step is to be a disciple. When not only your head is in communication with the master but your heart too, when not only does he look logical but a great love arises in your being for him, then you become a disciple. A disciple knows how to commune, the student knows how to communicate. The student lives on the verbal, intellectual level; the disciple on the nonverbal, feeling level. His heart starts opening. Just as the sun rises in the morning and the flowers start opening, the disciple feels some opening is happening in him. He is no longer the same person. The master has touched his being; something has penetrated. The disciple has become pregnant.And the third step is to be a devotee. The student relates through the head, the disciple through the heart, and the devotee through his totality. It is no longer a question of head or heart, body or mind or soul; his whole being becomes suffused. He becomes one with the master. It is no longer a dialogue of the head or of the heart. There are no longer two; the flames have become one.This is the moment of real initiation, of real sannyas. Buddha is talking about it. He says: The followers of the awakened awake… They become just like the master. They have the same quality, the same fragrance, the same aura. The only way to understand a buddha is to become a buddha yourself; there is no other way.The student will know about the buddha; the devotee will know the buddha. The disciple will feel the buddha. The disciple is just in between the student and the devotee. He will remain a little vague, clouded; he will not have clarity. In that sense, the student is clear – intellectually clear. The devotee is totally clear. The disciple is in the middle: something is clear and something is very unclear; something is light and something is dark. The disciple is in a state of twilight, neither day nor night.Buddha is talking about the devotee when he uses the word follower. He does not mean a Christian, a Hindu, a Buddhist. He means someone who has the courage to take the plunge into the very being of the master; he is a real follower. And in that plunge he starts having the same quality – the quality of being awake.Ordinarily you are living in a kind of sleep; a metaphysical slumber surrounds you. And even if sometimes there are possibilities, opportunities for you to be awakened, you avoid it, because you have invested so much in your sleep. You are afraid of being awake. Deep down you know that if you become awake your dreams will be disturbed – and you may be having beautiful dreams, nice dreams, sweet dreams. And who wants to get disturbed when there are so many beautiful dreams surrounding you? And you don’t think that you are dreaming when you are dreaming; your dreams look real.That is one of the strange things about dreams; they have such a deep impact on you. They hypnotize you so deeply: you have known many times that they are dreams when you wake up in the morning, but again every night you fall back into the same hypnosis.This is the case with you for so many lives. You have lived the same kind of life again and again – the same desire, the same greed, the same ambition – and each time you were frustrated, but again you are ready to become a victim. It is exactly as with dreams.This morning too when you woke up you remembered so many dreams from the night and you laughed; it looked so ridiculous. But let the night come again and you will dream again, and when you are dreaming, you will believe them. They are real deceivers! And when one believes that this is real, why should one want to be awake and disturb it? You resist awakening.Even if you come across a buddha you will not look at him. You will look sideways; you will not look into his eyes. The fear… His energy may start pulsating in you. Hence, many times you have come across a Buddha, a Krishna, a Mahavira, a Christ, a Mohammed, but you have missed again and again on your own accord. You were afraid to encounter them – the encounter may prove too dangerous.“Hello. This is long distance. I have a call for you from Palm Springs.”“Hello, Herman, this is Rube. Listen, I am stranded here and I need five hundred dollars.”“I can’t hear you. Something is wrong with the phone.”“I want five hundred dollars!”“I still can’t hear you.”“I can hear it okay,” interrupted the operator.“Then you give him the five hundred dollars!”You listen only to that which fits with you; you avoid listening to that which can be a disturbance. You become deaf, you become dumb, you become blind. You have chosen a particular sleepy life and you have lived with that style for so long that it looks almost natural. The unnatural has become the natural and the natural has been completely forgotten.To awake means to be natural again. To awake means to be awake in your consciousness, in your deepest core of the heart, to become aware.We go on reading the Bibles, the Korans, the Gitas. That is not a problem. The problem comes when you come across a Mohammed. It is easy to read Ayatollah Khomeiniac; it is difficult to come across Mohammed, because Mohammed is bound to be like an electric shock. He will go like a deep tremor into your being. And these ayatollahs, these imams, are not to be afraid of. They talk such nonsense.Just the other day I was reading… These people write great treatises on the Koran, and you will be surprised to know what they write in those treatises. Such stupid things! – for example: “You should not urinate toward Kaaba.” Great metaphysics! Great spirituality! You should continuously remember, otherwise be prepared for hell. But it can be managed; Mohammedans manage it, they remember the direction of Kaaba. As if godliness is only in Kaaba and nowhere else! As if Kaaba is the only direction which is divine and all else is undivine!I was reminded of a beautiful story in Nanak’s life:He went to Kaaba and he slept with his feet toward the sacred Kaaba stone. The imam of Kaaba came and he was very angry. He said, “You pretend to be a holy man and you don’t even know the ordinary rules! Whether you are a Mohammedan or not, you can at least be polite! This much courtesy you can show: you should not put your feet toward Kaaba. Change the direction of your feet!”Nanak laughed and he said, “You have come at the right time – that’s what was puzzling me! Please, you do it. Turn my feet toward any direction – because I have tried and I have to go to sleep. I have tried; half the night I have wasted already. You try!”In deep anger, rage, the imam turned Nanak’s feet to the opposite direction. He was shocked to see that Kaaba moved toward Nanak’s feet! He turned Nanak’s feet in every direction and Kaaba moved.Whether it happened or not is not the point; but the story is beautiful. It simply says that godliness is everywhere. Wherever you put your feet it is in the direction of godliness, because nothing else exists. But these foolish scholars go on talking nonsense and they write big treatises. But they are not dangerous to you.For example, on a day when you are fasting… In the days of Ramadan when a Mohammedan fasts, in desert countries a great problem has arisen: when you are moving in the desert sometimes you may swallow dust. Now the problem is – what a great problem! – in the desert on a fast day, if you swallow dust, is your fast broken or not? Now these ayatollahs say your fast is broken if you swallow the dust voluntarily. But who will swallow the dust voluntarily? For what? Dust is not food, dust is not nourishment. But if it happens involuntarily, then the fast is not broken.Then people go on discussing such stupid nonsense for centuries – sheer nonsense! They will miss a Mohammed, they will miss a Moses, they will miss a Lao Tzu; and for centuries they will discuss useless things. Useless things are not dangerous.The real danger comes from people who are awake, because to be in their presence it is possible that you may become infected. Awareness is contagious. But read the Koran and the Bible – it is just a game of words. And if you read your Bible and Gita every day, then even words don’t mean anything. You simply repeat like a parrot.Every year dignitaries of the church come from Rome to Israel and a time-honored ceremony is re-enacted. One of the chief rabbis hands a jewel-covered scroll to a visiting priest who holds the scroll for a minute, shakes his head, and then returns it to the rabbi until the next year.This year, however, the rabbi and the priest involved in the ceremony grew curious about the scroll and decided to open it. They removed the jeweled covering, then unrolled yards and yards of yellowed parchment with long columns of numbers on it and some blurred words.The rabbi put on his glasses and finally managed to read the ancient Hebrew letters. It was the bill for the Last Supper!For two thousand years they had been giving it to the other: “Please, you pay it!” And nobody had bothered what is written in it, what exactly it was.Scriptures are cheap and scriptures are manipulatable. You can very easily manage any meaning out of them. You can invent, you can interpret, you can do a thousand things to a scripture. You can bring it to your own level.But you cannot bring a buddha to your own level. If you want to commune with a buddha you have to go to his level, to his plane of being. And his plane of being is awareness.The followers of the awakened awake… You are somnambulists. The only possibility in your life of being awake is to come into contact with someone who is awake. Only fire can ignite fire in you. And you are living in such a deep sleep that unless somebody hits you hard enough your sleep may not be broken.The advance proofs of a cookbook for hipsters recently came my way. The wildest recipe is for a salad. “You cut up lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers, then you add a dash of marijuana and the salad tosses itself.”And that’s the state you are in. For centuries the salad is tossing itself – too much marijuana! Everybody is spiritually in a state of deep slumber, dreaming great dreams, but not an inch of evolution. Because there are only two states: either you are asleep or you are awake.This whole idea of human consciousness evolving, the idea of progress, is nothing but a strategy of the mind to keep you sleeping. It is a great trick of the mind. The mind goes on telling you, “Humanity is progressing. Don’t be worried – everything has its own time. When the spring comes, you will also become an evolved buddha. Wait! Nothing can be done before its time. Wait for the right time and you will also be ripe.” And you have been waiting for centuries and you can go on waiting for centuries, the right time will never come. This is not the way that it comes. You have to catch hold of it.You are just in a deep lethargy. Buddhas happen and disappear, light descends from the beyond, but you don’t take any note of it. Yes, you do one thing: when a buddha is gone you worship him. You make him a god, you create temples for him, you make statues of him and you worship them. Statues are toys, they can’t awaken you. And the real man? The real man you avoid. And because you avoid the real man, a great guilt arises in you. To put that guilt right you worship.Worship is not religious; worship is just out of guilt. Because you never listened to the buddha when he was alive, when he dies you start feeling guilty. Now what to do? How to put your guilt and the burden of it aside? You worship. You compensate with worship, but you remain the same.…and day and night they watchand meditate upon their master.The devotee – the real follower – is constantly watching what he is doing, how he is doing, why he is doing. Even in small matters he de-automatizes himself. Walking, he does not just walk; he walks with meditative awareness. He knows that he is walking. Eating, he knows he is eating.You eat and you do a thousand and one other things. You go on swallowing food, you go on throwing food in, you go on stuffing yourself; and the mind goes on planning, goes on remembering, desiring, projecting. You are not there in the act; you are either in the past or in the future. And the present is the only time, only the present is real. Past is unreal, future is unreal; both are unreal – and you are always living in the unreal.This is sleep: you go on doing things… You yourself sometimes say, “I did it in spite of myself.” What do you mean when you say “in spite of myself”? It simply means that you were not conscious and you did it – as if you are just an automaton, a robot!A very fat lady boarded a crowded bus and managed to wedge herself in. She had a long way to go and feeling very uncomfortable reached down and unzipped the zipper in the back of her skirt.A few minutes later, feeling the draft, she reached back and zipped it up again. Feeling more and more uncomfortable, she reached back and unzipped the zipper, but in a few minutes she reached back and zipped herself up again.This went on for nearly twenty minutes until finally the man standing behind her leaned over and said, “Listen, lady. I don’t know what’s on your mind, but in the last half hour you have unzipped my fly at least ten times!”People are not conscious of what they are doing. They just go on doing things, half asleep, half awake, in a kind of alcoholic state.The pretty young thing came slamming into her apartment after a blind date and announced to her roommate, “Boy, what a character! I had to slap his face three times this evening!”The roommate inquired eagerly, “What did he do?”“Nothing!” muttered the girl. “I slapped him to see if he was awake!”People only appear to be awake; they are not. People only appear to be alive; they are not. People only appear to be; they are not – because if they are really there, then there is no difference between them and a buddha. Then they will know all the secrets of life, then they will know the significance of life. Then their life will be a celebration, a constant celebration, a joy, a song, a dance. But people are living in hell, in misery.Misery is symbolic of unawareness; bliss is symbolic of awareness.Forever wakeful,they mind the law.The devotees of a master, of an awakened one, are continuously wakeful and they are continuously making every possible human effort to be in tune with the universe, not to fall out of step with the universe – because that is what misery is.To be in tune, to be harmonious with the universe, is bliss, is joy, is music, is poetry. You start blooming the moment you are in tune with the whole. Whenever you are not in tune with the whole, something goes berserk in you. Then the whole no longer nourishes you; then you are no longer rooted in the whole. Then you become an uprooted tree, then you are undernourished. Then your green foliage starts disappearing. Then flowers can’t happen to you, because flowers are possible only when you are overflooded with joy, overflowing with joy.They know their brothers on the way.The real devotees are so awake that they immediately, intuitively recognize anybody who has the same quality – the …brothers on the way. A sannyasin, if really meditative, will immediately know another sannyasin. This is not an intellectual understanding – not that he infers that this must be a sannyasin – but a simple intuitive feeling. Something strikes him deep down in his being. Something so similar is present there in the other person that he knows without any mental effort and exercise. He knows through the heart that the other is also on the way.How do you recognize a man when he is awake? And how do you recognize a man when he is asleep? Sleepers cannot recognize other sleepers and sleepers cannot recognize that somebody is awake, that is true. But if you are awake, you know who is asleep and who is awake. Exactly in the same way, on a higher plane, it happens again: the people who have a little bit of awareness immediately become aware of the …brothers on the way.That’s how the commune arises, through this recognition. A commune is not a church. A commune is not an organization. A commune is not based on a dogma, on a creed. A commune grows out of this intuitive recognition that the other is also in tune with the whole. You can hear the music. You can hear something which cannot be heard by the outer ears. Something immediately rings a bell in your heart. It is a mysterious phenomenon.Buddha says: They know their brothers on the way. Wherever you will find anybody who is meditative, out of your meditation you will be able to recognize him.Every commune has arisen in this way. Of course, every commune has fallen and finally become a religion. That’s the way of the world. Once the master is gone, the commune slowly, slowly starts losing its quality of awareness; it becomes more and more formal. When the first disciples have also disappeared it is no longer a heart phenomenon, it becomes a head phenomenon. When the second line of disciples has also disappeared, it is only because of your birth that you are a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. Then you are following a dead path which leads nowhere.They understand the mystery of the body.Buddha calls the commune “the body.” The real devotees start feeling such attunement, such at-onement with other brothers that they become one body. Buddha used to call it the sangha – the commune, the one body, the family. If something happens it immediately affects all the people, a wave instantly surrounds all.When Buddha died he had thousands of disciples. They were spread all over the country. The moment he died, all the disciples who were real disciples were immediately affected wherever they were. Thousands of miles away from Buddha, they immediately felt, “The master is no more.”This is a mysterious phenomenon, but now even science is going deep into this phenomenon – from a different route, of course. They have been experimenting on animals, particularly the relationship between the mother and the child. And they are surprised, utterly surprised, by a mysterious phenomenon. If you take the child of any animal into the sea, a mile or two miles into the sea, and there, you kill the child… The mother is on the shore; there are two miles of water in between, but the mother immediately knows the child has been killed. She becomes sad, depressed; tears start flowing.In Russia particularly, they have worked hard on this phenomenon. They have tried a distance of a thousand miles; and if the child is killed, the mother is immediately affected. There seems to be a spiritual umbilical cord between the child and the mother. It has become very confused in human beings, that’s why they have to experiment with animals. Animals are still simple, innocent; they have not yet become educated, cultured, civilized. These misfortunes have not yet happened to them; hence they are working with animals, but it happens in human beings also.If there is a deep love relationship between the child and the mother, the death of the child anywhere in the world will immediately affect the mood of the mother. Some mysterious connection exists between the mother and the child.But this is nothing compared to the mystery that happens between the master and the disciple, because the mother-child relationship is only physical and the master-disciple relationship is spiritual. It is far more profound, far deeper.Buddha says: They understand the mystery of the body.They find joy in all beings.You find only that in others which you have found first in yourself. If you are sad you will find sadness all over the place. To a sad person even the full moon looks sad, gloomy, depressed. To a joyous heart even the dark night is luminous. It all depends on you; it all depends how you are, where you are. The whole world moves with your heart, it becomes that which you are.You have heard it said again and again that the person who is holy, who is meditative, who is prayerful, goes to heaven. That is wrong; just the opposite is the case. To the prayerful person, to the meditative person, heaven comes. Not that he goes to heaven – heaven comes to him, to his heart. Wherever he is, he is in paradise. And the evil person, wherever he is, is in hell. There is no need to send him to hell, there is no need to have a special place called hell. There is nowhere any hell and nowhere any heaven.If you are joyous you live in heaven, and your neighbor may be living in hell. And sometimes it happens, one moment you are in heaven and the next moment you are in hell. It all depends on your inner states. If you are soaring high, heaven opens up. If you are drowning in darkness, in sadness, hell is ready to welcome you. They find joy in all beings.They delight in meditation.This is a very significant sutra; remember it. Buddha says: They delight in meditation. It is easy to meditate if you don’t want to be blissful – it is very easy to meditate. If you want just to be blissful and you don’t want to be in meditation, that too is easy. The rarest combination is meditation plus bliss. Meditation minus bliss is easy; bliss minus meditation is easy. But meditation minus bliss is not true meditation and bliss minus meditation is not true bliss either. They are true only when they are together.Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex. You have to do only one work upon yourself: you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face.That’s why your saints – so-called saints – look sad. Sadness has become a necessary quality for being a saint. They can’t laugh, they can’t dance, they can’t sing, they can’t love, they can’t rejoice. They talk about bliss but they only talk about it. You don’t see any bliss in their eyes, you don’t see any bliss in their milieu, you don’t see any bliss radiating from their inner center. They look sad, dull, dead, unintelligent, for the simple reason that they have chosen a shortcut and there is no shortcut. They have avoided the complexity of spiritual transformation. They have chosen meditation, they have forced their minds to be still. It is a negative state; their minds are only empty, not silent – forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence, it is not the flowering of silence. Their silence is like the cemetery, it is not the silence of a garden.The silence of the garden is full of music: the bees humming and the birds singing and a distant call of the cuckoo. They are all in it, essential parts of it. The garden has a very living silence, full of song and joy. The cemetery is also silent, but it is only the silence of death; because nobody is there, hence there is silence.You can meditate, force yourself to be silent, but you will miss godliness, you will miss nirvana. And you can also try to be blissful; that means you can pretend, you can practice, you can rehearse bliss. You can always try to be blissful, smiling, at least looking happy.Slowly, slowly it becomes so practiced – like Jimmy Carter. Now his smile is disappearing, but just remember two years ago – you could have counted his teeth! You can practice it. I have heard that in the beginning days of his presidency his wife had to close his mouth in the night. I don’t know how far it is true, but it appears to be true – because if you practice the whole day, then in the night too your muscles become fixed. Even in sleep you will go on smiling.You can practice blissfulness too, but a practiced blissfulness is false. Anything practiced is false, remember – never forget it. Things have to be spontaneous and natural, not practiced, not cultivated. Cultivated blissfulness is only a mask. You are smiling, but the smile is not in the heart. You are showing joy, but you are not joyous. Your heart is a desert; on your face you have put only plastic flowers. They may deceive others, but they can’t deceive you and they can’t deceive a master. Your smile, your joy, is formal – just good manners.This too has happened. There have been many saints, very blissful, always singing and dancing, but deep down they are just deserts. They have both chosen only half, and the half-truth is far more untrue than any untruth.Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss plus meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage both. Why? – because they seem to be polar opposites. Meditation means silence and bliss means dance. Meditation means stillness and bliss means a song. Meditation means escaping from the world and bliss means sharing with the world. Meditation you can do in a Himalayan cave, but to be blissful you will have to come back to the world.Bliss needs to be shared; it exists only in sharing. It can’t exist when you are alone, it disappears. It is a communion. Meditation can exist in aloneness and bliss can exist in togetherness. But when both exist then you have to learn a totally new way of life.Buddha will give you the sutra soon. He says:It is hard to live in the worldand hard to live out of it.It is hard to be one among many.He says: It is hard to live in the world… Certainly, hence millions have preferred to escape. He himself had escaped in the beginning – but remember, he did not become enlightened because of his escape. He became enlightened in spite of his escape. He did not become enlightened because he renounced the world; he became enlightened even though he renounced the world. It was in spite of it. It was not the cause of his enlightenment, it did not cause it.Enlightenment is not caused by anything.So when he comes back after his enlightenment to the world, goes to the palace to see his parents – his old father, his old stepmother, his wife, his son – his wife asks one question; she asks Gautam Buddha a very pertinent question. She asks, “Tell me one thing – I have waited long just to ask one thing. Whatsoever you have attained, was it not possible to attain it here in this house? Was it necessary to escape from the palace and from the world and from me and from your child? Was that absolutely necessary to attain it?”And that is the only time when Buddha looks downward without saying anything. His silence is eloquent. He accepts that yes, it was not necessary.He escaped out of the world because it was hard to live in the world. It is hard.“Son, I just know that you will do the right thing by this little girl,” said the preacher. “Just marry her and you will be at the end of your troubles.”So he did the right thing and he married the girl. And about six months later, when he saw the preacher again, he tried to murder him.“You miserable liar!” shouted the young man. “You told me if I married her I would be at the end of my troubles. Well, I married her and she has made my life miserable!”“That may be true, son, but you can’t blame me,” replied the minister. “I said you would be at the end of your troubles, but I never said which end.”To be in the world is hard, to live in the world is difficult, because it is living with so many lunatics. You yourself are a lunatic and everybody else is a lunatic! The world is in such a mess. It simply seems impossible how the good God could manage within six days to make such a mess of the world! There was not time enough – and no woman even to advise him! Still he managed.Those who know say he created Eve only in the end, simply so that she would not give him advice; otherwise in six days it would have been impossible to make the world. She would have interfered in everything: “Do it this way. This is not right.” And since he created Eve he has not created anything else. That was too much. He called it a day and he said, “Enough is enough!” Since then nothing has been heard about him.Shed a tear for the beatnik who committed suicide, leaving a note saying, “Good-bye, cool world.”It is really icy-cold – no warmth anywhere, no love anywhere, no compassion anywhere. It is hard to live in the world and hard to live out of it. And it is not easy to live out of it either; it is even harder to live out of it.Man is in such a dilemma. It is difficult to live in the world, it is difficult not to live in the world. Have you ever tried living in a Himalayan cave? Try for one month, and the world will look so beautiful and so heavenly. You have had a few experiences: it is difficult to live with your wife, but when she goes to her mother’s house for a few days, it is very difficult to live without her. When she is with you, you want to be without her; when she is gone, you immediately want her back.It is going to be so, because the ultimate question is neither to live in the world nor out of it. The ultimate question is to live in a state of wakefulness. If you are living in sleep in the world you will be in misery; if you live outside the world you will be in far more misery.I know both types of people, the worldly and the otherworldly. I know the people who live in the marketplace, and I know the people who have renounced the marketplace, and have moved to the monasteries. Both are in misery, deep misery, for the simple reason that just changing place, just changing your address from the marketplace to the monastery, does not make any difference at all. You are the same person, your consciousness has not changed. And change is needed there. Then you can become the center of the cyclone. Then you can live in the cyclone and yet be undisturbed.But Buddha says that is very rare. It is hard to be one among many. That happens only once in a while. Among millions, only a single person manages to live joyfully wherever he is – in the world or outside the world. Who is that person who can manage to live joyfully? – the one who lives in awareness. That is Buddha’s insistent message.And for the wanderer, how long is the roadwandering through many lives!And how long have you been wandering! When are you going to decide to be awake? You have slept long enough. It is time to wake up and to start a totally new kind of life which is lived from inside. Light a flame inside of awareness, and then wherever you are it is all joy.Let him rest. You need rest, you have wandered enough. You are tired, utterly tired, weary, bored.Let him rest.Let him not suffer.Let him not fall into suffering.The time is right now. Don’t suffer anymore. Don’t fall again and again into suffering. To fall into forgetfulness is suffering; to remember is to come out of suffering. And rest is the most necessary step for remembering, for awareness. Relaxation is the whole art of both meditation and bliss.How can you rest with so many desires? They go on pulling you apart. You can rest only if you learn the secret of desirelessness; if you learn to live moment to moment without any future; if you learn to live without any hope for the future; if you live concentratedly in the present, totally involved in the moment, neither worried by the past nor worried by the future, relaxed, at rest. Then both meditation and bliss are easy, spontaneous growths out of a restful heart, out of a relaxed being.If he is a good man,a man of faith, honored and prosperous,wherever he goes he is welcome.And don’t be worried what will happen to you if you don’t take care of your future. If you don’t plan, if you don’t arrange beforehand, what is going to happen to you? Don’t be worried.Buddha says: If he is a good man, a man of faith… a man who trusts existence, then don’t be worried: …wherever he is he is welcome – at least welcome by those who know, at least welcome by those who understand. And only their welcome is of any worth.Like the Himalayasgood men shine from afar,but bad men move unseenlike arrows in the night.Don’t be worried what will happen to you. You will become so luminous – like the Himalayas – shining from thousands of miles away. You will become so radiant that people will start moving toward you as if you are a great magnet. From far and wide, from all corners of the world, people will start moving toward you, pulled by an unknown force, by a mysterious energy.Don’t be worried about the future, everything will be taken care of. Trust nature. Aes dhammo sanantano: this is the inexhaustible, eternal law. Trust, and nature will shower millions of blessings upon you.Sit. Don’t rush, don’t run. Don’t continually be on the move for this and that. Sit. That’s exactly the meaning of zazen. The word zazen has come from this sutra.Sit.Rest.Work.Zazen means just sitting doing nothing. The first thing to do is learn sitting, a deep restfulness. Become a pool of rest, not even ripples of desire, going nowhere, no ambition – not even for godliness, not even for nirvana.Sit – not only physically: psychologically, spiritually too. Learn to sit, that is zazen. And, Rest – and fall into a deep rest, so the breathing becomes natural, the body becomes cool, all the fever of constant desire and turmoil disappears, evaporates.And then, Work. That work will have a totally different quality. It won’t be out of desire; it will be creativity. It will be because you have so much energy available that you would like to share your energy with the world, that you would like to create something, that you would like to make the world a little more beautiful, a little more blissful, a little more human.Alone with yourself,never weary.And remember the difference between loneliness and aloneness. Never feel lonely. You are never lonely. At the deepest core of your being, God resides; he is always with you. And whenever you are alone, only then will you be able to hear his footsteps. Whenever you are alone, only then will you be able to hear his music, his whisperings. He never shouts, he only whispers. He comes very silently and goes very silently. Be in a deep rest and you become the host; and he is the guest. Godliness is the guest.On the edge of the forestlive joyfully…The forest represents the unknown, the unknowable. On the edge of the forest live joyfully… Be always close to the unknown and the unknowable and don’t be afraid. …live joyfully… because the unknown, the unknowable, is also yours. You belong to it, it belongs to you. …live joyfully……without desire.Don’t ask for anything. Jesus says: “Ask, and it shall be given.” Buddha says: “Ask not, and it shall be given.” Jesus says: “Seek, and ye shall find.” Buddha says: “Seek not, and ye shall find.” Jesus says: “Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you.” Buddha says: “There is no need to knock; the doors are already open.”Why this difference between two enlightened persons? Both are awakened. The difference is because of the audience. Jesus is speaking to very ordinary people; Buddha is speaking to his commune – that is the difference. He can speak the highest truth without any compromise. Jesus cannot. Jesus has to compromise with the listeners.Jesus lived without a commune. Yes, he had a few disciples, twelve disciples – and those twelve disciples were also not of much worth. Buddha had thousands of disciples and of tremendous value – because many of them became enlightened while Buddha was alive. In his commune there were at least one thousand enlightened people, of the same status as he himself was. He could talk in any possible way and it would be understood; there was no worry on his part about being misunderstood. Jesus had to be constantly on guard, and even then he was misunderstood and crucified.Sit. Rest. Work. Let these three words sink deep in your heart. Learn to sit silently, restfully, not fighting with yourself, relaxed. Not in a yoga posture, remember, because the yoga posture is a constant effort. No yoga posture is needed. Sit in any way that you find relaxed – even a chair will do.Buddha used to sit on the floor; that was easy in those days. You can sit in any posture you like. You can use a pillow, a Zen pillow, to sit upon; you can use a chair. The question is not the posture; the question is inner rest.Be at rest. And when energy accumulates in you, start being creative. Paint, sing, dance, or do whatsoever you feel like doing to make this world a little more beautiful, a little more warm.We have to create a paradise on the earth.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Whenever one comes to the absurd, something inside simply explodes and the whole world looks anew. Is it when the absurd becomes overwhelming that one gets an insight into the gestalt of everything?The absurd is nothing but another name of God – and a far more beautiful name than God itself. For centuries the theologians, the philosophers have destroyed the beauty of the word God. They have painted it, polished it, with such rational garbage that it no longer has any life left in it. The God of the philosophers is not the true God because it is nothing but a rational concept.The God of the lovers is a totally different phenomenon; it has nothing to do with reason, with mind. It is the heart pulsating in tune with the whole. It is a song, a symphony. It is a dance, a celebration. It is more poetry than prose. It is more intuitive than intellectual. It is something felt not thought.Hence I say “the absurd” is a far better name for God.The mind has created a subtle structure of rationality around itself to protect the ego, to protect the separation from existence. All rationality is man-made – and God is not man-made. All rationality is just a projection of our own ideas on the screen of existence. And God is not a projection; it is a discovery. To see God one needs eyes absolutely without any idea. The idea is the greatest cloud.One of the greatest mystics of the West – whose name is not known because he has not signed his book – this unknown mystic has written one of the most important mystic treatises ever: The Cloud of Unknowing. He says that it is not through knowledge that you come to know; on the contrary, you come to know by unknowing. This is pure absurdity! It is talking in paradoxes: knowing through unknowing.What does he mean? He means that when all knowledge has been dropped, when all experience has been put aside, when mind as such is no longer functioning, then you relate with existence in a totally new way. Each fiber of your being pulsates with the whole; it is a rhythmic dance. It is absurd – you cannot make a theory out of it.God is not a hypothesis. If God is a hypothesis, then that hypothesis is no longer needed. Far better hypotheses have been proposed by science. But God has never been a hypothesis. It is a passionate love affair with existence. It is feeling the existence. It is being in a heart-to-heart contact with existence.Tertullian is always worth remembering – a great Christian mystic. He says: I believe in God because God is absurd – credo quia absurdum est. The reason that he gives for his belief is that there is no reason to believe.Unless you have something in your life which cannot be supported by reason at all, your life will have no significance. Unless you have something for which you can live and for which you can die without any rational grounds, you will go on missing the very meaning of life and existence. You will remain superficial.Hence the absurd can release something tremendous in you; it can become an explosion. It can make you see the whole world anew, because it is a rebirth. You slip out of the mind. You are no longer covered by the dust of the mind, everything is fresh and new. It is mind which makes things old. Because of memory, past, the mind goes on interpreting everything new in terms of the old. Mind cannot do otherwise. Mind means memory – memory and nothing else. It is your accumulated past experience, and you go on interpreting the new according to the past. Naturally, the past gives its color to the new, it gives its meaning to the new – and the new is missed.That’s why the whole world looks so bored, utterly bored. Existentialists have brought out this situation of boredom as one of the most significant points to be pondered over. They say that man is utterly bored, and they are right. Only stupid people are not bored, or buddhas are not bored. Stupid people are not bored because they don’t have that much sensibility, that much sensitivity to feel boredom. And buddhas are not bored because they don’t carry the past. Everything is so fresh, so new; everything is such a surprise. Every moment you are in for a surprise.For a buddha, life is a continuous revelation, unending revelation. There is no beginning to it and no end to it. It is a mystery; unfathomable, immeasurable, unknown and not only unknown but unknowable too. You can only taste it, feel it, see it, touch it, but you cannot know it. You cannot reduce it to a theorem, to a hypothesis; that is not possible.You are right: if you can have contact with the absurdity of it all, with the irrationality of existence, you are moving into a totally different dimension – moving from mind to no-mind, moving from mind to meditation. That’s what meditation is all about: taking you out of the prison of the mind, the prison of the past. And there is no other prison; the past is the only prison.The man of awareness – the meditator – goes on dying every moment to the past so that he remains new, fresh, childlike. Yes, if the absurd becomes overwhelming, you will have your first insight into the gestalt of everything. But remember again, the insight will not be rational. You will not be able to explain it away. You will not be able to say anything about it. You will be able to see, but suddenly you will become dumb. Suddenly you will find language absolutely inadequate, words impotent; communication is not possible. Then only communion remains.When you know without knowledge, the only way to convey the message is through silence, through love, through compassion, through being. You can hold the hand of your friend and something may transpire. You can embrace your friend and something may transpire. You can just look into the eyes of your friend and something may transpire. The absurd can only be expressed through absurd ways. You can dance or you can sing.There is a beautiful story of a Baul mystic:A very rich man, a goldsmith, came to see the mystic and he asked about God: “Do you believe in God? Is there really a God? Does God exist?”The Baul mystic listened to all his queries smiling, and then he started dancing; playing on his ektara – a one-stringed instrument – he started dancing.The goldsmith said, “Are you mad or something? I am asking great metaphysical questions! Rather than answering me, you start dancing! Are you drunk?”And the mystic said, “That’s true, I am drunk – drunk with the divine! But please don’t misunderstand me, don’t feel offended. This is the only way I can answer your questions.”And he sang a song – a song of tremendous beauty and meaning and insight. He said, “I know that you are a goldsmith. I know that you can judge whether something is made of real gold or not. You have a touchstone on which it can be judged. But it will be absolutely useless if you come into the garden and start judging roses on your touchstone. For the gold it is okay, but for the roses it is not at all relevant. Roses cannot be judged on the touchstone on which gold can be judged. You can’t know through the touchstone whether the roses are true or not true. For that you will need a totally different kind of approach.“I know that you have studied much; you are very interested in philosophical reasoning, argumentation. I have heard about you. But all that reasoning is as absurd here as the touchstone of the goldsmith will be in the garden. I am singing, I am dancing, I am playing music. Feel it! If you can dance with me, come on, dance with me! That may give you some insight into the world where I live. That may give you a touch of the unknown. There is no other way. I cannot logically answer your questions, hence my illogical act.”When Bodhidharma, the great mystic, reached China, the emperor of China had come to welcome him on the border; with thousands of people he had come to receive the great mystic. But he felt very embarrassed seeing Bodhidharma. He had never thought, he could have never imagined, that Bodhidharma would enter China in such an insane way. Bodhidharma was carrying one of his shoes on his head. One shoe was on one foot; the other foot was bare – and the other shoe was on his head!The king asked, “I don’t understand. Why are you carrying one shoe on your head? Shoes are not meant to be carried on the head!”Bodhidharma said, “This is the beginning. If you cannot understand this, then it is better I should go back. You have to understand one thing absolutely: that my approach is absurd. This is just to give an indication of my approach – that I am not a philosopher. You can call me a madman, but I am not a philosopher – and I am going to put things upside down! All that you have thought up to now, I am going to disturb. I will bring a chaos into your being, because only out of chaos stars are born.”It is very difficult to drop reason, because one feels frightened. Reason gives you a sense of order. Reason gone, there is only chaos. But remember, reason is barren; chaos is a womb. Out of that chaos something of tremendous importance is born: you are reborn.Yes, if the absurd can overwhelm you, you will have an insight into the gestalt of everything; an insight which is nontransferable, an insight which is inexpressible. But there are ways beyond words through which it can be communicated.That’s the whole secret of the relationship of a master to a disciple. It is an absurd phenomenon. That’s why the West has not yet known it. The West knows the relationship between a teacher and a student; it knows nothing of the relationship between a master and a disciple. The West is absolutely unaware of that dimension. That’s why Jesus could not be understood, Socrates could not be understood.In the East, crucifying a Buddha has not been our practice; giving poison to Lao Tzu has not been our way. Why were Jesus, Socrates and Mansoor killed? – for the simple reason that they were trying to bring something absolutely Eastern to the West. They were trying to bring a new insight into godliness, and the time was not ripe. Maybe now the time is ripe. Jesus came a little early.Now the time is ripe. Now the West has the possibility to open up a new door – the absurd – and enter through that door. That is the only door to the temple of existence.The second question:Osho,Old habits die hard!It is true, but why? Why do old habits die hard? – because you are nothing but your old habits. If they die, you will die. You don’t have anything more, you don’t have anything plus. You are just your old habits, old patterns. You are a mechanism, not yet a man; that’s why old habits die hard. It is very rare that a man exists, very few and far between.A Buddha is a real man, authentic. A Zarathustra is a real man – a man worth calling a man. The ordinary humanity is just robotlike: it lives unconsciously, it lives mechanically. And habits are all that you have. If you drop all your habits you will simply start evaporating; you will not find yourself at all. What are you? Just watch, and you will find a bundle of old habits. You don’t yet have anything more.That’s the whole effort of meditation: to bring something more to your life which is not a habit, something which is spontaneous, something which is nonmechanical, something which transforms you from a robot into a conscious being.George Gurdjieff used to say that man is not born with a soul. On the surface it appears not believable, because for centuries you have been told by the priests that everybody is born with a soul and you believe in it. It is comfortable to believe that you have a soul. It feels very good, cozy, warm, that deep inside you, you have a soul, eternal, immortal. And Gurdjieff says you don’t have a soul at all. You are just hollow within; there is nothing inside you except habits and habits, a cluster of habits and at the very center there is nobody. The house is empty. The master has not yet come or is fast asleep.Gurdjieff is right: you are only potentially a human being. A possibility is there, but the possibility can be easily missed. And millions of people miss it because to become conscious, to become a soul, arduous effort is needed. It is an uphill task. To remain in your habits is cheap, easy, downhill. Gravitation is enough; it goes on pulling you.It is like when you go downhill in a car, you can turn the engine off. You don’t need any gas to go downhill; the pull of gravitation is enough. But that cannot be done when you are moving uphill; then gas is needed. You will need some integrity, some power. And only consciousness releases power.Consciousness is the key, the ignition key, that releases power in you, and you become capable of soaring high.Otherwise this old saying is right: old habits die hard – because there is nobody who can kill those old habits.At breakfast, Feinberg’s wife said to him, “We are having Sonia’s boyfriend to dinner for the first time. We are gonna have a big meal with our best dishes. So please behave. Don’t eat with your knife, or you will kill her chance of marriage.”That night at supper all went well. Feinberg hardly touched a thing for fear of using the wrong tool. Then coffee arrived. Feinberg took the cup and started to pour his java into the saucer. The family was looking daggers at him. Feinberg kept right on pouring. Finally the saucer was full.Feinberg raised it to his mouth, looked around the table, and said, “One word out of any of you and I will make bubbles!”It is difficult, it is very hard. You have to be conscious, alert, on guard. You have to go on remembering. And remembrance is the most difficult thing in existence.Habits cannot be dropped by fighting against them. That’s what people ordinarily do. If they want to change a habit they create another habit against it to fight with it. They move from one habit into another habit. If you want to drop smoking you start chewing gum; now it is as foolish as the other. You change one habit for another, but you remain the same unconscious person.To drop the habit and not compensate for it, and to remain utterly aware and alert so that you don’t start moving into a substitute is one of the hardest things in life. But it is not impossible; otherwise there would be no possibility of a Buddha, of a Christ, of a Krishna. Because buddhas happen, it is possible – although difficult, very difficult; a great challenge has to be accepted. And all those who have any respect for themselves always accept the challenge of the greatest, the hardest thing.To reach to the moon is not so hard, it is not so difficult. To go to Everest is child’s play compared with constantly remembering what you are doing, being aware. But the day awareness starts happening, you know the ecstasy of being, the bliss of being. You know something which cannot be imagined. It is so vast, it is so inexhaustible!Aes dhammo sanantano. Buddha says: “It is the ultimate law of bliss, of joy, of ecstasy.” And it is inexhaustible; once you enter it, it is forever yours. Jesus calls it the kingdom of God; that is his expression for it. But one has to become alert enough, aware enough, so that one can disidentify oneself with the habits, with the patterns, structures, that have become ingrained in your being.This very rich but very miserly old man is dying, so he calls to his deathbed three men of the cloth – a rabbi, a priest, and a minister.When they arrive he says, “Gentlemen, you know the old saying: you can’t take it with you. Well, taking it with me is precisely what I propose to do. And because of your religious backgrounds, I feel I can trust you. Here, in these three boxes, is the greater part of all my wealth. My dying wish is that each of you places one box in my grave.”All three agree to his request, upon which the dying man distributes the boxes and dies. Sure enough, on the day of the funeral, they all show up and each places a box in the grave. Later on they decide to go to a nearby pub for a drink, where, after a long silence, the priest at last speaks.“Friends,” says the priest, “I am afraid I have a confession to make. I did not put all the money in the grave. What with contributions falling off lately and the church in need of repair, it seemed such a sin not to put some of the money where it will do some good.”Then the minister says, “Father, I am glad you spoke up. As you know, I am the head of several charities. And, likewise, it seemed to me such a sin to just bury all that money. So I too kept some of it, of course a small portion, to help these very worthwhile and needy charities of mine.”After another long silence, the priest and the minister ask the rabbi, who has been looking out the window all this time, what he thinks about their actions.“Well,” says the rabbi, “I must say that I am deeply surprised, not to mention shocked. As a rabbi, respecting the wishes of a dying man, I could only put in the full amount. In fact, I gave him my own personal check!”A Jew is a Jew! Whether he is a rabbi or not does not make much difference: old habits die hard. But they can die. And you have to make all efforts so that they die, because in their death is the beginning of your real life.The third question:Osho,Is the Indian government really so lousy as you were saying the other day?It is not really a question of the Indian government; basically it is the Indian mind. The Indian mind is lousy; the Indian government is only an expression of the Indian mind. And because the Indian mind is lousy, whatsoever it does becomes lousy. For centuries the Indian mind has lived in this state. There is a reason why it has happened.The West is not so lousy; there is a reason for that too. Three religions were born outside of India: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. They are all really offshoots of Judaism; Judaism is the source of them all. Three great religions were born in India: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. They are all offshoots of Hinduism. So, in fact in the world there are only two basic religions: Judaism and Hinduism. And the one basic difference between them is that Judaism believes in one life and Hinduism believes in many lives, in reincarnation. That has made the whole difference.If there is only one life you have to be in a hurry. You have to do everything quick and you have to do everything skillfully so you need not do it again, because time is short. In the West, time is money. Because time is so short – seventy, eighty years… Half of it will be simply wasted in sleep; most of it will be wasted in earning bread and butter, the remaining in looking at the TV. What is left for you? Hence there is a great hurry in the West and a great longing for speed – without ever thinking where you are going. Everybody is going; the only question is that one should go fast. Who cares where? – because who has time to bother about where? The only question is: with what speed are you going?I have heard…An airplane was lost in the clouds. Its many sophisticated machines were not working and the pilot informed the passengers on the telecom, “Don’t be worried. There is bad news and there is good news too. The bad news first: that we don’t know where we are going. The good news: that we are going with such beautiful speed that you need not worry. The speed is perfect.”In the East, Hinduism introduced the idea of reincarnation: many, many lives, millions of lives. There is more time than you need; it is not money at all. Then there is no question of hurry, no question of speed, no question of being skillful. You can do the same thing again and again. You can sleep and let the time pass. If this life goes down the drain there is nothing to worry about: there will be another life and another, and so on, so forth.These two ideas have created two different kinds of people on the earth: the Western mind and the Eastern mind. The two ideas were created for different reasons, but when things reach to the unconscious man he changes them according to his unconsciousness. Both are beautiful ideas that can be of tremendous importance.The idea that there is only one life means that you should not waste it in unnecessary things. Don’t waste it in accumulating money, gadgets; don’t waste it in superficial things. Think of the essential, not of the accidental. That was the message behind it. But what happened? People turned it completely upside down. They became much more interested in the nonessential, because there is not much time, so “Eat, drink and be merry! You are not going to be born again, so have as much as you can have of this world.”That’s what happened in the West. The idea was to make you a seeker for the essential, but it was transformed into its very opposite. It became: “Eat, drink and be merry, because soon you will not be here – and you will not be coming again. Who knows about the other world, and who knows about God, and who knows about heaven? Don’t be bothered with such nonsense, such esoteric nonsense! Be simple, and enjoy this life as much as you can. Live it! Squeeze every moment to your heart’s content.” That’s what became of the great idea that was given by Abraham and Moses to the West.And in the East, the idea that there are millions of lives also had a tremendously significant message. It was to remind you that you have lived many, many times in the same rotten way. You have been moving in a wheel, you have been going in circles. Are you not bored yet? Are you not fed up yet? Are you so stupid that you can’t see the utter futility of it all? Living for so many lives, desiring the same things, succeeding and failing, and dying every time; have you not become aware that something else is needed? This world won’t do, you have to transcend it. This was the idea behind Patanjali, Mahavira, Krishna, Buddha, and their message.Reincarnation simply means: be bored with the whole idea of desiring this and that. Be finished with it. Jump out of this wheel of life and death. But what really happened was totally different, just the opposite. What happened was that India became very lousy, slow. The unconscious mind interpreted the whole message as there is no need to be in a hurry. “There are many, many lives, so why worry? We will think of godliness in old age or in the next life. There is no shortage of time, so go slow.” East has not moved at all; it is stuck. It has become undynamic, dormant, stagnant.This is one of the great calamities that always happens. Whenever a conscious man gives you a certain strategy, a certain idea to help you, you change it according to your mind, and rather than using it as a help it becomes a harmful thing for you. You are given nectar by the buddhas; by the time it reaches you it becomes poison.So it is not really a question of the Indian government; the Indian government is only an expression of the Indian mind. The Indian mind needs a change, just as the Western mind needs a change. Both have gone wrong. I have no preference for either. Both have created misery for humanity up to now.We need a new mind which will not be either Western or Eastern – a new, global mind. For the first time, a universal mind is needed. And for the first time we need a man who thinks not in terms of nations, hemispheres, races, blood, color, religions, but who thinks only in terms of consciousness. We need to raise the consciousness of this whole humanity.India suffers from great lousiness.A guy dies and goes straight up to paradise. Saint Peter stops him at the gate and says, “Sorry, sir, but you can’t come in. You are not registered in the paradise list. You have to go to hell. But as you were not so bad you can choose between the Indian hell or the German hell.”“Well,” says the guy, “before choosing I would like to know what the difference is.”“Okay, I will explain,” says Peter. “The Indian hell is a swimming pool full of shit and you stand in it with shit right above your head and each time you try to put your head out of the shit there is a guard who hits you on the head with his stick till you go back under.”“And what about the German hell?” asks the guy.“The German hell is a swimming pool full of shit and you stand in it with shit above your head and each time you try to get out there is a guard who hits you on the head with his stick.”“So,” says the guy, “I don’t see much difference.”“You know what,” says Peter. “As I am feeling pretty far out today I will tell you something: in the Indian hell there is sometimes not enough shit, or the guard is not there, or he forgets his stick…”The fourth question:Osho,Do you think it is possible to measure love and life in percentages, as you did in the lecture the other day?What other day? I have completely forgotten! My memory is not very good.Harvey was traveling east by train to a business convention in New Orleans. On the train he happened to read an article in the Reader’s Digest about a seventy-five-year-old American Indian from Arizona who was reported to have the longest memory in the world.Since the train was passing within a few miles of this famous Indian, Harvey decided to stop and visit him. Sure enough, he was directed to a large teepee in the middle of an Indian reservation. Inside the teepee an old wrinkled man was sitting cross-legged smoking a pipe.After exchanging a few formalities, Harvey asked, “What did you have for breakfast on December 11, 1908?”The Indian crossed his hands over his chest and grunted, “Eggs!”Harvey was immensely impressed and left to catch his train.Ten years later, while traveling through Arizona, Harvey decided to stop and see if the old Indian was still alive. Sure enough, he was led to the same teepee, but was cautioned to enter very slowly as the old man was very old and must not be startled. Once inside Harvey raised up one hand and greeted him in friendly Indian style, “How!” – upon which the old Indian grunted, “Scrambled!”Now, I don’t have that type of memory!What I can say today I will say; I don’t know about the other day.Love and life cannot be measured in percentages. Nothing can be measured, in fact, because the whole is one and immeasurable. But for certain purposes it is possible to use the method of measurement, but that is only for certain purposes.For example, life cannot be measured, but this can be said: that life exists only between a short range of temperatures – from ninety-eight degrees to a hundred and ten, only twelve degrees. Beyond a hundred and ten and you are finished; fall below the normal and you start slipping. So, there is just twelve, fifteen degrees’ span. For a certain purpose – for a medical purpose – that’s perfectly true.Life cannot be measured if you think of consciousness, but if you think of the mind it can be measured. Your mind is nothing but a biocomputer – and sooner or later, computers will be doing better than your mind. It is possible even in your life, because by the end of this century robots will be walking on the roads – and they will look exactly like you. And many times you will be in trouble: you may think that the man is real or the woman is real, and the woman or the man may be just a robot.Now scientists are thinking to cover the mechanism of the robot with artificial, synthetic skin. They will grow hair and they will behave exactly like you. Only once in a while you will suspect that something is wrong – when their battery goes down. Then “Grrr, grrr, grrr!” Otherwise they will be perfectly okay. Just a moment before the woman was hugging you and saying, “I love you,” and now she says, “Grrr, grrr…” The difference will only be known when the person falls ill: the real one will go to hospital and the robot will go to the factory, to the garage. Then you will know the difference; otherwise there will be no possibility of knowing.In fact, ordinary man is already nothing but a robot. Your unconscious life can be measured in percentages and your love can also be measured in percentages – because what love do you have? It is nothing but chemistry!Yes, the love of a Christ or a Buddha is immeasurable because it is transcendental to the hormones, to the chemistry, to the physiology. But your love is hormonal. Just give an injection of strong hormones and great love arises in you. Take a few hormones out of you, and it falls flat on the ground; all love disappears. Your love can be measured, but it is not love; it is just a biological urge. And your life is a chemical phenomenon. But there is a life behind your life and there is a love above your love that is immeasurable.But neither is my memory very good, nor is my mathematics very good.Killoran was considered by most of the villagers to be the dumbest man in the town. One day he showed up in new clothes and began buying rounds of drinks at the neighborhood saloon. The neighbors wondered what had happened.When one of them finally asked him, Killoran replied, “I won the first prize in a big lottery.”“How did you ever guess the lucky number?”“Well, three times running I dreamed of seven. So I figured it out that three times seven is twenty-four and I bought ticket number twenty-four, and it won.”“Why, you fool, three times seven is twenty-one, not twenty-four.”“You’ve got the education,” said Killoran, “I’ve got the lottery money.”That’s what I would like to say to you: you may know mathematics – you have got the education, I have got the lottery money!The last question:Osho,I have heard that married men live longer than the unmarried. Is it so?Meditate over Murphy’s maxim: married men don’t really live longer. It only seems that way.And why are you worried? I think you must be beyond sixty now. Are you thinking to get married to live longer? It is time to think of something else – time to think of death, not of marriage; time to think of the eternal, not the longer.Even if you live to seventy, eighty, ninety, what does it matter? What will you do? If you live ninety or one hundred years you will do the same stupidities again and again. What have you been doing up to now for these sixty years? You will do the same things even if you are given sixty years more. Think of something new!And death is bound to come. When you die is not important; death is absolutely certain, that is important. After birth only one thing is certain in life and that is death; everything else is uncertain. Don’t try to escape death, don’t try to avoid it. For centuries people have been trying all kinds of ways to avoid death, but death comes all the same. Whether married or unmarried doesn’t matter: you will die. You are dying, in fact. Death does not come suddenly one day; it starts the day you are born. You start dying from the very first breath. Each birthday is a deathday. Your life is slipping out of your hands and you cannot escape.An ancient Sufi parable:One day a rich merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the marketplace to buy food. But after a few minutes the servant returned looking panic-stricken.“Master!” he cried. “You must lend me your best horse immediately, so that I may flee to Damascus and thereby escape my fate.”“Whatever is the matter?” asked the merchant.“I went to the marketplace and I saw Death standing there among the stallholders!” exclaimed the servant. “He made a hostile gesture at me and started walking toward me. I beg you, lend me your best horse so that I may flee to Damascus and escape.”The merchant was a kind man and he did as his servant asked. Then he himself walked down to the marketplace to see if the story was true. Sure enough, Death was standing in the crowd.“Why did you make a hostile gesture at my servant?” asked the merchant.“I made no gesture of hostility,” replied Death. “I was simply very surprised to see him, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Damascus.”You cannot escape. Wherever you go you will find your death waiting for you. Yes, it can be prolonged, postponed, but what is the point? Rather than postponing, why not use this opportunity of becoming aware of death – that it is approaching, that it is on the way, that any moment you will be in its grip. Don’t ask for the horse and don’t try to go to Damascus. You cannot escape. The only way is to transcend, not to escape.You ask me, “I have heard that married men live longer than the unmarried. Is it so?” If it is so, then what? Will you get married? At the age of sixty it will be so stupid. A man of twenty can be forgiven, but you cannot be forgiven.Mr. Goldberg visited the doctor’s office, complaining that he had flying crabs. A lab test was taken, and Mr. Goldberg anxiously waited while the doctor with a sad look came to give him the report. “I am sorry, Mr. Goldberg,” he said, “but those flying crabs we thought you had – well, they turned out to be fruit flies. I am sorry, but your banana is dead.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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One man denies truth.Another denies his own actions.Both go into the darkand in the next world sufferfor they offend truth.Wear the yellow robe.But if you are recklessyou will fall into darkness.If you are reckless,better to swallow molten ironthan to eat at the table of good folk.If you court another man’s wifeyou court trouble.Your sleep is broken.You lose your honor.You fall into darkness.You go against the law,you go into the dark.Your pleasures end in fearand the king’s punishment is harsh.But as a blade of grass held awkwardlymay cut your hand,so renunciation may lead you into the dark.The mother superior of a convent advertised for a cleaner and retired old Cohen applied for the job. Since he was the only applicant, the mother superior had no other choice but to hire him.Six months later the mother called Mr. Cohen to her office and said to him, “Dear Mr. Cohen, we are very, very pleased with your work. You are the first of your faith to be employed by us and I must repeat that we are pleased. You are a conscientious man and the church has never been cleaner. There are, however, three things I feel I should point out to you. Firstly, Mr. Cohen, don’t wash your hands in the holy water. Secondly, don’t hang your coat on the cross. And thirdly, please address me as Mother Superior and not as Mrs. Shapiro.”Man ordinarily is a robot. He lives apparently awake, but not really. He walks, he talks, he acts, but it is all as if in sleep – not conscious of what he is doing, not conscious of what he is saying, not conscious of all that surrounds him. He moves surrounded in a dark cloud of unawareness.According to Gautama the Buddha, this is the original sin: to live unconsciously, to act out of unconsciousness.In fact, the word sin comes from a root which means forgetfulness. Sin simply means that we are not conscious, aware, alert, that we don’t have any inner light to guide us.Buddha talks again and again in these sutras about falling into darkness, but you can fall into darkness only if your inside is full of darkness. Whatsoever is your inside is going to be your destiny. If the inner is full of light, the whole existence is full of light. If the inner is dark, then of course it is nothing but a dark night of the soul all around. You live through your inner core, so whatsoever is the case with your center is going to be reflected by your circumference. The whole world only reflects you, echoes you, resounds you. It is nothing but you multiplied a millionfold. So if you come across ugliness, it must be somewhere inside you. If you meet the enemy, you must have projected it. If you see death, that means something in you is rotten, something in you corresponds to death with which you have become identified.The world is a mirror; it always shows your real face to you. Buddha insists again and again: “Use the world as a mirror, and then go inside and find the cause.” The cause is always in the inner; the effect is in the outer. Don’t be deceived by the effect. Don’t start thinking that the effect is the cause because then you will be leading a life rooted in utter ignorance. The face in the mirror is not the cause; the face in the mirror is only the effect. Don’t try to change the face in the mirror, don’t try to paint it.That’s what we go on doing; that’s what our whole life consists of. We are always trying to look good in the eyes of others; that is trying to look good in the mirror. What are those eyes of others but mirrors? We are always trying to convince others of our goodness, of our truth, of our sincerity, authenticity, religiousness, spirituality. What is the point of convincing anybody? In fact, by convincing others we are trying to convince ourselves. If others are convinced – if the mirror can reflect a beautiful face – then we can be at ease with ourselves. We can also believe that we are beautiful.This is the illusion in which we live, and this is the illusion that the society helps to strengthen. The society feeds it, the society nourishes it. The whole effort of the society is to make the mirror more important than yourself, because then you can be dominated, you can be reduced to slaves. And the mirror is in others’ hands.Somebody says to you, “You are so holy!” If you believe him, if this becomes an ego nourishment for you, unconsciously you have become dependent on that person. Now you will be afraid of him – he can withdraw it any moment. He can say to you any moment, “You are no longer holy.” You have to go on convincing him. You have to behave according to his idea of holiness. If he wants you to fast, you will have to fast. If he wants you to go to church every Sunday, you will have to go to the church every Sunday. If you want to keep your face beautiful in his eyes then you have to follow his ideas of what spirituality means.This is a very subtle slavery and the society uses it. It respects those who become instruments of the society, of the tradition. It respects those who are conformists.Buddha says: “Discover your original face.” Don’t be bothered about the mirror, because mirrors can be made which may show your ugly face as beautiful. You must have seen mirrors of many kinds; they can show different kinds of faces to you. One mirror shows your face very long, another mirror shows your face very fat, another mirror shows your face very thin. They can distort, they can make it ugly, they can make it beautiful too. And the mirror is in the hands of society.Don’t trust the mirrors. Close your eyes and search for your original face. But to close one’s eyes and search for one’s original face is an arduous journey, because in your inner world for centuries, for many lives, you have accumulated only darkness. You are afraid of the inner. You have only a repressed reservoir of unfulfilled desires, greed, anger, lust.Your religions have been telling you to repress, and to repress means you go on piling up inside your being all that the society condemns. Now you will be afraid to go in because you will have to encounter all those ugly things. They are not ugly, but you have been taught that they are ugly and you have been conditioned, hypnotized that they are ugly – and you believe that they are ugly.The first thing for the seeker is to get rid of all these beliefs given by others. A believer can never find the truth.The first sutra:One man denies the truth.Another denies his own actions.Buddha is talking about you, keep on remembering. He is not talking about anybody else, he is addressing you. Otherwise the mind is very clever and cunning. It goes on saying, “He is saying these things to somebody else – you are an exception.” You are not – nobody is. When buddhas speak they speak to the universal, they don’t speak to the exceptional – because, in fact, there are no exceptions. You become exceptional only when you become a buddha, but then you don’t need any buddha to talk to you. Then you don’t need any message from any awakened person. You are awakened.Once it happened…An awakened man, a Sufi mystic, Farid, met Kabir, another awakened man. They sat for two days together in absolute silence. Yes, sometimes they hugged each other and they laughed madly and they danced together, but not a single word was uttered.When the disciples of Farid asked him, “Why for two days continuously didn’t you speak a single word?” he said, “There was no need, because wherever I am, Kabir is also there. We belong to the same dimension, we are bathed in the same light. We are not separate, we only appear separate – on the circumference, from the outside – but our inner beings are at the same point, merging, melting. There is no need to say anything to the other.”And the same was the reply of Kabir to his own disciples. He said, “It would have been foolish to say anything, absolutely foolish, ridiculous. Something has to be said only because you cannot understand silence; if you can understand silence, then what is the need of words? What is the need of language? Between two buddhas, language is irrelevant. Silence is so beautiful, so tremendously beautiful, so deep, so profound, so expressive, so eloquent, what is the need of words? But words are needed because you cannot understand anything else.”It is out of compassion that buddhas have spoken – compassion for those who can only understand language. And language is a poor thing, very poor, very inadequate. Remember it, then slowly you can find something in these sutras – not exactly in the words, but between the words; not exactly in the lines, but between the lines, in the gaps, in the intervals, some glimpses, some taste of silence, some perfume.One man denies truth. How do people deny truth and why? First, their lies have become their investments. Watch your own life. You have invested so much in your lies, you would not like to know the truth, because the truth will shatter all your palaces, all your dreams. The truth will shatter all that you have believed up to now. You know deep down in your heart that you are living in lies, but they are beautiful, they are nice, they are cozy, and you have lived in them so long that it seems difficult to live without them.There is an ancient Sufi parable…A man gave to a Sufi mystic a present, a golden bowl with a beautiful fish in it. The Sufi looked at the bowl and the fish and felt very sorry for the fish, because the bowl was an imprisonment.He went to the lake and he was tremendously happy in liberating the fish. He threw the fish into the lake. He was happy that at least now the fish could have the whole lake, the great freedom, the space that really belonged to her. A golden bowl – although it is golden it is a confinement.Then he thought, “What to do with this bowl?” So he also threw the bowl into the lake.The next morning he went to see how the fish was. He was surprised: the fish was in the bowl and the bowl was in the lake. What had happened to the fish? She had again chosen the bowl. Now the bowl was in the lake, but the fish was not in the lake; the fish had entered the bowl again. She has lived so long in it, it was her home. The mystic thought it was a prison, but not the fish; she may have been afraid of the freedom.People become very afraid of freedom, more afraid than of anything else. You will be surprised to know that people talk about freedom, but when freedom is really given to them they become afraid, frightened, scared, because freedom is vast, unmanageable, uncontrollable. You cannot dominate it. Slavery is small, it is smaller than you. You feel good with it – you seem big compared to your slavery. But compared to your freedom you are nobody, a nonentity, a nothingness. And who wants to be a nothingness? Everybody wants to be somebody; even though one has to live in a prison, one is ready… If you can be made the head of the prisoners – a president, a prime minister, or something like that – you would like, would love to live in the prison rather than be free and nobody.The first requirement for attaining to truth is the capacity to be free, the capacity to be nobody. The ego is the greatest barrier. The ego can exist only in a golden bowl; it can’t exist in a lake. It is bound to melt, merge and disappear.Lies are good for the ego. In fact, the ego is the greatest lie; it feeds on other lies. But truth has a way of coming up again and again. Howsoever repressed, truth surfaces, because it is truth; you can repress it only for the time being. And to repress truth you will have to be constantly on guard. Of course you will get tired, you will need a little rest, and whenever you rest the truth surfaces. The truth comes in your life again and again; you can go on denying it, but it never denies you. You can deny God, but God never denies you.Friedrich Nietzsche declared: there is no God. God is dead. But God remained silent. He didn’t become annoyed; otherwise he would at least have shouted.I have heard about an atheist, Diderot, who used to argue against God. He had a special argument. In front of an audience he would take out his pocket watch and would say that it is such a time – eight thirty: “Now if there is a God and if you are almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, then you must be here, because you are everywhere. And if you are really there, do just one thing: stop this watch, even for five minutes, and that will be enough proof of your existence.”He used that argument his whole life. People would wait without breathing: “Maybe God is going to do something.” But God never stopped his watch, not even once.You can go on denying God, but God never denies you. You can go on refuting truth, but truth never refutes you. Your denial does not become an irritation; your denial is only a childish act. Truth goes on again and again visiting you; it never tires of you. And if you watch your life, you will be surprised in how many ways it comes.Bobby’s mother had been away for a few weeks and was questioning her small son about events during her absence.“Well, one night we had a thunderstorm and I was scared, so daddy and me slept together.”“Bobby,” said the boy’s pretty young French nursemaid, “you mean daddy and I.”“No,” said Bobby, “that was last Thursday. I am talking about Monday night.”Truth has its own ways. It may speak through your child, it may speak through a flower, it may speak through a sunray, it may speak through a distant call of the cuckoo. It has different ways of approaching you. Unless you are absolutely deaf, and nobody is absolutely deaf; unless you are absolutely blind, and nobody is absolutely blind… You recognize it, but still you go on denying. You go on avoiding it. You don’t want to look at it. You escape; you know ways to escape from it, although your escapes are not of much value. In fact, in escaping you also emphasize truth.Grace and Martha were from a very prim and proper Eastern finishing school, and they were spending their vacations together in New York. They met a bohemian artist and at one of his exhibitions Grace noticed that a canvas of a provocative nude bore a striking resemblance to her girlfriend.“Martha,” she gasped, “that painting looks exactly like you! Don’t tell me you have been posing in the nude.”“Certainly not,” Martha stammered, blushing furiously. “He must have painted it from memory.”Even your escapes emphasize something from which you are escaping. There is really no way to escape from truth. There is no way to run away from truth because wherever you run, truth is there; in whatsoever direction you run, truth is there.Buddha says: One man denies the truth. The first and the most fundamental way of denying the truth is to believe in certain systems. Systems of belief are the most cunning ways of denying the truth. One is a Hindu, another is a Mohammedan; one is a Christian, another is a Jew. These are all ways of denying the truth. Rather than seeking and searching, rather than inquiring, you believe. Belief means you have borrowed it from others, who had borrowed it from others and so on, so forth. Belief means it is not your experience – and unless it is your experience it is not truth.But belief can give you a very deceptive feeling that you know. The Mohammedan, the Christian, the Jaina, the Buddhist all think they know. And what is the cause of their feeling? – they have learned from scriptures, from priests. Like parrots they have become efficient in repeating – beautiful words, logical systems but all is speculation, guesswork. All is imitation. They have not known a single truth in their lives – because a single truth is enough to deliver you.Jesus says: “Truth liberates.” But remember one thing which he has not said – or maybe he said it and it has not been reported in the gospels: truth certainly liberates, but the truth has to be your own. Only then it liberates. If it is somebody else’s it creates only a new bondage, a beautiful bondage: golden chains, maybe, studded with diamonds, very valuable, difficult to lose because you don’t think in terms of chains; you think they are ornaments. Beliefs are chains, not ornaments.A believer is the ugliest person in the world because his belief becomes a barrier into inquiry. I am not saying to become disbelievers, because disbelief is again belief from another side, from the negative side. Belief and disbelief are two aspects of the same coin. Don’t be a theist and don’t be an atheist.The real inquirer remains an agnostic. He remains open, he has no conclusions. He says, “I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” He remains available. The moment you have conclusions you become unavailable to truth; conclusions close you. The moment you have a priori prejudices, how can you know truth? You have already concluded, you have already accepted certain beliefs; they will be like clouds in front of your eyes. Your eyes are no longer empty, clean, mirrorlike; they can’t reflect that which is, they can only distort. They will distort according to your belief.So when the Hindu comes to experience God he sees Krishna with his flute. A Christian never sees that; that’s strange. A Christian always sees Christ on the cross; a Hindu never sees that. That’s strange! A Jaina will never see Krishna, Rama, Christ – no, not at all; and a Buddhist will never see Mahavira, Mohammed, Moses. They all see their own belief. The phenomenon is very simple: you see whatsoever you project. Your mind functions as a projector. You don’t see that which is, you see that which you want to see.Avoid beliefs. Drop all beliefs, Catholic or Communist. Don’t believe in Kaaba, or Kashi or the Kremlin. Don’t believe in the Bible or the Gita or the Koran or Das Kapital. Avoid all beliefs. Remain clean, empty.That’s what meditation is all about: a state of silence, a state of no prejudice, a state of no belief. And then you are very close to truth. It suddenly explodes upon you, and its explosion is such a blessing that you cannot imagine it unless you have experienced it. There is no way to imagine it. Buddhas have been talking down the ages, but still you cannot imagine it. It is unimaginable because it is inexpressible – but it can be experienced. It is experienceable but not expressible.First you will have to be ready to drop the ego, because the ego can live only in lies. Secondly, you will have to drop belief systems because belief systems distort; they never allow things to be known as they are. And thirdly, you will have to drop your mind, because mind is a constant occupation with the past and the future, and truth is always in the present. Truth has no past, no future. Truth is always here, always now – and you are never here and never now. Whenever you are also now and here, there is a meeting; then something transpires. Between you and the whole a bridge suddenly happens. In fact, the bridge has always been there, you were just not aware of it.Bring your consciousness to the present. Don’t go on wandering into the past, in the jungles of the past, in the memories. Howsoever beautiful they are, they are dead – they are no more. And don’t go on great journeys into the future, because whatsoever you desire in the future is never going to happen. Existence has no obligation to fulfill your desires. Existence has no obligation to follow your projections into the future. Whatsoever you desire is going to be wrong.When you are not there to desire, then existence starts guiding you into the ways of truth, into the ways of Tao, dhamma. Aes dhammo sanantano: this is the inexhaustible law. Drop the mind and you are possessed by the whole; cling to the mind and you remain as far away from the whole as one can be. The moment you drop the mind you start becoming alert and aware. It is mind that is your sleep. You are sleeping either in the past or in the future: both are ways of sleeping.When I say, “Wake up!” again and again, when Buddha says, “Wake up!” a simple phenomenon is indicated: come to the present.Mrs. Weissman lived in the thirtieth-floor penthouse of her Park Avenue building. Every day when she went up or down in the elevator, Manelli the elevator man would see her making the sign of the cross. After watching this for several days he could not resist asking her if she was Catholic. She replied, “Definitely not. I am Jewish.”“I no understand,” said Manelli. “If you Jewish why you cross yourself every time you get in and out of the elevator?”“Cross myself!” barked Mrs. Weissman. “Don’t be ridiculous! I am checking to see if I have my tiara, my brooch, my clip… My clip!”People are living in absolute unawareness. Even if they are checking, it is through a deep, deep layer of sleep. They are somnambulists. Everybody is in a kind of psychedelic state.One man denies the truth. Another denies his own actions. And if you deny the truth you are bound to deny your actions too, because unless you are conscious you cannot take responsibility for your actions.There are a thousand and one ways to deny your actions. In the past, people used to say, “It is karma.” Now that disease has gone to the West; now in the West people are saying, “It is karma. What can we do? It had to happen. It was predetermined by a past life.” That is simply a way of denying your action, of shirking from responsibility.In the past, people used to say, “It is fate, kismet. What can we do? God has already written it; we are just puppets in his hands. If he wants us to be a murderer, we are a murderer; if he wants us to be a thief, we are a thief.” Cunning, tricky minds!Now those old ideas are no longer relevant, they have become outdated; we have found new ones. Karl Marx says, “You are not responsible. It is the society, the social structure, the economic structure, it is capitalism. You are not responsible.” It is again fate in new words, in modern language, in contemporary jargon. Karl Marx is a fatalist.And then there is Sigmund Freud who is even more sophisticated than Karl Marx, even more clever. He gives you new ideas. It is the unconscious which is responsible, not you. If you do something, what can you do? – it is beyond your capacity to avoid it. It is coming from the unconscious, from the dark layers of your being. You have no access to those dark layers. And Sigmund Freud says there is no way to change it; man is a hopeless project.According to Sigmund Freud, man is bound to live in misery; at the most we can help him to live more comfortably in misery. We can make him accept the misery so he will be a little more comfortable. We can make the misery a little more convenient by giving him good explanations so he is not so disturbed; otherwise there is no hope. Man is determined by unconscious forces.These are just new ways of saying the old things: karma, fate, God. The idea of predetermination has dominated unconscious man up to now.It is only once in a while that a buddha says, “Accept your act as your own and don’t escape from the responsibility, because escaping from responsibility means you will never be free of it.” And you can be free of it. Be responsible, whatsoever is the case, good or bad. Remember, except you, no one else is deciding about it.If you are living in misery it is your decision. It hurts, of course, to think “I am living in misery out of my own decision.” But if you observe a little more silently, this will give you great freedom. In the beginning it hurts; otherwise it is the harbinger of a new consciousness. If I am creating my hell it implies that I can create my heaven too. If I am the cause of my darkness I can be the cause of my light too. I can be a light unto myself. The very idea that “I am solely and wholly responsible for my actions” is a deliverance.Buddha says:Both go into the dark…The man who denies truth because of the ego, because of belief systems, because of the mind wandering in the past and the future, or the man who denies his actions either because of karma or fate or social structure or the unconscious, both go into the dark… They are missing the opportunity of becoming light; they are choosing darkness.…and in the next world sufferfor they offend truth.And whatsoever you do here and whatsoever you are here, is going to be the cause, the continuity, in the next world too – because the next moment is born out of this moment and the next life is born out of this life. Life is a continuum. Death does not create any discontinuity; you remain continuous. By death you simply change your house; you are the same person. You can come from the hut to the palace, from the palace to the hut. You can move from one city to another city, from one planet to another planet, from man to woman, from woman to man. You can go on changing your houses, but you, the real consciousness inside, the real self remains always the same.So if you are creating darkness here, remember: this darkness will hang around you in the next world too. So you are not only destroying this life, you are creating wrong foundations for the next life too. Beware of it.…and in the next world suffer for they offend truth. The whole cause of suffering is offending truth. What does he mean by “offending truth”? Whenever you deny a truth because of your prejudices, whenever you avoid taking responsibility for your actions, you are offending truth. And by offending truth you are offending the universal law. You are falling apart. You are becoming a separate entity enclosed within yourself. You are no longer part of the whole. You will suffer.Suffering means going against the universal law and bliss means going in tune with the universal law. Bliss is nothing but harmony with the whole and suffering is discord.Wear the yellow robe.But if you are recklessyou will fall into darkness.Read instead: Wear the orange robe. But if you are reckless you will fall into darkness. Buddha had chosen the yellow robe just as I have chosen the orange. He chose it for a certain reason. The orange robe had been the robe of the sannyasin before Buddha; it is the ancientmost robe of the sannyasin. Buddha dropped it and chose instead the yellow robe for the simple reason that sannyas, the very idea of sannyas, had gone wrong, and he did not want to associate with it. And because he wanted to emphasize death and he wanted you to remember death again and again – because death can bring awareness to your life – he chose yellow.Yellow is the color of death: the color of the yellow leaf, the color of the setting sun, the color of the dying man’s face. Yellow is the color of death. Orange is the color of life, of youth, of love. Orange, in the East, is the color of spring, when all the trees bloom and birds sing and bees hum and there is fragrance all over. The whole climate is full of youth, freshness, rejuvenation.Buddha emphasized death to make you aware, but now twenty-five centuries have passed and much dust has gathered on Buddha’s ideas. Just as orange had become meaningless in Buddha’s time, now the yellow robe has become meaningless.I have again chosen orange, and with a totally new vision. The old orange sannyasin was a renunciate. My sannyasin is not an escapist; he lives in the world, but lives with such skill and art that he remains transcendental to it.But it is not only a question of the robe. You can change the robe to orange or yellow or whatsoever. Unless you become heedful, unless you start listening to the buddhas, to their message… And their message is simple and very short: Wake up! It can be condensed into only these two words. If you don’t listen to their message: …if you are reckless you will fall into darkness.It is not a question of formality, it is not a question of ritual. Buddha was as much against ritual as I am, he was as much against formality as I am; hence I feel a tremendous affinity with him. Twenty-five centuries simply disappear between me and him; we become contemporaries.A pregnant woman was told that if she wanted her child to behave in a certain way, she should say every day, “I want my child to be so-and-so…” This would condition the fetus and the child would be born already having this trait.She had noticed how hard it was to teach children manners, so every day without fail she said, “I want my child to be polite.”She was pregnant for nine months, then ten and eleven and for years she went on being pregnant. Finally she died without having given birth. The doctors did an autopsy on her body, and when they cut her open they found two little old men bowing to each other and saying, “After you!”We are not interested in such formality; otherwise you will never be born. We are interested in the essential, not in the accidental. We are interested in the intrinsic, not in the incidental. And the robe is accidental – orange, yellow, green.The essential is awareness.…if you are reckless… says Buddha,…better to swallow molten ironthan eat at the table of good folk.If you are reckless, unaware, if you go on living heedlessly, without listening to all these awakened ones, you will suffer much more than you can suffer by swallowing molten iron. Beware! You are creating suffering every moment. By being unaware you create suffering; by being aware you create bliss.If you court another man’s wifeyou court trouble.Your sleep is broken.You lose your honor.You fall into darkness.What to say of another man’s wife? – one’s own wife is trouble enough, or for that matter, one’s own husband. Buddha is saying: “Are you not yet aware of the phenomenon? Is not your wife enough to make you aware? Is not your own husband enough to be finished with this game?”But the mind goes on saying, “Maybe this woman is not good; some other woman may be good. Who knows? It didn’t fit with this woman; I may be happy with another.” And you cannot be happy with anyone. Happiness has nothing to do with the other; happiness is something that you have to create inside you. And you go on asking for trouble. Whenever you depend for your happiness on the other you ask for trouble. Dependence is trouble: …you court trouble.The other is hell, and depending on the other you become a slave. Your sleep is broken. Your peace is lost, your rest is gone. Your whole life becomes a constant disturbance, because you are trying to exploit the other and the other is trying to exploit you.You lose your honor, your grace, your beauty, your sincerity. Buddha does not mean respectability; by “honor” he means grace.You go against the law,you go into the dark.The law is that bliss or misery, both arise in the innermost core of your being. Nobody can give you bliss or misery. You need not go to anybody; you are enough unto yourself. Just go in. Dive deep in your consciousness.And the more conscious you become, the more full of light your life is, more and more benediction goes on showering on you. The darker you are, the more unconscious, the more misery is bound to happen.Your pleasures end in fearand the king’s punishment is harsh.Buddha calls the ultimate law “the king.” The punishment is harsh, but you are responsible. The law is not cruel; the law is simply law. It is just like gravitation: if you walk rightly, gravitation cannot punish you. It is not interested in punishing you, it helps you to walk. But if you drink too much, if you become a drunkard and you walk, you fall on the ground and you break your leg. Can you blame the law of gravitation? The law of gravitation is simply there. If you go against it, you will be punished; if you follow it, you will be benefited.But as a blade of grass held awkwardly…Even such a soft thing, a blade of grass, held awkwardly……may cut your hand…It all depends on you. If you are conscious you can hold a sword and it will not cut your hand; if you are unconscious, even a blade of grass may cut your hand.…so renunciation may lead you into the dark.A tremendously important saying. Buddha says: “Even renunciation, taken unconsciously, is not going to help. You can become a sannyasin out of fear, you can become a sannyasin out of greed. These things are not going to help. Unless you become a sannyasin out of awareness, nothing is going to help.”People become religious for wrong reasons, and you cannot be religious for wrong reasons. And the person who lives rightly need not be religious: he is religious already.Perlman made millions in the bakery business. While on a visit to Rome he went to see the pope and made a huge donation to the church.The pope was very pleased and said, “Mr. Perlman, is there anything I can do to show my appreciation?”“Yes, Your Holiness,” answered the baking magnate. “Could you make a little change in the Lord’s Prayer?”“Ah, Mr. Perlman,” frowned the pope, “I am afraid that would not be possible. The Lord’s Prayer is repeated daily by millions of Christians.”“I know,” said Perlman, “but I only want a small change. Where it says, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ just make it, ‘Give us this day Perlman’s pumpernickel bread.’”Now, that great donation to the church has nothing to do with religion, it has nothing to do with charity; it is business, pure business.And that’s what people are doing. They donate to the poor, they serve the poor, to go to heaven. It is an investment, it is not service. Unless you are conscious, whatsoever you do is going to be wrong. In Buddha’s definition, wrong means a thing done unconsciously and right means a thing done consciously. It has nothing to do with the thing itself but with the quality of consciousness through which it happens.A Catholic priest took his new assistant to the hospital for the first time. The novice priest walked into an intensive care room and went up to a man in bed under an oxygen tent.“I am here to help you in any way I can,” he said. There was no response from the patient so again the priest offered his help. Still no response. Then suddenly the patient grabbed a pencil and paper and furiously began writing, after which he fell back dead.The priest took the note and excitedly ran out of the room crying, “Father, Father! I got my first confession!” The father looked at the note and read, “Get off the oxygen hose, you sonofabitch!”Buddha was perfectly aware that many people were becoming sannyasins in his day – as it has always been – for wrong reasons. Somebody was poor, somebody was a thief and the king was after him, somebody had committed murder and he wanted to hide and to be a sannyasin was the best place to hide.But as a blade of grass held awkwardly may cut your hand, so renunciation may lead you into the dark. Renunciation has not to be done for any motive. Sannyas has to be out of the sheer joy of being a sannyasin. Just as art is for art’s sake, so sannyas is for sannyas’ sake. Then it has tremendous beauty, and then it brings bliss, it brings paradise to you. Do whatsoever you want to do, but do it consciously. To be conscious is to be a sannyasin.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,If by any chance I might not get enlightened this lifetime, how can I make sure that I will be a woman in my next life? It seems such a juicy existence.The first thing to be remembered is that nobody ever gets enlightened. Enlightenment is your nature; you are already it. It is not something to be achieved, it is not a goal to be reached. It is the source, not the goal. In the innermost core of your being you are all buddhas, and you have always been so, and you will always remain so.Yes, you have forgotten it. So the question is not of realizing it, the question is only of remembering it. Hence Buddha says: “Be more mindful, be more alert, be more watchful.” Nothing else has to be done, one has nowhere to go, no pilgrimage is sacred. All pilgrimages are just going astray. You are already there where you want to be; just look within, just turn in, tune in. This is the first thing to be remembered, that it is not a question of achievement.You say, “If by any chance I might not get enlightened this lifetime…” There is no chance at all of missing it. It is impossible to be other than enlightened. It is your self-nature, your very being. This whole existence is enlightened.Then what is the difference between a buddha and you? The difference is very simple. It has nothing to do with your quality. Your quality is exactly the same as that of Gautama the Buddha, or Jesus Christ, but you are asleep and they are awake. They know where they are, who they are, and you are dreaming. But one can come out of the dreams; dreams cannot hold you, dreams can’t hinder you.Dreams are dreams, they have no substance in them. They can’t prevent you from becoming awake. Dreams, desire, sleep, are all like darkness. When you light a candle, the darkness cannot prevent it. The darkness may be very ancient, it may have existed for millions of years and the candle may be fresh and just a small candle, but that’s enough. Light has a positive existence. Darkness has no existence at all; it is only absence of light. You can wake up any moment, the candle can be lit any moment, and all dreams and desires will disappear; hence devices have been invented.What Buddha says, Patanjali says, Lao Tzu says, is that these are only devices to wake you up, alarms and nothing else.Secondly, whether you want it or not, if you remain asleep next lifetime you are going to be a woman. Even if you don’t want it, it is going to happen. There is a simple law. This is my observation of many people’s past lives, this is how mind functions, this is very fundamental to the mind: it always moves to the opposite end. If you are rich the mind thinks poverty is religious, spiritual; it has something of innocence in it, and “Look how the poor are free from anxiety, and how the beggar sleeps soundly. I have got everything and I cannot sleep, I cannot rest, not even a moment’s rest: continuous worry, anxiety…”The rich man always thinks that the poor are really in a better space than he is. It is the rich people who have given the idea that poverty is spiritual. You will be surprised, take note of it, that all the tirthankaras, all the great masters of the Jainas were kings. Buddha himself was a king. All the avatars of the Hindus – Rama, Krishna – were kings. It is because of these rich people that a deep idea has prevailed down the ages that poverty is spiritual.There is nothing spiritual in being poor, there is nothing spiritual in being rich either. The poor man thinks that the rich people are enjoying real life. Hence the poor man projects: if he cannot be rich in this life, then let it be next life; if not in this world, then let it be in the other world. It is the poor man’s projection – paradise, heaven, where he dreams that he will be rich, and he will have all that rich people have. Not only that, the poor man also dreams that no rich man will ever be able to reach heaven, they will be thrown into hell: “They have enjoyed enough here, now they have to suffer for it. And I have suffered enough here so I have to be rewarded.”Jesus is a poor man, he is not like Krishna, Buddha and Mahavira. Krishna, Buddha and Mahavira have not said that no rich man can enter into paradise. Jesus says: “Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but the rich man cannot enter through the gate into heaven.” He is a poor carpenter’s son; he knows what poverty is. And because of that poverty he speaks a totally different language than Buddha.In India the idea has prevailed for centuries that if you are rich, it is because of your past lives’ good karmas that you are rich now. And Jesus says: “Rich people cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” He says: “Those who are the first here will be the last there, and those who are the last here will be the first.” It is not an accident that Christianity goes on spreading in poor countries; it has an appeal for the poor. It is not an accident that Communism is a by-product of Christianity.The East has not given birth to Communism, it could not have done it. And whenever a country becomes rich, remember, it will start becoming Buddhist, it will start becoming more and more Hindu. It is not an accident that America is so interested in Eastern wisdom. Whenever a society is affluent it starts thinking in a different way than a poor country thinks.My observation is that if you are a man in this life, you must have been a woman in your past life, and if you are a woman in this life you must have been a man. That’s how the pendulum of mind moves from one extreme to the other. Every man thinks – not only you – that the existence of a woman is beautiful, it is juicy. But ask the woman: she desires to be a man. Deep down she feels humiliated that she is a woman, a second-class citizen. Deep down she herself wants to behave like a man.Women all over the world are trying in every possible way to behave like men. They are wearing men’s clothes, smoking cigarettes like men, and whatsoever they can do. They use language like men have always used it, becoming arrogant, aggressive, losing the feminine quality. Look at the women of the liberation movement: they have lost something – something soft, feminine, receptive, passive, is no longer there. They are aggressive, violent. They can’t wait for another life. In this very life they are in a hurry, they want to become like men. They want the same jobs, the same kind of work, the same kind of freedom. Even if that freedom is just stupid, even if that job is hard, they want to prove that they can manage it, that they are not less than men. Their next life they are bound to be born as men.So don’t be worried about that. You will be a woman, watch out! Don’t tell me then that you weren’t warned. I am giving you a warning. And what do you mean by “juicy existence”?It appears to you through the eyes of a man that the woman is beautiful; through the eyes of a woman the man is beautiful. This is a biological attraction. That’s why two women cannot tolerate each other; it is impossible to find women friends. They are very jealous of each other, suspicious of each other. They cannot trust other women; they know too much about the woman’s heart, about the woman’s mind. They can’t see any beauty. In fact, they cannot believe what man goes on seeing in women. There seems to be nothing. To a woman there is nothing, just as to a man there is nothing in man. It is the biological attraction, chemical attraction.And the last thing: it seems you are not much acquainted with women. Become a little more acquainted. Suffer a little with women, let them torture you a little more, and then you will forget all this nonsense.A man had decided to take a trip with his eighteen-year-old daughter. “Hey, how about me?” his wife exclaimed.“Oh no,” the man said. “You and your big mouth are not going on any vacation with me. I got enough of your big mouth all year long. I am taking our daughter and that’s all.”So off they went. The train on which the man and his daughter rode was held up by robbers. They lost everything. “I’m ruined!” the man said. “Everything I own is gone!”“No, Papa,” the daughter said, “I saved the jewelry. The minute I saw the robbers coming, I took my rings, my diamonds and my bracelet and put them in my mouth.”“That’s marvelous,” said the father. “If your mother was here, we could have saved the suitcase.”The second question:Osho,What is the use of esoteric teachings and spiritual knowledge? How can I find out if they are true or not?Esoteric teachings are only for fools. Fools are very much interested in anything they cannot understand. The idea of a foolish mind is that anything it cannot understand must be very mysterious, must be very superior, must belong to higher planes.A really religious person has nothing to do with esoteric nonsense – with theosophy, with anthroposophy, and with so many Lobsang Rampas and all kinds of nonsense that goes on being written. It must be fulfilling some people’s needs: just as a few people like detective novels, a few others are interested in esoteric knowledge.There is nothing esoteric in existence. Existence is nude, naked; nothing is hidden.Once Buddha was asked, “Have you said everything, or is there something esoteric which you have not said?”Buddha showed his hand – an open hand – and he said, “I am like an open hand, not like a fist.”And so is existence – like an open hand, not like a fist. It hides nothing; all is there, all around you. Existence is overflowing, and you are pondering over esoteric things – seven planes or seventeen, seven hells and seven heavens. And the more complicated is the system, the more appeal it has.Theosophy is more or less sheer nonsense, but it attracted thousands of people around the world. It became a great world movement. People were talking of hidden masters, guides, astral, ethereal… And in Madam Blavatsky’s room letters used to drop from the ceiling – letters from hidden masters who live in the Himalayas. Later on it was found that a man used to hide there on the roof and he used to drop those letters. The man himself confessed in court: “My whole work was that whenever a session of the theosophists would be there and they would wait with closed eyes and pray for masters, hidden masters, to guide them, I had instructions from Madam Blavatsky what letter to drop. Those letters were written by Madam Blavatsky.” They were examined later on by experts and it was proved that they were written by Blavatsky herself. But she fooled people for years.You ask me, “What is the use of esoteric teachings and spiritual knowledge?” To fulfill the demands of the fools, that is the use. And there is no spiritual knowledge at all.Spirituality is an experience, not knowledge. You cannot reduce it to knowledge; it is always knowing, never knowledge. It is an insight, irreducible into words. You cannot put it into theories, into systems of thought; that is impossible. And those who try to do it don’t know anything; only then can they do it. This is a strange phenomenon: those who know never try to reduce their knowing to knowledge; and those who don’t know are absolutely free, they can create any knowledge, it is their invention.All spiritual knowledge is an invention of the mind. Real spiritual knowing happens only when the mind is dropped, when you are in a state of no-mind.And you ask me, “How can I find out if they are true or not?” Why should you be worried? Rather try to find out who you are. That’s the only real religious question, the only quest. “Who am I?” That’s enough; no other questions are significant. Avoid all other jargon – spiritual, religious, theological, esoteric. Avoid all jargon. Just stick to a simple quest: “Who am I?” That’s enough. If you know yourself you have known all; if you don’t know yourself you may know everything in the world, but it is of no use. It is unnecessary burden and bondage.Clarence and Lulu were sitting on the front porch in Kentucky on a warm summer evening, holding hands.Lulu turned to Clarence and said, “Clarence, say something soft and mushy.”And Clarence embarrassedly turned to Lulu and said, “Ah, shit!”That’s what esoteric knowledge is – soft and mushy!The third question:Osho,You told us the story of Krishna and Arjuna. But is there no value in resisting war in a time where a handful of madmen play with atomic bombs?How can you resist those few madmen who are playing with atom bombs? What will your strategy of resistance be? In fact, your resistance may bring the war sooner than otherwise; your resistance is not going to prevent it.The only thing that can prevent a world war is that you start a totally new consciousness, that you start a new kind of humanity; that you start a man who is capable of love, a man who is capable of meditation. Let love and meditation spread far and wide. Let meditation reach to as many people as possible. Except that, all your efforts at resistance are impotent.You can protest and you can go on a long march, but have you ever watched the protesters, the people who are against war, the pacifists? Have you watched their processions? They look so aggressive, they themselves look mad! If they had atom bombs, just to protect peace they would be the first to drop the atom bombs. They are as mad as the other party; there is no difference at all. Their minds are as political as the people who are in power; the only difference is that they are not in power. And you can see their anger, their pent-up anger, on their faces, in their slogans.Every peace protest ends in a fight with the police, with the military. It ends in burning buses, post offices, police stations, cars. What kind of love is this and what kind of resistance is this? It is impotent! But they feel they are doing something great. It is an ego trip and nothing else.The meek little bank clerk had his suspicions. One day he left work early and sure enough, when he arrived home, he found a strange hat and umbrella in the hallway and his wife on the couch in the arms of another man.Wild for revenge, the husband picked up the man’s umbrella and snapped it in two across his knee.“There, now, I hope it rains!”What can you do? Yes, you can shout and you can go on a long march with great posters, and it will give you a certain satisfaction because your pent-up energies will be released. It is a kind of catharsis. Unknowingly, you are doing Dynamic Meditation – but it would be better if you do it knowingly.Yes, war has come to a point where it can destroy all of humanity, and not only humanity but the whole earth. Life as such can be destroyed. What can we do?Scientific knowledge has gone far ahead of man’s spiritual growth; that is the problem, the real problem. Who are these madmen you are talking about? Are they any different from you? Richard Nixon, Brezhnev, Ayatollah Khomeini – are they different people from you? Maybe there is some quantitative difference, but there is no qualitative difference. If you came into power you would prove the same. And these people were once not in power; they were also just like you. When they are in power, then their real faces show up.Lord Acton says: “Power corrupts.” It is not true. Power never corrupts, but corrupted people are attracted toward power. Of course, without power they cannot show their real faces. Power only gives them the right context in which they can reveal their heart’s reality. Power does not corrupt, it only reveals the truth. Powerless people may not look mad because they cannot afford to be mad. Give them power and then you will see: they are as mad as anybody else.I don’t see any difference between warmongers and pacifists; they are the same kind of people. They appear to be polar opposites but they belong to each other. Deep down they are one; two ends of the same stick. Yes, I would like the earth to become a paradise and not a cemetery, but what kind of resistance…?Even if Krishna was here, at this juncture he would not have suggested war. I am absolutely certain about it. I say categorically that Krishna would not have said to Arjuna to fight at this moment, because this is global suicide. Five thousand years have passed since Krishna and much has changed.We have come to the point where total war is possible. Nobody is going to be the winner, so what is the point of war? War has been significant in the past because somebody would win and somebody would lose. Now there is going to be no winner; all are going to be losers. War has lost all significance – today, war is absolutely stupid. It may have had some meaning in the past; it has none anymore.Krishna’s message is irrelevant today; Buddha’s message is more relevant. Krishna’s message is out of date; Buddha’s message is very contemporary. But what is his message? His message is: “If you really want peace on the earth, create peace in your heart, in your being.” That is the right place to begin – and then spread, radiate peace and love.If more and more people become peaceful, joyous, if more and more people can dance and sing, if more and more people can say “Alleluia!” from their very innermost core, it will become impossible for these few mad people to create a war. Then we can put these mad people into mental asylums very easily. We can convert our capitols into mental asylums; that is not a big problem, once many, many people’s inner consciousness is transformed.Be a meditator. Be a lover. Be a celebrant. Create the whole existence with as much bliss and joy as possible. Make life so beautiful that nobody wants to die.Right now, the situation is just the opposite: life is so ugly that who cares? In fact, people will feel relieved if war happens. They don’t have to commit suicide; the war is going to do the work for them they always wanted to do themselves.Psychologists say it is very difficult to find a man who has not thought at least four times in his life of committing suicide. But to commit suicide is not easy; it goes against the life instinct. But if somebody else can take the responsibility and somebody else can drop an atom bomb or a hydrogen bomb, then we are freed of the responsibility of committing suicide and still the suicide happens. And not only are we dying but everybody else with us.We have to change people’s suicidal minds. Why do people think of suicide? – for the simple reason that life is ugly and they don’t know how to beautify it, how to make a song out of it. It is just sadness, a long, long anguish, a nightmare. That’s why people become interested in war and they support war for any stupid cause; for any excuse they are ready to kill and be killed.In fact, all political causes are stupid, all so-called political revolutions are stupid. The only revolution which is not stupid is spiritual, is inner, is individual.If you really want a world without war, create this individual revolution I call sannyas. This is real resistance. Without resisting anybody you create a different space, a different context, in which life starts blooming, life becomes creative.And if people are creative, blooming, joyous, politics and politicians will be things of the past. Yes, you can save a few politicians to keep in the zoos for future children to come and see: “Look, this is Morarji Desai!” You can stuff them with straw – they are already stuffed with straw and nothing else; they won’t need much more straw, just a little bit will do.And this is possible now. It was never possible before because war was never such a danger. Politics is now the most stupid game, mad, utterly mad.These are tremendously significant moments, because we can change the whole human consciousness from being political to spiritual.The fourth question:Osho,What is presence of mind?Presence of mind is really a state of no-mind. You can call it mindfulness, awareness, or you can call it a state of no-mind. The words seem to be contradicting each other, but they are indicative of the same state. Presence of mind means to be in the present, to be spontaneous, to be available to whatsoever is happening right now. To be available to here and now is presence of mind. But the only way to be available to here and now is not to be in the past, not to be in the future.And mind consists of past and future; mind knows nothing of the present. Mind is always occupied, it is never unoccupied. And whenever the mind is unoccupied, utterly without any thought, just watchful, alert, conscious, there arises a great presence. That presence functions on its own accord. That presence makes your life a life of responses, not of reactions.Ordinary life is of reaction; you react. Reaction means you are reacting to a present situation according to the past. It never fits because life never repeats itself. History may repeat, because history is a mind phenomenon, but life never repeats. It is always new, always fresh; something new is always transpiring. You go on carrying old ideas from your experience, and you act out of those ideas, thinking that you are acting out of experience. This is reaction: you are lagging behind, you are not true to the situation.A response means being true to the situation; not acting out of the past but acting out of the present moment. Just like a mirror, it simply reflects that which is. If there is a flower, it reflects a flower; if there is a face, it reflects the face. Your mind never reflects that which is; your mind always reflects that which was. That’s how your mind never comes into a state of communion with reality. Then whatsoever you do is wrong.Presence of mind is a state of thoughtlessness, but not of sleep, not of unconsciousness: thoughtless consciousness, contentless consciousness – a mirror utterly empty, ready to mirror anything. The beauty of the mirror is that it never catches hold of any reflection; it is not like a photo plate. The photo plate immediately catches hold of the reflection and that’s why it is destroyed. You can use it only once, then it clings to the past. That’s what memory is, mind is – a photo plate.The mind of a buddha is not a photo plate but a mirror.Try to be more and more responsible and less and less reactive.A woman was driving her car at about eighty miles an hour, when she noticed a motorcycle cop following her. She did not slow down; she figured that maybe she could shake him off by doing ninety. When she looked back again there were two motorcycles following her. She boosted her speed again. The next time she looked, three motorcycles were screaming along behind her.Suddenly she saw a service station looming ahead. She screeched to a stop in front of it, dashed out and ran into the ladies’ room.Ten minutes later, she walked demurely out. The three cops were standing right there, waiting for her. Without batting an eyelash she said coyly, “I bet you thought I wouldn’t make it!”The fifth question:Osho,You said, “Unless you become a sannyasin out of awareness…” at the time I asked for sannyas because I felt safe with you and your sannyasins, but not out of awareness at all. In fact, I have much difficulty in becoming a little aware and also with meditation. Does this mean that it will be better to drop sannyas?You can drop it – but only out of awareness!The sixth question:Osho,Although you keep telling us that we have to be in the marketplace – and coming from the West, that should be my marketplace – I have that strong feeling now that I want to be here near you, that this is my home. Is this also a desire?This is the marketplace I go on talking about!The seventh question:Osho,Should one try to be rich or not?Meditate on Murphy’s maxim: don’t care if you are rich or not, as long as you can live comfortably and have everything you want.That’s exactly what I have been doing and that’s exactly what I would like you to do. Why bother whether you are rich or not? In fact, people go into unnecessary worries. Whatsoever you have, enjoy it – it is already too much. You cannot look at it because your mind is constantly occupied with doing this, becoming that. And all that existence goes on giving you, you go on neglecting. You never even thank existence for it; you don’t have any gratitude. Otherwise, even if you don’t possess anything, you can live a very rich life.A rich life is something inner. And I am not against outer things, remember, but basically a rich life is something inner. If you are inwardly rich you can make even outer things richer by your inner light. For example, if a buddha lives in a hut, he lives in the hut as if the hut is a palace. If a buddha lives in a palace, of course he will be able to enjoy the palace more than anybody else in the world. If he can enjoy the hut as a palace, what to say about the palace itself? Wherever he is, he finds ways to enjoy life.The whole art of sannyas is to live a rich life – but the richness comes through your inner awareness. You can live a very poor life and you can be very rich outwardly; you can have a big bank balance, but you can live a dog’s life.I know very many rich people. I feel sorry for them. They have all, but they are living in such a poor way that I cannot conceive what blindness has befallen them. Can’t they see their beautiful houses, their beautiful gardens? But they don’t have any sensitivity. So the flowers come and go and they pass those flowers every day, but they don’t see. Otherwise a single flower is enough. And whether the flower has grown in your garden or in your neighbor’s garden, who cares?You don’t possess the stars, still you can enjoy them. Or, do you first have to possess them, and only then you will be able to enjoy them? You don’t possess the birds in the sky, but you can enjoy them.What you need are not more possessions. What you need is more sensitiveness, more aesthetic sensibility, more musical ears, more artistic eyes. What you need is a vision which transforms everything into something significant and meaningful.You ask me, “Should one try to be rich or not?” You are rich! You have been given already that which you need. Let it grow, and then whatsoever you have on the outside will be enough.You can see my sannyasins living here. They have not really anything that you can call possessions, but you cannot find happier people anywhere in the world. They are happy for no reason. There is nothing to be happy about! But something inner has started growing, something like a subtle fragrance which only people who have sensibility, sensitiveness, can feel; others can’t see it.Many people have asked me, “Why do your sannyasins look so happy?” The why cannot be answered easily, because they want to know something on the outside which is causing the happiness. On the outside there is nothing but all kinds of troubles – the Indian government, the police, the Indian rotten society and the rotten mind. There is nothing on the outside. But still, my people are immensely happy. And they are not just sitting idly, they are working hard, and working hard for no reward, no pay: they don’t get anything. But something inner is happening; that is real richness.Think of that. You are a new sannyasin; soon you will become aware of it.The eighth question:Osho,I want to get married. How can I be sure that the woman I am marrying is pure in character?This is what I call the rotten Indian mind! If the woman is really pure, why should she marry you in the first place? And why this desire, this imposition on the other? And what do you mean by purity, purity of character? Do you mean that she has not known anybody sexually before you? But that will mean marrying a woman who is immature, marrying a woman who is inexperienced.If you are going to employ an engineer, will you ask him, “The first requirement is that you shouldn’t know anything about engineering”? Then you ask about experience; you want proofs, certificates.If you are wise you will inquire whether the woman has been loved by other people too. If a woman has not been approached by anybody up to now, escape! What does it mean? It simply means the woman is dangerous!Only very ugly people can have the kind of purity you are asking for. But I don’t see that by having a few love affairs a person becomes impure. Love purifies. How can it make somebody impure? The more one loves, the more one becomes artful, skillful, intelligent in love.Millions of marriages fail because two inexperienced persons are trying to work things out. If both are inexperienced, it is bound to fail.There are a few primitive societies still existent in the world where it is thought to be a must that a woman should know a few men; that the man should know a few women, before they decide to marry. Marriage needs artfulness; it is a great effort to create a symphony between two persons’ beings.So don’t ask foolish things. And if you are too much after such a kind of purity, then please, why are you deciding to make the woman impure? You will suffer for it, and she will suffer because she will be making you impure. Don’t do such harm to each other. Why in the first place think of marriage? Remain pure!“Daddy,” said young David, “what is puppy love?”“The beginning of a dog’s life, my son.”Murphy says: anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening.The three faithful things in life are money, a dog and an old woman.So either get married to money or to a dog or to an old woman! If you are so interested in purity, if you are so wedded to purity, don’t ask for a real woman. Find a plastic woman. You can always clean it and soap it. Why bother with real people? Real people are real people.Two expectant fathers paced the floor in the waiting room of the hospital.“What tough luck,” said one. “This had to happen during my vacation.”“You think you’ve got troubles?” said the other. “I’m on my honeymoon!”Real people are real people. Things happen to real people, not to plastic people. Yes, even on honeymoon things can happen!A pair of good friends, both Frenchmen, were strolling down the Champs Elysees one day when they spied two women approaching. “Sacre bleu, Pierre!” cried one. “Here come my wife and my mistress walking toward us arm in arm.”“Mon Dieu, Henri!” cried out the second. “I was about to say the very same thing.”Charlie was taking his out-of-town pal for a stroll through the city. The friend observed a good-looking girl and asked Charlie if he knew her.“That is Betty. Twenty dollars.”“How about that one?”“That is Dolores. Forty dollars.”“Here comes one that is really first class. Do you know her?”“That is Gloria. Eighty dollars.”“My God, aren’t there any nice, respectable girls in this town?”“Of course, but you could not afford their rates.”Either get rid of this idea of marriage or get rid of the idea of purity of character. If you keep both ideas together you will be in trouble.And who are you to decide about others’ character? If you love the woman, you love the woman with all her limitations, with all her imperfections; she loves you with all your imperfections and limitations.But this is what – particularly to the Indian mind – is very significant: perfection. And to demand perfection is a kind of neurosis. It will drive the other neurotic, and as far as you are concerned, you are already neurotic. If you ask perfection in any human being you will create trouble for yourself and for the other, and your life will be nothing but misery.The real man of understanding and intelligence accepts the imperfections of the other and still loves. Love is great enough; it can even love the people who have no character, the people who are not pure according to your ideas, the people who sometimes go astray, the people who sometimes commit small sins. Love is big enough to accept all this and to transform it too.The ninth question:Osho,Why do so many people become sannyasins?Murphy… My God, are you the same Murphy I have been quoting and misquoting? You should have told me before! But you must be, I hope, some other Murphy because if you were the same Murphy, you would not ask such a question. That old guy is so wise he only gives answers, he never asks questions.You ask me, “Why do so many people become sannyasins?” Everybody does so for a different reason; hence it is very difficult to answer. The real sannyasins cannot even give any reasonable answer why they have become sannyasins. It is a kind of love affair; they fall in love with this madman. It is utterly mad, it is absurd. They simply find some inner communion; something happens to their heart, not to their head. And when something happens to the heart it is unanswerable.But a few people become sannyasins out of the head; then they are only pseudo sannyasins. They can give you answers why they have become sannyasins.So this much can be said: one who can answer why he has become a sannyasin is a wrong sannyasin, a pseudo sannyasin; the real one can only shrug his shoulders. He can say, “I don’t know, it simply happened.” He will not be convincing to you – he can’t be – but try to be sympathetic with the person. It is a love affair.Who has ever been able to say why he has fallen in love? One simply falls in love for no reason at all. Suddenly something clicks; it clicks in such a subtle way that you cannot figure out why. The why is unanswerable. And whenever it is answerable, the person is not a real sannyasin. This is the paradox: those who can answer are not real sannyasins; those who cannot answer are real sannyasins.And then there are different people and they come with different backgrounds, they come here for different reasons. They open up to me in different ways, they take different time, they have different paces.A modern-day Lewis and Clark exploration team had returned from a two-year exploration of the upper Amazon. Having bravely gone where no men had gone before, they were greeted by members of the press from every nation.“Tell us, sir,” asked a reporter of the first explorer, “what made you go?”“I had to go,” he replied. “I had to meet the challenge, to test my mettle, to meet the unknown, to face hardship, and to ponder the real meaning of life.”“And you, sir,” he inquired of the second explorer, “why did you go?”“You should meet my wife,” came the weary reply.Different people will have different reasons. Somebody is here for the exploration of the unknown; somebody is simply here because of his wife. Somebody is here because this has been his search for many lives; somebody is here accidentally. He was just passing Pune, from Kabul to Goa, and seeing so many crazy orange people he became intrigued. He said to himself, “Man, something far out is going on!” And then he got hooked… Then he forgot all about Goa. Then slowly, slowly, people forget about the whole world. Then this small place becomes their whole world.Anxious to be on time for his date, Carl stopped at the drugstore for a hasty purchase. The druggist gave him a knowing smile, and he told the druggist about a lovely chick he met at a party. He was going to spend the evening with her, and her parents would be out at the opera.When he got to her house, she and her mother were waiting for her father to return from work.When her father walked in, she introduced both parents to Carl, and Carl said, “Say, why don’t Nancy and I join you this evening?”“You children don’t want to spend your evening with us old folks,” said Nancy’s mother.“Sure we do,” said Carl.“I didn’t know you liked opera,” the bewildered Nancy said to her date, as he was helping her on with her coat.“No, and I didn’t know your father was a druggist, either,” he said.So there are different reasons. I cannot give you a single answer. I cannot say why people become sannyasins.All that I can say is that I am utterly mad, and a few people find themselves in tune with me.The last question:Osho,What is unawareness?Yes, the question arises and is significant too. It is like the fish asking, “What is the ocean?” Obviously the fish cannot see the ocean; it has lived in the ocean always, from the very beginning. It was born in the ocean, it opened its eyes in the ocean, it has lived as part of the ocean. The ocean is so close, the fish does not feel itself separate from it. There is no space between the fish and the ocean to know about it.And that’s actually the case with unawareness. You are born in unawareness, you live in unawareness, you sleep in unawareness, you wake up in unawareness. You walk in unawareness, you talk in unawareness, you read Bibles, Korans, Gitas, in unawareness. It is so close, you are so permeated by it; it is in your every fiber and cell. There is no distance between it and you. Hence the question is very significant and one has to ask it. Only then can one move slowly out of unawareness toward awareness.Unawareness is a state of robotlike existence. You go on repeating mechanically. You go on living without any alertness in it; you are sleepy, a somnambulist.Out of ten people, one person can walk in his sleep, do you know it? That is a big number. Out of a hundred, ten people are capable of walking in their sleep. If you have ten persons in your family, that means one person is capable of walking in his sleep. People get up, they can walk in darkness, they can reach the fridge, they can eat things, they go back to bed. In the morning they have forgotten all – and then they are worried why they go on becoming fatter and fatter! In the day they fast or diet and in the night they compensate as much as they can.You will have to be a little separate from your acts; then you will be able to know what unawareness is. Somebody insults you; immediately, instantly, anger arises. It is like pushing a button and the light comes on. There is no gap: you push a button and the light comes on. The light has no time to think whether to come on or not. Somebody insults you; he pushes a button and immediately you are enraged.Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, “Wait at least for five minutes. What is the hurry? Let him insult you, let him finish first. Then close your eyes and wait for five minutes, and watch what is happening inside you – anger boiling.”Gurdjieff himself became enlightened through this simple procedure: that whatsoever is mechanical in man he tried to make it nonmechanical. And all is mechanical in you – anger, lust, greed, jealousy – all is mechanical. It simply is there whenever somebody pushes a button. You are functioning like a robot. Become a man.That’s what meditation is all about, that’s what sannyas is all about. Create a little distance. Next time somebody insults you, give it five minutes, sit silently for five minutes, and then you can become angry. I am not saying “Don’t become angry” – because that will be too much. I am saying that just for five minutes allow a gap, and you will be surprised: after five minutes it is not the same anger that it would have been five minutes before.Dale Carnegie remembers an incident in his life. He delivered a radio broadcast on Abraham Lincoln. He mentioned a few wrong facts about Lincoln; even his birth date was wrong. He received a letter, a very angry letter, from a woman, calling him a fool, calling him stupid. “If you don’t even know the right birth date, what right have you got to speak on Abraham Lincoln?”He became enraged, and he immediately wrote an angry answer. But it was late, so he thought, “Tomorrow morning I will post the letter.”Before posting it he read the letter again. It looked too angry – twelve hours had passed. He read the woman’s letter; it was not as insulting as it had appeared at first glance. So he changed his letter, he wrote it again. While he was writing it again he said, “Why not wait twenty-four hours more and see what happens? What is the hurry? The woman is not going to die.”So he waited twenty-four hours and read his letter again. Now he was even cooler, and still the letter looked a little too strong. He changed it and thought, “Why not wait forty-eight hours? Let it be an experiment! I can always send the letter, but after twelve hours I had to change it, after twenty-four hours I had to change it much more. Let us see what happens after forty-eight hours.”After forty-eight hours he had to change it totally. All the anger had disappeared. He said, “Now I will wait two more days and then I will send it.”And when he finally wrote the letter he apologized; he was no longer angry. The woman was right: what right has he if he does not know the facts? At least he should have checked before going to broadcast. It was absolutely right on her part to get angry.So he wrote, “You are perfectly right. Next time I will not commit such a mistake. I am deeply sorry that I hurt your feelings. I apologize. If any time you happen to be in this city, please come to see me, or, if I come to your town, I will come to see you. I would like to know more about Lincoln – because I feel you know more than I know.”Naturally, the woman was tremendously impressed by the humbleness of the man; she was not expecting that he would be so humble. Next time she came to that town where Dale Carnegie lived she phoned him. He went, received her, invited her for a dinner. And finally the woman and he became so friendly, they fell in love!It looks like a fairy tale – does not happen in real life! In real life only tragedies happen. But we are responsible for all those tragedies because of our unawareness.So the first thing I will suggest is that, if you want to know what unawareness is, allow a gap. This is the process of de-automatization. You have become automatic, you function automatically. You have to reverse the whole process, de-automatize it, slowly, slowly, in small matters.For example, you have gone for a walk. Don’t walk the same way as you walk every day. Go slow or go fast, but don’t just repeat the same routine. And you will be surprised: if you go slowly you are more aware, if you go faster you are more aware; if you go exactly the same speed as you follow every day, you lose all awareness.Buddha told his disciples to walk very slowly, as slowly as possible. Try it and you will be surprised. A great awareness arises if you walk very slowly. You speak in a certain way; one day, try to speak in some other way. Speak slowly, and you will be surprised that the slowness of the speech makes you alert. Suddenly something is changed, because you are not functioning according to the robot.Mind has two parts: one is the learning part, the other is the robot part. The learning part learns; whenever you are learning something you are more aware. For example, if you are learning to drive you are more aware – you have to be. The moment you have learned it, the learning part gives its information to the robot part. Once you have learned driving, then you don’t need any awareness; you simply go on doing it mechanically. You turn toward your house, you arrive in your garage, you lock the car. You are doing everything like a robot.And this is the story of your life, twenty-four hours a day. Change it!Gurdjieff’s method was this: if a vegetarian had come to him as a disciple, the first thing he would insist was, “Eat meat!” Now this is a very shocking thing for a vegetarian: “Eat meat.” And Gurdjieff was a tough master; he would throw you out if you didn’t listen to him, if you didn’t follow the command, if you didn’t follow the discipline. He would force you to eat meat. Now, when a vegetarian eats meat, he becomes very conscious – he has to. He has no idea in the past, no experience in the past, of eating meat. Just think of Mahatma Gandhi eating meat… He will become tremendously aware!And if there was a meat-eater, then Gurdjieff would say, “For a few weeks just be vegetarian. Don’t eat meat at all – no eggs, no meat, no milk, no animal food of any kind. Just go on eating vegetables.” The whole body system had become accustomed to a certain pattern. He would change people’s eating hours. If you were eating every day at one o’clock, he would say, “Eat at nine.” If you were going to sleep every day at twelve, he would say to go at two or at ten. He would change everything. He would force a man who had never been drinking wine, to drink wine just to change and shatter his pattern. The man who had been a drunkard, he would stop from drinking.Gurdjieff was puzzling to people, but the method is simple: he was trying to de-automatize. He was one of the greatest masters of this age, very much misunderstood. Naturally, everybody was against him. Who has ever heard of religious masters forcing their disciples to drink? – forcing, actually forcing. And he would sit there…The greatest thing in his commune was dinner. It used to last four, five, six, seven hours. Every evening it would start… And it would end in the middle of the night. And he himself would take care of everybody, of what was being eaten, of what was given to them – and he would go on forcing. People would become so drunk they would fall on the ground, and they would start saying things in their drunkenness – and he would sit at the side and listen. He also used to drink with them, but he had worked hard on the way. He was a Tantra master. He had been to India and to Tibet too, just to learn Tantra.Tantra has special methods how to go on drinking and yet remain aware. You cannot be aware even without drinking. Tantra has methods to slowly, slowly drink, and keep awareness, not to lose track of your awareness. Slowly, slowly the quantity of your drug has to be increased as you increase in your awareness. A moment comes when – you will be surprised to know, still there are people in the East who practice it – a moment comes, when no drug can affect your consciousness at all.Then the last thing they try is this: they keep poisonous snakes and they allow a snake to bite them on the tongue; that is the last method. Ordinarily a man will die. The snakes are absolutely dangerous. Three percent of the snakes in India are dangerous; you cannot survive their bite – once bitten you are gone. But these Tantric masters will remain alert even in that moment, and they will not die. Their bodies have become accustomed to all kinds of poisons and they have become alert, so alert that no drug can affect them.Gurdjieff used to use that method with his disciples, simply to shatter their settled habits.My approach here is to send you to this group, then to another group, then to still another group. When you go to different groups for two, three months, each group has its own structure and pattern and each group destroys other groups’ patterns and structures.And finally I send you to Zazen or to Vipassana. They are beyond all ordinary structures. Those are the methods given by Buddha himself. Then you are in a very simple state, watching your own breath – the breath going in, the breath going out, and you are simply watching.This watchfulness will make you aware of what unawareness is and what awareness is, both. You become aware of both simultaneously.It was springtime, and two lovers were cuddling in a fragrant meadow on a dark, new-moon night.The young man whispered to his girlfriend, “I sure wish we had a flashlight!”The girl replied, “I do too. You have been munching on grass for the last five minutes!”Get it? – otherwise I will have to tell another! Meditate over it later on!Marlene, a pretty Philadelphia secretary, was taking her first trip across the United States. Driving through the desert she ran out of gas. An Indian gave her a ride, sitting behind him on his pony. Every few minutes as they rode he let out a wild, whooping yell that echoed across the desert. Finally he deposited her at a gas station and went off with a last “Yaa-hoo!”“What were you doing,” asked the station owner, “to make that redskin do all that hollering?”“Nothing,” said the girl. “I just sat behind him with my arms around his sides holding onto his saddle horn.”“Miss,” said the man, “Indians ride bareback!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Gurdjieff said that in order to attain to real will, one would have to surrender one's false will first. Is this also true here?It is true everywhere. It is true forever. Truth is universal: time makes no difference, place makes no difference. And this is one of the most fundamental truths of spiritual growth: the false has to be given up because the false is the barrier. You remain deluded by the false; hence the search for the true never starts. You believe the false to be the true. Then why should you endeavor to realize the true?If you think that darkness is light, then where is the necessity to search for light? If you think this life is all, then there is no question of seeking and inquiring about another life. If time is your total reality, then eternity never becomes a quest for you.The “false will” means the ego; the true will means egolessness. The false will is yours; the true will is that of existence. The false will is personal; the true will is universal. The false will simply means that you believe yourself separate from the whole; and the true will is dissolving this illusion of separation, becoming that which you really are – a part in this cosmic harmony, totally one with it. Then you don’t have any separate destination, you don’t have any private goal. Then wherever the whole is going, you are going. You are just a wave in the ocean.And before the real can be known, the false has to cease, because the false is covering your eyes. You are clinging to the false, to the toy. And unless you see the point – that the toy is only a toy, not worth clinging… In that very moment of seeing, the toy slips out of your hands on its own accord because you no longer cling to it. Seeing the false as false is the beginning of the truth. But that seeing is arduous.For lives we have lived with the false and we have believed in the false. We have nurtured, nourished the false. All our hopes, all our dreams, are rooted in the false. Our whole lives are investments in the false; hence we are afraid even to look, we are afraid to observe, watch.The most frightening experience for human beings is to remember, to watch, to be aware; hence the difficulty in meditation. It does not arise from the outside; there is no disturbance outside. The real disturbance is within you. You really don’t want to meditate. You are in a double bind. You listen to buddhas talking about the beauties and the blessings and the benedictions of meditation, and you become greedy for it. But then you look at your own investment and you become frightened. So you try to meditate, yet you don’t really want to meditate because meditation means you will have to see things as they are – the false as false, the true as true – and that is going to shatter your whole effort of lives in a single moment.Great courage is needed to meditate, courage to drop all the investments. Great intelligence is needed. In fact, this is true intelligence: to see that howsoever and whatsoever efforts you make to realize the false, to make it come true, they are going to fail. To see it – that the whole effort is an exercise in utter futility – is intelligence. It has nothing to do with intellectuality; it is very simple.See, watch, and don’t be afraid and don’t avoid seeing. And don’t go on playing with yourself, deceiving yourself. Don’t remain in a double bind, with one hand creating and with the other hand destroying.That’s what people are doing: half of their being wants to continue as they are – the stupid half, the rational part, the arithmetic of their minds. And the other half, the intelligent half, the intuitive half – the heart – wants to start anew, because you have seen for so long that nothing succeeds. Still you go on in the same rut. It is time, the right time, to get out of the rut and to have a new birth.What Gurdjieff was saying has been told by all the great masters of the world. “Awake,” Buddha says. It is the same; words differ. “Be watchful,” Jesus says. Be as watchful as if the master of the house has gone out and he has told the servants to remain alert because he may come any moment and he does not want them to be asleep – any moment he can come. They have to be alert, on guard, all the time. Jesus says: “Be so alert.”In alertness the first experience is that you have a personality which is false. Gurdjieff calls it the false will. And you have something else, something impersonal in you, which is the true will. Your appearance from the outside is false; what you experience from your innermost core is true. You are a mixture of the accidental and the essential, of the incidental and the intrinsic. You are the meeting point of time and eternity, a crossroads where matter and consciousness meet, where body and soul meet, where the real and the unreal shake hands. Yes, you are exactly a crossroads. And you have to be very alert not to choose the false – because the false is very appealing. The false makes all kinds of propaganda for itself; the false will try to convince you with all kinds of arguments.The truth remains silent. Unless you are ready to receive it, it will not even knock on your doors. The false is afraid that unless much smoke is created around it, the falsity of it will be seen by you. So beware of the rationalizations of the false, its propaganda, its argumentation, its proofs. And also remember the silence of truth – utter silence, absolute silence. Truth will never persuade you; it will wait – it can wait for eternity. But the false cannot wait, it is momentary, it can’t be so patient. It has to persuade you, it has to seduce you as immediately as possible. The false is hypnotizing. Their ways are totally opposite.Truth is achieved through awakening, and the false is achieved through deep sleep. The false is like a tranquilizer: it is very consoling, comfortable, cozy, secure, safe. It gives you all kinds of protections, insurances. It goes on telling you, “Be with me and I will protect you. I am your guardian, your guide, your friend, your philosopher.” The truth never claims anything.Unless you become utterly fed up with the false and its claims – which are all bogus… It talks much, but it never delivers any goods. Unless you become totally frustrated, fed up, bored with it, you are not going to look at the silent truth; you are not going to listen to the still, small voice within. And that voice is the voice of existence. It is universal; it has nothing to do with you.The true will is not yours. It is the whole speaking through you, functioning through you. The false gives you the idea of great ego – “I am somebody” – and the true takes all ego away. It makes you a nothingness, a nobody. Only through your nobodiness can the whole function unhindered.Yes, Gurdjieff is right. And whatsoever is true with Gurdjieff is true here too – is true forever. Wherever a master exists, the false has to be surrendered.That actually is the function of sannyas. It is a device to surrender the false. Sannyas means you surrender your ego. You say to the master, “Please take this burden off my head.” You bow down, you touch the feet of the master. That is simply symbolic: “Now I will not function as a separate entity from you.”And the master is one who has surrendered his will already, who no longer exists as a person, who is only a presence, a window into existence. And when you surrender to the window you are surrendering to the sky beyond. The window will only make the sky available.The West has not developed the technique of the master-disciple relationship yet. A few rare individuals tried, but they failed. Socrates was trying in Athens but he failed; he was not listened to. Jesus was trying again; he failed. The West has remained concerned, concentratedly focused on the false. It believes in the ego. The East believes in egolessness.The Western psychology says to make the ego stronger. It is a psychology of the false – rooted in the false, supporting the false. The East says: “Let the ego melt, disappear, evaporate.” It is the psychology of egolessness. This is a totally different standpoint.Gurdjieff was again trying to bring the East to the West. He also failed. It is very difficult; centuries are against it, and the hypnosis and the conditioning of the society are against it. Even his own chief disciple, P. D. Ouspensky, could not understand him, misunderstood him. He betrayed him, just as Judas betrayed Jesus.And do you know that Judas was the most cultured, educated person among Jesus’ disciples? Hence he must have had the most polished ego. He was an intellectual. The other followers were simple people: fishermen, carpenters, tax collectors, gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes – simple people. The only person who was not simple was Judas; he was complex. He could have been a professor in Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard and he would have done perfectly well as a professor – he was a good arguer. There are a few moments when he even argues with Jesus. And if you listen to the argument you will agree with Judas, you will not agree with Jesus.One day Jesus is staying in Mary and Martha’s home and Mary brings very costly perfume and washes Jesus’ feet with that costly perfume. Judas immediately raises a question; he says, “This is stupid – unnecessarily wasting so much money!” And he gives a good argument – a socialistic argument. He says, “This much money could have been given to the poor. There are beggars outside the house. This money could have fed many beggars for many days. It was rare perfume; why waste it? The feet can be washed with water – there is no need!” And she had poured the whole big bottle of perfume!Now, with whom are you going to agree? And do you know what Jesus said? Jesus said, “There will always be beggars. I will not always be here.”This does not seem to be a very appealing argument. Jesus says, “Don’t disturb her. Don’t disturb her love, her faith, her trust. It’s perfectly all right. It is coming from her deep love for me. Let her do it. And there will always be beggars. Even if this money is given to them, nothing much is going to happen. Maybe for a few days they will be able to eat; then again…”With whom are you going to agree? There is a ninety-nine percent possibility you will agree with Judas – and more so after Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao; after so much socialistic Communist propaganda all over the world, who would not agree with Judas? He seems to be the forerunner of socialistic philosophy. And Jesus’ answer does not seem to be very appealing, convincing. It seems to be evading the question, evading the issue. But Judas betrayed Jesus for the simple reason that he was too much in his intellect, too egoistic, too proud.The same happened again with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Ouspensky was the most articulate disciple of Gurdjieff. In fact, it is because of Ouspensky that Gurdjieff became famous in the world. It is Ouspensky’s books that have made Gurdjieff’s name known to the world at large. But why did he betray him? In the last years of his life he was very antagonistic to his master. Even to mention Gurdjieff’s name in Ouspensky’s presence was an offense to him; he did not tolerate even a mention of Gurdjieff’s name. It has been completely dropped – even from his books which were written before he disconnected himself from Gurdjieff. He changed the name from Gurdjieff to just G; he would not write the whole name. He would simply mention, “G said…” – just like XYZ. And then – he was clever enough – whenever somebody asked, “You yourself mentioned G,” he said, “Those were the days when he was right. The later Gurdjieff has gone insane. I am against the later Gurdjieff.”And why did he go against him? Gurdjieff was trying to totally destroy his ego and it was impossible for him to accept that. He was in London, Gurdjieff was in Russia, in Tiflis, and Gurdjieff sent a message, “Come immediately. Sell everything there. Don’t waste a single moment. Bring all the money and come.”Those were the days of the First World War; it was very difficult to travel, dangerous to travel, and going back to Russia was dangerous for Ouspensky because the Bolsheviks, Communists, had come into power and the whole of Russia was in turmoil. There was no order, no government.Still, the master had asked, so he sold all his possessions, his house, took all the money and traveled back to Russia knowing perfectly well he was going into danger. The journey was long; it took three months for him to reach, sometimes traveling by train and sometimes by horse and sometimes he was prevented and the police were after him. But somehow he reached – the master had asked him to come, and he did. He was hoping that as he had made a great sacrifice, so he was going to be patted on the back by the master.And do you know what Gurdjieff did? The moment Ouspensky arrived he said, “Put down your money and go back! Leave your money here and go back to London immediately!”This was too much. He became antagonistic. He thought Gurdjieff had become insane. He was not insane. Had Ouspensky followed that too, although it was very illogical… But Ouspensky was a mathematician, a logician, a great intellectual of this century, one of the most profound mathematicians that we have ever produced. He could not believe all this nonsense. He traveled back, but turned against Gurdjieff, turned very sour, saying that he had gone mad.That was his rationalization to avoid seeing the truth: that Gurdjieff was trying to totally destroy his ego. That was the last hit on his head. If he had allowed it he would have become enlightened. He missed the point – he missed and fell from the last rung of the ladder. Sometimes it happens: you can miss at the last moment.Then for his whole life Ouspensky was talking against Gurdjieff; his name became unmentionable. Whatsoever he was teaching he had learned from Gurdjieff, but he was very secretive. He wouldn’t allow his disciples to read Gurdjieff’s books. He wouldn’t allow his disciples to go and see Gurdjieff. Ouspensky’s disciples could see Gurdjieff only after Ouspensky’s death; and then they were surprised at how much they had missed. Ouspensky was only a professor, nothing else. Gurdjieff was an enlightened man.But the problem is always how to drop the ego. Gurdjieff offended many people in the West for the simple reason that in the West there is no tradition, no background, no context for the psychology of egolessness.That’s why I have chosen to be in the East. Even if people come from the West they have to come to me, because only in the Eastern space is it possible to surrender the ego. The whole milieu is helpful; much effort is not needed.And once the new commune is established it is going to become a very easy phenomenon, a child’s play, to drop the ego. When you see ten thousand sannyasins moving without an ego, without a head, you will look foolish with a head. You will immediately be in a hurry so that your head can be cut off and you can also run without a head and do all kinds of things which were not possible before – because of the head.Gurdjieff is right: the false has to be dropped. The false has to cease for the real to be.The second question:Osho,Please never speak against the Indian mind because I get so angry that I start thinking of how to kill you.People who only think of killing never kill. You can go on thinking; thinkers can’t do anything. And why do you get so disturbed if I speak against the Indian mind?I am against all kind of minds – Indian, German, English, American – and I speak against all kinds of minds, because mind is mind. There is not much difference, just different patterns, different ideas, but the basic structure is the same.Mind means you are not conscious, and you can be unconscious in the Indian way or the Chinese way or the Japanese way; what does it matter? And if you cannot listen to words said against your mind you need not come here; this is not the right place for you.I am not here to buttress your egos; I am here to destroy them. I have to speak against them. My whole work consists in destroying. First a great destruction is needed, only then are your energies released for some creative work.And what really is an Indian mind? – just an accident that you are born in India and you have been conditioned in a certain way. Somebody else is born in Japan and he is conditioned in some other way, but both are conditionings. And the function of the master is to de-condition you.I can understand your anger, but that anger is not going to help you. Only understanding can help. Try to understand. Your anger will cloud your being more and more; you will become more incapable of seeing the truth.Once upon a time there was a dog who was sitting by the side of the railway line when an express train roared by and cut off an inch of his tail.Seeking revenge, the dog waited patiently for the train’s next trip and tried to bite it as it went past. The train wheels ran right over the poor dog’s neck slicing off its head.The moral of this little story is simple: never lose your head over a little piece of tail.And this is only just the beginning; just a little piece of your tail has been cut. If you remain here long enough the tail will go, the head will go. And only then, for the first time, will you be reborn: reborn as consciousness, neither Indian nor French nor Italian.But have you observed? I speak against the Italian mind, I speak against the German mind, I speak against the Jewish mind, but nobody makes any objection to it. But if I speak against the Indian mind, immediately somebody is there to object. Indians have become very touchy; deep down they feel some kind of inferiority, and on the surface they pretend superiority. Particularly as far as religion and spirituality is concerned, they feel that they are the spiritual guides of the world, that God has chosen them as messengers, that they are the source of religion, that they are holier than everybody else in the world, that their country is divine and all other countries are evil, that they are saints, holy people, and all others are sinners, that they are spiritualists and all other people are materialists.And because your stupid so-called mahatmas go on telling you these false ideas, when you hear me speaking anything against the Indian stupidity you become enraged. You cannot absorb it, you cannot remain open to it, because all your mahatmas go on buttressing your ego. It is because of this that the Indian masses are against me, for the simple reason that I cannot buttress their egos. I cannot say: “You are great spiritual people.” And that’s what they want to hear. They don’t have anything else. They don’t have science, they don’t have technology; they don’t have money, they are poor; they don’t have food, they are starving. The only thing that can give them a little hope, a little satisfaction, is spirituality.So when I say, “You don’t have even that,” it hurts very much. Then nothing is left.Remember it: Buddha had it, Krishna had it, Mahavira had it, Nanak had it; that does not mean that all Indians have it. Socrates had it, Pythagoras had it, Heraclitus had it, Plotinus had it; that does not mean that all the Greeks have it. Lao Tzu had it, Chuang Tzu had it, Lieh Tzu had it; that does not mean that all the Chinese have it. These rare people have happened everywhere; it is nothing special to you.So stop bragging about it. This bragging keeps you unaware of your real situation; it has become very intoxicating to you. It keeps you in a kind of unconscious state.A fellow called up Mr. Vanderwater on Park Avenue and said, “Mr. Vanderwater, did my friend Bill come to your house party uninvited last night?”“Yes, he did.”“Ah, the curse of drink! What a man will do when he is drunk! I would like to ask you another question, Mr. Vanderwater. Did he start beating up some of your guests and finish by throwing some of your art works out on Park Avenue?”“Yes, he did that.”“I am so sorry. One more question: was I also there?”Ego is very intoxicating, remember it. It is more alcoholic than any alcohol can be. And it is pious; when it is pretending to be holy it is very pious – and a pious poison is the purest poison. Avoid it. Come back to the earth. Be simple and see reality as it is.Two drunks were passing the door of the honeymoon suite at the Ritz Hotel when they stopped a moment to listen. Inside the room the bridegroom was saying to his bride, “Darling, you are so deliciously lovely. Your fabulous beauty should be captured for posterity by the greatest artists in the world.”The two drunks started banging on the door straight away, and the husband called out, “Who the devil is that?”“Rubens and Rembrandt!” replied both.Come down to the earth! Killing me is not going to help much. If you feel like doing that, you can do it; that’s perfectly okay. That is not going to help you.What is going to help you is killing your ego. Put your energy into killing your ego. I am not interested in hurting anybody – I am not against anybody. If sometimes I hammer on your heads, it is only out of love and compassion.The third question:Osho,Is to listen to discourse with complete, unquestioning acceptance a form of unconsciousness?If you are unconscious you cannot be complete in anything. The unconscious mind cannot manage to be complete, to be entire, to be total in anything. If you can manage to be entire, total, whole in anything, you are not unconscious. One thing is certain: you may be anything else but not unconscious.You ask me, “Is to listen to discourse with complete, unquestioning acceptance a form of unconsciousness?” No, it cannot be a form of unconsciousness, because to bring conscious effort is a must if you want to be absolutely, totally accepting. You will have to bring deliberate effort; you will have to be very conscious about it.Unconscious mind is always fragmentary; it is many, it is not one. It cannot be one; it is a crowd, it is a mob, many voices within you. When you are unconscious you are many people; you are not a single individual. You are not integrated. Any effort to be total integrates you. And this is just a device, to listen with totality.But who told you that I am telling you to accept it? Totality is needed in listening, but I have not asked you to accept it. If you accept, you will not be total, because accepting means you are choosing, and choice is always partial: something has not been chosen and something has been chosen.Acceptance means you are rejecting many things: rejecting your own ideas, rejecting that which goes against me. If I am saying one thing and you accept it, that means you are rejecting the opposite of it. It is a constant choice.I am not asking you to accept what is being said; I am only asking you to listen totally. Then what is it? It is a totally different phenomenon, neither acceptance nor rejection – just awareness. When you listen to the birds singing, do you accept, do you reject? Do you agree, do you disagree? You simply listen. The sound of a waterfall… What do you do? You simply listen. The wind passing through the pines… Is agreement needed, disagreement? Nothing is needed; you simply listen. The music of the wind passing through the pines, the dance of the trees in the sun… You simply see, you listen. You are just a mirror. The mirror does not agree and does not disagree; it only reflects.And that is required from the disciple – not acceptance, remember. I am not creating a creed, I am not giving you a dogma. I don’t want you to be believers, neither do I want you to be disbelievers. But what is the point of bringing belief and disbelief into it? Just listen to me silently, fully, so nothing is missed, that’s all.And the beauty of truth is that if you listen silently, totally, it penetrates to the very core of your being; it reaches the heart. You need not agree; the seed of it falls into your consciousness and starts growing.Just the opposite is the case with untruth: if you listen totally, no untruth can penetrate your being. That totality is enough to throw any kind of untruth out. In a total state of consciousness, in total silence, untruth cannot penetrate; only truth can penetrate.So I am not interested in your agreement; I am only interested in your openness. And I am not telling you to be unquestioning, neither am I telling you to go on questioning. Both are futile activities while you are listening. If you listen with a thousand and one questions in the mind, how can you listen at all? Those questions create so much clamor, so much noise; they don’t allow anything to enter. And if you listen with an unquestioning mind, that means you are being gullible, you are just being unintelligent. So there is no need for questions and there is no need for unquestioning acceptance.What is needed, what is required from the disciple, is a total silence; just being here with me in deep communion, bridged, so slowly, slowly your breath falls in tune with my breath, your heart starts beating in the same rhythm as my heart, so we lose separation, so these three thousand people here become almost one entity, so attuned, so deep in accord that they can’t feel separate. A great melting, merger, happens. And those are the moments of truth, moments of great joy, moments of meditation.The disciple is required to listen meditatively, because in those meditative moments windows open into the divine, doors open – doors where you have never suspected that doors exist, where you have always thought there are walls. Suddenly doors open. Where you have never thought any bridge is possible, bridges suddenly appear. It is a mysterious phenomenon.So those who are here as outsiders will only get the most superficial thing: my words. They will not be able to participate in my heart. They will not be able to drink out of my being. They will not be able to be part of my dance, of my song.The fourth question:Osho,Are you fallible?I am not the pope of the Vatican – I am not infallible. I enjoy fallibility. And Buddha was not infallible and Jesus was not infallible. Only these stupid popes started claiming to be infallible, because they wanted to dominate, they wanted to exploit people. I have no desire to dominate anybody, I have no desire to exploit anybody. I have no desire at all.Fallibility is natural; infallibility is unnatural. Even God committed so many errors! The first error he committed was to create the universe; that was the beginning of the whole mess. But he did it and he continues to do it; he has not stopped. He created the Devil; if anybody is responsible for the Devil’s existence, then God is – he created him. He created all kinds of sins in you, all kinds of instincts in you. If anybody is responsible, if anybody is punishable, then God is.Whenever you meet God you can simply throw the whole load on him. You can simply say, “Why did you create me in this way? You should have created me a saint and you created me a sinner. It is up to you. If you are the creator, then it is your responsibility.” If something is wrong in the painting, the painter is responsible not the painting. If something is wrong in the music, then the musician is responsible, not the musical instruments. If something goes wrong in the poetry, the poet is responsible.God is fallible, that’s the beauty; otherwise, God would be too inhuman a concept. It is very human, and in the East we even have ideas of God which are far more human – far more human than the Christian God. The Jewish God is far more human than the Christian God – the Jewish God becomes angry. The Christian God is always love, always sweet, very saccharin. The Jewish God can be very bitter. The Old Testament says that God is very jealous and very angry. Be watchful: a very human God.And if you come to the East you will be surprised. We have a beautiful story: God created the world because he was feeling lonely. Such a beautiful idea, God feeling lonely! So you need not feel too worried if sometimes you feel lonely – it is divine. God was feeling very lonely; hence he created the world, just to fill his loneliness. And when he created the first woman he fell in love with her. That is really going too far!The people who wrote this story must have been really courageous people. That is falling in love with your own daughter. And of course, as women are supposed to, the woman started a game of hide-and-seek. They love that game very much. They still love it, and they will always love it; that is part of feminine psychology. The man takes the initiative and the woman starts hiding; and the more she hides, the more the man becomes enchanted.That’s why Eastern women look more beautiful than Western women: for the simple reason that the Western woman has forgotten how to hide; she has become available. She is trying to be just like a man. The Eastern woman is not trying to be like a man; she tries to be absolutely feminine – very shy, never takes any initiative. No Eastern woman ever will say to somebody, “I love you.” She simply waits for you to say it to her.So the woman started hiding. She became a cow just to hide from God. But how can you hide from God? He is omniscient. He looked around and he saw that the woman had become a cow, so he became a bull! Now that is going too far! And that’s how the whole of creation happened: she became a mare and he became a horse, and so on, so forth. She went on hiding in new forms, and he went on finding her again and again. This seems to be something very close to truth.Even God is fallible. There is no need to be perfect.These two words have to be understood as deeply as possible: one is perfection, the other is totality. My emphasis is never on perfection but on totality. The old religions have been teaching you for centuries to be perfect. You cannot be perfect; nobody can be perfect. Even existence is not perfect – because to be perfect means to be dead. If something is perfect then no evolution is possible anymore. Perfection means the full point has come, the cul-de-sac; the road ends. Now you are stuck, nowhere to go. You cannot come back – because how can a perfect person come back? That will be becoming imperfect again. You cannot go ahead because you have become perfect; there is nothing ahead. Existence is imperfect and will remain so.I don’t teach perfection. Perfection simply creates neurosis in people. Perfectionists are neurotics; they drive themselves crazy in trying to be perfect, because they are trying to do the impossible.I teach totality; I teach wholeness, not perfection. Be total in whatsoever you are doing. Be total. If you are angry, then be totally angry. If you are in love, then be totally in love. If you are sad, then be totally sad. Don’t be halfhearted in anything. That is a totally different approach toward life.The perfectionist will say, “Never be angry, never be sad.” The person who believes in totality will say, “Whatsoever is the case, just be total in it. Don’t be halfhearted, don’t hold yourself back. Go into it totally.”Then life becomes really a tremendous adventure. Then even sadness is beautiful when it is total. If you can cry and weep totally, then even crying, weeping has a beauty of its own. It will refresh you, it will rejuvenate you, it will unburden you. If you can be totally sad you will come to know something immensely beautiful in sadness which no joy can ever give to you, because sadness has depth; joy is shallow. A person who has not known total sadness has missed a great experience of life.And total anger also has its own beauty. It will give you an experience of boiling at one hundred degrees, of intensity, of passion, of fire, of becoming aflame. And the miracle is: the person who can be totally angry can be totally compassionate too, because anger will teach him compassion. And sadness will teach him ways of being blissful.My approach is not that of a perfectionist; I am utterly against it. It has destroyed humanity. It has driven the whole of humanity into a kind of madness. The whole idea has to be dropped. We have to learn a new language – the language of wholeness. And I call a person holy when he is whole in whatsoever he does.If you are cleaning, then do it totally. Then be utterly lost in it, and it will give you as much as a musician gets when he gets totally lost in his music or a dancer gets when he is utterly lost in his dance. Even cleaning the floor or cooking food or taking a bath or going for a morning walk – anything.Let this be your foundation of life: that whatsoever you are doing at the moment, be utterly lost in it. Nothing of you should be left behind. Don’t keep any reservations. And you will come out of it immensely benefited, enriched.I am as fallible as anybody with only one difference: I am totally fallible!Moses and Jesus were sitting together in a boat reminiscing.“I really liked the one where you parted the water of the Red Sea, Moses,” said Jesus.“Ah, yes,” said Moses, “but that was nothing compared to your walking on the water – that beats all. Say, do you think you could do it again?”“Sure,” said Jesus, “but it has been a long time.”He stepped out of the boat. Everything was fine, so he started walking slowly. Soon he noticed the water was coming up over the top of his feet. He was a little concerned, but kept walking. Soon the water was up to his ankles. He turned back toward the boat, worried. By the time he reached the boat again the water was up to his knees. He scrambled back in, relieved but puzzled.“I don’t understand,” Jesus said, “I know it has been a long time, but I really thought I had it down. I wonder what went wrong.”Moses was thoughtful too. Finally he said, “I bet I know what it is! The first time you did it you did not have holes in your feet!”The fifth question:Osho,Is not life at all beautiful according to Gautama the Buddha?Life as you know it is not beautiful. When Buddha says life is misery, he is talking about the life that you know; he is not talking about the life that he knows. There is no point in talking about the life he knows – you won’t understand it. You have not even an idea of it; you cannot even imagine it.You know a life which is lived through the mind; he knows a life which is lived without the mind. You know a life which is nothing but nonessential, superfluous, peripheral; he knows a life which is lived from the very center of his being. He knows a life which is not temporal but eternal; you know only the life which is momentary.He goes on saying that your life is misery – misery and nothing else – for the simple reason that it is so momentary. It cannot satisfy you, it cannot give you contentment. It cannot quench your thirst; on the contrary, it makes your thirst more and more persistent. It makes you more and more discontented.The Irish paratrooper jumped from a plane and then discovered that he had forgotten his parachute. As he was falling through the air he looked around at the scenery and said to himself, “This would be very pleasant if only it would last!”But this is our situation: without parachutes, falling toward the earth. Of course, it is beautiful scenery: clouds with sunrays and all the greenery underneath you and a very silent atmosphere, no noise and unpolluted air. Everything is beautiful, but the problem is, it cannot last. Within moments all will be gone; within moments you will be shattered on the earth.Hence Buddha goes on reminding you about death: death is there at the corner. We try to make our lives last forever. We try in every possible way to avoid death, but death is unavoidable. We try to befool ourselves that we are exceptions, but nobody is an exception. Death comes inevitably.The only thing inevitable in life is death. But we go on creating illusions around ourselves that it is not going to happen – at least not today. And who takes care of tomorrow? “We will see tomorrow when it comes. Let us enjoy this moment – eat, drink, be merry.”Buddha says that this “Eat, drink, and be merry” philosophy is sheer unconsciousness. And this unconscious state can create more and more misery for you. Unconsciousness is misery, so if your life is unconscious it is misery.Consciousness is bliss. If your life is consciousness then it is bliss, but then it becomes a totally different kind of life. It becomes the life of the awakened one, of the enlightened one.Shanahan staggered out of the saloon. He wandered up the street and by mistake went into a house where a wake was being held. He spotted the refreshments and helped himself.The wake lasted all through the night and well into the next day. Shanahan made himself useful by serving as bartender and always had one with the guy who was drinking.At the end of the second day the party thinned out quite a bit, until at last Shanahan was alone with the widow. She approached him for the first time. “You must have been a great friend of O’Leary to stay on like this,” she said sadly, “so I feel I can ask your advice. Do you think we should take poor O’Leary to a funeral home or should we hold the services here?”Shanahan took a final swig of gin and said, “Missus, why don’t we just stuff him and keep the party going?”Yes, everybody would like that, tries that, but it is not possible. The party cannot go on and on and on; it is bound to come to an end.Buddha simply wants you to be reminded again and again that when death is there, what kind of life are you living? It can’t be much of a life. There is another life which is beyond death, which is deathlessness, and it is your birthright to attain to it. But the false has to be dropped first. The false has to be seen as false and then the quest starts for the real. The moment you recognize your life as nothing but a slow kind of death, you will start looking for the real life.And the real life is available and not very far away; it is available inside you, within you. Whatsoever you do on the outside is to be taken away by death. Do something for your inner transformation, because that is the only treasure which cannot be taken away by death.The last question:Osho,Can man live in this cunning world without being cunning himself?The world is cunning because you are cunning, not vice versa. It is not that you are cunning because the world is cunning. The world is nothing but you; you are the world.You project your world. And even though the world is cunning, what are you going to gain by being cunning? Even though the world is cunning, what are you going to lose by being innocent, simple?Nothing of real value can be lost by being simple. In fact, by being simple and innocent the real is attained. Yes, by cunningness you can attain to power, to money, to prestige, but what is the point of attaining all that? Death is bound to take everything away from you. And can’t you see the people who are powerful? Are they happy? Do you see any joy in their lives? Can’t you observe the rich people? They live a dog’s life, in utter misery!Alexander the Great said to Diogenes, “If I am going to be born again I would not like to be Alexander again. I would like to be Diogenes.”Diogenes was a naked mystic, had nothing, not even a begging bowl. Buddha at least had a begging bowl with him; Diogenes was absolutely without any possessions.He used to have a begging bowl, but one day he saw a dog drinking water and he meditated over it, and he thought, “If a dog can manage without a begging bowl, can’t I manage without a begging bowl?” He threw the begging bowl into the river and he became very friendly with the dog. He used to tell people, “He is one of my teachers. He has given me one of the most important lessons of my life. Since I have thrown the begging bowl in the river I feel such freedom; otherwise, even in the night I used to remain afraid that somebody may steal my begging bowl. I used to look around to see whether the begging bowl was still there or not at least two, three times in the night. Since I have thrown it away, I have no worry left in the world.”Alexander heard about the joy of Diogenes and he came to see him, and was tremendously impressed. He had never seen such a man! And to Diogenes he said, “Next time, if God is going to send me again to the world, I will come as Diogenes.”Diogenes laughed. He looked at his dog – his friend and teacher – and said to the dog, “Listen to what this man is saying. If he really wants to be Diogenes who is preventing him? He can be Diogenes just this very moment!” It is said that he laughed and the dog smiled too. Must have been some ancient Snoopy!Alexander said, “What is the matter? Why are you laughing and why is your dog smiling?”Diogenes said, “What else can we do? You are talking such nonsense! If you want to be Diogenes, forget all about your world conquest and be here. I live on this bank of the river, and it is a big bank. We can both live here, there is no problem. Why wait for the next life? And why remain miserable meanwhile?”Alexander said, “I cannot answer it. I understand – you are right – but I have my own investments, my own ideas to fulfill first. I have to conquer the world. Once I have conquered it, I can renounce it but not before that.”Diogenes said, “You will never conquer it, because nobody can conquer the whole world. And even if you conquer it, you will never be able to renounce it because then you will say: ‘I have put so much energy into it and I have wasted my whole life. Why should I renounce it?’”Alexander died in misery; Diogenes died in bliss. By coincidence, both died on the same day, and when they were crossing the river that separates this world from the other, Alexander was ahead, Diogenes was just a few feet behind. Alexander looked, felt very ashamed because he was naked. Diogenes was not ashamed at all because he had been naked his whole life. Just to hide his shame Alexander laughed – a shallow laugh – and said to Diogenes, “It is strange that an emperor and a beggar are meeting on the boundary line of these two worlds. It may not have happened before, it may not happen again.”Diogenes had a real laugh – a belly laugh. He said, “You are right – an emperor and a beggar meeting on this boundary is a rare phenomenon – but you are wrong about one thing. You don’t know who is the emperor and who is the beggar. The emperor is behind and the beggar is ahead!”And Diogenes was right.Buddha insists: by being cunning you can accumulate wealth but what is the point of it, if it only brings misery, anxiety, anguish? By being innocent you may be cheated, you may be taken advantage of, but what is there to lose?You ask me, “Can man live in this cunning world without being cunning?” Don’t call the world cunning, because that is just a cover-up. You want to be cunning and you cover it up with an explanation, with the rationalization: “The world is cunning, that’s why I have to be cunning.” It is your world: you make it, you create it.And remember, everybody who is part of the world thinks in the same way. All the constituents of the world think in the same way: “The world is cunning, that’s why I have to be cunning.” Who is creating the world? We are the world and we are creating it. But we want to be cunning and we don’t want to accept the fact, the ugly fact, that we want to be cunning; hence we call the whole world cunning.Drop such explanations. And of course, others will also support your explanation because they are in the same boat. So your explanation will look almost like a valid truth. It is not.Times in the fifties were not easy for Ma and Pa in the rural area of West Texas, as a ten-year drought had no mercy on small farmers. Still, Pa was determined to send Junior off to the prestigious University of Texas, if only for one semester, to boast of his son’s academic achievements to the neighbors. So money was saved for several years until one thousand dollars were accumulated.As Junior boarded the bus ready for departure, Pa sternly announced, “Junior, your Ma and I have sacrificed a lot to send you to university, and if you really watch yourself you can make it through the year with this money.” And he handed the boy an envelope containing the one thousand dollars.Junior, however, arrived at the university with notions other than that of earning a degree. He enjoyed nights and days of fun and games, recklessly spending Pa’s money until one month later all was spent.In spite of his desperate situation, Junior wrote a letter, saying, “Pa, there are many smart teachers here and one of my professors says he can teach old Blue, our hound dog, to talk for only five hundred dollars.”When Pa read the letter he became excited and told Ma, “This may be our lucky day at last. If the boy is right, we can put that useless hound dog in the circus, become rich, and retire for life!”So Pa mortgaged the farm and all the equipment, borrowed five hundred dollars from the bank, and sent it along with Old Blue on the bus. When the dog arrived with the money, Junior, not wanting to be bothered with the animal, killed it and forgot about it. As he continued his carefree life-style for a few more weeks, the money again ran out.By now, however, Junior had learned the trick, so he again wrote to his Pa, “Gee, Pa, Old Blue had us all fooled. He is smarter than we thought. The professor has already taught him to speak English, and now he says that this dog is so intelligent that for only five hundred dollars more he could be taught two more languages, to sing and to dance.”After reading the letter, Pa and Ma were overtaken by visions of great wealth and fame. They immediately hocked all of their belongings, borrowed from all of their friends, and finally raised another five hundred dollars to send to Junior. This time the money lasted until the Thanksgiving break, at which time Junior and Blue were both expected home.Excited, Pa went to meet Junior at the bus station, but to his surprise, Junior was without the new superstar hound dog. Running up to him he cried, “Hi, Junior! Where is old Blue?”Junior pulled Pa aside and with a serious look explained, “Pa, the damnedest thing happened on the way here. Old Blue was sitting here beside me talking up a storm, when suddenly he said, ‘Junior, I got to shit real bad!’ And I said, ‘Blue, just hold back till we get to the next town. I got to shave, also, and we have a ten-minute layover. We can use the restroom there.’“So, Pa, Old Blue was sitting on the crapper and I was shaving with that straight-edged razor you gave me last Christmas, when Blue said, ‘Say, I wonder if your Pa is still fucking that old cross-eyed mare at the farm?’ And Pa, I got so damn mad I just cut that dog’s head off!”Pa bolted forward, very excited, and said, “Are you sure you killed that sonofabitch, son?”This goes on and on. Somebody has to come out of it. If you are waiting for the whole world to become innocent, and then you will become innocent, then it is not going to happen ever. Forget about the world. Be innocent and lose anything that is bound to be lost by dropping cunningness. And you will not be a loser, remember.Innocence will give you the real treasure, the kingdom of God. Blessed are the innocent, for theirs is the kingdom of God.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 12 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,How can you, as a man, talk about the feminine psyche? How do you know that God is a he?I am not talking as a man, I am not talking as a woman. I am not talking as a mind at all. The mind is used, but I am talking as consciousness, as awareness. And awareness is neither he nor she awareness is neither man nor woman. Your body has that division and your mind too, because your mind is the inner part of your body, and your body is the outer part of your mind. Your body and mind are not separate; they are one entity. In fact, to say body and mind is not right; and should not be used. You are bodymind – not even a hyphen between the two.Hence, with the body, with the mind, masculine, feminine – these words are relevant, meaningful. But there is something beyond them both; there is something transcendental. That is your real core, your being. That being consists only of awareness, of witnessing, of watchfulness. It is pure consciousness.I am not talking here as a man; otherwise it is impossible to talk about women. I am talking as awareness. I have lived in the feminine body many times and I have lived in the masculine body many times, and I have witnessed all. I have seen all the houses, I have seen all the garments. What I am saying to you is the conclusion of many, many lives; it has not to do with only this life. This life is only a culmination of a long, long pilgrimage.So don’t listen to me as a man or a woman; otherwise you will not be listening to me. Listen to me as awareness.Secondly, you ask, “How do you know that God is a he?” God is neither he nor she. God simply means the totality of consciousness in existence. God simply means life eternal. Life expresses in two ways, man and woman. God is the unmanifest source of life; you cannot call him “he,” you cannot call him “she.” But because for centuries the word he has been used, I go on using it. You have to remember that I don’t mean it.If you really want to go deeply into the phenomenon of God, then God does not exist at all – as a person. God is only a presence. In other words, there is no God but only godliness: a quality that pervades, permeates, the whole of existence; that is everywhere, in every leaf, in every dewdrop. It is a quality. Once you start thinking of God as a quality, your whole outlook on life, on religion, on love, will be totally different.Existence consists not of nouns but of verbs. Nouns are inventions of man and so are pronouns. Verbs are real. When you say “a river” what do you mean? Have you ever seen a river as a noun? The river is always flowing, it is always a movement. It is never static, it is dynamic. How can you make it a static noun? The word river seems to be static.If you ask the buddhas, the awakened ones, they will say, “Rivers don’t exist.” But you see the river flowing by. The flow is there, a kind of rivering is there, but no river. You see so many trees, but in fact what exists is a kind of treeing, not trees, because every tree is changing every moment. In the time that you take to use the word tree, the tree is no longer the same. A few old leaves have fallen, a few new leaves have started coming out, a flower has opened up, a bud is getting ready to open. There is great activity; the tree is constantly in momentum.The whole existence consists of verbs, and God is nothing but the totality of all these verbs. God is not a quantity but a quality, not a person but a presence. God is an experience, not an object of experience but an experience itself. God is subjectivity. And how can you call subjectivity “he” or “she”?I know why the question has arisen. All over the world, particularly in the West, the liberated woman is asking, “Why call God ‘he’?” And she is right, in a way. Why make God identified with the masculine mind? It is a kind of male chauvinistic approach. For centuries, the male has dominated everything, hence he has called God “he.” And the rebellion against it is absolutely right.But to start calling God “she” will not put things right; it will be moving to the other extreme. That will be another kind of chauvinism, it won’t change anything. The wrong that man was doing will simply be done by women; both are wrong. God is neither.Hence in the East, where for ten thousand years hundreds of people have arrived to the ultimate pinnacle of experiencing godliness, we don’t call God “he” or “she,” we call him “it.” That is far more beautiful because it takes God beyond he and she. But some word has to be used, and whatsoever word is used is going to be inadequate – he, she, it – because the word it also has its own dangers. It seems to be dead because we use it for things, and God is not a thing either. It seems to be too neutral, and God is not neutral; he is tremendously committed, involved. It seems to be lifeless, and God is life itself, love itself. Any word will have its own limitations.So you can use any word – he, she, it – but remember, all words are limited and God is unlimited. If you use these words mindfully, then there is no danger. The basic remembrance is that God is a presence, otherwise many foolish questions arise.If you call him “he” or “she,” then the question arises, “Where does he live? Where is he?” And then the question seems very relevant because you have reduced him to a person: then where is his dwelling?“Where is the dwelling of God?”This was the question with which the rabbi of Kotzk surprised a number of learned men who happened to be visiting him.They laughed at him, “What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?”Then he answered his own question: “God dwells wherever man lets him in.”There is no dwelling outside somewhere. Whenever you allow yourself, you open up to existence, whenever you allow the wind and the rain and the sun to reach to your innermost core, suddenly there is God, godliness. Suddenly you are overwhelmed by something bigger than you, by something which is oceanic. You start disappearing into it like a dewdrop.The moment we say, “God is a person,” then we start praying, praising. That is a kind of bribery. That is a kind of buttressing his ego. If God is a person he must have an ego. Then praise him and he will be happy with you, and you will be rewarded either here or hereafter. The moment we think of God as a person we start searching for him not in the world but somewhere far away in heaven, and we miss the whole point. God is now-here, God is nowhere else.There is a tale that a man inspired by God once went out from the creaturely realms into the vast waste. There he wandered till he came to the Gates of Mystery. He knocked. From within came the cry, “What do you want here?”He said, “I have proclaimed your praise in the ears of mortals, but they are deaf to me, so I come to you that you yourself may hear me and reply.”“Turn back!” came the cry from within. “Here is no ear for you. I have sunk my hearing in the deafness of mortals.”God is in the stones, God is in the waters, God is in the animals, God is in the birds, God is in people, in sinners, in saints. God is equivalent to isness. Now, is isness he or she? The question will be utterly meaningless.So don’t be worried whether God is he or she. Rather, look within yourself and find the place where he and she both disappear. And that will be the beginning of your understanding of reality, of what it is.This thing cannot be decided by argumentation. It is not a metaphysical question, it is something existential. If you can find something within yourself which is neither masculine nor feminine, then you will know that there is something in existence which is neither, which is beyond both. And that beyondness is godliness.The second question:Osho,I am sixty years old, but yet the same desires persist. What is the matter with me?Growing old is not growing up. Time by itself does not bring wisdom. Yes, it brings many experiences, but experiences by themselves cannot deliver wisdom to you.Wisdom is a totally different phenomenon. It does not happen through experiences of the outside world. It happens when you become centered within your being, when you become rooted in your being, when you become integrated, when you are no longer a crowd and you become a crystallized soul.Desires can’t disappear just because you have become sixty years old. You can be six hundred years old and desires will be there, in fact more, because they will be also six hundred years old. Your desires are sixty years old; they have gone deep in you in sixty years.People have this idea that when you are young you suffer from desires, when you become old you go beyond them. Just by being old? That is ridiculous! You don’t go beyond desires just by being old. You simply become a hypocrite; you start pretending that you have gone beyond desires. Maybe you can’t go into desires because there is no energy available, but the mind thinks more and more. Because you can’t do anything, your whole energy becomes cerebral. The young person can do something about his desires; you cannot, so you only think.And as death starts coming closer and closer, a great fear arises: so many desires are there which are unfulfilled. You become afraid: if death comes and takes you away… It is bound to happen sooner or later, and the possibility is of sooner than later. All those desires start taking possession of you. “Fulfill us,” they say. “Time is short. Do something.” You start going crazy. You become continuously obsessed.A moralist addressing an audience thundered, “Remember, my friends, when temptation comes your way, you must resist it – resist it!”“I would like to,” said one of the old men, “but I am always afraid it may never come again.”That fear is natural. Death may come before the temptation comes again. Who knows? – it may not come again. The old man becomes more and more afraid of losing his desires.It is not an accident that Buddha introduced a new idea into the world of sannyas. He started initiating young people into sannyas. In India, the tradition was that you should take sannyas only when you are very old, after seventy-five years old – the fourth stage, when you have done everything and only death is left. Then take sannyas. That was the idea and it was a very comfortable idea, a very cozy idea.In the first place, very few people are going to live beyond seventy-five, particularly in those days and in India. Even today very few people will live beyond seventy-five, so there is no fear of living after seventy-five and becoming a sannyasin. And if by chance you happen to live after seventy-five, all your energies will be already wasted, gone down the drain. Whether you take sannyas or not you will be a sannyasin, so why not take it?People used to take a vow of celibacy after seventy-five. You see the foolishness of it!A man used to come to Ramakrishna each religious festival and he would give a big feast. He was a nonvegetarian, and many animals would be cut up for the feast. He was very rich. Then suddenly all the feasts stopped. There was a great festival and the feast was not happening, and the man had come to see Ramakrishna.Ramakrishna asked, “What happened? Why are you not celebrating this feast? Have you become irreligious or something? Are you no longer interested in your religion?”He said, “That is not the point. My teeth have fallen out. And when I cannot eat, why should I bother?”The feast was not for any religious reason; the feast was simply because he wanted to enjoy. Religion was just an excuse.People can take an oath of celibacy after seventy-five so they are saving both worlds: they have enjoyed this world and now they are creating a bank balance in the other. They are becoming virtuous so cheaply that it is all false.Buddha introduced the idea that young people should become sannyasins. Then it is something significant. When a young person goes beyond sex, when a young person goes beyond desires, when a young person goes beyond greed, ambition, the longing to be powerful, the ambition to be famous, then it is something tremendously meaningful, significant.Remember one thing: when you are young you have energy. That energy can take you to hell and that same energy can take you to heaven. Energy is neutral; it depends on you how you use it.So the first thing: just by becoming an old person does not mean that you have become wise. Wisdom needs meditation not worldly experience. Worldly experience makes you more cunning; hence it is very difficult to find an old man who is not cunning. You can find a young man who is not cunning; you can find many children. In fact, almost all children are innocent, they are not cunning. They have not known anything of the world. They have not learned tricks, strategies, politics, diplomacy. They are simply whatsoever they are – they are authentic. As they grow more and more, as they become acquainted with the world and all the hypocrisy around, naturally they start becoming part of the world. They start learning the same kind of strategies.By the time a person becomes old he becomes very cunning – not wise, not intelligent. Remember: if you were stupid when you were a child you will be more stupid when you are old. You will have a long, long-rooted stupidity in you with great foliage and flowers and fruits. Whatsoever you have will grow with your age. If you meditate then meditation will grow. But just by becoming old you cannot be wise.The ex-captain’s wife paid a visit to a doctor who had achieved fame in the successful treatment of impotency. His method consisted of convincing the male patient he had the virility of a horse. The doctor consented to treat the woman’s husband.A few weeks later the doctor met the woman on the street, “Have you noticed the change you wanted in your husband?” he asked.“No,” replied the woman, “but he just won the Derby!”Now, a stupid old man…! If you tell him “You are a horse,” you can’t expect anything else! He will become a horse; he will become hypnotized with the idea.Intelligence is a totally different phenomenon; intelligence cannot be hypnotized. An intelligent person cannot be Hindu, cannot be Mohammedan, cannot be Christian – impossible, because these are all tricks, hypnotic tricks. People are being hypnotized from their very childhood: “You are a Hindu.” A constant repetition of “You are a Hindu” makes you a Hindu. It is nothing else but conditioning. A wise man becomes unconditioned.So the first thing I suggest to you: become unconditioned. Whatsoever your sixty years’ life has conditioned you for, drop it. That’s what your mind is: the accumulated conditionings. Drop them!And the beginning of meditation is when you start dropping your conditionings. A moment comes when you become unconditioned again, like a child. Then your intelligence explodes. And an intelligent person cannot desire, that is impossible, because desiring only brings misery, frustration. Desiring only creates anxiety, anguish; it never brings any fulfillment, never any contentment.An intelligent person cannot go on desiring. His very intelligence is enough and desiring disappears – not that he renounces, remember. Only fools renounce.Intelligent people don’t renounce the world. They live in the world, but they live intelligently, without desiring. Whatsoever comes on their way they enjoy, but they don’t hanker for anything. Their sleep remains undisturbed; they don’t dream for anything. They don’t project for the future, they live in the present.Yes, you are becoming old, but don’t hope that just by becoming old you will become wise enough and desires will disappear on their own accord.She lay in bed, blissfully happy on this, the first morning of her long-dreamed-of honeymoon.“Darling,” she called as she heard him puttering around in the bathroom, “did you brush your teeth yet?”“Yes,” he cooed, “and while I was at it, I brushed yours too.”Yes, you can become old, but just by becoming old nothing is achieved.Real growth happens inward. It is a transformation of your interiority. And now that you are here, forget those sixty years and all the nightmares that you must have passed through in those sixty years. Start your life afresh, from the very beginning again.Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you will not be able to enter into my kingdom of God.” And he is absolutely right. You need a new birth; you have to be twice-born. And to be with a master is a rebirth. It is initiation into the inner world.You have wasted sixty years on the outside, accumulating money, accumulating this and that, trying to be respectable, famous, powerful. Now get out of all those stupid games – no more games! Now let there be a single-pointed search for the truth: the truth that you are, the truth that resides in you, the truth that you are made of, the truth of your consciousness.My whole effort is to help you toward self-knowledge. It does not need time; it needs intensity, sincerity. It needs commitment. It needs a tremendous effort to go in, because in those sixty years you have created so many things on the outside which will hinder you from going in. They have become walls. You have become unbridged to your own self.You ask me, “I am sixty years old, but yet the same desires persist.” Good that you have become aware that the same desires are still there. There are many people who are not aware; they have repressed their desires so deeply that even they themselves have become unaware of them. Good that you are aware. The first ray of intelligence: that you are aware that the same desires persist.And you ask, “What is the matter with me?” Nothing is the matter with you; it is the same with everybody. One phase of your life is over. Now it is time to grow into another dimension. Sixty years is enough time to know about the world and all that it offers – or at least promises to offer. You have known it, and it is only by knowing it that one becomes aware of the deceptiveness of it all. You have seen the illusion – now turn in. Now become a sannyasin. You have been a worldly man up to now. And by a worldly man I simply mean one who is absolutely unaware of himself and is concerned about trivia – money, power, prestige.And I call the person a sannyasin who becomes deeply interested in his own life’s source, who starts asking, “Who am I?” and who starts moving toward his center. From the circumference he changes his abode toward the center.The day you reach to your center is the day of great blessings, the day of great enlightenment. That day you transcend life and death. That day you transcend man–woman. That day you transcend all dualities. That day, for the first time, you will taste what bliss is.The third question:Osho,Why are you against following someone who knows the secrets of life? What is the need to discover them oneself on one's own?Truth cannot be transferred. That is one of the intrinsic qualities of truth: nobody can give it to you. Yes, words can be given to you, theories can be given to you, theologies can be given to you, but not truth. Following somebody you will be following his words. Following somebody you will become a Jaina, a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, but you will never become your own self.And Buddha is a unique individual just as you are. What did he do? Try to understand it; that may be helpful in your journey. But don’t follow him literally, otherwise that will make you only phony, that will make you only pseudo. Existence never repeats anybody. Jesus comes only once, Buddha comes only once. There has never been a person like Buddha before and will never be again, for the simple reason that existence never repeats.You are a totally new manifestation of existence. It has never been before so there has never been a person exactly like you. So whomsoever you follow, you will be following somebody who is not like you and you will get into trouble. You can cultivate a certain character around you, you can act, but by acting you are not going to become a buddha.That’s what the Buddhist monks have been doing for twenty-five centuries – acting, performing, literally following. The way Buddha walked they will walk, the way Buddha ate they will eat, the way Buddha sat they will sit. You can do all these things and it is possible you may do them even better than Buddha, because Buddha was not imitating anybody else; he was spontaneous. When a person is spontaneous he has no time to rehearse it; you will have enough time to rehearse. You may even defeat Buddha in a competition.It actually happened once…Friends of Charlie Chaplin were celebrating his birthday and they found a beautiful way to celebrate it. They advertised in newspapers all over England that there will be a competition and whosoever can imitate Charlie Chaplin will be rewarded. There were three big awards.Many people participated. At least a hundred were chosen from different cities and they all gathered in London for the final selection of the three winners.Charlie Chaplin had an idea. He entered the competition from a different town hoping that he was going to win the first prize – there was no question about it. But he was wrong; he got the second prize! People came to know only later on that he was also a participant. He was so surprised that somebody who was not a Charlie Chaplain managed better than himself. Naturally, the other had practiced it for a long time. Charlie Chaplin was just being there: there was no need to practice. He is Charlie Chaplin, so why practice? What is there to practice? But the other was more polished, more practiced. He walked better than Charlie Chaplin, he talked better than Charlie Chaplin. He outdid him.This is possible. Some Christian monk may defeat Jesus; some Buddhist monk may defeat Buddha. But still, Buddha is Buddha and you will be only an imitator. Still, Charlie Chaplin is Charlie Chaplin and the man who was acting even better was just acting; deep down he is himself.You can never be somebody else. Remember it as one of the most fundamental laws. Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal law: you can never be like somebody else. That does not mean you should not learn. Learn, but don’t follow. Absorb, but go on your own way. Learn from all the enlightened ones. Sit at their feet, absorb their presence, but go on your own way.Buddha himself said as his last statement on the earth: “Be a light unto yourself.”A squirrel on the ground was watching two other squirrels in a tree.One of them fell to the ground, bounced a couple of times, looked back up in the tree and said, “That making love in the tree is for the birds.”That’s why I say don’t follow. Don’t try to make love in a tree – that is for the birds! – otherwise you will be in the hospital.A little boy and girl squirrel were chattering and playing around when suddenly a fox appeared. The girl squirrel dashed up a tree but the boy squirrel stayed on the ground.“That’s strange,” said the fox. “Usually squirrels are afraid of me and run up the nearest tree.”“Listen,” said the boy squirrel. “Did you ever try to climb a tree after playing with a girl for twenty minutes?”Just look to your own situation!Buddha has a different space, different context, a different world. You cannot follow him – literally you cannot follow him. Metaphorically you can understand him and you can be tremendously benefited by him.You ask me, “Why are you against following someone who knows the secrets of life?” How do you know that someone knows the secrets of life? That is just a belief. Unless you know the secrets of life, you will never know that someone else knows them. And following somebody just out of belief you may be getting into trouble. He may not know at all. He may be a convincing talker; he may be arguing better than you can argue. He can silence you in argument; that does not mean that he knows. He may be more articulate than you are, he may have studied the scriptures. Even the Devil can quote the scriptures! How do you know that he knows the secrets of life? You can know only if you also know.You can understand Buddha really only when you are also a buddha. You can understand Christ only when you are also a christ – not by following them but by becoming awakened on your own accord.Hence I say there is the need to discover the truth by yourself. The inner truth is different from the outer truth. The outer truth can be discovered by one person and then the whole world possesses it. For example, the theory of relativity was discovered by Albert Einstein. Now everybody else need not discover it again and again; that would be just wasting time. He took years to discover it; now if you are intelligent you can understand it within days – if you are really intelligent, then within hours. There is no need to waste years in discovering it again and again.Somebody discovered – Newton discovered – the law of gravitation. Now you need not go and sit in a garden and wait for an apple to fall and then brood over it and then come to the conclusion that there must be a certain magnetic force in the earth which pulls things downward. Now, if everybody has to do that there are not so many gardens and there are not so many apple trees, and apples may not oblige you. You may go on sitting under the tree for hours, days, months; they may not fall.And do you know, apples used to fall even before Newton, and thousands of people must have watched them falling, but nobody discovered the law of gravitation. So there is no certainty that, even if they oblige and fall in the right time, you will discover the law of gravitation. There is no need – Newton has done it for you, for all, forever.This is the quality of the outer, objective truth: once discovered it becomes universal.The inner truth has a totally different quality: it always remains individual, it never becomes universal.Buddha discovers it but he cannot convey it; he cannot adequately express it, he cannot make it universal. It remains essentially individual. And whatsoever he does is just inadequate; it never fulfills the great need of the masses – that they need not discover it anymore. Buddha has discovered it, Jesus has discovered it; now you can simply follow it.This is the beauty of the inner truth: that you have to discover it again and again afresh. And the very discovery is such bliss that it is good that one person has not finished it forever; otherwise there would have been no spiritual quest left. Buddha is not the first; there had been other awakened people before him. One enlightened person would have done it and then in every primary school you could teach it to everybody. The whole joy of discovering it would have been lost. It is beautiful that the subjective truth remains individual. Thousands of times it has been discovered, but it has not become universal yet and it will never become universal; it will remain individual. You will have to seek and search for it on your own.And when you find it you will be surprised: it is the same truth that was found by Buddha, it is the same truth that was found by Mahavira, the same truth that was found by Mohammed or Moses; it is not a different truth. But this is the quality of the inner world – that you have to go there all alone. Nobody can accompany you and nobody can give you ready-made maps.It is a very mysterious world inside; the outside world is not so mysterious, maps are possible. But the inner world remains a secret, a hidden secret. Even when you have known it and you would like to share it you cannot. All that you can share is your desire to share, that’s all – your deep compassion to share, your love for others. But the truth remains as unexpressed as before.Then why do masters speak at all? They speak not to share the truth – they know perfectly well it cannot be shared. They speak to make your thirst for truth aflame. They speak to make you more thirsty, more hungry. They speak to create a tremendous longing in you to go inward. Their presence, their vibe, their song, their dance, all indicates toward one thing: go in.The fourth question:Osho,I don't want to die and yet I am here with you. Am I crazy?Sane people don’t come here, because the so-called sane people are the most insane in the world. The sane people are those who crucified Jesus. The sane people are those who poisoned Socrates. The sane people are those who made many efforts to kill Buddha. The sane people are in politics; they don’t come to the enlightened ones, to the awakened ones. Only crazy people come – but these crazy people, in the real sense, are the sanest.It is a paradox. The people who followed Jesus must have been crazy – they were crazy. Everybody was saying that they were crazy. The people who followed Buddha must have been crazy. Even Buddha’s father was saying to people, “You are crazy! He is crazy and you are crazy! He has renounced his kingdom – he is a fool. And now so many people are renouncing and going with him. What can you find in the jungles? Sitting under trees with closed eyes, what can you find? If you want to do something, do it in the world. If you want to find something, find it in the world.”When Buddha went back to his home after his enlightenment, his father was very angry and he said, “You are crazy, but I can forgive you because I have the heart of a father.”Buddha laughed and he said, “First say everything that you wanted to tell me the twelve years that I have not been here in the house. You must have accumulated much anger – first cathart! When you have thrown all the garbage out, then there is a possibility to communicate something to you.”His father was shocked. What is he saying? It was not expected at all! For a moment there was silence. And Buddha said, “Just look at me. I am not the same person who went. I am a totally different person because my inner being has changed. I am reborn. I am not your son anymore. I am not this body and I am not this mind either. I have attained to the beyond.“So first throw out all your anger so that you can see me, so that your eyes are clear enough to recognize the change that has happened in me – a radical change. The person that had gone has died, and the person that has come today is a totally different person – of course in the same continuum. Hence I look the same way from the outside only; from the inside I am not the same at all.”You are crazy! All of my sannyasins are crazy. Only crazy people can be religious – crazy in the eyes of the world but not crazy in the eyes of the awakened ones, because in the eyes of the awakened ones the world is insane. The world is a big madhouse; you have escaped from it. You are learning how to be sane, how to be saner.You ask me, “I don’t want to die, and yet I am here with you.” This happens to everybody. When you come here you start learning a new language, the language of transformation. You start seeing a new truth: that if the ego dies, then you will be really born. If the ego is dropped, then godliness can enter you. The ego is the barrier.When you come here for the first time, you come for improvement, for growth – not to die. But slowly, slowly you start understanding that growth is possible only if first you allow a certain death: the death of the ego.Then fear grips you and a contradiction arises in you, a double bind. The intelligent part of you starts saying, “Die – don’t waste time.” And the unintelligent part – your past – says, “What are you doing? Are you crazy? Who knows what will happen after death? If you drop your personality and your ego, how will you keep yourself together? You may start falling apart! How will you control yourself?” You are afraid of so many things that could happen to you if control is lost.Hence you start doing a very contradictory work: on the one hand you dismantle yourself, and on the other hand you put yourself together again. This can continue for years.The fashionably dressed girl these days wears pants to make her look like a boy, and see-through blouses just to prove that she is not.This is a double bind! And this is bound to happen.Sooner or later, one day, you will have to take a decisive step. You will have to come out of this double bind, because this is wasting time, energy, opportunity. Who knows? I may not be here tomorrow – or the next moment. This opportunity may be lost. Right now the door is open and I am beckoning you, “Come in!” Tomorrow the door may disappear and there will be nobody to beckon you to come in. And then you will suffer much, then you will be in deep anguish. Then you will cry and weep for the spilled milk.Right now is the time to listen to the call, to the challenge. I am a challenge, a call: a challenge of the unknown, calling you toward the uncharted sea. I know you are afraid and I know that to leave the shelter of the shore is difficult. You have lived on the shore so long and you have made such a beautiful hut. It is so cozy there, with no fear of the waves and the ocean and the dangers of the unknown. You seem to be very secure there, and I am calling you, “Come out of your cozy security!” – because it is just a deception.Death is bound to destroy all. Before death destroys, take the decisive step on your own accord. Move into the unknown. Before death kills you, let the ego be killed by you yourself. Then there will be no death for you, then you can transcend all death.Great courage, of course, is needed, but if you have taken the courage to be a sannyasin, now don’t look backward. For the sannyasin there is no way to look backward. Listen to the challenge and go wholeheartedly toward it.Yes, it will look more and more crazy because you will see you are committing a kind of suicide. But once you have committed the suicide – the suicide of the ego – you will be surprised: to live in the ego was real suicide and to get out of it is to attain to absolute freedom. Buddha calls that freedom nirvana.The fifth question:Osho,Why are you always talking and telling jokes about the Jews? Why not about Indians?Indians don’t have jokes. They are such holy people, you know, so spiritual! They don’t have any sense of humor. I have never come across a single originally Indian joke. All the jokes are imported. Sometimes I wonder why the government allows it! On everything else there is great taxation; only jokes can be imported and you don’t have to pay three hundred percent tax on them. Indians don’t have jokes, hence it is very difficult to tell Indian jokes.And Jews are the richest in jokes; they have the best jokes. They are very earthly people, just the opposite of the Indians. Indians have this nonsense of being very holy, and Jews are very earthly people. Their religion is also very earthly. They don’t have any idea of renouncing the world. Their rabbis are not celibates; their rabbis are as ordinary as anybody else. This is something beautiful – I appreciate it. These hierarchies should disappear. The greatest snobbishness exists in the minds of the so-called religious people. And India is very snobbish; hence they have not created any jokes.Jews are earthly people, ordinary people. They have enjoyed their ordinariness, and they have a great sense of humor. In fact, their sense of humor has been a great blessing to them; otherwise, they have suffered so much… For two thousand years they have been suffering all over the world. Without that sense of humor they would not have survived. Their sense of humor has helped them survive, has helped them to always resurrect again and again. They have been crushed and killed and destroyed, and yet their spirit has come back again. They could laugh at misery, at suffering. Laughter has been a great boon.And it is very difficult to change a Jewish joke into anything else! Sometimes I try, but it loses its beauty.A man said to a friend, “Let me tell you a joke.”“Okay,” said the friend.“Well, a Jewish man was walking down the street when he ran into…”“Stop!” cried the friend. “Why are you always telling jokes about Jews?”“Okay, okay, I will tell it differently. A Chinaman is walking down the street when he runs into another Chinaman. ‘Are you coming to my son’s bar mitzvah?’ he asked.”It is very difficult to change a joke. Jewish jokes have a flavor of their own, and if you translate them, they lose that flavor; they become flat.And why are you worried? Why does it hurt you? Every race in the world has contributed something. Every race has lived in different situations, different climates, has evolved differently, has its own personality. Jews have their own personality, and Jewish jokes are very essential to that personality. They know how to laugh; they know how to laugh at themselves too. That is something really beautiful. It is easy to laugh at others; the real laughter is when you can laugh at yourself.The sixth question:Osho,Sometimes when I hear you reading a question my first reaction is, “What kind of a stupid question is this?” Don't you ever feel that way?Once in a while… For example, reading this question.The last question:Osho,I would like to try experimenting with alcohol a la Gurdjieff, except I am broke. Can I have an alcohol allowance?George Gurdjieff would not have given you that experiment; that was only given to people who were against alcohol. For example, if Morarji Desai had gone to George Gurdjieff, then he would have forced him to drink alcohol – instead of his own urine! But not for you.So it is very difficult for me to allow you an alcohol allowance – that would be against the spirit of George Gurdjieff. He would never forgive me!The essential core of the experiment is to disturb you, to shatter you, to shatter your patterns, fixed patterns. If you desire alcohol, then that is the last thing that is going to shatter you. It will be fulfilling, it will not be shattering. Instead of alcohol, start drinking the water of life.“You know, you are the first man I have met whose kisses make me sit up and open my eyes.”“Really?”“Yes. Usually they have the opposite effect.”With you, alcohol will not be of any help; the water of life may have the right effect. You may open your eyes and sit up. And one more thing is good about it: you can be broke and still you can enjoy it. No allowance is needed, so Laxmi need not worry about it. It gives you total self-dependence.One Saturday night George ended up at a party in an unfamiliar apartment building. He got very drunk and somehow found his way home in the small hours. When he woke up the next afternoon with a terrible hangover, he realized that he had left his jacket, tie, shirt and shoes at the party.With much difficulty he found the apartment building, but he had no idea which apartment he had been in. The only thing he remembered about it was a magnificent gold toilet.So he knocked at the first apartment. The door was opened by a man with a hangover.“Hello,” said George. “Did you have a party here last night?”“We sure did!” groaned the man.“And do you have a gold toilet?”“A gold toilet? No, we sure don’t.”So George had to go to the next door, and so on for three floors. Everyone was recovering from a party, but no one knew anything about a gold toilet. By the time he got to the last apartment, George was beginning to think he had imagined the gold toilet. The door was opened by a man with a hangover.“Uh, hello,” said George. “Did you have a party here last night?”“We sure had a party here!” groaned the man.“And do you by any chance have a gold toilet?”There was a long silence.Finally the man shouted back over his shoulder, “Hey, Harry – here is the guy who shit in your tuba!”So, the allowance can be allowed – but what about other people’s tubas? You will create trouble. If you listen to my advice, forget the whole idea. It is good that you are broke. This is called a blessing in disguise. If you were not broke you would have gone a la Gurdjieff, and that would have led you into more trouble.Gurdjieff certainly forced people to drink, but only people who were against alcohol. He used to raise toasts every night for all the kinds of idiots in the world. He had twenty-six categories of idiots. I don’t know to which category you would belong, but you must belong to some category. Unless you are awakened you are bound to belong to some category or other.An idiot is a person who is trying to find joy where joy does not exist at all, who is trying to search for something which he has never lost in the first place. The enlightened person is one who has looked into his being before searching for anything anywhere else. It is better to look in your own house. He has looked in and has found it there. Now his search has disappeared.The person who is interested in alcohol must be living in misery, in a kind of suffering. That’s why he wants to somehow forget it all. Alcohol is nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself.My whole effort is to help you to remember yourself – and you want to forget yourself. By forgetting yourself you will be creating more and more hell for yourself and for others. Remember: rather, remember yourself.My methods are different from George Gurdjieff’s. I am not in favor of alcoholic beverages. I am not in favor of psychedelic drugs either, because they create illusory worlds for you and they are distractions. They make you more and more oblivious of your own being, unaware of your own self.My work is based in awareness. The word awareness is the golden key here, the master key. You have to learn to be more aware. Howsoever painful it is in the beginning, be more aware, because it is by becoming more aware that one day you will become part of the celebration of the whole.Aes dhammo sanantano – this is the eternal inexhaustible law.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 8 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 8 13 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Are all words lies?Truth is an experience so profound that it is inexpressible, so vast that no word can contain it. Words are small things; they have a certain utility, but they have limitations. And truth has no limitations; it is vaster than the sky. Truth means the whole existence.When you disappear into the whole you know it. Saying that you know it is not accurate; rather, you feel it. Or, to be even more accurate, you become it. When you have become the whole it is impossible to say it. And truths need to be said; they have an intrinsic quality that they have to be shared.Hence words are only hypothetical; they can be used, but one should not believe in them. They should be used as stepping-stones. Ultimately they are all lies; at the most, approximate reflections, but a reflection is a lie. The moon in the sky and the moon reflected in the lake are not the same. The face in the mirror is not really your face; it is just an illusion. There is nothing in the mirror.But small children become very concerned about the face in the mirror – their own face. When a small child is put before a mirror for the first time, he thinks he is seeing somebody sitting in front of him. He tries to catch hold of the child. If he cannot – and certainly he cannot catch hold of the child – he tries to go behind the mirror. Maybe the child is hiding behind.And this is the situation of people who believe in words. But in a way the mirror is useful. By saying that the reflection is a lie I am not saying that it is of no use. If you understand, it says something about the truth; not the truth itself – it indicates. A finger pointing to the moon is not the moon, but it has tremendous utility: it can point to the moon. If you become too obsessed with the finger, that is your fault, not the fault of the finger. If you forget the finger – and you have to forget it if you want to see the moon – then the finger has served its purpose.Even lies can help you reach to the truth; otherwise buddhas would not have spoken at all. Unless lies can help you in some way to reach to the truth, words would not have been used at all. No Bible, no Koran, no Gita, no Dhammapada, would have existed.When Buddha became enlightened, he remained silent for seven days, thinking, “What is the use of saying things to people which cannot be said? – and even if you say them, which are bound to be misunderstood? Moreover, if somebody is capable of understanding your words, he is bound to be capable of finding truth on his own.”The story says the gods from heaven then descended. They touched the feet of Buddha and they prayed to him that he should speak.Buddha said, “For what? Ninety-nine percent of people are not going to understand at all. One percent may perhaps be able to understand, but that one percent who can understand through words will be able to find the truth even if I don’t say anything about it at all. So what is the point of saying it?”The gods were puzzled. The logic was right, but still something was wrong, because in the ancient days other buddhas had spoken. Then they conferred together to find out how to argue with Buddha. And they found a way. It is good that they could find a way; otherwise we would have missed these tremendously significant messages of Buddha.They came back and they said, “You are right; the majority will never understand. And there are a few people who will reach to truth even if you don’t say anything. But can’t you imagine that there are a few who are in between these two groups, just on the boundary line? If you speak, that will give them a challenge, inspiration. If you don’t speak they may be lost. Speak for those few who are just on the borderlands, who can be lost without your words and who can find the light with the help of your words.”You are right: all words are lies, because when you experience you cannot put it into words. How to put love into words? And love is not a very rare experience. How to put beauty into words? Has any poet succeeded yet? Only the fools think that they have succeeded. The greater the poet, the more he is aware of his failure. Has any painter been able to paint the beauty that he experiences? No great painter is ever satisfied. A tremendous discontent follows him like a shadow his whole life. It haunts him. He goes on trying again and again and again; his whole life is a long failure, a tragedy. His great paintings are great for us, but he knows that he has failed. They are great for us because we don’t know what beauty is. If those great paintings had not been there, we would not have been aware of many things.It is said that if all the paintings of the world disappear, you will not be able to see the beauty of a sunset. You will not be able to see the beauty of a roseflower. You will not be able to see the beauty of a bird on the wing. You have become able to see it because painters for centuries have been preparing the right context to see it. But ask the painters themselves. Ask a Van Gogh or a Rabindranath Tagore or Nandlal Bose, and they will say that they have failed. What they had seen was something totally different. It was so alive, so pulsating! And the painting is dead; it is nothing but canvas and color. How can you put a sunset on the canvas? It will be a still life and the sunset – the real sunset – is dynamic, it is moving, it is changing moment to moment. Your painting will be just a framed phenomenon – and the sunset has no frame to it.How can you sing a song that relates your experience of love? It is impossible; all words are inadequate. So first, when you try to express your experience, ninety percent of it is lost. And when somebody hears it, the remaining ten percent is distorted. Even if one percent reaches the other person it is more than you can ask.When I say something to you I know how much is already lost. When I look in your eyes I again know whatsoever was left in the words has been distorted by your mind. Your mind is continuously trying to allow only that which fits with it; it does not allow that which goes against it. It does not hear it at all, and it hears only that which is nothing but a reflection of its own past.The analyst was concerned about the results of a Rorschach test he had just given to the patient, who associated every ink blot with some sort of sexual activity.“I want to study the results of your test over the weekend and I would like to see you Monday,” he said to the patient.“Okay, Doc. I am going to a stag party tomorrow night. Any chance I might borrow those dirty pictures of yours?”What he sees he believes is there; and what he sees is not there, it is his projection. What he hears may not be said at all, but one can hear it very clearly, so clearly that it is impossible not to believe in it. Your mind is coloring everything every moment.Leonora went into a drugstore to buy film. When she came out she was ripping mad. “Rodney, go into that store and cut that man real good!” she said to her boyfriend.“Why, honey,” asked Rodney, “what happened?”“I told him I wanted some film,” she explained, “and he had the nerve to ask me what was the size of my Brownie!”You can read something which is not written. You can hear something which is not told. You can see something which does not exist anywhere except in your own imagination. Then words become farther and farther away from the truth. Words are lies: lies in the sense that they are incapable of transferring the real, the existential. In the very transfer it dies.A poet had gone to the sea early in the morning. It was a beautiful sunrise, and the waves dancing in the early sun, and the cool sand, and the salty air… He felt so alive, he experienced such exquisite joy, that he wanted to share it with his girlfriend who was in a hospital, who was ill and could not come to the sea beach.So the poet brought a beautiful box, opened the box to the sunrays, to the wind, closed the box, sealed it from everywhere so nothing escaped out of it, brought the box to the hospital. He was tremendously happy, and he said to his girlfriend, “I have brought something so beautiful you may not have ever seen it. Such a beautiful sunrise, such beautiful waves, such fresh air, such coolness, such freshness!”And he opened the box and there was nothing – no sun, no air, no coolness, no freshness.You cannot catch hold of beauty in a box. You cannot catch hold of beauty, truth, love, in words. They are very poor. But nothing is wrong with them; they are useful in the ordinary world. When you move into the inner, you are moving into the extraordinary. If you are alert, they can be used and they can be used profitably. Yes, lies can become stepping-stones toward truth.An American GI standing outside a cathedral in Paris saw a magnificent wedding procession enter. “Who is the bridegroom?” he asked a Frenchman standing next to him.“Je ne sais pas,” was the reply.A few minutes later the soldier inspected the interior of the cathedral himself and saw a coffin being carried down the aisle. “Whose funeral?” he demanded of the attendant.“Je ne sais pas,” said the attendant.“Holy mackerel!” exclaimed the soldier. “He certainly didn’t last long!”Words have to be understood; they have to be understood according to the person who has spoken them. You should not bring your own mind in. You should keep your mind a little out of the way. The more you become capable of keeping your mind out of the way, the more is the possibility that you can use words as stepping-stones. Otherwise words will create a jungle and you will be lost in it.In Leipzig, where one third of all street names have been changed since the Russian occupation, trolley conductors are required to call out both old and new names to make it easier for visitors to find their way.The other day, the conductor of a car passing through the center of the city made the required announcement: “Karl Marx Square, formerly Augustus Square.”A passenger about to alight shouted back, “Auf Wiedersehen, formerly Heil Hitler!”The second question:Osho,Would you please explain the difference between conditioning and discipline?There is a great difference. They are totally different dimensions, and not only different but diametrically opposite too. Conditioning is something forced from the outside upon you against your will, against your consciousness. It is to destroy you, it is to manipulate you. It is to create a pseudo personality so that your essential man is lost.Society is very much afraid of your reality. The church is afraid, the state is afraid, everybody is afraid of your essential person, your essential being, because the essential being is rebellious, intelligent. It cannot be easily reduced to slavery. It cannot be exploited. Nobody can use your essential being as a means; your essential being is an end unto itself.Hence the whole society tries in every possible way to disconnect you from your essential core, and it creates a false, plastic personality around you and forces you to become identified with it. That’s what it calls education. It is not education; it is mis-education. It is destructive, it is violent.This whole society, up to now, has been very violent with the individual. It does not believe in the individual; it is against the individual. It tries in every possible way to destroy you for its own purposes. It needs clerks, it needs stationmasters, deputy-collectors, policemen, magistrates, it needs soldiers. It does not need human beings.We have failed, up to now, in creating a society which needs human beings, simple human beings.The society is interested that you should be more skillful, more productive, and less creative. It wants you to function like a machine, efficiently, but it does not want you to become awakened. It does not want buddhas and christs – Socrates, Pythagoras, Lao Tzu. No, these people are not needed at all by the society. If sometimes they happen, they don’t happen because of the society; they happen in spite of the society.It is a miracle how a few people have sometimes been able to escape from this great prison. The prison is so great, it is so difficult to escape out of it. And even in escaping from one prison you will enter into another because the whole earth has become a prison. You can become a Mohammedan from a Hindu or you can become a Christian from a Mohammedan or you can become a Hindu from a Christian, but you are simply changing your prison. You can become a German from being an Indian or you can become a Chinese from being an Italian, but you are simply changing prisons – political, religious, social prisons. Maybe for a few days the new prison would look like freedom – only because of its newness; otherwise it is not freedom. A free society is still an idea that has to be materialized.This whole slavery of man depends on conditioning. And conditioning even starts when you are in your mother’s womb. Now they have found ways to condition the child in the mother’s womb. In Russia they have developed certain kinds of belts which the pregnant woman can wear. Those belts press certain points in the growing child’s brain and that pressure will create a robot. He will be born like a machine. He will be always obedient, faithful to the state, faithful to Communism, faithful to the Communist holy trinity – or unholy trinity – Marx, Engels, Lenin. He will believe in Das Kapital, just as others believe in the Bible. Nobody reads the Bible, nobody reads Das Kapital.I have met many Communists; I have not seen a single Communist who has read Das Kapital from the beginning to the end. Everybody has a copy. Russian books are so cheap and they look so good, they are bound so beautifully that you can decorate your drawing room with Russian books. But nobody reads them, just like no Hindu reads the Vedas. There is nothing much to read either.But conditioning starts from the mother’s womb or, at the most, the moment you are born. You are circumcised and you become a Jew. You are baptized and you become a Christian and so on, so forth. You are taken to the church and to the temple and to the mosque, and you are brought up in a certain atmosphere where you will find all are Mohammedans or all are Christians or all are Hindus. And naturally the child is bound to follow the people who are around him.By the time he is twenty-five and comes back from the university he is utterly conditioned, and so deeply conditioned that he will not even be aware of the conditioning. Everything has been fed into his biocomputer. And the society punishes those who are reluctant, resistant to these conditionings. It rewards with gold medals, prizes, even Nobel Prizes, those who are very willing to be slaves, who are willing to serve the vested interests.Holston was hired as a ranch hand in Texas. One day he approached Davis, the foreman. “What do you do for fun here on the prairie?”“Well,” replied the foreman, “we got a Mexican cook on the ranch and every Saturday night we dress him in women’s clothes and six of us take him dancing.”“Not me!” declared Holston. “I don’t go for that kind of stuff.”“Neither does the Mex,” says Davis, “that’s why it takes six of us.”And it is not only a question of six. The whole society, millions of people around you, are conditioning you, knowingly, unknowingly. They have been conditioned. They may not be aware that they are destructive and violent. They may be thinking that they are being helpful to you. They may be thinking that they are doing all this great service to you out of compassion, because they love humanity. They have been conditioned so deeply that they are unaware of what they are doing to their children.The teachers, the lecturers, the professors, are the instruments, subtle instruments of conditioning people. The priests, the psychoanalysts are very clever and very efficient at conditioning; they know the whole strategy of it. They know how to manipulate, distort, how to give you a pseudo personality and take away your essential core.Discipline is totally different. Discipline is out of your own choice; it is out of your own will. Discipline, the very word, comes from a root which means learning. Discipline means you start learning on your own, because nobody seems to teach you the truth. People are interested in teaching you Hinduism, Communism, Mohammedanism; nobody is interested in teaching you the truth. When you start seeking, searching, learning on your own – knowing perfectly well that nobody is going to support you, you have to go alone – discipline begins.Discipline is your protection against conditioning. Discipline is your effort to get rid of all conditioning. Discipline is your rebellion, your revolution.To be a disciple simply means to be with a man who is not going to condition you. A master is one who de-conditions you. That is the definition of a true master: one who de-conditions you, simply de-conditions you, and does not recondition you.That is one of the objections raised against me in India, and in other countries too: that I am giving people so much freedom that they will misuse it. Freedom is such a value that even if there is a risk of misuse, it has to be given. Slavery can never be misused because you are not your own master. Freedom can be misused, but it is better to misuse freedom than to be a slave, because you cannot misuse freedom for long. Maybe in the interim period, when you come out of the prison for the first time, you may misuse your freedom for a little while: you may drink too much, eat too much, but for how long?And this freedom that a master gives is given through making you more conscious, more aware. And that is the safety valve: the more aware you are the less is the possibility of misusing freedom – because misusing it will be suicidal.Discipline is that which you accept on your own. You are not forced to be a sannyasin; a deep longing arises in you. Something hidden in you takes the challenge. Some seed sprouts; you hear some unheard music; you become attracted to some unknown, mysterious force. But the decision is always yours, it is not imposed on you. You decide that you would like to learn, that you would like to seek and search. Out of that longing for truth, discipline begins.And you are always free to stop. You are always free to drop out of sannyas. You are always free not to be related to me anymore. The guards on the gate are for outsiders so that they cannot enter unless they are ready; the guards are not for the insiders to prevent them from leaving. That is the difference. In a jail the guards are for the insiders so that they cannot get out.Here there are guards, but they are not for the insiders. If somebody wants to get out he goes out with all my blessings. It was his decision to be in; it is his decision to drop out of it. He is a free soul. It is nobody else’s business to impose anything upon him.Discipline comes out of your own inner feel, out of your own love. It is surrender but it is not slavery. It is a surrender but not a slavery because you are doing it. If it is forced, then it is slavery, then it is conditioning.Avoid all conditioning situations. Avoid people who condition you even though they say it is for your own sake, even though they say it is for your own good. Beware of all those poisoners; they have done enough harm to humanity. It is because of those people that real humanity has not yet been born.My whole effort is to bring a new human being on the earth: free, alert, conscious, responsible, doing things according to his own inner feelings, likings, leanings, not serving somebody else’s purpose, living his life according to his own light.The third question:Osho,What is your opinion about Communism?I will not waste my time in giving you my opinion about Communism. The whole thing is rubbish, but I will tell you five stories.The first story:“Who is your father?” a schoolboy was asked by Khrushchev when he was in charge of Russia.“Nikita Khrushchev is my father,” replied the lad.“And who is your mother?”“The Communist Party.”“Very good. Now tell me, what would you like to be when you grow up?”“An orphan,” replied the child.The second:At a Russian factory, workers were asked to choose a new workers’ committee by secret ballot. Each man, upon approaching the ballot box, was handed a sealed envelope and told to deposit it through the slot at the top of a cardboard box.Vasili slit open the envelope and began to examine the ballot.“Hey,” shouted a supervisor. “You can’t do that.”“But I want to know who I’m voting for,” explained the worker.“You must be mad,” claimed the supervisor. “Don’t you realize that the ballot is secret in Russia?”The third:An amateur radio ham went delirious with excitement when he caught a newscast straight from Moscow on his set.“Our great athlete, Ivan Ivanovitch,” the announcer was saying, “has just smashed all existing records for the two-hundred-yard dash, the mile run, the five-mile run, and the one-hundred-mile run, overcoming a blizzard, a range of mountains, and complete lack of water. Unfortunately Ivanovitch’s fantastic performance was in vain. He was captured and brought back to Russia.”The fourth:When Stalin’s body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum in Red Square and buried near the Kremlin walls, a small boy asked his grandmother, “What kind of man was Lenin?”“Lenin was a very great man,” she said.“And what kind of man was Stalin?” asked the child.“Sometimes he was a very evil man,” said the old woman.“Babushka, what kind of man is Leonid Brezhnev?”“It is difficult to say, child,” replied the grandmother. “When he dies, we will find out.”The fifth and the last:At a Communist Party convention, one of the delegates kept yelling, “Long live Brezhnev!”The chairman tried to hush him saying, “Remember you used to yell ‘Long live Khrushchev!’”“Right,” said the delegate. “And is he living?”The fourth question:Osho,I cannot believe that a man like Jesus can commit mistakes. Listening to you say that, I was very hurt.This is conditioning. You have been told – centuries of conditioning is behind it – that a man like Jesus cannot commit any mistakes. Why? If you cannot believe it, you cannot believe that Jesus is human either. To err is human. Yes, he will not commit the same mistake again, that’s true. To commit the same mistake again is stupid; it is not human, it is simply stupid. But to commit a mistake is the only way in life to learn. It is perfectly okay to commit a mistake once, and commit it with total awareness.If it is a mistake you know it, and you know it so deeply and perfectly that you will never commit it again. But a man learns through committing mistakes. There is no other way of learning. If a man never commits a mistake he will never grow up. Jesus is a human being. Of course it is only through growing up that one day he becomes a divine flame. He was committing mistakes even to the very last.My own understanding is that he became Christ only at the last moment on the cross. Just before he became a christ, a buddha, he committed the final and last mistake, but he learned immediately. He must have been so aware even on the cross.The last mistake was that when he was crucified he shouted at God, “Have you forsaken me?” This is distrust, this is doubt, this is a mistake; one of the greatest that a man can commit – and a man like Jesus. But this is the last. “Why am I being tortured, what wrong have I committed?” He was complaining, he could not believe his own eyes that this was happening to him. He must have thought deep down – somewhere a little part of his being must have remained unconscious, and in that dark corner this longing must have remained like a seed: “At the last moment God is going to save me. He will do a miracle and the whole world will know that I am the only begotten Son of God.” Some unconscious longing… But if even a small part of your being remains unconscious, you are not yet a christ.From where comes this complaint, “Why have you forsaken me?” A great doubt arises, overwhelms him, because this is the last moment: if a miracle is not going to happen he is finished. But he must have been a man of rare awareness. He recognized it immediately, he saw the dark point, he saw the unconscious point. He became relaxed and he said, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” – don’t take any note of my complaint; I was foolish to say so. Whatsoever is your will is my will. There is no point in saying, “Have you forsaken me?” If this is what you want, then this is what should happen. Then this is the miracle and I should not ask for anything else. I should not have a separate will of my own.The moment he said, “Thy will be done,” he dropped his separate will. Just a small part of his being must have remained, some hidden subtle ego must have remained lurking somewhere. With the disappearance of that ego he became a flame of light. He became a buddha.You cannot believe that a man like Jesus can commit mistakes, because you cannot believe that Jesus is a man like you. And unless you believe that Jesus is a man like you, you cannot believe the other part of the story, that you are as divine as Jesus.Remember these are two sides of the same coin. If you can believe Jesus is a man just like you, then you can also believe that you have the same potential as Jesus. If he can become a christ you can become a christ too.A little introduction for a joke… This is an Italian story, the story of Pinocchio: a carpenter, named Gepetto, is feeling very lonely and wishes to have a child. With some sticks of wood he creates a puppet – with a red hat and a very pointed nose – and calls it Pinocchio. Hardly has he finished it when Pinocchio kicks him in the leg – and with this kick Gepetto realizes that this “son” will give him only trouble.In fact, Pinocchio immediately asks for something to eat, and Gepetto, though very poor, manages to find some food for him and goes to bed himself without dinner. Pinocchio, without even thanking him, goes out, and this way for years he tortures his creator. He goes on doing one mischief after another until finally he is swallowed by a whale in the ocean.Now forget this introduction as if I have not told you at all; only then will you understand the joke. I had to tell it to you; without it you would not understand the joke – and I have to tell you it. Now forget all about it. I have not said any introduction to you.Now the joke…After forty years of hard work an old carpenter dies and goes to heaven. When he gets to the Pearly Gates he knocks on the door. Saint Peter opens it and says, “Yes?”The old carpenter explains, “I am an old carpenter. I have worked hard for forty years. I never did any harm to anyone, and I am here for my reward.”Saint Peter replies, “I don’t know about that. Wait here for a minute and I will go and get some information on you.”He goes inside and is about to talk to the boss, God, when he runs into Jesus. Jesus says, “Why are you all excited?” So Peter tells him the whole story: an old carpenter, worked hard for forty years, never did any harm to anyone.Jesus listens to the story with mounting interest and asks, “Did he have white hair?”Peter says, “Yes!”“Little pixie eyeglasses with chromium frames?”“Yes!”“About so tall? Wearing a waistcoat, a little paunchy?”“Yes, yes, yes!” says Peter.Jesus runs to the Pearly Gates, throws open the door, takes a look at the little old man and cries at the top of his lungs, “Daddy!”And the carpenter looks at him and joyously exclaims, “Pinocchio!”The fifth question:Osho,Is this a blessing? After being alone for a long time, I fell in love with three women at the same time, which was easy in the beginning. But as soon as I started to get into a deeper relationship with one, either I ran to the next one or she wanted to be with someone else. Of course the same happened again as soon as I got in tune with one of the other women. So joy and suffering are pretty close together, but I wonder – am I avoiding something?Don’t you think three are more than enough? Do you think you are avoiding the fourth? One woman is enough to create hell, and you are asking me, “Is this a blessing?” It must be a curse in disguise.“What has happened to Jack? I have not seen him for ages.”“Oh, he married the girl he rescued from drowning.”“And is he happy?”“Rather! But he hates water now.”You must be a great soul – either so unconscious that even three women cannot create any trouble for you, or so enlightened that “Who cares?”While riding home from work one evening, three commuters became friendly in the club car and, after the third round, they began to brag about the relative merits of their respective marital relationships. The first proudly proclaimed, “My wife meets my train every evening and we’ve been married for ten years.”“That’s nothing,” scoffed the second. “My wife meets me every evening, too, and we’ve been married for seventeen years.”“Well, I have got you both beat, fellows,” said the third commuter, who was obviously the youngest in the group.“How do you figure that?” the first fellow wanted to know.“I suppose you have got a wife who meets you every evening, too!” sneered the second.“That’s right,” said the third commuter, “and I’m not even married.”Three women, and you are not even married! They will make a football of you. And you are asking, “Is this a blessing?” – with a question mark of course. Be a little more careful. This is a dangerous place for people like you. There are so many women here and if you go on like this, soon nothing will be left of you and I will unnecessarily lose a sannyasin. Think of me too.Weinstein, a very wealthy businessman, had an unattractive daughter. He found a young man to marry her and after ten years they had two children.Weinstein called his son-in-law into the office one day. “Listen,” he said, “you have given me two beautiful grandchildren, you have made me very happy. I am gonna give you forty-nine percent of the business.”“Thank you, Pop!”“Is there anything else I could do for you?”“Yeah, buy me out!”I am ready to buy you out whatsoever the price. You just inquire of the three women!Love is significant, a good learning situation, but only a learning situation. One school is enough, three schools are too many. And with three women you will not be able to learn much, you will be in such turmoil. It is better to be with one, so that you can be more totally one with her, so that you can understand her and your own longings more clearly; so you are less clouded, less in anguish, because love in the beginning is only an unconscious phenomenon: it is biological, it is nothing very precious. Only when you bring your awareness to it, when you become more and more meditative about it, does it start becoming precious, start soaring high.Intimacy with one woman or one man is better than having many superficial relationships. Love is not a seasonal flower, it takes years to grow. And only when it grows does it go beyond biology, and start having something of the spiritual in it. Just being with many women or many men will keep you superficial – entertained maybe, but superficial; occupied certainly, but that occupation is not going to help in inward growth. But a one-to-one relationship, a sustained relationship so that you can understand each other more closely, is tremendously beneficial. Why is it so? And what is the need to understand the woman or the man?The need is because every man has a feminine part in his being, and every woman has a masculine part in her being. The only way to understand it, the easiest way to understand it, the most natural way to understand it is to be in deep, intimate relationship with someone. If you are a man be in a deep, intimate relationship with a woman. Let trust grow so all barriers dissolve. Come so close to each other that you can look deep into the woman and the woman can look deep into you. Don’t be dishonest with each other.And if you are having so many relationships you will be dishonest, you will be lying continually. You will have to lie, you will have to be insincere, you will have to say things which you don’t mean – and they will all suspect. It is very difficult to create trust with a woman if you are having some other relationship. It is easy to deceive a man because he lives through the intellect; it is very difficult, almost impossible to deceive a woman because she lives intuitively. You will not be able to look directly into her eyes; you will be afraid that she may start reading your soul, and you are hiding so many deceptive things, so many dishonesties.So if you are having many relationships you will not be able to dive deep into the psyche of the woman. And that is the only thing that is needed: to know your own inner feminine part. Relationship becomes a mirror. The woman starts looking into you and starts finding her own masculine part; the man looks into the woman and starts discovering his own femininity. And the more you become aware of your feminine – the other pole – the more whole you can be, the more integrated you can be. When your inner man and woman have disappeared into each other, have become dissolved into each other, when they are no longer separate, when they have become one integrated whole, you have become an individual.Carl Gustav Jung calls it the process of individuation. He is right, he has chosen the right word for it. And the same happens to a woman. But playing with many people will keep you superficial, entertained, occupied, but not growing; and the only thing that matters ultimately is growth, growth of integration, individuality, growth of a center in you. And that growth needs you to know your other part. The easiest approach is to know the woman on the outside first, so that you can know the woman inside.Just like a mirror… The mirror reflects your face, it shows you your face – the woman becomes your mirror, the man becomes your mirror. The other reflects your face, but if you have so many mirrors around you and you are running from one mirror to another and deceiving each mirror about the other you will be in a chaos, you will go nuts.The sixth question:Osho,What is wrong with knowing more and more about God? Can it not help the seeker?Knowing and knowledge are different. I am all for knowing and I am all against knowledge. Knowing is your insight, it is your capacity to see, it is philosia. Knowledge is philosophy. It is not your capacity to see, it is just your capacity to memorize what others have said. How is it going to help, knowing about God? A blind man can know about light; how is it going to help? A deaf man can know about music, he can read about music, he can even read music, but how it is going to help? It is not going to help at all. The danger is that the blind man may start thinking that he knows so much about light that he must know light itself. And that’s what happens to the knowledgeable people.Knowing about God, they start thinking that they know God. To know love is one thing; to know about love is totally another. To know God is a transformation of your being; to know about God needs no transformation. You can just go to the library and collect information. You can go to the pundits and the scholars and accumulate information.You ask me, “Can it not help the seeker?” No, not at all. It will hinder. The seeker has to be empty, unprejudiced. The seeker has to be without any idea of what God is, or truth is. If he has some idea, the danger is he will project his idea on existence and he will think that he has come to know the truth. Truth can be known only when you are utterly empty, when there is nothing to distort or project inside you; when you are so silent that you are only receptive, not projective. In total receptivity truth is known.Meditation is nothing but an effort to cleanse your mind of knowledge. Knowledge is dust that has gathered on the mirror of your being; it has to be cleaned.A naked girl is standing, speaking endlessly to a naked man kneeling and embracing her belly, later lying supine at her feet.She says, “My life is empty, it is a mockery. I am nothing – just a facade, a shell, a dead and useless thing. I am twenty-six years old and I have never had a meaningful relationship, never had a truly meaningful relationship… I should not even admit that, I suppose. It is very humiliating! I have passed from one shallow sexual episode to another. That’s the story of my entire life: one tawdry, shallow, clutching incident after another. My relationships have no deep, lasting significance – if I could just once lie down and have something meaningful happen!”The man replies, from the floor, “Have you ever tried talking less, and lying down sooner?”People go on talking and talking about God. Better to be silent, better not to say anything, but to sit. You don’t know; it is better not to hide your ignorance in big words, in spiritual jargon. To know that “I don’t know” is a great step toward real knowing. To know that “I know” without knowing is going astray, is going farther and farther away. Truth asks only one thing: be silent, so that you can listen, so that you can hear the still, small voice within.The seventh question:Osho,Why do I cry at the sutras and not laugh at the jokes? Is it because I am blocked or British? I know there is no question. The truth is that I want to come closer.Feel blessed if you are blocked, because if you are British there is no remedy! I have not heard of any therapy that can help. Blocked persons can be unblocked. Encounter will do, Primal Therapy will do, Gestalt will do, and we have at least ninety groups here.But if you are British, then I am helpless; then nothing can be done about it. To be British is like cancer: no remedy has been discovered yet. Then you will have to wait for the future. But I hope that you are not British; otherwise you would not have been here.Sometimes British people come here… Anurag’s mother has come, she is British. For weeks she has been here, and she has come only to one lecture, yesterday. And what was her response to it? Her response was that I confirmed her ideas.Just being here and being a sannyasin is enough proof that you are not British. And don’t be worried: if you can cry at the sutras, it is a good beginning. Sooner or later you will start laughing at the jokes – because a person who can cry, can laugh. The real problem is with those people who cannot cry; they cannot laugh either.They are not two different things, they are the same. Crying and laughing are deeply related. Whenever you are overwhelmed by something, either you cry or you laugh. Crying is not necessarily sad, laughter is not necessarily joyous. Sometimes crying is a joy, sometimes laughter is ugly and may be just a device to hide your sadness.Remember one thing: it is only man who can cry and laugh. No other animal can do it, because no other animal is conscious enough to feel overwhelmed. Only man has that much consciousness that he can feel overwhelmed, so flooded with something that either he starts crying or he starts laughing – and both capacities are tremendously needed.Crying will help you to relieve your tensions, laughter will help you to dance, to sing. Both are interlinked. Crying prepares the way for laughter: your tears will cleanse your heart, and then laughter will arise. If the first process has started the second is not far away.The eighth question:Osho,The other day you said that old people become cunning. What are your grounds for saying so?I am a crazy person. I don’t say things because there are grounds to say them. I simply say something because I enjoy saying it. I cannot give you any proofs and I am never interested in proofs, but I can tell you a story. Those who understand, for them this will be a proof; and for those who don’t understand, nothing can ever be a proof. I stated a simple phenomenon; no proofs are needed. Just watch, just watch yourself and others.As you grow older, if you don’t start growing in awareness, you are bound to become cunning. These are the only two alternatives: either you become wise or you become cunning. If you don’t become wise, you will have to become cunning. Cunning is a substitute for wisdom. Either become a buddha or you are bound to become cunning. And very few people become buddhas; others are cunning out of necessity. Life teaches them to be more cunning than others because it is such a struggle for survival and only the cunning ones survive.Charles Darwin says that the fittest survive. That is not my observation. Not the fittest but the most cunning – unless Darwin means by the fittest, the most cunning. Man is the most cunning animal; he is not the fittest, certainly not. Try to fight with a monkey and you will know who is fittest. Try to run with a horse and you will know who is fittest. Try to fly like a bird and you will know who is fittest. Try to see in the night like an owl and you will know who is fittest. Just look around: you are not the fittest animal on the earth. In fact man is the most unfit animal, the weakest.Look at the human child. Can the human child survive without the support of the society and the family? But animal children survive; they are born more perfect. It is only a human child who seems to be prematurely born, as if he needed at least nine months longer in the womb. But the problem is that if he lives in the womb for eighteen months then he cannot come out; it will be too late, he will be too big. So he comes out, but utterly helpless. The human child is helpless, weak; he has to be taught.In fact he becomes of some worth only after twenty-five years – that is one third of his life. He needs preparation to be worthy enough to compete in the world. Then why has man survived and all other animals either disappeared or are disappearing? They have all been defeated for the simple reason that man is the most cunning. Because of his cunningness he could invent; he does not have strength enough to fight with any animal but he could invent weapons. He has not the strength to tear an animal apart just with his bare hands, but he has invented swords. Swords are nothing but magnified nails. He cannot use his teeth to kill so he has invented many things to kill. He is the most cunning, and as the centuries have passed he has become more and more cunning.A farmer bought a new rooster for his chicken coop. He already had a rooster, but he felt it was getting too old to service all his chickens, of which he had quite a few.When the farmer introduced the new rooster to all his chickens, the old rooster came up to the newcomer and arranged a meeting for later that night after the farmer went to bed.“Listen,” exclaimed the old rooster at the meeting that night, “that farmer thinks I’m too old to service all his chickens, but that’s not true. I’ve still got a few good years left and I don’t want to become the family’s Sunday dinner prematurely. So let’s make a deal.”The deal that the old rooster had in mind was that the two roosters would get into a make-believe fight, which would end up with the young rooster chasing the old-timer around the coop pretending not to be able to catch him. The noise of this make-believe altercation would bring out the farmer who would see the old rooster running faster than the new one and thus spare the old stud from the knife for a few years at least.For doing this, the young rooster would get to fuck all the pretty chickens. The deal was made.The next day the action started, with all the chickens squawking and the roosters cock-a-doodaling. The farmer came out and spied the new rooster chasing the old one. Picking up his rifle he shot the young rooster dead and exclaimed, “Goddamn! That is the third faggot rooster I’ve shot this week.”The last question:Osho,Is repression always bad?Absolutely bad, always bad, with no exceptions bad. Repression simply means you don’t understand your life energy. Repression means you are forcing your life energies into the unconscious, throwing them into the basement of your being. There they will go on growing, there they will go on boiling, and sooner or later the explosion… That’s why so many people go mad.Madness is the outcome of repression. That’s why so many people are mentally ill – even if not mad, mentally disturbed – all over the world. In America they say that three persons out of four are mentally disturbed. And don’t think that is so only in America; the only difference between America and other countries is that America has the latest data, that’s all. If you want to know about India you cannot know anything because there is no data available. And America is more honest: if you ask a person something he will answer it more sincerely than an Indian.The Indian may be sexually boiling within but from the outside he will always keep that holier-than-thou look. He will not be sincere. You cannot find real figures in India about anything. If you ask a woman, “Have you ever fancied any other man except your husband?” she will say, “No. Never. Not only in this life but in no other life either. And not only in the past, in the future also, I am going to cling to this man.” Now this is patent nonsense.Unless you are utterly a rock inside it is impossible not to fancy someone once in a while, not to be attracted. If you have sensibility, sensitivity, if you have intelligence, it is natural to be attracted once in a while. That does not mean that you are committing a sin; it simply means that you understand what beauty is. That simply means that you are observing life all around you.It is very difficult to find any data in India. In that way, America is the most sincere country in the world. They will say whatsoever is the case. Three persons are mentally ill out of four, and in India my own observation is that four are mentally ill out of four – but they are blissfully unaware of it.Repression of any kind is destructive to the body, to the mind, to the soul. Energies have to be transformed, not repressed. Energies are your potential wealth, raw; you have to polish them, then they can become great diamonds. These same energies, sexual energies, can become your spiritual liberation. Repressed you will be in a bondage.I am not saying to become indulgent; that is going to the other extreme. Buddha will also not support your indulgence. He is absolutely for the middle way, the golden mean. Neither be repressive nor be indulgent. Be watchful, be alert; be friendly to your energies, sympathetic. They are your energies; don’t create a rift, otherwise you will always be in conflict, and to fight with your own energies is an unnecessary dissipation. Fighting with your own energies, you are fighting with yourself: you cannot win. You will simply be wasting the whole opportunity of life. Be aware, don’t repress, don’t indulge. Be aware, be natural. Let energies be accepted and absorbed, and then the same energies, crude energies, become so refined, passing through awareness, that great flowers bloom in your being – lotuses of enlightenment.Unless that happens you will never feel at home in existence, you will never feel blissful, you will never feel what godliness is, you will never feel what nirvana is, what liberation is.When a young nun comes to tell the mother superior that she has sinned with a man and wishes to do penance so she can be forgiven, the mother superior begins packing a suitcase.“Oh, please don’t put me out!” the young nun cries. “Where will I go? What will I do?”“I’m not putting you out,” says the mother superior grimly, “it’s me that’s leaving. For thirty years here it’s been nothing but fucking and forgiving, fucking and forgiving. Beginning now, I’m through doing the forgiving, and I’m going to get in on some of the fucking before it’s too late.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The Buddha says:For if in your renunciationyou are reckless and break your word,if your purpose wavers,you will not find light.Do what you have to doresolutely, with all your heart.The traveler who hesitatesonly raises dust on the road.It is better to do nothingthan to do what is wrong.For whatever you do, you do to yourself.Like a border town well guarded,guard yourself within and without.Let not a single moment passlest you fall into darkness.Feel shame only where shame is due.Fear only what is fearful.See evil only in what is evillest you mistake the true wayand fall into darkness.See what is.See what is not.Follow the true way.Rise.Gautama the Buddha has given the world the most psychological religion. It is incomparable; no other religion even comes close to it. Its heights, its depths, are tremendous. And the reason Buddha succeeded in giving such a beautiful vision of life is very simple: he did not believe; he inquired, he explored. He did not believe in the tradition, he did not believe in the scriptures, he did not believe in the priests.This was one of his fundamentals: that unless you know, you don’t know. You can borrow knowledge, you can become knowledgeable, well-informed, a scholar, a pundit, a professor, but you will not be a seer. Deep down the ignorance will persist and will affect your life. Deep down you will remain the same childish self, immature, ungrounded, uncentered, unintegrated. You will not be an individual, you will not have any authenticity; you will be pseudo, false, phony.It is a quantum leap into the unknown. When you don’t believe in the tradition, when you don’t believe in the scriptures, when you don’t believe in anything except your own experience, you are going into the unknown all alone. It needs guts, it needs courage, and only a courageous person can be truly religious.There are cowards in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques in millions, but they don’t create any religious beauty, any religious fragrance in the world. They don’t make the world more beautiful, more alive, more sensitive. They don’t create anything. They only go on doing formalities, rituals. They themselves are dead and they go on deceiving others; they themselves are deceived.Borrowed knowledge creates great deception because you start feeling as if you know – and that “as if” is a big “as if.”Truth liberates, belief binds. Truth liberates because it has to be yours; it has to be an inner experience, an encounter with that which is.Buddha is a nonbeliever. He is not an atheist like Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche; neither is he a theist like all the priests of all religions. He is an agnostic. He neither believes nor disbelieves; he is open. That is his great gift to the world: to be open to truth.Go utterly naked, without any conclusions, without any ideology, any prejudice. Otherwise there is every possibility that you will project your own idea. You will not see that which is, you will see only that which you want to see. You will be creating your own reality which is bound to be false. Reality has not to be invented, it has to be discovered. It is already there. And remember, it is not the reality which is hidden, it is your eyes which are covered with layers of dust.Buddha gave to the world a non-metaphysical religion, a psychological religion. He simply helps you to go beyond mind. He helps you to understand the mind because it is only through understanding that transcendence happens.But when I say that Buddha has given the most psychological religion to the world, don’t misunderstand me. He has not given a psychology; he has given a psychological religion which is a totally different phenomenon. He has not given a psychology like Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Adler, Pavlov, Skinner, etcetera. These people are confined to the mind; they think the mind is all. There is nothing beyond the mind, so analyze the mind. If you have found the truth of the mind you have found the truth, according to them. That is beginning with a wrong attitude.Man is neither the body nor the mind. Man is the awareness within, which can look at the body, which can look at the mind, which is capable of witnessing all. You are the witness.Hence I say, Buddha has not given a psychology. A psychology is a very ordinary phenomenon. It does not bring transformation to your life because it cannot bring any transcendence. At the most it helps you to be a little more adjusted to yourself and to the world that surrounds you, to the society, to the people with whom you have to live. It helps you to become a little more adjusted.Psychology is basically orthodox; it is not revolutionary, it cannot be. It serves the status quo, it serves the establishment. It keeps you within the boundaries; it does not help you to go beyond the boundaries. It is not in your service. It is controlled by those who are in power – by the state, by the church, by the society. In a very disguised way it keeps you tethered to the collective mind. It does not help you to become an individual, because to be an individual is to be rebellious, to be an individual is to go on your own, to be an individual is to be a danger to the society. Capitalist, Communist, whatsoever the society is – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan – it doesn’t matter; the individual is a danger because the individual tries to live out of his own light. He does not follow anybody. He is not a follower, he is not an imitator.Buddha gives a psychological religion which means he helps you to understand the mind so that you can go beyond it – not so that you can become adjusted to the collective but so that you can rise to the heights of your individuality, to the peaks of your destiny.Psychology believes that man lacks meaning in his life and meaning can come only through therapy. Psychology in essence means meaning through therapy. Religion is just the opposite; religion means therapy through meaning. Religion gives you meaning first and then automatically the meaning becomes a healing force, it becomes therapeutic.Buddha says again and again, “I am a healer, I am a physician. My function is not that of a philosopher but that of a physician. I help people to become healthier, to become whole.” And what is his process? His process is to impart meaning to your life. That he also does in a profoundly new way, never before done like that. He does not give you an arbitrary meaning because the arbitrary meaning will sooner or later be seen to be arbitrary, and the moment it collapses you will fall into deep darkness, a darkness far darker than it was before. Now you have lost meaning. You will feel suicidal; you will feel life is not worth living at all. Even breathing will become hard, difficult. The question will arise: Why? Why should I go on living if there is no meaning?Buddha does not give you any arbitrary meaning; hence I say he has no metaphysics. He helps you to discover the intrinsic meaning of your life. He does not give you meaning, but he gives you methods and means to discover the meaning that you are already carrying within yourself like a seed.Psychologists say: first seek ye the kingdom of Freud, Jung, Adler, Pavlov, Skinner and company, and then all else shall be added unto you. It never happens; it has never happened to a single individual. It can’t happen in the very nature of things. Even Freud knows no meaning, lives without meaning, lives deep down in despair. He says that there is no hope for man, that man can never be happy, it is impossible. It must be his own understanding, his own experience of life. He says that at the most we can help man to be less miserable, that’s all. What kind of goal is this? – helping man to be a little less miserable! It is not very appealing.Man needs blissfulness, not less misery. Man needs something positive, something to live for and something to die for, something so full of worth that even life can be sacrificed to it. But it should not be arbitrary. There are many arbitrary meanings.Adolf Hitler gave Germany an arbitrary meaning: live for the Aryan race, live for the pure Nordic blood, because you are born to rule the world. He gave great hope, but it failed. It was bound to happen. He himself committed suicide; that was almost destined.Religions go on giving false meanings to your life. They talk of the other life, the beyond: “After death there is paradise for those who are virtuous and there is hell for those who are not virtuous.” And who is virtuous? The person who follows the priest is the virtuous person. The person who does not follow the tradition, the convention, the person who is not a conformist, is bound for hell.Yes, out of fear and greed you can give a little meaning to life, but it is so arbitrary, so artificial, that there is not a single individual on the earth who is so stupid that he will not see the falsity of it sooner or later.Now man has come of age; hence religions are disappearing. There is no possibility in the future for Christianity, for Islam, for Hinduism, for Judaism, to exist. And if they want to exist they will have to change their whole outlook, their very foundations.But there is every possibility for Buddha and his message to prevail. In fact, his day has come. He came twenty-five centuries ahead of his time. Now is the time, the right time for him. He does not talk of fear, he does not talk of greed, he does not talk of hell and heaven; he does not even talk about God. He is so modern, so contemporary; he belongs to our century. Even we are not as contemporary as he is. He destroys all the old structures, he frees religion from all frozen ideologies. He brings many revolutionary changes to the religious outlook.First he says there is no need to be knowledgeable; one has to be innocent. It is through innocence that the truth is known, not through knowledge.A neighbor said, “Your cat was making an awful noise last night.”The other replied, “You are right. Ever since she ate the canary, she thinks she can sing.”You can go on eating the scriptures; you will not be able to sing at all. You can know all the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gitas, the Korans, the Bibles, but you will remain as stupid as ever. Of course you will start bragging about your knowledgeability. You will start showing it, you will become an exhibitionist. Even when you don’t know anything you will pretend that you know.Spinster Peabody’s proudest possession was Count, her exquisite cat. Unfortunately, he had been missing for two days. When she opened the freezer door, Miss Peabody nearly died of shock. There was Count frozen solid.She immediately called the priest, who said there still might be a chance to save the poor animal. “Give it two tablespoons of gasoline,” he told her.With trembling hands, Miss Peabody opened Count’s mouth and carefully spooned in the priest’s strange prescription.The seconds ticked away and nothing happened. She was about to give up hope when suddenly the cat opened his eyes, let out an ear-piercing screech and shot across the room at a hundred miles per hour, running over the furniture, the walls, even the ceiling. Count kept this up for two minutes and then suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, not moving a muscle.Miss Peabody called the priest again.“What do you think happened?” she asked.“Simple,” said the priest. “He ran out of gas.”The priests have all the answers. Ask them anything, any stupid thing. They can’t say, “We don’t know,” that is impossible. The priests have never said that they are ignorant; their whole business depends upon their knowledgeability.Socrates says, “I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” That is exactly Buddha’s approach too. Socrates and Buddha were contemporaries; they have much in common. If Socrates had been born in India he would have been called a buddha. He also trusts innocence, the innocence of a child who knows nothing. If you can become a child again, then the doors of the mysterious can open for you, and you can see. The dust on your eyes is nothing but knowledge, information, scripture.The psychotherapists are called by people “shrinks” and they are! A psychotherapist’s whole effort is to reduce you; he is a reductionist. He studies rats, and whatsoever he comes to know about the rats he applies to you. It is so disgusting, so humiliating, so absurd, illogical! He studies the lowest to know the highest.You can know nothing of the flower by studying the seed, by dissecting the seed, by analyzing the seed. You can go on analyzing the seed for thousands of years and you will never come across the colors of the rose, the lotus, or the fragrance. You will never know what fragrance was hidden in the seed; analysis cannot yield it to you.Studying rats and then applying that knowledge to man is simply saying that man is nothing but a kind of animal, a little more complex maybe, but nothing more than that. Reductionism means always bringing things to “nothing buts.”The real understanding of man is only possible not by studying the rats but by studying the buddhas, the christs, the krishnas – the highest. By studying the peaks you will know exactly who you are, not by the lowest denominator but by the highest manifestation. When you study a buddha, a great longing arises in you to reach to those heights. When you study rats, then there is no longing. In fact, you feel very satisfied whatsoever you are. In fact, you feel greatly contented that you are a little better than the rats, a little more complex, a little more clever. You feel gratified. Religion disappears.Religion lives in your longing to reach to the peaks, to attain to the ultimate heights, to bring your total potential into manifestation, into actuality. Religion is the science of self-actualization.If a psychotherapist can be called a “shrink,” then a real religious person should be called a “stretch.” He stretches you to the ultimate possibilities.Now the sutras:For if in your renunciationyou are reckless and break your word,if your purpose wavers,you will not find light.Buddha will talk again and again about light and darkness; hence those two words have to be understood. They are metaphors. Buddha has to use metaphors. All the buddhas, all the awakened ones, have to use metaphors. The ordinary language is not enough, is very inadequate. When you start expressing something inner you feel the difficulty. The language has no words for it, or even if the words are there they are too small and the experience is too big. The experience cannot be contained in those words, hence the use of the metaphor.A metaphor simply means not to cling to the literal meaning of the word. Understand it as a finger pointing to the moon. Don’t cling to the literal meaning; otherwise you will be in difficulty because then you will only misunderstand. A metaphor is a metaphor. It is poetry, it is not prose. You have to be a little poetic, a little imaginative, a little sympathetic to understand it. Literal meaning has been a disaster.But that’s how we always read. Even if we are reading a buddha we try to read him literally. Then light means light and darkness means darkness. That’s not so.Jack was home from college for the holidays. One day he asked his uneducated mother if he could tell her a narrative. His mother, not being used to such big words, asked him the meaning of narrative.“A narrative is a tale,” Jack said.That night, when going to bed, Jack asked his mother if he might extinguish the light. She wanted to know the meaning of the word extinguish.“To put out,” Jack said.A few days later Jack’s mother was giving a party at their home, and the cat wandered into the room. Jack’s mother raised her voice and said confidently, “Jack, take the cat by the narrative and extinguish him.”Beware of that fallacy.When Buddha uses the word light he means the state of no-mind, because the state of no-mind is a state of tremendous light, as if thousands of suns have risen simultaneously within your soul. And whenever Buddha says “darkness” he means the state of mind. Mind is dark; it is a dark night, not even a ray of light. We live in the mind, we all live in the dark night, and we have no idea of the dawn because we never go out of the mind. We cling to the mind; the mind is our blindness.A man has eyes only when he goes beyond mind. Then he starts seeing things as they are. The mind distorts, never allows you to see reality as it is; it projects. It does not allow the whole reality to penetrate to your heart. It allows only two percent; ninety-eight percent is rejected, and even the two percent that is allowed in is distorted in a thousand and one ways. It is interpreted, colored, and by the time it reaches you it is no longer real. So you live in a very unreal world. If you live in the mind you live in dreams, you live in sleep.So whenever Buddha says “darkness,” he means a state of unconsciousness, a mechanical state in which you function but you are not aware of what you are doing, in which you move but your movement has no quality of alertness in it. You talk, you listen, you eat, you walk, you go to sleep, but like a zombie, unconscious. This is darkness.When you start becoming more aware of what you are doing, of what you are thinking, of what you are feeling, when you become more and more aware, more and more light penetrates you. When you are a hundred percent aware you are full of light.That’s exactly the meaning of the word enlightened. The word enlightened is a translation for the word buddha. Buddha means the enlightened one, the awakened one, the aware one. He says: For if in your renunciation you are reckless and break your word, if your purpose wavers, you will not find the light.Renunciation means sannyas. Renunciation can be of two types. The first type – the wrong type – is the renunciation that happens through fear or greed. You have been told that if you renounce the world then you will attain the pleasures of heaven. You have been told if you don’t renounce you will suffer eternal pain and hell. Many people become afraid of hell and many people become greedy for heaven, and they renounce the world. This is a wrong renunciation.Anything that you do out of fear and greed is bound to be wrong because fear and greed are unconscious states. Out of fear you have dreamed about hell, out of fear you have dreamed about heaven. There is no hell, no heaven. These are all your dreams. When you are not dreaming at all, when the sleep has disappeared and you are awake, there is no heaven, no hell. That state Buddha calls “liberation”: liberation from greed, liberation from fear.If you act out of awareness, if your renunciation happens out of awareness, it is true renunciation because then you really don’t do anything, things start happening. You see something is wrong; it drops, it simply drops. You don’t have to make any effort. You see the ugliness of anger and anger evaporates; the very seeing becomes the transformation. You understand your desire and the futility of your desire – that it cannot be fulfilled, that it is unfulfillable, that you are in a vicious circle. Seeing that you are moving in circles, you jump out. This is also renunciation, but you don’t jump out of desire for another desire: to get into heaven, to avoid hell. You are not jumping out of desire; you are only changing one desire for another. You are exchanging worldly desires with unworldly desires, but desire is desire. You can change the object, but the nature of desire remains the same.This is a great contribution of Buddha to religious consciousness. He says: “Don’t renounce, let renunciation happen.” If it happens on its own accord it has a beauty of its own, it has grace, and you never repent, you never look back. If you renounce, if you make effort, your renunciation will bring sadness to you. And many times you will start thinking whether you have done right or wrong. Many times your mind will waver, many times desire for the renounced will again surround you like a cloud. Many times you will be full of lust and greed and fear. Many times the world will attract you again. That is natural.Hence Buddha says: For if in your renunciation you are reckless and break your word, if your purpose wavers, you will not find light.It can happen only in a wrong kind of renunciation that your purpose wavers, because when you renounce with effort it is always a halfhearted affair. A part of your mind says, “Renounce, because if you don’t renounce you will suffer.” A part of your mind says, “Don’t renounce. Who knows whether there is any life after death or not? And who knows whether renunciation is rewarded or not? Nobody comes back from the other shore to tell the truth. It may be all imagination, it may be all a strategy of the priests. Who knows?”Doubt is bound to persist, and when doubt is there, there is wavering, and when doubt is there you are split. When doubt is there you can never be wholeheartedly into anything; you remain divided. You can never be an individual, indivisible. The person who renounces for some motive is renouncing through the mind, and that is impossible. You cannot renounce through the mind.Mind is the first thing to be renounced – and you are trying to use mind for renunciation? Mind will poison everything. It will create new desires in you, it will create new greed, it will create new ambitions, it will create new egos in you. Look at the so-called holy people, the so-called saints and mahatmas. They look more egoistic than anybody else. Their faces look sad, as if they are in great pain, suffering. And their eyes? They are looking at you always with that attitude of “holier-than-thou.” They are condemners; they will call you sinners. They are ready to throw you into hell and hellfire. For themselves they are hoping that they will be in heaven enjoying heavenly pleasures forever and forever.What kind of renunciation is this? This is a wrong kind of renunciation and you cannot attain to light through it; you will go on falling into deeper and deeper darkness. You have taken the first step in a wrong direction, and the first step is the most important step because the second will follow the first, and so on, so forth. And you will go on farther and farther away from the truth.Hence I don’t tell my sannyasins to renounce, although renunciation happens. Many of my sannyasins write to me, “Osho, you deceived us. We were thinking nothing has to be renounced, and now many things are simply disappearing.”Just the other day a letter came from a sannyasin who wrote that his sexual desire had completely disappeared – and he had tried his whole life to renounce it and had never succeeded. And here we are not teaching to renounce anything, not even sexual desire, so his letter has relevance. He says, “You tricked us. I was thinking that I have come here to enjoy my sexual desire for the first time, because my whole life I have been trying to be a monk. Tired of it, utterly a failure in renouncing it, I had come here – and now it has disappeared!”This is beautiful, if it has disappeared on its own accord. If you have not dropped it, it won’t come back again. If you have dropped it, it is bound to come back again because dropping it simply means repressing it. Dropping does not mean anything else; it simply means you have repressed it forcibly. Sooner or later, in some weaker moment, it will be back again – and with a vengeance. But if it drops on its own, if you have not done anything to drop it, not even a decision; you have not willfully acted on it, it is through understanding, through seeing the futility of it, seeing that it does not fulfill, that it is a kind of a toy… You can remain engaged in it, it keeps you occupied. It keeps you so much occupied that you don’t have any time to look inward. But it never takes you anywhere; you are always the same. It brings no integrity, it brings no joy. The more you know it, the more it becomes a boring phenomenon. The more you know it, the more boredom it brings.If you really want to enjoy sex, be a monk, be a nun. Then you will enjoy it. Then you will not think of anything else; twenty-four hours a day you will be enjoying it. In a monastery what else is there to enjoy? Of course it will be just fantasy. Fantasy is personal pornography. Nobody else can see what you are seeing and you can go on giggling and enjoying. You can go on reading the Bible, the Koran, so everybody thinks how religious you are, how pious, and nobody knows what you are really doing inside.The so-called religious people are very pornographic; they are bound to be. The more you make an effort to escape from men and women, the more the unfulfilled, the repressed, is bound to become cerebral. It will become a fantasy in your mind, it will capture your imagination. You will dream about it, you will think about it, you will be surrounded by it. You can look into the records of all the monks and the nuns of all the world and you will be surprised: things were happening to them which are not happening to anybody anymore.In the Middle Ages thousands of nuns reported that the Devil came and made love to them. Now what has happened to the Devil? He does not come anymore. The ordinary devils are enough. But those nuns were imagining. When for years you have been starved, you have willfully tried to do something, the imagination gathers force. A moment comes when you start dreaming with open eyes; you can see the Devil standing there.And what imagination those nuns had! If you look into the records you will be surprised. The Devil has a forked penis! It is not an ordinary genital organ – but forked, so that it can enter both the holes! Now these nuns must have been mad, utterly mad. And false pregnancies were happening; there was nothing but hot air in the belly, but the belly would go on becoming bigger and bigger. Simply, fantasy had taken so much grip of the mind, of the body, that the nun thought she had become pregnant, so she started accumulating air in the belly. She looked to everybody as if she were pregnant, even walking like a pregnant woman. And of course, what can she do? If the Devil comes, she has to yield. Who knows? – he may not come again!This is not only about one religion; this is the case with all religions. In India, the scriptures tell so many stories of the great monks, ascetics, doing their penances in the forests. And when they are just on the verge of success, beautiful women descend from heaven to distract these poor fellows. They have not done any wrong to anybody and even if they have done wrong, what kind of punishment is this? This is something like reward! Beautiful women come from heaven, goddesses, apsaras, and they dance naked around them, and they make all kinds of obscene gestures to the poor fellows. Details are given in the scriptures, very detailed descriptions, what they do, how they do it, how they seduce the poor fellow. And then he falls from his great heights, becomes an ordinary mortal. Then they don’t come anymore. This is nothing but mental masturbation, but this is bound to happen if you repress. This is a wrong kind of renunciation. It has dominated the whole religious scene for ages, it has been very destructive.The right kind of renunciation is very natural and spontaneous. It is not against anything. It allows you to watch, see, understand, be more meditative, so that you can bring more understanding to your actions, to your thoughts, to your feelings. Out of that accumulated understanding, things start happening. Then the mind is no longer there to waver. Nothing has been repressed so nothing can come back again. Then things simply start disappearing like dewdrops in the early sun. That’s the only possibility to find the light.Remember, these people who have been teaching repression don’t call it repression, they call it willpower. They give it beautiful names. Ugly things can be hidden very easily behind beautiful names. Willpower is nothing but ego power. When you call it willpower it looks beautiful; when you call it ego power you see the ugliness of it.A religious person is one who no longer has any use for ego. Ego means violence with yourself. It may be very subtle, it may not look like violence; you may be doing violence to yourself in a very graceful manner. The priests have been forcing you to do things, but they don’t say that they are forcing. They have been conditioning children, hypnotizing whole societies, to do certain things. And once you are hypnotized and conditioned you think you are doing it on your own, out of your own freedom. That is sheer nonsense. A Hindu who has been conditioned for thirty years to be a Hindu cannot do anything out of his own freedom unless he drops all his Hindu nonsense. And the same is the case with the Christian and the Jew and the Jaina and the Mohammedan and the Parsi and the Sikh.The first step is to drop that which has been forced upon you. It may look almost as if it has not been forced because it has been so long, you have completely forgotten. Thirty years, forty years, fifty years of conditioning – who remembers when it began or how it began? You were so young, three years old or four years old, when the teaching started and it goes on conditioning you. It can condition you for anything, any stupid thing. Everybody else will see the stupidity; only you will not. You will think you are doing something great, something religious, something sacred.Stalin was giving Mao Zedong instructions in practical Communism. “Comrade,” he said, “how would you make a cat eat chili pepper?”“There are two ways,” said Mao. “I could force it down him or I could stuff a fish with the pepper and give the fish to the cat.”“Wrong,” replied Stalin. “It is not compatible with our ideology. The first method is coercion, the second deception. You know we never coerce or deceive the people.”“Then how would you do it?” asked Mao.“I would rub the pepper on the cat’s tail. When this started to smart, the cat would turn around and lick its tail, thus eating the pepper voluntarily.”This has been done by the priests for centuries. They rub the pepper on your tail, and one day you start licking your tail and you think you are doing it voluntarily.The first step toward real religion is to drop Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, Jainism; to drop all ideologies, to unlearn what has been forced upon you – to be a child again. Then you can start seeing things in their true colors, then you can start seeing things as they are. Children are more aware of the reality than you are. The older you become, the less aware you are because the more you become burdened with experience, knowledge, opinions, ideologies.Do what you have to doresolutely, with all your heart.The traveler who hesitatesonly raises dust on the road.Buddha says: Do what you have to do resolutely… but by resolution he does not mean will, as it is ordinarily meant in the dictionaries. Buddha is compelled to use your words, but he gives a new meaning to the words. By “resolution” he means out of a resolved heart – not out of willpower but out of a resolved heart. And remember, he emphasizes the word heart, not the mind. Willpower is part of the mind. A resolved heart is a heart without problems, a heart which is no longer divided, a heart which has come to a state of stillness, silence. That’s what he calls a resolved heart.Do what you have to do resolutely, with all your heart. Remember the emphasis is on the heart. Mind can never be one; by its very nature it is many. And the heart is always one; by its very nature it cannot be many. You cannot have many hearts but you can have many minds. Why? – because the mind lives in doubt and the heart lives in love. The mind lives in doubt and the heart lives in trust. The heart knows how to trust; it is trust that makes it one. When you trust, suddenly you become centered; hence the significance of trust.It does not matter whether your trust is in the right person or not. It does not matter whether your trust will be exploited or not. It does not matter whether you will be deceived because of your trust or not. There is every possibility you may be deceived – the world is full of deceivers. What matters is that you trusted. It is out of your trust that you become integrated, which is far more important than anything else. It is not a question that first you have to be certain whether the person is worthy of trust or not. How will you be certain? And who will inquire?It will be the mind, and the mind knows only how to doubt. It will doubt. It will doubt even a man like Christ or Buddha. It can’t help itself.Judas doubted Jesus. He could not trust even a man like Jesus. And Jesus trusted Judas; he could not doubt even a man like Judas. See the point. Who is the gainer? If you look superficially, then it seems Jesus has lost because he is crucified. If he had not trusted Judas he would not have lost his life. But that is only a superficial understanding. In fact the loser is Judas, not Jesus. One has to die some day or other, and one cannot die a better death than Jesus. It is his death that brought a revolution into the consciousness of humanity.If Buddha had also been crucified we would have been far richer. Jesus dying on a bed would not have been of much help. And what difference does it make to Jesus where he dies? But a man like Jesus uses even his death as a situation, as a device. He used it and he used it very skillfully. Socrates could not use his death so skillfully. Maybe it is because of Socrates’ death that Jesus learned a lesson: how to use death. There are foolish people who cannot use their lives usefully, artistically, gracefully, beautifully, and there are people like Jesus who can even use their death. Their death is also a device.The real loser is Judas, and he understood immediately. When Jesus was crucified he felt so ashamed that he committed suicide the next day. Now, committing suicide is ugly; being crucified has a beauty. It is a sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate offering one can make to God. And Jesus made it. His last words were, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” He surrendered totally: “Let thy kingdom come.” He effaced himself totally, he dropped his ego totally: “Thy will be done.” He trusted Judas absolutely. He hugged him, he kissed him, he washed his feet. He knew that the man was going to betray him, and still his trust was total.So remember, trust does not mean that first you have to inquire, that first you have to make everything certain, guaranteed, and then you trust. That is not trust, that is really doubt. You have no more possibilities to doubt, hence you trust. If another possibility arises of doubt you will doubt again. Trust is in spite of all the doubts, in spite of what the man is or what the man is going to do. It is of the heart, it is out of love.When you trust and love with a resolved heart it brings transformation. Then you never hesitate. Hesitation simply keeps you in fragments. Taking a quantum leap, without any hesitation or in spite of all the hesitations, you become integrated. Hesitations disappear; you become one. And to become one is to be liberated – liberated from your own stupid crowd that exists inside you, liberated from your thoughts and desires and memories, liberated from mind itself.The traveler who hesitatesonly raises dust on the road.It is better to do nothingthan to do what is wrong.For whatever you do, you do to yourself.It is better to do nothing… but to do nothing is very difficult. When you think you are not doing anything it is not what Buddha is saying. To do nothing means to be so still, so silent, that there is no action within or without, no thought even, no desire.It is better to do nothing… and one will have to be very conscious to do nothing …than to do what is wrong. The wrong can be done only when you are unconscious. The definition of the wrong and the right according to Buddha is a very different one; it is not moralistic. He will not say, “This is right and that is wrong.” He will not give you a list of Ten Commandments; he has not given any commandments. He gives you rather a criterion so that you can judge in your life what is right, what is wrong. He has not decided it. It can’t be decided because life goes on changing. What is wrong one day may be right another day; what is wrong this moment may be right another moment. So you cannot label actions as right or wrong. Situations change, you change, people change. So there is no possibility of giving you a list that says, “Do these things and don’t do these things.”All other religions have done that; Buddha has not done that. He gives you a criterion, he gives you an insight. He gives you a touchstone so you can see what is gold and what is not gold. Consciousness is his touchstone. If you are conscious and not doing anything, that is far better than doing something wrong, because doing something wrong means you are unconscious. Doing anything out of unconsciousness is wrong and doing anything, even nothing, out of consciousness, is right.When the bottle of Scotch broke on the floor, the three little mice lapped it all up. Now they were really blind.“I’m going to find Muhammad Ali and knock his brains out,” said the first one.The second said, “Just let me at that Idi Amin! I’ll give him what’s coming to him!”“You guys do what you want,” said the third mouse. “Me, I’m going upstairs and make love to the cat!”That’s what is happening to everybody, because everybody is living in an unconscious state. You are unaware of what you are doing, why you are doing, who you are, why you are, where you are going. Everything seems to be in darkness, and still you go on doing things.It is better, Buddha says, to do nothing. Be quiet, silent, still, in a state of non-doing, because that is possible only if you bring more and more alertness. And then out of that silence, out of that awareness, out of that nothingness, out of that non-doing, whatsoever arises is good, is virtue.For whatever you do, you do to yourself. If you harm people, the harm will come back to you. If you love people, the love will come back to you. The world goes on echoing back, reflecting back. The world gives you only that which you have given in the first place to the world.Like a border town well guarded,guard yourself within and without.That’s what he calls awareness: be on guard.Let not a single moment passlest you fall into darkness.Not even a single moment should be left unguarded. Each moment you have to be alert, conscious. Walking, walk consciously. Breathing, breathe consciously. Eating, eat consciously. Do whatsoever you are doing, but bring the quality of consciousness into your work. Sitting, sit consciously. Let consciousness become a constant, running underground stream, so you go on doing your usual things, but there is an undercurrent of consciousness. That will make your life religious – not going to the church, not going to the temple, not praying to some imaginary God, not repeating scriptures.Feel shame only when shame is due.Fear only what is fearful.See evil only in what is evillest you mistake the true wayand fall into darkness.Buddha says: Feel shame only when shame is due. Don’t be bothered what others say. Unless your consciousness says it is shameful there is no need to be worried. Even if the whole world says that what you are doing is shameful, let them say it; you need not be worried about it.This is a very revolutionary message. Ordinarily you have been told to follow others, to follow the collective, to follow the official religion, to follow whatsoever has been told for centuries. Buddha says it is immaterial what others say. What really matters is that if your consciousness says it is shameful, then drop it. In fact, there will be no need to drop it; it will drop on its own accord. Let your consciousness be decisive in every matter.Fear only what is fearful, and don’t be afraid of hell and don’t be afraid of punishment after death. These are strategies of the priests to exploit people, to exploit their fear. Everybody is afraid because everybody has become an ego and the ego is always afraid. The ego means you think yourself separate from the whole; then fear arises – because you are not separate from the whole. And when you think you are separate, the question arises: How long can you remain separate? Death will come; then what will happen to you?The ego makes you so selfish and so self-centered, that you forget completely that you belong to the eternal universe. There is no need to fear that you are just a wave in the ocean; you will be here, whether as a wave or not as a wave, you will be here. Nobody can destroy you. Nothing ever dies and nothing is ever born. The wave arises and disappears. Even before it has arisen it was there and when it has disappeared it is still there. That arising and disappearing is just a momentary phenomenon: something that was unmanifest becomes manifest.But we are very afraid, and the fear arises because we have believed, we have been told again and again, hypnotized to believe in the ego. This whole social structure up to now has been propounding an egoistic life attitude. Then fear, then greed, then ambition, are natural. And ego is being taught to every child; his ego is strengthened so that you can make him ambitious. Out of ambition arises politics. Ego is created so that you can make him afraid. Out of fear arises religion – the so-called religion.Little Sheldon seemed to be enjoying himself at the zoo with his father. As they were looking at the tigers, however, a troubled look came over the boy’s face. His father asked him what was the matter.“I was just wondering, Daddy. In case a tiger breaks loose and eats you, what number bus do I take home?”Even small children are poisoned with the idea of the self. Buddha says there is no self, no ego. Deep down you are not separate. You are not an island; you are part of the universal continent. So: Fear only what is fearful. See evil only in what is evil… Don’t believe others; believe only your own eyes, your own insight …lest you mistake the true way and fall into darkness.Believing in others’ ideas you are going to fall into darkness. They are in darkness and following them you will go into darkness. If you want to reach to light you will have to travel alone.See what is.Such a simple statement, but it contains the very essence of religion.See what is.See what is not.Follow the true way.Rise.See what is. That is meditation. Put your mind aside. Face reality directly. Encounter it, be face-to-face. Put the mind aside. Look into reality silently, without any thought, so that the thought cannot be a hindrance, a barrier, a distortion. That’s what meditation is: seeing what is and seeing what is not.The past is not, but the mind remains in the past. The future is not, but the mind remains in the future. And the present is, but the mind has no contact with the present. Whenever you are in contact with the present, the past is no longer there, the future is no longer there. When you are absolutely here and now, totally, utterly here and now, your life will have a new quality to it. That is true holiness – because you will know the whole and you will become the whole.Buddha calls it “the true way,” the way of the awakened ones. You can also rise to these heights. Rise. Awake!Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Is this really all there is? My life seems so meaningless and empty. I keep thinking there must be something more. I want there to be something more.There is infinitely more, but your wanting it is a barrier in reaching to it. Desiring is like a wall that surrounds you; non-desiring becomes a door. This is one of the most paradoxical but very fundamental laws of life: desire and you will miss, don’t desire and it is yours.Jesus says: “Seek and ye shall find.” Buddha says: “Seek ye not; otherwise you will miss.” Jesus says: “Ask and it shall be given to you.” Buddha says: “Ask not; otherwise it will never be given to you.” Jesus says: “Knock and the doors shall be opened.” Buddha says: “Wait. Look – the doors are not closed at all.” If you knock, your very knocking shows that you are knocking somewhere else – on the wall – because the doors are always open.Jesus is as enlightened as Buddha – because there is no question of being more enlightened or less enlightened. But then why this difference?The difference comes from the people to whom Jesus is speaking. He is speaking to people who are uninitiated into the mysteries of life. Buddha is speaking to a totally different kind of group, the initiates, the adepts, those who can understand the paradoxical. The paradoxical means the mysterious.Barkha, you say, “My life seems so meaningless and empty…” It seems so meaningless and empty because you are constantly hankering for more. Drop that hankering, and then you will go through a radical transformation. The emptiness disappears immediately you stop asking for more. The emptiness is a by-product of asking for more. It is a shadow that follows the desire for more. Let the desire disappear and look back: there is no shadow anymore.Asking for more is what our mind is – constantly asking for more. It makes no difference how much you have, it will go on asking for more. And because it goes on asking for more you go on feeling you are empty, you are missing so much. See the point: the emptiness is created by asking for more. The emptiness is not there, it is a fallacy, but it will look very real when you are caught in the net of desiring.See that desire is the cause of your emptiness. Watch your desiring; in watching it disappears, and with it disappears the emptiness. Then comes a deep, deep fulfillment. You feel so full, so overfull that you start overflowing. You have so much that you start sharing, you start giving – giving for the sheer joy of giving, for no other reason. You become like a cloud full of rainwater: it has to shower somewhere. It will shower even on the rocks where nothing is going to grow; it will shower unconditionally. It will not ask whether this is the right place to shower or not. It will be so burdened with rainwater that it has to shower to unburden itself.When desiring disappears you are so full of bliss, so full of contentment, so full of fullness that you start sharing. It happens on its own accord. And then there is meaning in life, then there is significance in life. Then there is poetry, beauty, grace. Then there is music, harmony – your life becomes a dance.This emptiness and meaninglessness is your doing, so you can undo it.You say, “I keep thinking there must be something more.” That’s what is creating the trouble. And I am not saying there is not something more, there is – much more than you can ever imagine. I have seen it! I have heard it! I have experienced it! There is infinitely much more. But you will never come into contact with it if desiring continues. Desiring is a wall, no-desiring is a bridge. This is the very essence of Buddha’s teaching. This is his basic message to the world. Bliss is a state of no-desire; misery is a state of desire.You say, “I want there to be something more.” The more you will want the more you will miss. You can choose. If you want to remain miserable, want more, more and more, and you will be missing more and more. This is your choice, remember, this is your responsibility. Nobody is forcing you. If you really want to see that which is, don’t hanker for the future, for more. Just look to that which is.The other day I reminded you that Buddha says: “See that which is and see that which is not.” That is meditation, and meditation takes you beyond mind. Mind is constantly asking, desiring, demanding and creating frustration because it lives in expectations. The whole world is suffering through meaninglessness, and the reason is that for the first time man is asking more than he has ever asked. For the first time man is desiring more than he has ever desired. Science has given him so much hope, so much support to desire more.In the beginning of this century there was great optimism all over the world because science was opening new doors and everybody was thinking, “The golden age has arrived, it is just around the corner. We have reached it. In our very life we will see it – paradise descended on the earth.” Naturally everybody started desiring for more and more and more. Paradise has not descended on the earth. Instead, the earth has become a hell.Science released your desiring, it supported your desires. It supported your hopes that those desires can be fulfilled. And the outcome is that the whole world is living in deep misery. It has never been so before. It is very strange, because for the first time man has more possessions than ever. For the first time man has more safety, more security, more scientific technology, more comfort than ever before. But more meaninglessness is also there. Man has never been in such despair, in such a desperate effort to get more.Science gives you desiring. Religion gives you an insight into desiring, and that insight helps you to drop desire. Then suddenly something that was hidden up to now becomes unhidden, becomes manifest. Something wells up within your being, and everything that you had ever desired is fulfilled, and more. More is available than you could have imagined, than anybody has ever imagined. Unimaginable bliss descends on you. But prepare the ground; prepare the right soil. Non-desiring is the name of the right soil.I have given you the name Prem Barkha. It means “love showering.” Yes, exactly that can happen. Love can shower, bliss can shower, godliness can shower on you. Just be in a receptive mood. You are aggressive, you want more – that is aggression, subtle aggression. Be receptive, open, available, and then you are entitled to all the miracles possible.The second question:Osho,I feel like I am getting detached from sex. Now what is next?That is only a feeling. It happens to almost everybody here. The simple reason for it is not that you have become detached, but you have become afraid.So many women write to me, “Why in your commune are men so afraid of us?” Man has always been afraid. This is nothing new. But one man was living with one woman; he was afraid but was able to manage somehow. Now here he sees women and women and women! He becomes really afraid. There are biological reasons for the fear.Women are capable of multiple orgasms, man is not. Sexually man is very poor compared to woman. No man is capable of satisfying any woman. If the woman is allowed freedom she will make anybody afraid, because she will make you feel very inferior. She is capable of multiple orgasms: within seconds she can have many orgasms and you can have only one orgasm. And with one orgasm you are finished! She has not even started and you are finished – that is very embarrassing. Because of this fear, man has repressed women all over the world. It is not because man is stronger that he has repressed women, no, it is out of fear.Man has destroyed women’s capacity for orgasm. For centuries man has told them that orgasm is possible only to men, not to women. He has taught women to be absolutely unalive in a sexual relationship. He has told women, conditioned them, hypnotized them for centuries into believing that it is more womanlike, ladylike, to be just silent, unmoving. It is for the man to make all the movements, take all the initiative; hence man makes love, not woman. The woman is just there, a silent partner. The reason is great fear because, if she becomes an active partner, she will reduce the man to almost nothingness. If she becomes active the man is very afraid. How is he going to satisfy her? All his manhood will be at stake. He will no longer be capable of bragging that he is man, something higher, superior. Sexually he is not; sexually he is very inferior. In a muscular way he may be stronger than the woman, but sexually he is not.There are countries in Africa where operations are even done on small girls. The clitoris is cut when they are very small – a very painful operation – just to make sure that they don’t have any idea of orgasm. In Sudan you will not find a single woman who knows anything about orgasm because their very mechanism for orgasm is damaged; their vagina is more like a wound than a healthy organ. What fear! – to cut the clitoris. Then they will always be inferior. In India I have asked many women, “Have you ever achieved orgasm?” and they ask, “What is it?” I have never come across an Indian woman who knows what orgasm is, because that is very un-Indian, for an Indian woman to feel orgasmic, to rejoice in making love.I have heard that a man was making love to a woman on the sea beach. And then the policeman came and said, “Are you mad or something? She is dead! What are you doing?”He said, “My God! I thought she was Indian!”The Indian woman has to just be there, not doing anything; she has not to show any signs of joy. If a woman really becomes orgasmic she will wake up the whole neighborhood! She will shout and sing and dance and jump. She will do Dynamic Meditation! And the whole neighborhood will know what is happening.Afraid of women, man has repressed them in subtle ways – and sometimes not so subtle, like these Sudanese people. In Africa many Mohammedan countries do it – the operation, the surgery on the clitoris. Not only that, they sew the vagina of the woman so much that making love to a woman becomes almost impossible. And childbirth is so painful that once a woman has made love to a man she decides never to do that again, it is so painful! Once she has given birth to a child she decides never to be pregnant again; the whole experience is nightmarish. And this has been done by man, and the priests have been behind it.In my commune it is a totally different phenomenon. Centuries-old taboos are broken, centuries-old inhibitions are thrown to the winds. I am all for freedom, particularly sexual freedom, because all other freedoms are rooted in that. If a man or a woman is not orgasmic he is not alive, she is not alive – they are dead. They breathe, they eat, they walk, but that is not life. They only vegetate.A scientist was doing an experiment on a certain species of fish. In that species the female fish, whenever approached by a male fish, starts moving away in a very coquettish way, alluring, enchanting, inviting, but starts escaping – does not really escape but pretends that she is escaping. That excites the male; he starts running after her. The more he runs after her, the more he becomes excited, his passion is aroused. Then, of course in a very diplomatic way, the female fish allows him to make love.One scientist, Lorenz, trained a female fish to do just the opposite: that whenever she comes across the male, go, take the initiative, jump upon the male fish. And Lorenz was surprised: whenever this was done, the male fish was so much afraid; the male fish could not believe his own eyes, what was happening! And the male fish was unable to make love – a sudden impotence! The mechanism works in a certain way: the female has to be seductive but unavailable – not absolutely unavailable because that will destroy the whole game, just a pretension of unavailability. That excites the male energy. That makes the male more and more interested, obsessed. He is functioning at the optimum, and when he is functioning at the optimum he makes love easily – because the male mind, whether in men or in mice, is the same. The male mind wants to conquer.You are in the same situation as the male fish. Now female fish are jumping upon you, making you afraid, and you are trying to hide the fact in a beautiful religious term: detachment. It is nothing! If you feel it is detachment, just go to the Himalayas for one month – sit in a cave, and you will think only of women and women!I am just like another Lorenz. This commune is a pond, and I am training female fish to embrace every male fish!When one is really detached – out of understanding, out of meditation – then there is no detachment either; that has to be understood. When one is really detached one is neither attached nor detached. The whole thing becomes irrelevant as if there is no question anymore of attraction, of non-attraction. The whole question drops. You are simply yourself. You don’t think in terms of women, women don’t think in terms of men. Thinking, “I am attached” – or “detached” – means you are still thinking in terms of women.Real detachment – that which comes out of understanding – has no reference to the other. You are simply yourself, utterly joyous, happy, so blissful that you don’t need the other. The other has been forgotten completely, the other exists no more. A woman will pass and you will not think whether she is a man or a woman. That is transcending your biology, and that is one of the greatest things in life – to transcend your biology – because only then, for the first time, you become something superior to the animals. Otherwise there is not much difference, maybe some difference of quantity but not of quality. Unless you transcend biology you remain part of the animal kingdom, another species of animal, that’s all.Now watch your detachment, whether it is fear or understanding. Have you understood the stupidity of the whole game? If you have understood, then you will not ask, “Now what is next?” Then there is nothing next. You have transcended biology and you will be really at rest with yourself. You will become orgasmic without the help of the other, and orgasmicness will become so natural, so spontaneous, it will have no reference to sex at all.A buddha is orgasmic twenty-four hours a day because he is rejoicing each moment in its totality; there is nothing more. If you have transcended the biology, if sex has disappeared – through understanding, remember, not through some kind of repression or fear – then you have entered into godliness, you have become divine.The third question:Osho,Whatever I do, I try too hard. Please tell us about Buddha's “right effort.”Gautama the Buddha has taught only one thing, and that is the middle way. Never go to the extreme. All extremes are the same. Be exactly in the middle and you will be freed, you will be liberated.There are people who are obsessed with sex; that is one extreme. Then there are people who escape from women, and if they are women they escape from men; they escape to the monasteries, to the caves. They are also obsessed – of course, in the opposite direction. That is the other extreme. There are people who are greedy, too greedy; their whole life is nothing but greed. And then there are people who renounce, who become afraid of touching anything.There are Jaina monks; in Buddha’s time they were very influential. Buddha’s whole fight was with Jaina monks, because they were extremists. They remain naked because if you wear clothes you may become attached to the clothes. They will not carry anything with them, not even a razor; when their hair is too long, they will pull it out. They will not wear shoes, they will walk barefoot, because shoes are a luxury. Naked, without any possessions, they impress people very much.Extremists are always very impressive. You are greedy, you are after money, after power, prestige; they have renounced all. Certainly, a great respect arises in your heart for them because you know you cannot do this; it is too cold to be naked. And to live without money… The Jaina monk cannot touch money; he is not allowed to touch it, he is not even allowed to see money. How can you live without money? A great respect arises in you. You live on one extreme and you respect the other extreme. Sooner or later, when you become fed up with your extreme, you will start moving to the other extreme. But no basic change happens. The man who is afraid of touching money is still in a state of ignorance, unawareness.Buddha says: “Stop in the middle.” There is no need to be indulgent, there is no need to renounce either. Just be in the middle, exactly in the middle. He has a great point there: if you remain exactly in the middle, that is the point from where transcendence happens.It is like the pendulum of a clock. It goes from the right to the left, from the left to the right. Try to understand the pendulum and its process because it is very similar to the process of your mind. When the pendulum is going toward the right, visibly it is going toward the right, but invisibly it is gaining momentum to go to the left. When it is going to the left it is gaining momentum to go to the right.When you are indulging you are gaining momentum for renouncing the world, and when you are renouncing you will gain momentum to indulge again. And this can go on for lives together. But hold the pendulum in the middle and the clock stops.That’s what Buddha says: “Hold the pendulum in the middle and the mind stops.” The mind is the clock because the mind is time, the mind is desire. It brings past and future – it is time. Hold it in the middle. Don’t live in the past and don’t live in the future. Be in the present, that is the middle. Don’t be indulgent and don’t be a renunciate; be in the middle. Fulfill the necessities of life. Don’t be obsessed by possessing things and don’t be obsessed by renouncing them. Both are obsessions and both are pathological states. Avoid both, be in the middle. In the middle is balance.You ask me, “Whatever I do, I try too hard. Please tell us about Buddha’s ‘right effort.’” Right effort means don’t try too hard. Right effort also means don’t stop trying completely. It means, just try in a relaxed way, neither too hard nor too soft, just in a relaxed way, in a very playful way. When you are trying too hard you become tense; when you are not trying at all you become lazy. When you are trying playfully you are neither lazy nor tense. Your life has a beauty, a grace, a balance, a harmony. Be in the middle, that’s exactly the meaning of right effort.Whenever Buddha uses the word right, remember, he means balance. Right is a translation of a word which means balance, because the extreme is wrong, both the extremes are wrong. Buddha’s word is samyak; sam means balance, equilibrium. He uses that word more than any other word; he uses it for everything. If you are making effort for anything, let it be samyak, balanced, exactly in the middle.If you are meditating, Buddha says, let it be samyak – right meditation. Don’t make too much fuss about it, don’t make a tension out of it. Don’t create anguish. Don’t become mad. Don’t be aggressive. And he also says that does not mean to forget all about it and go on living the way you are living. No, make efforts for meditation, but in a joyous way, a graceful way, always in the middle. Be gentle, be gentlemanly. Buddha is the perfect gentleman; the emphasis is on gentle. He is a rare person in that way.Mahavira, another enlightened person who was Buddha’s contemporary, and the last prophet of the Jainas, seems to be an extremist. He seems to be very extremist. It is said that for twelve years he was silent, didn’t speak a single word. Now, this is going too far. Don’t speak too much…I have heard a story about Morarji Desai:Whenever he speaks, his wife will send him a note. Everybody around him became curious, naturally, “What is that note?” Always it comes, inevitably… And on the note they found there is only one word: Kiss.They told Morarji Desai, “This is rare in this age of unfaithfulness; your wife still loves you so much. You are eighty-four, she must be seventy-five or more. Still such romance that whenever you stand to speak she sends you a note always welcoming you with a kiss.”Morarji looked angry – as he always looks, that is nothing new! When he smiles, that is rare. Even in his smile there is no smile; still he looks as if he is angry. The smile seems to be painted. But he was really angry. He said, “You don’t know what she means. It is a short form; it means, ‘Keep it short, stupid.’ That is the meaning of kiss.”If you keep it short, that’s okay, but there is no need to become dumb for twelve years. Be telegraphic, use only words which are necessary. Don’t go on chattering twenty-four hours a day, either with others or with yourself. People are chattering constantly, day in, day out. In the day they are chattering, in the night they are chattering.Mulla Nasruddin’s wife went to the physician and said that “My husband talks in his sleep. Something has to be done. I am very much disturbed about it.”The physician said, “I can understand. Take this medicine and within a week or two he will stop talking in his sleep.”The wife said, “You misunderstand me. I don’t want him to stop, I want him to talk clearly so I can hear what he is saying.”People are talking in their sleep, people are talking while they are awake. People are constantly talking; needed, not needed, they go on talking. Talking seems to be a kind of escape from themselves. So Buddha says it is good for a few hours to be silent, but there is no need to be silent forever.It is said that Mahavira ate only once in a while. Ten days he would fast – or twenty days or thirty days – and then one day he would take food. In those twelve years he took food only three hundred and sixty-five times; that means only one year. In twelve years, if that is the proportion, it comes to once every twelve days.Buddha says that is unnecessary, that is torture, that is making an extreme effort for no reason. It is perfectly good if you eat only as much as is needed; people are eating too much, people are stuffing themselves with food. That is again another way of keeping yourself away from yourself, keeping yourself engaged.People feel so empty – everybody feels empty. And there is some unconscious desire to fill this emptiness – through food, through smoking, through drink, through something; through talk, through the television, through the radio. Just remain occupied so you feel full.Just the other day I was reading that in America they have invented a new kind of refrigerator. You open the door and the refrigerator immediately says, “Excuse me, be kind to yourself. Please close the door.” People are constantly moving toward the fridge; that seems to be their only exercise. Even in the night when they have nothing to do or they are not feeling sleepy they will go to the fridge.There are a large number of people, one out of ten, who are capable of sleepwalking. They walk in their sleep and the direction is always toward the fridge. Even in sleep they know where the fridge is! They don’t stumble anywhere, they go directly like an arrow. Now this is one extreme, and not eating for eleven or twelve days then eating only for one day, is another extreme.Buddha says “right food.” Be in the middle. Eat as much as is necessary for your health, for your well-being, don’t eat too much. And that goes for everything in your life.A lady went into a shoe store to buy a pair of shoes. The salesman brought her a pair which she tried on. “Ah,” she said, “I don’t like these shoes. They are too wide. I don’t want them too wide, I don’t want them too narrow. I just want them in between.”So the salesman gathered up the shoes and returned with another pair which she tried on. This time she frowned and said, “These shoes won’t do. The holes in the toes are too big. I don’t want them too big and I don’t want them too small. I just want them in between.”So the salesman went back to the store room and got her another pair at which she exclaimed, “Ah, I don’t like them. The heels are too high. I don’t want them too high and I don’t want them too low. I just want them in between.”At this point the salesman looked at her and said, “Madam, if you will stand up and bend over I will give you a shoe not too high and not too low – just in between!”The salesman seems to be a Buddhist: just in between!In every action, remain just in between. Through that balance comes transcendence, through that balance mind disappears. The mind is an extremist. It lives only through extremes; it dies if you stop moving from one extreme to another.The fourth question:Osho,Is there life after death?First ask: is there life before death? People ask: is there life after death? What concern is that for you? You are alive. Ask the significant question, the really relevant question: is there life before death? Are you really alive?A woman went to the insurance company and said, “Can I get the money for which my husband has been insured?”The man in the office said, “But he is still alive. He is not dead. You will get the money only when he is dead.”She said, “I know that he is not dead, but no life is left in him either.”That’s the situation: people are not dead and yet not alive either. They are somehow walking, talking, doing things, keeping themselves together, but there is no aliveness, there is no flavor of aliveness.And you are concerned with what happens after death. Forget all about it. You are alive – first live it totally. And remember one thing: whatsoever you do with your life now is going to create your future. Your future comes out of your present. If you live miserably now you will live miserably after death, even more miserably, because your whole life lived in misery will produce more misery for you.I am not concerned about life after death; my whole concern is life before death. And whatsoever you do with your life now will produce, as a consequence, your future. Tomorrow will be born out of today, the next moment will be born out of this moment. So if this moment is lived rightly, totally, wholly, meditatively, then the next moment is bound to be more total, more holy, more meditative, because life goes on accumulating. If you live blissfully, bliss accumulates. You will take with you when you die whatsoever you have gained in this life.But down the ages people have remained concerned about the other life. I also talk sometimes about the other life, but just to joke, to laugh at it. It is not really a concern.In hell, as punishment for his sins, Ayatollah Khomeini and Jimmy Carter had to walk together hand in hand for eternity. As they were strolling along, they came across Morarji Desai arm in arm with Gina Lollobrigida.Carter asked, “Mr. Desai, how come I am stuck for eternity with this turkey, while you get the gorgeous Lollobrigida?”Morarji Desai answered, “Jimmy, she is not my punishment – I am hers!”Only for jokes I talk about hell and heaven and life after death, but it is not my concern at all; I am not interested. My whole interest is in my present moment. Now is my interest, here is my interest, because existence knows only one time – now – and existence knows only one space – here. If you want to be in contact with existence you will have to learn how to be now and here.The fifth question:Osho,Why are desires a “no-no,” but longing for the heights okay? I get lost in the subtleties of the words. The Buddha made a supreme vow not to rise from meditation until attaining enlightenment. For three days and nights he had visions and hallucinations, including ones of hell, demons, etcetera. What kind of effort is this?When Buddha made that vow he was not a buddha; he was as ignorant as you are. In ignorance, whatsoever he has done, please forgive him. Don’t take much note of it. In ignorance everybody goes on doing stupid things. That vow is stupid.Truth is not something that you can force by your willpower. Taking a vow that “I will not rise from meditation until attaining enlightenment” shows violence and ignorance. But Buddha was not Buddha at that time, he was Siddhartha Gautama – stumbling, groping in the darkness as everybody else is groping. He was not in any way different from you. He had himself yet not learned the art of being in the middle; he was an extremist. This is extremism.For six years he tried hard and failed. That hard work upon himself did not yield any result; it cannot. That’s why when he became a buddha he was very much against hard effort, he was very much against extremes. He had lived through all kinds of extremes: he had lived like an ascetic, tortured himself. For six years he suffered as much as a human being can suffer – but truth cannot be bought by your suffering. It is not a commodity and it is not possible to attain to it just by sheer force of willpower. You can sit for three days or three lives under a tree, and you won’t attain it.He didn’t attain it, remember. What he attained was hallucinations, visions of hell, demons, etcetera. That was his punishment, so beware of it.How he became enlightened is a totally different story. After three days, when he was tired, utterly tired of his effort, he saw the frustration, the failure of those six years’ continuously torturing himself, and no gain, no success. He had not moved even an inch nearer to truth; he was still where he had started. Only one thing had happened: he had become weaker because he had been fasting. He had become ugly; he had become just bones, all flesh had disappeared. He had become just a skeleton. He looked like he had come out of a grave. No gain, no success, all efforts had failed.Then one evening he saw the futility of human effort. He saw the futility of human ego – because all efforts are egoistic: “I will attain.” The “I” is always behind all your achievements, desires of achievement. The “I” is very ambitious: it wants to be successful in this world, it wants to be successful in the other world. It wants to have money, it wants to have God too. It wants to have power; it wants to have liberation, moksha, truth, nirvana. It wants to have everything.Buddha saw it and in that seeing he dropped that mad effort and he dropped the very source of ambition. It was a full-moon night. He laughed at himself, at the whole stupidity of six years. He relaxed, he sat under a tree. For the first time after six years, just sitting not to achieve anything, just sitting, not meditating. Hence in Zen, meditation is called zazen. Zazen means just sitting doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.That evening he sat there under the tree with no desire, because all desires had failed. The worldly desires had failed, the otherworldly desires had failed.You will be surprised to know: enlightenment is not a success. Enlightenment happens only when you have totally failed. Enlightenment is born out of total failure – because if you succeed, the ego remains. When the failure is total, absolute, irrevocable, categorical, when there is no going back, the ego disappears. Ego lives, feeds on success; it cannot live in failure. It leaves you.That evening the ego disappeared. The full moon rose. He watched the full moon, he enjoyed the full moon. For six years he had not seen the moon at all, he was so much preoccupied with his own spiritual attainment. The night was cool and beautiful. The forest was silent, and just by the side the river Niranjana was flowing. He enjoyed the reflection of the moon in the Niranjana. He enjoyed the silence. Then he fell asleep. He slept without any dreams, because all dreams are by-products of desires.In the morning when it was dawn and the birds started singing he was awakened by their songs. Lying under the tree, nowhere to go, nothing to do, he watched the sun rise above the horizon; the east becoming red and a beautiful morning and the cool breeze… And something happened, something clicked. He became enlightened – not out of six years’ effort but only one night’s effortlessness. Not out of six years’ constant striving of the ego, but only one night’s state of no ego, no desire. In the morning he was enlightened.Then again he laughed. He laughed because he saw that he was always enlightened but could not see the fact, the truth of it, because he was so concerned with attaining it. If you are so concerned with attaining it you will not be able to see that it is already the case.You are all buddhas. Nobody is born otherwise, everybody is born a buddha. It is not a question of achieving, remember: buddhahood, enlightenment, is not a question of attainment. It is a question of becoming silent, still, egoless, desireless, so that you can see with unclouded eyes who you are. You are a buddha already, you are enlightened.He laughed in the night because his whole life had failed; it was ridiculous. In the morning he laughed because he was searching for something that was already inside his soul; there was no need to seek and search for it. In fact, seeking and searching was keeping him away from it.Seek, and ye will not find; seek not and it is yours.The sixth question:Osho,Is it possible to love an Italian man without wanting to kill him?It is impossible. But remember, the moment you stop thinking of killing him, love will also disappear. To fall in love with an Italian in the first place is very crazy, and then this desire to kill him is natural. Love is a kind of fight – Italian or not Italian. Love is a kind of fight; it is a struggle. And when you stop fighting, when you stop struggling, love disappears. I am not talking about the love of the buddhas; I am talking about the love Satya is asking about. And do you know who this Italian is? Sarjano, the most Italian of all Italians!After the Ark had pushed off, Noah assembled all the animals in the central cabin and made a short speech. He pointed out that the trip was liable to be a long one, and that quarters were somewhat limited. “Therefore,” he said, “I want to emphasize that we can’t have any population increases at all until the flood subsides and we can get to land. I am appointing the giraffe, as the tallest of you, to stand guard and make sure my instructions are carried out.”Finally the water subsided, the Ark landed and the doors were opened. Out came the animals, two by two, as they had come in – no more of any species. Then the cats came out – followed by a litter of little kittens. As they passed the giraffe, one of the cats looked up and winked. “I will bet,” he said, “you thought we were fighting.”The seventh question:Osho,Do you believe in astronomy and astrology?I don’t believe in anything and I don’t disbelieve anything. My whole effort here is to help you to destroy all beliefs and all disbeliefs, because only then will you be able to know. Knowing happens only when the inner being is utterly empty of beliefs and disbeliefs, when you are neither a Catholic nor a Communist, neither an atheist nor a theist. And that was Buddha’s attitude too: he was an agnostic.A real seeker of truth does not believe in anything, positively or negatively. He does not believe in God, he does not believe in no-God. So what to say about astronomy and astrology? Belief is not his concern; knowing, experiencing, seeing, is his concern, because it is only through seeing that transformation happens.People go on believing all kinds of things because belief gives a false idea of knowledge. It makes you feel good – it hides your ignorance. Otherwise belief is the most stupid thing that one can do. Belief means you don’t know and yet you believe. Remember, belief is irrelevant when you don’t know – and belief is irrelevant when you do know. When you don’t know, your belief is false, rooted in ignorance. When you know, there is no need to believe – you know already.Do you believe in the sun, in the moon? Does anybody ask you, “Do you believe in the earth?” Nobody asks such questions. People ask, “Do you believe in God? Do you believe in astrology? Do you believe in life after death?” These questions seem to be relevant because nobody seems to know.I don’t believe in anything. And remember, if you start believing, then there is no end to it; you can believe in any nonsense. Once you believe, there is no problem.Harry came home from work earlier than usual one afternoon. “Darling, I’m home,” he cried and rushed upstairs to the bedroom, where he found his wife lying on the bed, a surprised look on her face. The curtains were drawn, the sheets and blankets were in disorder. “Is everything all right?” he asked.“Why, yes… Yes, of course, dear,” she replied uncertainly.Taking off his jacket he went to the wardrobe and to his surprise found a man crouching inside.“Hello, what are you doing here?” said Harry in astonishment.“Oh… I… I’m the gas man. I’ve, er…come to check the gas meter.”“Hmm, I see,” said Harry and hung up his jacket.Then reaching under the bed for his slippers, he found another man lying there.“Well, and who are you?” he asked.“Ah, yes… Well… I’m the, er…the electrician. I’ve come to fix the wiring.”“I see,” said Harry. “All right then.”Then, taking off his tie and shirt, he remarked, “I say, dear, it is a bit dark and stuffy in here, don’t you think?” and drawing back the curtain he saw a man perched outside on the window ledge.“Hello,” said Harry, “and what are you doing here?”“Well,” said the man, “if you believed those other guys – actually, I’m waiting for a bus.”The eighth question:Osho,Is it really bad luck to have a black cat cross your path?It depends on whether you are a man or a mouse!The last question:Osho,Why are you always laughing at the knowledgeable people?What should I do? Should I cry and weep over spilt milk? If you cannot laugh at knowledgeable people, at whom are you going to laugh? They are the most stupid people in the world, the most ridiculous.A British couple after a few years of marriage finally had a child. As the child’s hair was completely red and both parents’ hair was brown, things looked a little suspicious. The bewildered wife, upset at the obvious insinuations, suggested that they both go to see a doctor.The doctor, after taking note of the unusual phenomenon, looked even more puzzled than the couple. “According to the laws of genetics,” he explained, “it is impossible that a man and a woman with brown hair can give birth to a child with red hair.” The doctor decided to make inquiries in another direction. “How frequently do you have sexual intercourse?” he asked.The answer was a British embarrassed silence.“Once a day?” encouraged the doctor.“Well, not really,” was the embarrassed answer of the couple.“Well, once a week then?” asked the doctor.“Ahem, I wouldn’t say that,” answered the man.“Once a month?” probed the doctor.“Well, ahem, we don’t – not that often,” was the reply.“Aha!” cried the doctor. “Now I get it! Nothing to be worried about – it’s only rust!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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I shall endure hard wordsas the elephant endures the shafts of battle.For many people speak wildly.The tamed elephant goes to battle.The king rides him.The tamed man is the master.He can endure hard words in peace.Better than a muleor the fine horses of Sindhor the mighty elephants of waris the man who has mastered himself.Not on their backscan he reach the untrodden country,but only on his own.The mighty elephant Dhanapalakais wild when he is in rut,and when bound he will not eat,remembering the elephant grove.The fool is idle.He eats and he rolls in his sleeplike a hog in a sty.And he has to live life over again.My own mind used to wanderwherever pleasure or desire or lust led it.But now I have it tamed,I guide it,as the keeper guides the wild elephant.Awake.Be the witness of your thoughts.The elephant hauls himself from the mud.In the same way drag yourself out of your sloth.The fundamental problem is not metaphysical, it is not concerned with the ultimate reality. It is concerned with you, your mind, your functioning of the mind, your sleep, your state of a sleepwalker.Man ordinarily exists only mechanically. He is not aware although he believes he is aware. In fact, that belief hinders him from becoming aware. Man is fast asleep not only in the night but in the day too. He is constantly dreaming. You can watch it yourself. Any time close your eyes, relax a little and you will be surprised: dreams start moving. They were already moving like an undercurrent. You were occupied with outside reality, hence you were not looking at them, but they were there all the time. Your back was toward them. Just look a little in and you will find thousands of dreams crowding you: possible, impossible, consistent, inconsistent.When you see this state, you will understand why humanity has always missed the awakened ones. The awakened one no longer has any undercurrent of dreaming in him. He is fully alert, aware. He speaks the language of awareness and you are asleep. There is no possibility of communication between you and the awakened one. He shouts, he makes every effort to reach you, to penetrate you, to penetrate your sleep and unconsciousness, but it is thick, dense and very deep. You rarely hear him, very rarely, and even when you hear him you misinterpret him. Even when you hear him you don’t listen to him. You are like a drunk who seems to be hearing, but still goes on interpreting according to his drunken state. The whole humanity needs to be part of an organization like Alcoholics Anonymous. You may not be alcoholic, you may not be taking any intoxicant, you may not be taking or injecting any drug, but the society goes on injecting many poisons into your blood, into your being.For example, each child is poisoned by the society through teaching him ambition. Ambition is a poison far more dangerous than any alcohol can ever be, far more dangerous than marijuana or LSD, because ambition destroys your whole life. It keeps you moving in a false direction. It keeps you imagining, desiring, dreaming, it keeps you wasting your life. Ambition makes a subtle creation of the ego; and once the ego is created, you are in the grip of darkness. The whole social structure depends on ambition – to be the first! Wherever you are, whatsoever you are doing: be the first! – as if being the first has something divine about it. The means by which you become the first is irrelevant. By right means or wrong means, succeed! It is as if success in itself has become equivalent to life, synonymous with life.Life has nothing to do with success. Success keeps you rushing toward the future and that becomes your intoxicant. Hoping, hoping for the tomorrow, wasting that which you have or that which you don’t have and will never have.Rabinowitz walked into Gold’s theatrical agency with a puppy under his arm.“I got here an attraction that will make you a million dollars. I got a little puppy dog that plays an electric piano and sings ‘My Yiddish Mama.’”“I don’t believe it,” said Gold.Rabinowitz opened up a suitcase, pulled out a tiny piano, put the puppy at it and the dog began playing and singing.The theatrical agent leaped up and shouted, “My God! We will clean up a fortune!”Just then the door opened and in walked a big dog, grabbed the puppy by the neck, and ran out with him.“What the hell was that?” asked the agent.“That is the puppy’s mother,” answered Rabinowitz. “She wants him to be a doctor!”That is being done to every child. Your mother wants you to be a doctor, your father wants you to be an engineer, your uncle wants you to be a scientist and so on, so forth. And nobody asks what you are intrinsically meant to be. They go on imposing their ideas on you. Their ambitions have remained unfulfilled so they project their ambitions through you. They want their ambitions and egos fulfilled through you. And they are going to remain unfulfilled again; hence you will have to do the same damage to your own children. It is from one generation to another generation that the poison is passed on.For centuries man has lived in this mad situation. Now it has reached to a climax. The whole earth has become almost a madhouse.If Buddha was not understood twenty-five centuries ago, it will be even more difficult to understand him now, because the unfulfilled ambitions of twenty-five centuries are overwhelmingly there, they are surrounding you. You are flooded with them. All the people who have lived and died have left their ambitions as a heritage for you. Your eyes are blind, your ears are deaf, your hearts only pump the blood, they no longer feel.The vicar was driving home one night when suddenly his car made a terrible noise and ground to a halt.Taking out his flashlight and a box of tools, he pulled up the hood and started to look over the engine.While he was tinkering away with a spanner in hand, the local drunk staggered by and stopped to ask, “Anything wrong, Vicar?”“Yes. Piston broke.”“So am I,” replied the drunk.You are not in your senses. Hence buddhas have been misunderstood, and to understand them has become more and more difficult. Keep it in your mind when you meditate on these beautiful words – simple words, because buddhas have always used simple words, but with tremendous meaning.Buddha says:I shall endure hard wordsas the elephant endures the shafts of battle.For many people speak wildly.I shall endure hard words… Buddha expects that is going to be his reward. He will shower you with his love and compassion and all that you can do is insult him, throw hard words or stones at him. All that you can do is some kind of harm. You are going to hurt him. Hence he says in the beginning: I shall endure hard words… He expects that, and every buddha has expected that down the ages.Once a disciple of Buddha was going to preach his word to the masses. He had become enlightened, and Buddha said, “Now you are ready to go, you need not accompany me any longer. Once in a while you can come to see me; otherwise you can help people on your own. Go and help people to become more aware, more meditative.”But he also said, “One thing I would like to ask: what part of the country would you like to go to?” There was a part of Bihar, where Buddha lived, where no sannyasin of Buddha’s had ever gone. The name of the part was Suka. This newly enlightened sannyasin said, “I will go to Suka.”Buddha said, “Please don’t go there. Nobody has gone there yet for a certain reason. The people there are very wild, uncultured, stupid, mischievous, murderous, very violent. Don’t go there.”But the disciple said, “If they are in such a bad situation they need us more than anybody else. The physician is needed only where people are ill.”Buddha said, “That I can understand, but before you go, before I bless you to go, I will ask three questions. First: if they insult you, what will be your response?”The young man said, “I will thank them, I will feel grateful that they are only insulting me. They could have beaten me. They are good people. They are not beating me; they are simply insulting me – and what can words do? Words are words, they can’t hurt me.”Buddha said, “The second question: if they beat you, what will be your response?”The young man said, “I will thank them, I will feel grateful that they are beating me. They could have killed me. They are only beating me – they are so compassionate, so kind. It would have been so easy for them to kill me.”Buddha said, “Now, the last question. If they kill you, dying, in the last moments, what will be your response?”The young man said, “Still I will be grateful and thankful to them because they are taking a life away from me in which I may have done something wrong. If I had lived more I may have committed some crime, some sin; I may have fallen from my peak of awareness. They are simply taking that life which is useless to me. I have attained the treasure, I don’t need life anymore. They are taking something useless away from me and I will be grateful because, who knows, if I had lived more, in some situation I may have gone astray.”Buddha said, “Now you can go anywhere you like with my blessings. You have not only become enlightened, you have become capable of being a master.”Remember, not every enlightened person is a master, although every master has to be enlightened. Many enlightened people have lived on the earth without ever becoming masters, for the simple reason that to be a master needs certain qualities which are not necessary for being enlightened. Enlightenment is an individual process; it is something inward, subjective, it can happen within you. To be a master means the capacity to communicate, and not only to communicate but to commune with others, others who are almost mad, others who are almost incapable of seeing things.Keller paid a lot of money for Buck, a golden retriever. One morning Keller went duck hunting with Buck. Within ten minutes he shot a duck that fell into a pond.Buck ran over the surface of the water, picked up the duck and returned, running over the top of the water, and laid it at the feet of his master.The rest of the morning every bird that fell into the pond when shot was retrieved by Buck running over the top of the water without even wetting his feet.Around noontime Keller met a fisherman. While they chatted a duck flew by and Keller quickly sent it hurtling down into the middle of the pond.Once again, Buck ran out over the top of the water, retrieved the duck, and brought it back.“I just bought this dog yesterday and he cost me a lot of dough,” said Keller.“Well, they pulled a fast one on you,” said the fisherman. “The dog can’t even swim!”To communicate, to commune about the unknown, about the invisible, about the mysterious, is one of the greatest of arts. To help people to see that which they have never seen before although it is always around the corner, to help people to hear that which they have never heard before although it has been always there, to help people to be silent, to be meditative, is one of the most difficult arts because people are mad. They don’t know what silence is. To wake them up out of their sleep is almost a miracle.A deaf man was visiting his friend and the friend’s dog barked at him like mad. Being unable to hear anything, he said to his friend after they had exchanged greetings, “Your dog did not sleep well last night.”“Why do you say that?”“He looked at me and kept yawning.”A deaf man can’t hear, he can’t hear the dog barking; he can only see the movement, the gesture, the lips moving, the mouth opening and closing, and he will interpret it according to his own understanding. He says, “He looked at me and kept yawning.”That’s how we have listened to the buddhas. We have not listened at all, we have heard their words, certainly. If we had listened to them there would have been no need for us to crucify Jesus or poison Socrates or kill al-Hillaj Mansoor.Buddha says – the first thing to remember: I shall endure hard words as the elephant endures the shafts of battle. It is a battle between the awakened one and the unawakened crowd. It is really a great battle, it is a war, and the unawakened are many and the awakened is one. And all the unawakened feel a certain humiliation in the presence of the awakened. They feel as if his presence proves to them that they have not risen to their real heights, that they have wasted their lives. Rather than rising to their heights they would like to remove the presence of the awakened one so that they can feel at ease. You always feel at ease with people who are just like you; their presence does not in any way make you feel inferior. The presence of a buddha makes you feel inferior and you are bound to take revenge. It is a battle, and a buddha has to be like an elephant who endures the shafts in a battle.For many people speak wildly. Not only will their words be hard, they will be almost wild, mad. I know it from my own experience.For twenty years I was traveling around this country. I have encountered all kinds of wild people. It was necessary to invite them, it was necessary to choose my people from the crowds, hence I had to go. But the way they behaved was really strange. I was not harming them; I was simply telling them to wake up in a thousand and one ways, but they threw stones at me, they disturbed my meetings, they prevented me from entering their towns. They prevented me from getting down from the train in their towns. They did all kinds of things; they were really wild for no reason at all.They are still doing it, although I don’t go to their towns; although I never move anywhere now, they are still behaving in a wild way. Strange things they go on saying – and not only saying, but believing. And now it is not only in India that they are saying hard words about me, they are saying them almost all over the world.Just yesterday I received an article published in London. They say that I brainwash people here and when their brains are washed away completely, then the men are sent for smuggling jobs and the women are sent for prostitution. That’s what I am doing to you, so beware! Once your brain is washed completely these two alternatives are left. And the man who writes it, writes it with great confidence as if he knows.Just the other day I received news from Mumbai. A sannyasin has come across a few photographs in a studio. The sannyasin could see in the pictures somebody who looks like me. At the first glance he was shocked; when he looked closely then he could see that it was somebody else, but with some similarity. Now, they have bribed this man to be naked among naked women, and they have taken his pictures, and now they are going to publish them all over the world. Great idea! I really loved it. Some imagination!But this is what they have always done. And I am not saying that they do it knowingly. No, they may think that they are serving humanity, they are making people aware of the danger that I am. They may have every good intention behind all these things; that makes it more complex. They are simply servants of humanity.Buddha says: For many people speak wildly. So if you want to live in this world and be awakened you will have to be ready to accept their hard words, their wild actions patiently, silently, with a deep understanding that what can they do? Whatsoever they can do they are doing. It is not their fault, they are simply asleep, and in their sleep they are saying absurd things.When somebody is drunk and starts saying absurd things you don’t take note of it. You say, “He is a drunkard” – but that’s how people are.The tamed elephant goes to battle.The king rides him.The tamed man is the master.He can endure hard words in peace.The tamed elephant goes to battle. By “tamed elephant” Buddha means “the disciplined one.” The words tamed elephant are not very accurate; it will be better to say “the disciplined one.” There is a great difference between taming and discipline. You can tame through force, coercion, violence, but you cannot discipline through coercion. Discipline comes out of understanding. You can help people to understand their own minds and the functioning of their minds, the state of their sleep, mechanicalness. Out of that understanding a change happens, a radical change happens: they become soft, compassionate, silent, peaceful, more understanding, more available, more open.The tamed elephant goes to battle.The king rides him.The tamed man is the master.He can endure hard words in peace.The disciplined man also becomes a master, also becomes a king. He rides on his own discipline, on his own understanding. He lives in the world with wild people, uncultured, uneducated in the real sense of education: they don’t know who they are. And that should be the first step for a right education. They are not acquainted with their own interiority. What kind of education is this that does not make them aware of their inner kingdom, that goes on stuffing them with nonsense, useless information? – geography, history. What are you going to do with Genghis Khan and Tamerlane? What is the point of it all?But we go on stuffing people with unnecessary information. What is the point of knowing where Timbuktu is? Let it be where it is. Even if it is not anywhere, it doesn’t matter. And the histories of murderers called kings, murderers called great conquerors, Alexander the Great or Napoleon… In the future people will be reading about Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ayatollah Khomeiniac. It is all absolutely irrelevant.The basic education is missing. The first thing to be taught is meditation, the art of going in, because only out of that arises a discipline. The word discipline is beautiful; it means the capacity to learn. A disciplined man is always ready to learn more. He is never closed, he never claims that he knows everything. He knows what he knows, and he also knows what he does not know – and what he knows is very small, and what he does not know is immense. He cannot brag about his knowledge. In fact the more he knows, the more he becomes aware of the uncharted, of the unmapped, of the unknown; and not only of the unknown but the unknowable. The more and more he feels the mystery of existence, the more and more he wonders. That is true knowledge, true education, true culture.Then a man becomes a master, a king; only then can he make an effort to reach people. Only then can he communicate his love, his understanding, his knowing, his seeing.Better than a muleor the fine horses of Sindhor mighty elephants of waris the man who has mastered himself.Buddha is not concerned with God, Buddha is concerned with you. His religion is man-oriented, not God-oriented. One of the great poets of India, Chandidas, has condensed Buddha’s whole teaching into a simple sentence: sabar upar manus satya – the truth of man is the highest truth, there is no truth higher than it; tahar upar nahin – there is nothing higher than that.Buddha has given man a dignity that nobody else has ever done. All other religions condemn man, they condemn man in order to praise God; and their “God” is nothing but their imagination. Hence there are as many gods as there are religions. There are at least three hundred religions in the world, three thousand sects of those religions, and there must be thirty thousand subsects. And there are as many gods as there are sects in the world. Every sect has its own idea of god, and God does not exist at all.What exists is a godly existence, a divine existence. God not as a person but as a presence certainly exists. But to understand that presence, you have to understand your own inner presence first, because it is from there that you can take off, it is from there that you can have the first glimpse of what godliness is. If you have not known yourself you will never know godliness.You can go on worshipping in the temples, in the mosques, in the churches, but your God is childish. Compared to Buddha’s teachings the gods that are worshipped look very stupid. The worshippers look stupid, and their gods, because they are created by the stupid worshippers, also look silly. Your gods are nothing but your projections; they can’t be more than your own state of mind. Just watch. Different gods are created by different people. If horses could think of a religion, then their god must be a supreme horse. It can’t be man, that much is certain. No horse can believe that man has any divinity in him. Man seems to be the most barbarous animal. If horses were to imagine, they would imagine the Devil in the shape of man. Man imagines God in his own image; hence Negro gods are like Negroes. You can see the hair of the Negro gods, they are Negroid; you can see the lips of the Negro gods and they are thick. Hindu gods are Hindu, and Chinese gods are Chinese, the cheek bones showing prominently and the noses, of course, Chinese.Every country, every race, every religion, thinks of God according to its own idea of how man should be. But those are all our projections. Buddha is not concerned at all with them. Buddha wants you to become a god. He wants you to become divine. You are divine; he wants you to recognize the fact. There is nobody higher than you. This declaration is something superb, something unique. Nobody had dared before Buddha to respect man so much.Father O’Reilly had taken up golf and was practicing on the church lawn while Sister McCarthy looked on. Father O’Reilly raised his club, and swung at the ball.“Oh, shit! I missed,” he shouted.“Father O’Reilly,” admonished Sister McCarthy, “God will be very angry if you use such language.”“Yes, Sister,” answered Father O’Reilly. “I shall try to control my tongue.” He raised his club for another try and swung at the ball. “Oh, shit! I missed,” he shouted.“Father O’Reilly, I am sure God will punish you severely if you say that again!” said the Sister.“Yes, I will try especially hard next time, Sister McCarthy,” said the priest. He raised his club again and swung at the ball. “Oh, shit! I missed,” he shouted.Just then a bolt of lightning flashed out of the sky and Sister McCarthy disappeared in a holocaust of flames. Then a great voice boomed from the sky. “Oh, shit! I missed.”Our gods can’t be very different; they are our gods, they will reflect us. Hence Buddha says to get rid of all gods. What you are worshipping in the temples is nothing but your own image. It will be better if you keep a mirror and worship your reflection in it. That will be far better, at least far truer, less deceptive.Buddha’s emphasis is on man. It is the only man-oriented religion in the world, and of course it transforms man. It does not make you superstitious, it does not give you any belief. It gives you a key to open the doors of your own being. And when you know who you are, you will know what this whole existence is and its beauty and its grace and its splendor.Not on their backscan he reach the untrodden country,but only on his own.Remember, you cannot reach to the untrodden country on anybody else’s back. You will have to reach on your own. The last words of Buddha were, “Be a light unto yourself, because there is no other light.”He gives you total freedom, he wants you to be free from all kinds of bondages. He does not want you to be a follower, an imitator; he wants you to be authentically your own self.The mighty elephant Dhanapalakais wild when he is in rut,and when bound he will not eat,remembering the elephant grove.Even though it is a mythological elephant, Dhanapalaka is said to be the greatest elephant who has ever been on the earth, the wisest elephant. It is just a beautiful story. But even Dhanapalaka with such might, with such wisdom, goes wild when he is in rut; when he is sexually aroused he is no longer in his senses, he becomes mad.Sex is really an internal process of intoxicating you. It is chemical. You have nothing to do with it. It is your body chemistry, it is your physiology that releases certain chemicals in your body and then in a sexual state you can do something for which you will repent. Later on you will say, “I cannot believe how it happened. It happened in spite of me.” And it is not only sex; so many things happen in you through your physiology. When you are angry, it is not you. Again certain poisons are released in your blood and you are under the impact of those poisons.Buddha says that if you start watching the processes of sexuality, anger, greed, you will be able to see that these things are not born out of you. You are only a witness. These things are born in your body, in your mind; and body and mind are not two things, they are one. You are psychosomatic. The mind is your inner body, and the body is your outer mind. Hence the body affects the mind and the mind affects the body. You are a third force.That third force is known only through meditation; there is no other way to know it, because it is through meditation that you become disidentified with the bodymind mechanism. Otherwise you can be very mighty, very knowledgeable, even sometimes in some moments very wise, but all that can go in a second. Your body can possess you, your physiology can become so powerful over you that you become a slave. You lose your mastery. Whenever you are angry, whenever you are in a sexual arousal, you are no longer a master, you are simply a slave.Buddha is not against sex, remember. Buddha is not against anger or greed, he is against slavery. And he would like you to transcend anything that creates slavery in you. Remember the difference. There are people who are against sex – they are against sex because sex is hedonistic, they say. They are against sex because sex makes you happy. They are against happiness. They can’t tolerate any happiness anywhere. They are sadists, they would like the whole world to be in suffering; they enjoy suffering. They not only want others to suffer, they make themselves suffer too. Suffering is their joy. That is a perverted state, a pathological state.Buddha is not against sex because it gives you pleasure; he is simply trying to make you aware of the fact that these are the things that keep you tethered in a kind of inner slavery. You are a slave of your own chemistry, you are a slave of your own physiology – and this slavery has to be transcended.The mighty elephant Dhanapalaka is wild when he is in rut, and when bound he will not eat, remembering the elephant grove. When he is under the impact of his sexuality he cannot eat; he thinks only of the elephant grove, he thinks of female elephants. His whole mind is possessed by fantasy. And that’s true about you too. Whenever you are under the impact of any chemical process you are no longer yourself, you are distracted from your true being. You are no longer centered. You become eccentric. That’s exactly the meaning of the word eccentric: you lose your center, you go off center.The fool is idle.He eats and he rolls in his sleeplike a hog in a sty.And he has to live life over again.Buddha wants you to be reminded that if you live like a fool – idle, lazy, without making any effort to transform your being, without making any effort to transcend your slavery, without making any effort to become a master – if you live like a fool, just eating and rolling in your sleep …like a hog in a sty… you will have to live the same stupid life again and again. You will have to repeat it. In fact you have already repeated it many times, and you have not yet understood why you are repeating it again and again. You have to learn the lesson. The lesson is freedom. If you don’t learn it you will be sent back to the same school, to the same grade again and again.That is one of the greatest contributions of Indian spirituality to the world. India has contributed a few things; this is one of the contributions of great significance. The idea is that existence is an opportunity for understanding, for transcending, for going through a radical change. It is a school. Life is a school. If you learn rightly, if you discipline yourself rightly you will not be coming back again, you will exist in the universal. You will never become again a separate individual; you will never have to be an ego again. You will live an egoless existence, like the wave which has disappeared in the ocean.That has been the ultimate goal of the mystics: to disappear into the universal, not to be separate; to melt and merge into the universal. Separation brings anxiety, separation brings death, separation brings misery. We are miserable because we are feeling separate from the universe. Bliss arises whenever you feel one with the universe; when you are in harmony with the universe, bliss arises. There is great joy, rejoicing; you disappear, you die in a way, but you are reborn. You are reborn as the ocean, you die as the dewdrop.But if you don’t learn the lesson you will have to come back again. Unless you learn you will have to repeat the same process.David, a university student, received a telephone call from his brother Blake, back home.“Hi, David,” said Blake. “Your cat is dead.”David fell apart. He began crying uncontrollably. When finally he was able to compose himself, he scolded his brother.“Damn it, Blake,” he told him. “You know how I loved that cat. You did not have to call me and just spill it out, first thing – ‘Your cat is dead.’ You should have broken it to me gently. You could have said, ‘Dave, the cat got out of the window the other day and crawled up the rainspout and got up on the roof and slipped and fell,’ and then you could have said it died.”“I am sorry,” apologized Blake.“Okay, forget it,” said David. “How is Mom?”“Well, Mom got out the window the other day and crawled up the rainspout…”It is so difficult to learn, we go on repeating the same mistake again and again – maybe in a new way, in a new fashion, in a new style, but it is the same mistake. Watch your life: you have not made many mistakes, you have been making the same mistakes again and again. You move in a circle. How are you going to learn? I am not against making mistakes. Make as many mistakes as you can, but please at least don’t make the same mistake twice. Then certainly there will come a great understanding to you. One learns through mistakes, so nothing is wrong in mistakes as such. The wrongness is in repeating them again and again. That means you are not learning anything.Your whole life you have been angry. What have you learned from it? Your whole life you have been jealous. What have you learned from it? If you do not learn out of these experiences, you will have to repeat your life again. Learn out of every experience, small or big. Whenever you are jealous you are in a fire, your heart burns – and you know what you are doing to yourself. You know the wrongness of it, but you know it only because others say so. It is not your own understanding, your own insight. Let it become your own insight, so the next time the situation arises to be jealous you can laugh at it, so the next time the same situation arises you don’t behave in the same old pattern; you can get out of the old pattern.To me this is sannyas: always getting out of the old patterns, becoming always new, remaining always fresh, young, learning. Then your whole life will teach you something of tremendous value and you will be able to die in deep silence, peace, joy. Then there is no coming back. Then you become part of the whole. That is nirvana, that is moksha.In Western religions there is no word which can translate moksha or nirvana. In Western religions – Christianity, Islam, are offshoots of one religion, Judaism – there are two words, hell and heaven. In Indian religions there are three words: hell, heaven and moksha. Hell means nothing but misery; it is a psychological state of misery, a state of negativity, a state of darkness, of utter loneliness. And heaven is joy, happiness, health, light. But there is a third word, moksha. Moksha means freedom, freedom from both heaven and hell, freedom from pain and pleasure – because pain binds you as much as pleasure binds you. Pain may be an ugly chain and pleasure may be a beautiful chain, decorated, maybe made of gold, but it chains you. Hell may be a poor place and heaven may be a very rich place but poverty and riches are two aspects of the same coin. One has to be free of both.When you are free of both, you are free of mind, because mind lives in the duality of heaven and hell, of darkness and light, of misery and happiness, of day and night, of life and death. When you have transcended both and reached to the third which is beyond, which is transcendental, it is moksha. Moksha means nirvana; it is cessation of the ego, and meeting and merging into the universal. That has been the goal of the Eastern mystic.Just as science has reached its ultimate peaks in the West, religion has reached its ultimate peaks in the East. Whenever East and West will meet there will be a great meeting of science and religion. And that is going to be one of the greatest moments in the history of humanity, because then man can live outwardly a rich life and inwardly a full life. Then there is no need to be as poor as India is or to be as empty inwardly as America is. One can be rich outside, and one can be rich on the inside simultaneously.The fool is idle.He eats and he rolls in his sleeplike a hog in a sty.And he has to live life over again.A German man sat before the fire and in a reflective moment spoke to his dog, “You is only a dog, but I wish I was you. Wen you go your bed in, you shust turn round dree times and lie down; wen I go de bed in, I haf to lock up de place, and wind up de clock, and put out de cat, and undress myself, and my wife wakes up and scolds, and den de baby wakes and cries and I haf to walk him de house around, and den maybe I get myself to bed in time to get up again.“Wen you get up, you shust stretch yourself, dig your neck a little, and you was up. I have to light de fire, put on de kiddle, scrap some vit my wife, and get myself breakfast. You be lays round all day and haf blenty of fun. I haf to work all day and haf blenty of drubble. Wen you die, you was dead; wen I die, I haf to go somewhere again.”You need not if you learn; if you learn the lesson you need not go anywhere again. You disappear into the whole, you are everywhere and nowhere then. You are no longer an entity, confined into boundaries.My own mind used to wanderwherever pleasure or desire or lust led it.But now I have it tamed,I guide it,as the keeper guides the wild elephant.This also is something new in Buddha. Christians believe Jesus is special; he is the only begotten Son of God. Hindus believe Krishna is special; he is the perfect incarnation of God. Mohammedans believe Mohammed is special; he is the only prophet of God, the only messenger. Jainas believe Mahavira is special; he is the last, the twenty-fourth tirthankara, the last prophet of Jainism; there will be no more prophets after Mahavira. These people are unique, special, not just ordinary human beings like you and me.Buddha is different again. He says, “I am an ordinary human being.” He says: My own mind used to wander…Gospels never say anything like that, no Hindu scriptures will ever say anything like that about Krishna or Rama because that will make them ordinary like you. They are born gods.Buddha simply says, “I was a human being just like you. I was groping in darkness just like you. I was doing all kinds of things as you are doing; I am in no way special. All that happened to me is happening to you and something more has happened to me which can happen to you if you allow it to happen. I was as ordinary as you are; just only one thing has happened to me which has made all the difference. I have become aware and you are unaware. You are carrying the truth in you as much as I am. I am aware of it; you are not aware of it.“But remember, whether you know the truth or you don’t know, it makes no difference to the truth. The truth remains true. Knowing or not knowing does not make any difference. Truth is truth. It is behind you,” Buddha says, “it is in front of me. I have turned in; I have taken the hundred-eighty-degree turn, that’s all. It is not much to brag about. You can do it.”This is again very special about Buddha. He never claims that he is unique; hence he is of more help to humanity than anybody else. Because he says: “I was just like you: My mind used to wander wherever pleasure or desire or lust led it.”He does not deny that there was lust in him from the very beginning. He does not deny that there was desire, he does not say that he was born pure. He simply says, “I was as much after pleasure – I was just as full of desire as you are, and I was just as full of lust as you are. So nothing is wrong in lust, in desire, in pleasure; if anything is wrong it is in your unawareness. Be aware; and lust disappears, and desire disappears and the constant greed for pleasure disappears.”When you become aware, you are so at ease, so full of bliss, who bothers about pleasure? When you have diamonds who cares about pebbles? When you have inexhaustible sources of inner bliss who goes on begging for small pleasures, ugly pleasures? – they simply disappear.Buddha says: But now I have it tamed… I have disciplined my mind, I have meditated, I have gone into the functioning of the mind, I have seen it through and through. Now I have become the master. Seeing it I have become the master. Knowing it I have become the master. Understanding makes you the master. Now …I guide it, as the keeper guides the wild elephant.So don’t feel guilty – that is Buddha’s message – don’t feel guilty for your greed, don’t feel guilty for your anger, don’t feel guilty for your lust. All that you need to do is become aware of your greed, become aware of your lust, become aware of your desire, and see the miracle happen. Just as you bring light in the room and darkness disappears, exactly like that, precisely like that, as you bring awareness in all desire, all greed, all anger, all lust simply disappears as if it has never been there. Don’t try to escape, don’t try to renounce, because if you renounce you are simply renouncing the opportunity.A man escapes from his wife, goes to the Himalayas or moves to a monastery… There are monasteries where no woman has been ever allowed in; there are monasteries where once you go in, you are not allowed to go out again your whole life. Now, this is not a transformation, this is simply escaping from the opportunity.Dick brought Sally to his bed. “What would you like to do?” he asked.“I would like to see today’s newspaper,” she said.“Sure,” said Dick, “I will send my dog for it. He is so smart he will even bring back the change.” Dick gave the dog ten dollars and sent him for the paper. In an hour when the dog didn’t return, Dick and Sally went out looking for him. They found the dog making it with a French poodle.“Did he ever do this before?” asked Sally.“No,” said Dick, “this is the first time he ever had any money.”Opportunity… You can escape from opportunity but that will not change your being. Outwardly you will become a monk; inwardly you will remain the same person. Outwardly you will become a nun; inwardly you will remain the same person. And the real question is of your inner consciousness, not of your outer circumstances. The mind is not bad if it is used as a mechanism and you are the master. The mind is beautiful as a servant. When it becomes the master then it is ugly. Let consciousness be the master, the guide, and let the mind be like an elephant tamed, disciplined. How can you do it?Buddha says:Awake.Be the witness of your thoughts.In these simple words he has given to the world the greatest meditation: vipassana. More people have become enlightened through vipassana than through any other method. There are thousands of methods but vipassana seems to be the easiest, the most perfect, and very natural. It does not demand any unnaturalness from you.Reverend Johnson, an old black preacher, was warning his parishioners about sin.“Sin,” he said, “is like a big dog. There is the big dog of pride, and the big dog of envy, and the big dog of gluttony, and finally there is the big dog of sex. Now, folks, you gotta kill those big dogs before you are ever gonna get to heaven. It can be done – I know – because I’ve done it. I killed the big dog of envy, and the big dog of pride, and the big dog of gluttony – and yes, brethren, I killed the big dog of sex!”“Brother!” came a voice from the back of the church, “Are you sure that last dog didn’t die a natural death?”You cannot kill these dogs. Either they die a natural death – but that does not bring any transformation to you – or you have to become masters. There is no need to kill, and Buddha will not suggest you kill anything. Why kill anything? If you kill anger you will never be compassionate in your life, because it is anger, and the energy involved in anger, which becomes compassion. If you kill sex you will be simply impotent, that’s all; you will not attain to love. It is sex transformed that creates love energy. Love energy is confined to sex. When you bring awareness to it, sex disappears but love energy is released. Anger disappears but compassion is released. Greed disappears and sharing comes in its place.It is not a question of killing; these are energies. Don’t be such a fool as to kill anything, because if you kill it you will miss something very essential in your life. Transform. Religion has to be the real alchemy, the science of transformation. It is not murderous.But the stupid religious people go on murdering, destroying. They are destructive, self-destructive. Hence even if they drop their anger they don’t become graceful, they don’t attain to creativity, they don’t contribute to the world and its beauty. They are burdensome, they are not in any way a help. They are a hindrance in the progress of humanity. Buddha will not suggest to you to kill anything. He says: Just be awake. Be the witness of your thoughts.Anger is a thought, sex is a thought. Just watch, be alert, let them move on the screen – anger, greed, lust – and you remain aloof, cool, just a witness. In the beginning it is very difficult, but only in the beginning. If you persist then within three to nine months you will be able to do the impossible.One day it happens that your witness has become so perfect that the screen remains empty, nothing passes – no thought, no desire. That day you have attained to the first state of samadhi, the first satori. And the first satori is the beginning; it triggers many satoris in you, culminating ultimately into samadhi, into nirvana – when the mind becomes just a pure mechanism; when you want to use it, you use it, when you don’t want to use it, it remains silent.The elephant hauls himself from the mud.In the same way drag yourself out of your sloth.Buddha insists again: “Nobody can pull you out of your mud, nobody can help you.” So don’t believe that Jesus will come and everything will be solved. Jesus has been before and nothing has been solved. Don’t believe in salvation through somebody; no messiah can help you. Buddhas only point the way. You have to do everything on your own. Nobody can do it for you. I cannot see for you, I cannot hear for you; you have to do it on your own.There are a few things which cannot be done by anybody else for you, on your behalf, and those are the most precious things which only you can do. Awareness is one of those most precious things.Buddha says: The elephant hauls himself from the mud. Just like that: In the same way drag yourself out of your sloth.By awareness Buddha does not mean presence of mind. Many people misunderstand. Whenever Buddha uses the words awake, awareness, people think he is talking about presence of mind. Presence of mind is presence of mind; awareness has nothing to do with the mind. Awareness is something beyond the mind.Presence of mind is very ordinary. In any danger it comes to you. If somebody is going to shoot you, you will have presence of mind in that moment. If a tiger suddenly jumps in front of you, you will have presence of mind; you will do something which you have never done before.Frank and Gene were tossing down a few brews at the neighborhood pub.“Boy, did I have a close call with Angie last night,” said Frank.“What happened?” asked Gene.“Well, I got home real late, so I took off my shoes, climbed the stairs, opened the door of the bedroom, tiptoed in, and closed the door without making any noise. Just as I am about to get into bed, the wife wakes up and says, ‘Is that you, Toto’?”“What did you do?”“For once in my life I really used my head,” said Frank. “I licked her hand.”This is presence of mind. She is thinking he is the dog, Toto. But presence of mind is not awareness; it is a small phenomenon, a tiny thing. Mind can do it.Awareness is something beyond the mind. You have to watch the mind, you have to watch the presence of mind as much as absence of mind. You have to watch both, you have to go beyond both. It comes, it certainly comes, and when it comes it takes all that is your misery, your ego, your insensitivity, your cruelty. It takes all the mud from you, and out of that mud arises the lotus, the one-thousand-petaled lotus of samadhi in you.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,This morning when you were talking about waking up and rising from sloth, I felt so stupid – and I think I am getting stupider and stupider! What to do? Is it enough to just be here with you? I feel very hopeless. And it makes me sad.It is a good sign that you feel you are becoming more and more stupid. That simply means the borrowed knowledge is disappearing, hence the feeling. You are unlearning whatsoever you had learned up to now. Unlearning is the basic process of becoming innocent again.But don’t call it becoming stupid; don’t use that word – it is condemnatory, then one starts feeling sad. You are becoming more innocent. You are becoming more and more unburdened from unnecessary knowledge, information. You are becoming more natural, more like a child, more full of wonder. And if you call it being stupid you will miss the whole point.Your mind can call it stupid because the mind is losing its ground. The mind is dying, and the mind is bound to make all possible efforts to save itself, to survive. And the first step is to condemn the state of not-knowing that is growing in you. Every meditator comes across it and every meditator finds that mind condemns it. It is against the mind; you are becoming a no-mind. And who wants to die? The mind does not want to die, it wants to keep its possession of you; hence the condemnation. Beware of it.Let the knowledge disappear. Don’t be worried at all because that knowledge has not given you anything. In the first place, borrowed knowledge creates only bondage, not freedom. It burdens you; it does not give you wings. It does not make you light, it makes you heavy. It makes you hard, it makes you more and more mechanical, because through the thick wall of knowledge you cannot see the mysterious surrounding you. And the moment you don’t see the mysterious you are almost dead.Life is in harmony with the mysterious. Life is in being full of wonder. Life is knowing the art of wondering, of being in awe. The knowledgeable person is a poor person, very poor, utterly impoverished – and he himself is responsible. He thinks he is very rich because he knows about roses, although he has not seen a single rose. He knows all about love, although he has never loved himself. He knows about God, but to know about God is not to know God. To know about light is not to know light.A blind man can know all there is to know about light, but he will still remain blind. He will not experience the joy that light brings, that the morning brings, that the sunrise brings. He will not see the colors of the rainbow, of the flowers, of the butterflies. He will remain utterly oblivious of the world of light and color. He is blind! He knows about light, but knowing about light is of no use if you are blind. And if you have eyes, whether you know about light or not makes no difference at all. Even without knowing light you experience it – and that is true knowing. Knowledge is not true knowing, it is not wisdom. Knowledge comes through information; wisdom comes through experience.Don’t condemn the innocent state that is growing in you. Don’t call it stupid. That is mind playing a trick upon you; it always plays the trick. In the old scriptures, the same mind is called the Devil; there is no other Devil. It is the mind that tempts you to go wrong because the mind can exist only when you are wrong. The mind is not needed at all when you are moving toward truth, when you are right. When you are on the right track, mind has no utility; it simply loses its power over you. And that’s what is happening.You say, “This morning when you were talking about waking up and rising from sloth, I felt so stupid – and I think I am getting stupider and stupider!” You are blessed. Go on becoming more and more stupid – stupid in the sense of innocent.Jesus was called a fool. Saint Francis was called a fool; used to call himself “the fool of God.” Why have Jesus and Francis and people like these been called fools? Even they themselves have called themselves fools for the simple reason that there is something which the fool can know and the knowledgeable can never know. The fool is innocent. The fool is not as foolish as the knowledgeable person is. Sometimes he seems to be wiser than your so-called wise people.It was an ancient custom in almost all the countries of the world that every great king used to have a fool in his court. Why? – for the simple reason that sometimes the fool says things which the wise – so-called wise – cannot say. The fool is so innocent that he simply utters the truth. The so-called wise are cunning; they will not say the truth, they will say that which appeals. It may be a lie – and lies have great appeal because people live in lies. Particularly in the courts, all kinds of lies remain prevalent. The king is surrounded by all kinds of cheats, all kinds of cunning people; hence a fool was needed, so that he can depend on the fool. The fool will not be cunning and he will say whatsoever is the case. He is so foolish that he will not be bothered about the consequences of it.This is strange, but something significant to be understood. The fool was a necessary part in every great king’s court, and the fools have saved many kings many times. They have saved their kingdoms because their advice came from a state of not-knowing, utterly innocent. They have a clarity that the knowledgeable person cannot afford; he is clouded.Your knowledge is disappearing. This is really satsang; this is what it means to be with a master. He takes away your knowledge and gives you wonder in return. He makes you a child again. And unless you are a child you will not enter into my kingdom of godliness.But because you are calling it stupidity, condemning it, giving it a negative name, you are feeling sad, hopeless. We live through words; we have become so attached to words that we are deceived by words. Just change the word and you will see the change in your inner climate. Call it innocence and just feel the texture, the taste. Call it stupid and feel the texture and the taste. When you call it stupid you suddenly feel surrounded by darkness; when you call it innocence, as if a flower starts opening within your heart, a fragrance surrounds you.Beware of words, what words you use, because we have lived so long with words, and through words.I have heard…A hunter lost his way in the forest. By the evening he reached a private land, but he was afraid to enter because just on the gate there was a big signboard saying: Beware Of Dangerous Dogs. But the night was descending and the forest was full of wild animals. It was better to encounter the dogs than to be eaten by the wild animals. He was so tired, so utterly tired; he wanted to rest. And there was some hope: if dogs are there, there may be somebody – the owner of the dogs, the owner of the land, the man who has put these big signs.He went in, a little afraid, shaky, but there was no other way, there was no alternative. He went in just a few yards and again there was a board, an even bigger one: Beware Of The Dangerous Dogs. His heart started sinking, but there was no way to go back, nowhere to go back, so he had to go in. Again, even a still bigger board.Then there was just a small dog, a very small dog, standing before the cottage of the owner. So small a dog that you could simply take him by the feet and throw him at least a hundred yards!The hunter was very puzzled. He asked the owner, “Where are the big, dangerous dogs?”He said, “There are none. This is my only dog.”The hunter asked, “Can this dog prevent people coming in?”The man said, “No, but the signboards do. You are the first man in years who has entered. Even if there is no dog, those signboards will do.”People live through words. In a crowded theater, if somebody suddenly shouts, “Fire! Fire!” people will start running. Nobody will bother whether there is any fire. The very word fire starts your imagination working.Don’t call it stupid, otherwise you create your own sadness and you are a victim of your mind. Your mind will feel happy because it has made you sad. If you are sad you will start collecting the knowledge that has fallen from you; you will put it back into its old place. You will again start collecting information so that you don’t feel stupid. Call it innocence.Be very careful what words you use. Words have associations, deep associations. They have become almost concrete realities in our life; they are no longer words, they are things.You say, “I feel very hopeless. And it makes me sad.” Hopelessness always comes if you have been hoping too much; it comes in the same proportion. Expect and you will be frustrated. Hope and sooner or later you will feel hopelessness. My whole effort here is to make you free from hoping. If you become free from hoping you will never be trapped in any hopeless state. Hopelessness is a by-product of hoping. Frustration is a by-product of expectation. But it is natural, in a way.When you come to me, you come with great hopes; you want to become enlightened, you want to become a buddha. But the problem is, I cannot help you to become a buddha because you are already a buddha! There is no need for you to become a buddha. Becoming is not the question at all – the buddha is your being. And whenever you drop this idea of becoming, suddenly you will recognize the buddha within.What I am doing here is not helping you to become somebody, but just to recognize who you are. All the devices here are just devices to make you remember – not devices to help you become, but only to remind you.The family moved from the city to the suburbs and was told to get a watchdog to guard the premises at night. So they bought the largest dog they could find.Shortly afterward the house was broken into by burglars who made a good haul – while the dog slept.The householder went to the kennel-owner and told him about it. “Well,” said the dealer, “what you need is a little dog to wake up the big dog.”That’s what you need! Buddha is fast asleep in you. Just a little device, a little dog will do – to wake up the big dog!Mrs. Mulla Nasruddin and her neighbor were chatting about their teenagers.“Is your son hard to get out of bed in the morning?” asks the neighbor.“No,” replied Mrs. Mulla Nasruddin. “I just open the door and throw the cat on his bed.”“How does that wake him?”“He sleeps with the dog.”My work consists of such things, throwing a cat on your bed… It is not some great work – it is sheer fun!The second question:Osho,What do you say about modern art?The first thing is, it is not art. For the first time something exists in the name of art which is not art at all. It is more a therapy than an art. Look at the modern paintings and you will be convinced of what I am saying. The painters must be insane; they have poured their insanity on the canvas. It helps them because it releases some tensions inside their being. It is a catharsis, but it is not art. It is therapy through art, but not art itself.If Picasso is prevented from painting, he will go mad. Vincent van Gogh went mad before he committed suicide. And I have been looking into his life deeply and my feeling is he went mad because he could not paint as much as he wanted. He had no money to paint. His brother was giving him just enough money to survive, and he would not eat for four days in a week. He would eat only for three days and four days he would fast to save money to paint. How long can you do that? But painting was more important for him than food – and it ended in madness. He could not paint as much as he wanted, and when he saw that there was no possibility to paint anymore – the brother was tired, the family was tired and nobody wanted to help him and nobody wants to purchase his paintings – he committed suicide.The same would be the case with Picasso if he was prevented from painting: he would go mad or he would commit suicide. Suicide is the ultimate in insanity. But his paintings are a great help, a great relaxation.And it is not only so with painting; it is so with poetry, music, dance. Everything modern is a little crazy because modern man is a little crazy, off center.Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls subjective art. The ancient art – the real art – the people who made the pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick, nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others.Now, in the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.Objective art means something that helps you to become centered, that helps you to become healthy and whole. Looking at the Taj Mahal in the full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at a statue of Buddha, just sitting silently with a statue of the Buddha, something in you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance.But objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached the peak. They can see the peak and they can see the valley too. They can see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for your inner growth, for maturity.Modern art is childish – not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.The farmer was looking at one of those modern, abstract paintings. “It is a perfect picture of those politicians in New Delhi,” he said. “No matter which way you look at it, it does not make sense.”But the farmer is saying something which Picasso himself has said. Picasso has said, “The world today does not make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?”If the world today does not make sense, that means more pictures, more music, more poetry is needed that makes sense – to help humanity to come out of this absurd state. That was the function of objective art: to help you come out of your absurd state. But Picasso says, “The world today does not make sense…” as if it was making sense in the past. It has never made any sense; the world has always been the same. But he finds a rationalization. He is saying, “If the world itself makes no sense, why should I paint pictures that do?”If you ask me, that should be precisely the reason to make pictures that do make sense. Otherwise, how is the world going to be helped? It needs music, it needs poetry, it needs dance. It needs paintings which can help it to rise above its misery, its schizophrenia, its neurosis, its psychosis.But Picasso himself is only a representative of the neurotic mind. Picasso became very famous for the simple reason that he represented us very clearly.The marriage broker introduced a really ugly girl to a young man. The victim protested that the lady had misplaced eyes, a broken nose and a deformed face.“Ah,” said the marriage broker, “it is apparent that you do not like Picasso.”Looking at Picasso’s paintings, have you not felt it? Everything is deformed, misplaced.I have heard…A very rich lady wanted a portrait of herself done by Picasso. He agreed for a fantastic sum. The lady was ready to pay. Six months he took to make the portrait.When the portrait was ready, the lady looked at it and said, “Everything is okay; I just don’t like the nose. You will have to improve it.”Picasso looked at the lady, then he looked at the painting and he said, “It is impossible.”The lady said, “Why? I am ready to pay. If you want more money, I am ready to pay.”Picasso said, “It is not a question of money. I don’t know where the nose is.”His paintings are nightmarish. And it is not only Picasso; Picasso simply symbolizes the whole of contemporary art. He is the most representative modern artist. He is right, in a sense, because the world makes no sense.The world has never made any sense, but there have been people who created such art that it helped people to find some sense in a senseless world. And that finding of sense helps you tremendously to become centered.“It is terrible to see men looking like girls, with long hair and all. You can’t tell the difference. I was sitting in a restaurant when a girl came in. I turned to the person at the next table and said, ‘Isn’t it terrible how girls look like boys these days’?”“That’s my son,” she said, pointing to the girl.“Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were the mother.”“I’m not,” the neighbor said indignantly. “I’m the father!”Things are topsy-turvy. Things are becoming more and more topsy-turvy. The world seems to be less a cosmos now and more a chaos.In the ancient philosophies, cosmology was one of the most important things to be discussed. Now there seems to be no cosmos, no cosmology. The whole world seems to be in a chaos, as if all is accidental. Nothing seems to be essential, intrinsically valuable; everything seems to be just happening as an accident. And this is reflected in everything. It is reflected in art, it is reflected in science, it is reflected even in religion.We need again a cosmology. I know the world is a chaos; that is a challenge for human consciousness to create a cosmos out of it. It is a tremendously valuable opportunity to create a cosmos. Just to say that it is a chaos, remain with it as it is, is to fall below human dignity; it is not accepting the challenge. It is really a great challenge to change yourself and the world. It is a puzzle, but it is a puzzle only if you have already concluded that there can be no meaning at all; otherwise it is a mystery, not a puzzle.A mystery may not have any meaning, but it has significance, and there is a difference between meaning and significance. Significance is far more meaningful than meaning itself; significance is far more important. What meaning is there in a roseflower? – but significance certainly is there. Just think of a world without roses. It will be a poor world; some significance will be lost. What significance is there when you hear the sound of running water? Have you not felt some significance? Yes, meaning you cannot prove.Meaning seems to be imposed by the mind upon existence; significance seems to be part of existence itself. We have lost contact with the language that can understand significance; we only understand meaning. Meaning is intellectual, significance is existential. There is no meaning in love, but great significance; no meaning in godliness, but great significance; no meaning in meditation, but great significance, great splendor.I would like to say to my sannyasins, that they have to be not only meditative, they also have to be creative. And they have to create what Gurdjieff calls objective art. They have to create something which can help a wandering humanity to come to a resting place. Yes, much can be created that can give shelter, that can become a deep, deep experience of communion with nature.That is the real function of art: helping people to commune with nature, because out of that communion arises religion. Science is an intellectual effort to understand nature, art is an emotional effort to understand nature, and religion is an existential effort to commune with nature. Art is higher than science, religion is higher than art. Science has to be objective; if science is subjective it will be just fiction – science fiction. Art has also to be objective; otherwise it will be fiction. And that’s what modern art is – fiction. And religion has also to be objective, really authentic; otherwise it is speculation, philosophy.The third question:Osho,I want to give up smoking. What do you say about it?Why? Why in the first place do you want to give up smoking? What is wrong in smoking? Yes, it is a little stupid, silly – just poisoning your breath, taking smoke in and out, wasting money, life. But it is not a sin, it is not a crime either. You should not feel guilty about it. Maybe you will live a little less, two or three years less than you would have lived. But what is the point of living three years more? What will you do by living three years more? You will create a little more trouble in the world – so better you go a little earlier. And the world is over populated.Nobody had thought about birth control before. Now we are thinking constantly everywhere about how to reduce the population, how to prevent new children from being born. Sooner or later we will have to think about the other end: how to help the old people to die sooner, because that is absolutely logical, part of it. If we prevent children from coming in just to keep the world a little less populated – it is already too populated – sooner or later we have to think about ways and means to help old people to go quicker, faster. We will have to make it a birthright.If somebody decides to die, it should not be a crime. In fact, he should be supported, respected, because he is creating space for new people to come. He is helping the world, he is a great servant of humanity.You say, “I want to give up smoking.” Why in the first place? – because you have been reading that it is bad for your health? But what will you do with your health?There is a beautiful story about Jesus, not related in the Christian gospels. My feeling has always been that it has been deleted somewhere down the centuries because it is a dangerous story. But Sufis have kept it intact, recorded. There are a few Jesus stories which Sufis have guarded, and they should be thanked for it because they are the most beautiful stories out of all the stories that the gospels contain. This one is a beauty.Jesus came to a village. He saw a man lying in the gutter, shouting, talking incoherently, making a noise. It was difficult to understand what he wanted to say; he was completely drunk.Jesus came close just to understand what he wanted to say, to see if he needed some help. When he came close he recognized the face. He shook the man. The man opened his eyes, and Jesus said, “Don’t you recognize me? I recognize you.”The man said, “I also recognize you, but please leave me alone.”Jesus said, “As far as I remember you were ill, very ill, almost on the verge of death, and I cured you. I have done a miracle and I don’t see any gratitude in your eyes.”The man said, “Gratitude? I was going to die and that would have been a rest from this ugly life. You made me healthy again and now I am suffering again. Who is responsible? Why did you make me healthy again? Who gave you the right?”Jesus was shocked – he had never thought about it. Jesus said, “But you are healthy – you can use your health.”And the man said, “That’s what I am doing. When one is healthy one drinks, eats, enjoys the things of life. What else can I do with my health?”It is really a very pertinent question: what will you do with your health? Eat, drink, be merry! And the man seems to be almost angry at Jesus.Jesus walked away very puzzled, and he saw another man who was running after a prostitute. He stopped the man and said, “Young man, I know you perfectly well. You were blind and I gave you eyes.”And the man said, “What else should I do with the eyes? The eyes are meant to look and search for beauty. And that woman – have you not seen how beautiful she is? Leave me alone! I have no more time for you.”Jesus was very sad because he was thinking he had helped these people. He came out of the village and a man was preparing to kill himself. He asked the man, “Life is so valuable! Why are you killing yourself?”The man looked at Jesus and he said, “Don’t you recognize me? I had died and you are the man who disturbed my death and you brought me back from my death. It is too much! I cannot bear this life any longer. Enough is enough! And please, you have come again just as I have made every preparation to kill myself. Don’t do your miracle again – I don’t want any of your miracles!”This is a strange story, but of great significance. Man is such, so blind, that he will do something wrong if he is healthy, he will do something wrong if he is alive, he will do something wrong if he has eyes – he will see something wrong. Unless you are conscious you are going to do wrong.That’s why in the East, Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tzu and people like them have never done any miracles. Or they have done only one miracle, and that miracle is the transformation of unconsciousness into consciousness – because unless that happens everything is going to be wrong. It is giving a sword into a child’s hand: either he will cut himself or somebody else. You don’t give poison to a child to play with; it is dangerous. Man is unconscious, almost in a state of drunkenness.So what will you gain out of it if you stop smoking?O’Leary walked into a bar and ordered a beer and a whisky. He drank the beer and poured the whisky into his vest pocket. O’Leary repeated this routine several times, and finally the puzzled bartender asked, “What is the idea?”“None of your business!” said the Irishman. “And what is more, you are so nosy I have a good mind to punch you in the eye!”Just then a mouse stuck his head out of O’Leary’s vest pocket and said, “And that goes for your damned cat too!”Man is unconscious. He only appears conscious, he is not conscious at all. So rather than asking me what I have to say about it, you should watch. The most important thing is not to stop smoking; the most important thing is to watch why you smoke in the first place. If you don’t understand the cause of it and if the cause is not removed, you can stop smoking, but then you will start chewing gum, because the basic cause is there and you will have to do something. If you don’t start chewing gum, then you may start talking too much.I don’t smoke. If any day I have to stop talking I may have to start smoking! You will do something…This amorous playboy cornered the girl in the back seat of his sedan and was eagerly trying his hand at her. She kept resisting and pushing him away, but he kept coming with more hands than an octopus.She finally slapped him away and hollered, “I don’t know what has come over you. You have always been so restrained and gentlemanly.”He said, “Yes, I know, but I just can’t help it. I am trying to give up smoking.”Smoking is keeping many people from many things which will be far more dangerous. Your hand is engaged, your mouth is engaged, your mind is engaged. And you are not harming anybody in particular, only harming yourself. That is your birthright, that is your freedom. Otherwise you will do something else.Have you seen that whenever you feel nervous, tense, you start smoking? It helps you to cool down, to relax a little bit; otherwise life will become too much. When you are not feeling nervous, when you are enjoying, when you are relaxed, you don’t think about smoking. Hours may pass and you may not smoke simply because there is no reason to smoke. Otherwise you become afraid you may do something wrong. Better to keep yourself engaged.My suggestion is: first go deep down into your smoking habit. Meditate over it, why you smoke in the first place. It may take a few months for you to go into it, and the deeper you go the more you will be freed of it. Don’t stop smoking. If it disappears on your understanding, through your understanding, that is totally a different matter. If it disappears because you went to the root cause of it and you saw the point…For example, it may be that your mother’s breast was taken away from you earlier than you wanted and it is just a substitute.To many people I have suggested – and it has been of help to smokers – I say, “If you really want to stop smoking, then start sucking your thumb.” They say, “But that will look very stupid!” That is true; smoking looks as if you are doing something great! You are doing the same thing, in fact a little more harmful. Just sucking on your thumb is not harmful at all, but smoking is harmful. But because everybody is smoking and it is an accepted thing and it seems to be a very grown-up thing…Small children want to grow up, if not for anything else than just to be allowed to smoke. Seeing grown-up people smoking, they feel very inferior because they are not allowed. They are told, “You are too small, wait a little. This is something which only grown-up people can do.” It symbolizes a grown-up person. And if you are really smoking costly cigarettes, costly cigars, rare, exotic, then it shows your success, it shows that you have arrived. It gives you dignity.Go deeply into it. It may be that your mother’s breast was taken away too early. Then my suggestion is: in the night before you go to bed, Mahendra, have a bottle with a rubber nipple fixed to it and suck it. Every night before you go to sleep become a child again. Go on sucking on it. Fill the bottle with warm milk. That’s what the smoking is doing. The warm smoke going in and out symbolizes the milk of the mother. You will have to go deeply into the causes.One of the great things in life is that if you understand the root cause of something you can overcome it without any trouble, without any willpower. If you use willpower to stop it you will find some substitute – you will have to find some substitute. Maybe you are not allowed to speak; in the office the boss won’t allow you, in the home the wife won’t allow you. She goes on talking, she gives you no time to talk. And you are also afraid if you talk you will get into trouble; whatsoever you say is wrong. The wife jumps upon it, takes the cue from that and starts nagging you. So in the home you have to hide behind a newspaper. Whether you read the newspaper or not is not the point, but you have to hide behind the newspaper. You have to look engaged, occupied, so you need not talk and you need not hear what the wife goes on saying.Women all over the world, except for a few countries in the West, don’t smoke, for the simple reason that they talk too much. Their lips have so much exercise, there is no need! In a few countries in the West they have started smoking and the reason is the Women’s Lib movement. They have to compete with men in everything; whether it is sense or nonsense doesn’t matter. I am very much afraid they may start pissing standing any day, because they are equal to men! Howsoever stupid it is, they will do it.Go into the cause of it, Mahendra, and if you can find the cause it will simply melt away. But don’t stop by force – let it go on its own accord, through watchfulness, through awareness.So I will not say to stop smoking or stop anything, but I will suggest always: watch, meditate, be aware, go into the roots. This is a fundamental law of life: if you can understand the root of something it disappears, it evaporates. Unless you understand the root it will continue in one form or another.The fourth question:Osho,I am in love with a beautiful girl, but she is poor. There is a hag with lots of loot in love with me. Shall I marry the rich girl or the poor girl?Marry the rich girl and be good to the poor!The fifth question:Osho,I am in love. What should I do?The only cure for a man in love is marriage. If that does not cure him, nothing will.The sixth question:Osho,For forty-five years I lived in prison, mostly made by myself. Now I know it is possible to become more and more free. But what to do, when you feel you need a safe place, a good climate to grow? Another prison? How to be free anywhere, any time? I feel sorrow and rebellion in me about that.Freedom has nothing to do with the outside; one can be free even in an actual prison. Freedom is something inner; it is of the consciousness. You can be free anywhere: chained, in a jail, you can be free – and you can be unfree outside the jail, in your own home, visibly absolutely free, but you will be a prisoner if your consciousness is not free.You are confusing outer freedom with inner freedom. As far as the outside is concerned you can never be absolutely free – let it be clear once and forever. As far as outside is concerned you are not alone, so how can you be absolutely free? There are millions of people around you. On the outside, life has to be a compromise. If you were alone on the earth you would have been absolutely free, but you are not alone.On the road you have to keep to the left. And you will feel this is a great bondage: “Why? Why should I be forced to be on the left? I am a free man. If I want to walk on the right I will walk on the right. If I want to walk in the middle of the road I will walk in the middle of the road.” In India you can do it – India is a free country, remember! It is the greatest democracy in the world, so right, left, middle, you can walk anywhere!But one man’s freedom becomes so many people’s problem. You are free to be yourself, but you should not interfere in other people’s lives.A man of understanding will respect his freedom as much as he will respect others’ freedom, because if nobody respects your freedom, your freedom will be destroyed. It is a mutual understanding: “I respect your freedom, you respect my freedom, then we both can be free.” But it is a compromise. I have to not interfere with your being, I am not free to trespass on you.You want to sing loudly in the middle of the night. Of course you are a free person, and if you cannot sing loudly in your own house, what kind of freedom is this? But the neighbors have to sleep too; then there has to be a compromise.On the outside we are interdependent. Nobody can be absolutely independent. Life is an interdependence. Not only with people are you interdependent, you are interdependent with everything. If you cut all the trees you will die because they are constantly supplying you with oxygen. You are dependent on them – and they are dependent on you because you are constantly giving them carbon dioxide. We take oxygen in and exhale carbon dioxide; the trees do just the opposite, they exhale oxygen and inhale carbon dioxide.So when people like Mahendra are smoking, trees must be feeling tremendously happy because more carbon dioxide is being created for them! Listening to me these trees will be feeling very sad that I am telling you to go to the root cause of it and then smoking will disappear. That means trees won’t get as much carbon dioxide as they were getting before!We are interdependent, not only with the trees – with the sun, with the moon, with the stars. Everything is an interdependence.Tomorrow there is going to be a solar eclipse, a total eclipse. It will have tremendous effects on the life on earth. If you look at the sun directly you can go blind forever. Avoid looking at the sun – in fact, don’t come out. There will be every temptation to come out because in the middle of the day, nearabout four-thirty in the afternoon, you can see stars in the sky; just as in the night you have always seen them, in the middle of the day you can see stars. There will be great temptation to come out and see, but avoid it, don’t come out. It is dangerous to the eyes, it is dangerous to your nervous system, it is dangerous to your mind mechanism. Many people will go berserk, many people will go blind. Women who are pregnant should absolutely avoid coming out because the child in the womb is very, very vulnerable. He has no safeguards yet; he is soft, so soft he can be affected by anything. And in the solar eclipse, when it is total, dangerous rays enter the atmosphere.So when the eclipse happens I would like all my sannyasins to go inside their rooms, close the doors, sit in deep meditation. It will last only a few minutes. Avoid the temptation of coming out, and don’t try to find devices through which you can see it without being harmed. No device is absolutely foolproof; it is better to avoid it.Now, life is so interdependent… The sun is so far away that it takes ten minutes for the rays of the sun to reach to the earth, and rays move with tremendous speed – one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. But we are related to other suns and other solar systems too. Everything in existence is interdependent, so you cannot be absolutely free on the outside – and there is no need either.Enjoy this interdependence. Don’t call it bondage. It is not dependence, it is interdependence. You are dependent on others, others are dependent on you. It is a brotherhood, it is relatedness. Even the smallest grass leaf is related to the greatest star.But in the inner world, in the inner kingdom, you can be absolutely free. So the whole question is of the inner. And then you will not feel sad and rebellious; there is no need. Understand that the outer interdependence is a must, it is inevitable; nothing can be done about it. It is part of how things are. Accept it. When nothing can be done about it, acceptance is the only way. And accept it joyously, not as a resignation. Accept it! This is our universe; we are part of it. We are not islands, we are part of the whole continent. We are not egos.Your idea of freedom is rooted somewhere in the idea of the ego. We are not egos. The ego is a false entity; we are not separate, how can we have egos? It is good as far as language is concerned; it is utilitarian to use the word I, but it has no substance in it. It is pure shadow, utterly empty. A useful word, utilitarian, but not real.But inner freedom is possible. It happens as you go deeper and deeper into awareness. Watch your body, watch your thought processes.Just the other day, in the sutra, Buddha said: “Watch, witness the whole process of your thoughts.” And slowly, slowly you will see you are neither anger nor greed, neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian, neither Catholic nor Communist. Slowly, slowly you will be aware that you are not any thought, you are not mind at all. You are a pure witness. The experience of pure witnessing is the experience of total freedom, but it is an inward phenomenon. And a man who is inwardly totally free has no hankering to be outwardly free. He is capable of accepting nature as it is.Create inner freedom through witnessing. Sannyas is only for the inner freedom. Live out of inner freedom and then you will be able to see the interdependence on the outside. It is beautiful and it is a blessing. There is no need to rebel against it. Relax into it, surrender to it. And remember: only a person who is really free can surrender.The last question:Osho,I think that a man of knowledge is better than an ignorant man. Am I absolutely wrong?A man of knowledge is a totally different phenomenon. I was saying that the man of knowledge and the knowledgeable man are not the same. The man of knowledge is what a buddha is: one who knows. But the knowledgeable man is not a buddha; he does not know. He has accumulated great information, but that information is borrowed. It is from the scriptures, from the books, from others. He has not experienced it; it is about and about. He can talk, he can write, he can sermonize, but he knows nothing. He talks about God; he has no idea what God is. He has no glimpse even – what to say about experience.The priests all over the world of all the religions are knowledgeable people. Jesus knows, but the pope is not a man of knowledge. He is a knowledgeable man, he has great information. He can quote scriptures.One of the great thinkers of the West was Ingersoll. He was a great orator and whenever he would deliver discourses he would make a mysterious sign in the air with his finger before he started to speak. And again when he would end, he would make something with his fingers – some very mysterious thing in the air. He was asked again and again, but he would laugh and he would not answer.When he was dying somebody asked, “Now please tell us, otherwise we will be always curious and wondering – what were you doing your whole life? Is there some magic in it? Why do you make some mysterious signs before you speak and then again when you end?”He said, “There is no magic in it, but I could not tell it before. Now I can tell it. Before I started my speech I was making the sign of inverted commas, and after I ended I had to close the inverted commas. I was saying to myself and to you too that it is all just quotation, it is not my experience. The whole thing is borrowed – it is within inverted commas.”That is a knowledgeable man. But Ingersoll is sincere at least, honest. The knowledgeable man is not better than the ignorant man, remember. The man of knowledge is certainly better than the ignorant man, of course, obviously, but the same is not true about the knowledgeable man. The knowledgeable man is even worse than the ignorant man. The ignorant man at least knows that he is ignorant; he has no pretensions, he has no facade. The knowledgeable man has a beautiful facade, a mask.The problem is that if you go on deceiving others, slowly, slowly you become auto-hypnotized. You start thinking that you know. But there is no difference: the knowledgeable person is only on the surface painted with great knowledge and the ignorant person is not painted; he is raw. The knowledgeable person is a little polished. But deep down they are the same person. Both will be greedy, both will be full of lust, both will be full of anger, both will be full of ego. Their lives will be nothing but ego trips. Their lives will be nothing but sexuality, violence, greed, jealousy, possessiveness. There will be no difference at all.Remember, you have to become a knower on your own. If you quote me, that is knowledgeability; if you know it on your own, that is knowing. And knowing brings freedom, knowing brings truth. Knowledgeability is respectable; you become an expert. The more you know, the more people think you are great, but deep down you go on living the same animal kind of life, no difference at all – or maybe only one difference: you are a bigger hypocrite than the ignorant man.Norman Bush had a terrible stutter. His wife Rose suggested that he go and see a specialist. Reluctantly he was persuaded to visit the best man in Harley Street who told him, “Well, Mr. Bush, there is only one thing we can do about this stutter of yours. You see, the problem is your balls are too big. However, we should be able to transplant a smaller pair. That would undoubtedly cure your ailment.”Norman was given a week to think it over and reluctantly accepted to undergo surgery. When he came out, his speech fully restored, his wife was delighted. Then came those long nights when Rose was eager and Norman showed no interest. As the weeks went by she grew more anxious and frustrated.Then one night she said to him, “You know, I think I preferred you the way you were before, with your big balls and your stutter. I would go and see that doctor again and have the operation reversed.”Reluctantly, Norman was dragged off again to the specialist. “You know, Doctor,” said Norman, “my wife says she liked me better the way I was before with my stutter and all, and, um, well, ah, do you think I could have my old balls back again?”“Not f-f-f-fucking likely!” said the doctor.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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If the traveler can finda virtuous and wise companion,let him go with him joyfullyand overcome the dangers of the way.But if you cannot findfriend or master to go with you,travel on alone –like a king who has given away his kingdom,like an elephant in the forest.Travel on alone,rather than with a fool for company.Do not carry with you your mistakes.Do not carry your cares.Travel on alonelike an elephant in the forest.Nirupa says that this is my serious day. The fault is not mine; the whole fault is Gautama the Buddha’s. That old guy is absolutely serious.It is said of Jesus that he never laughed. That can’t be true because Jesus is very much a man of the earth, very earthly. It is impossible that he never laughed. He loved people, he loved mixing with people, with ordinary people – farmers, carpenters, fishermen, gamblers, drunkards, prostitutes. Seeing his company, it seems absolutely improbable that he never laughed. He enjoyed eating, drinking; he enjoyed company. He must have gossiped, joked, laughed.But it is possible that Buddha never laughed. He is utterly serious. He is very much an Indian. He is pure water. I mix as much wine as I can!So Nirupa, forgive me, because if I mix more wine, then that old guy will be really angry! As it is, he already thinks I am corrupting him, but he can’t do anything – I am alive and he is dead! I am not an Indian at all.Once an American lady asked me, “What ‘nese’ are you? – Japanese, Chinese, Javanese?”I told her, “I am no one.” And then I asked her, “Who are you? – monkey, donkey or Yankee?”I belong to no country, to no tradition, to no race, to no religion. I am just a white cloud floating all over the world. I don’t have any roots anywhere; hence I am free. Buddha has roots in the Indian soil, in the Indian mind.Buddha would have remained the same, unavailable, unapproachable. It is through the Chinese and the Japanese that he became a little more human. Otherwise he would have remained a god above the clouds, almost unreachable. When Buddhism was introduced into China they brought it down to the earth. Chinese are very down-to-earth people. They have never given birth to any men like Buddha. They had their own awakened people – Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu – but they are full of laughter, full of joy, full of gratitude. They belong to this existence; they are not in any way escaping from it. They are living it in its totality.And the Japanese are even more earthly. When Buddhism reached Japan via China, its very color, texture, its very fragrance changed. It became tremendously multidimensional, creative, more life-affirmative. Laughter came in. The Japanese masters transformed the very seriousness of Buddha into its opposite.But in India the effort has never been made. In India Buddha has remained old, for twenty-five centuries.My effort here is to make him alive again, and to make him alive means to make him a contemporary, to help him to speak to you the way you would like to be spoken to, the way you will be able to understand him. He has to be brought from his heights. The earth has its own beauty and any height has to be based on this very earth.So, Nirupa, forgive me, because as I speak on Buddha something of him is bound to come in; that is unavoidable. I try my best to give new colors to his colorless way of expression, to give him more liveliness, but still, I cannot go too far from his sutra. Although I take enough rope, I go as far as it is possible – nobody has gone as far as I have been trying to go – but still the point of reference remains his sutras.I love the man – he has a beauty of his own – but there is no need to be so serious. It was the way in India in those days, to be serious, and it is the way even today. Religion is thought to be a very serious phenomenon.I may be the first person in the whole history of India who has mixed religion with jokes. Let us start with a few jokes.The first:Pierre, a Frenchman, Tonio, an Italian, and Stash, a Pole, were traveling through the country when their car broke down.They found lodging at a farm, and in the course of the night the Frenchman decided to sneak into the farmer’s daughter’s room.The farmer heard him walking up the stairs and said, “Who is it?”Thinking quickly, Pierre whispered, “Meow, meow…”Twenty minutes later, Tonio made the same attempt. As he neared the farmer’s daughter’s room, the girl’s father shouted, “Who is there?”The Italian also imitated the feline sound, “Meow, meow…”Stash decided that he, too, should make an attempt. Just as he got to the girl’s room, the farmer shouted, “All right, who is it?”The Polack replied, “It is me, the cat.”The second:Benson and his dog were sitting at a bar. He ordered two martinis. Benson handed one to the dog, who promptly drank it, then ate the glass until only the base and the stem remained. Then he left.“That’s the craziest thing I have ever seen,” said the bartender.“Yeah, he’s a dumb dog,” said Benson. “The stem is the best part.”Third:Mr. Benchley was quietly drinking his martini in a corner when a lady approached him and said, “Don’t you know that stuff you are drinking is slow poison?”“That’s all right,” he answered. “I’m in no hurry.”Fourth:The car hit her and a hundred yards away he stopped and looked back.“Watch out!” he shouted.The woman raised herself on her elbow and screamed, “Why – are you coming back?”The fifth and the last:Roxanne, a beautiful, well-built blonde, applied at a circus for the job of a lion tamer. Ralph was another candidate.“I will give you both a chance,” said the manager. “The girl can go first.”Roxanne, wearing a full-length mink coat, entered the cage. A huge lion was let in with her and immediately the animal started to charge.Suddenly, Roxanne opened her fur coat and stood there, completely naked. The lion stopped dead in his tracks and began licking her feet, then her hands, then he went meekly back to the corner.The manager was amazed. He turned toward the young man. “Well, pal, do you think you can top that?”“I sure can,” said Ralph. “You just get that stupid lion out of there and I will show you.”Now, the sutras:These stories are about the state of humanity. They are different aspects of man’s unconsciousness, his mechanicalness, different aspects of man’s unawareness. Man goes on living like a robot. All his behavior comes out of a dark space within him; hence the misery of the world. Unless that inner space is lit, becomes full of light, there is no hope for humanity.In the past we would survive because the weapons to kill man were not yet perfect. Now they are. Now we have perfect atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, laser rays, death rays and what-not. Now we have become so efficient in destroying humanity and the earth that if within this last part of the century we don’t bring a light within millions of people’s hearts, humanity is doomed. Then there is no future. We may be living the last years of human existence on the earth.But this critical state can also become a great blessing in disguise. It may make us more aware, more responsible. It may provoke us to do something so that humanity takes a surge toward the higher plane of consciousness.Buddha’s whole message is concerned with consciousness: how to raise consciousness in humanity, how to make man more alert, more capable of seeing things as they are, how to make him capable of becoming more spontaneous and functioning out of awareness and not out of unawareness. We function out of unconsciousness.All these sutras are just to prepare the ground, a right ground from where you can take off.If the traveler can finda virtuous and wise companion,let him go with him joyfullyand overcome the dangers of the way.Each single word has to be meditated upon. The first word is if; it is a big if. Buddha says: If the traveler can find… It is very difficult to find an awakened master for the simple reason that very few people ever try to get out of the routine of unconsciousness. The routine of remaining unconscious is comfortable, cozy, because it keeps you confined to the world of the familiar, it keeps you with the crowd. It is risky to go away from the crowd because the crowd never forgives a person who goes away from it. The crowd wants to possess you all in all, body and soul. The crowd wants to dominate you. The crowd lives through domination.This effort to dominate is what politics is all about. Politics means the crowd is trying to dominate the individual, to destroy the individual, to destroy freedom, to destroy spontaneity, to destroy any idea of going on one’s own, of living one’s own life according to one’s own light. The crowd wants you to follow the mass, the collective mind. The crowd does not want you to have your own way. The crowd has already made a superhighway; you can simply follow it. And in a way it is more comfortable, it is cozy. You are surrounded with people, it is warm.When you move alone into the dense and deep dark forest of the unknown, it is cold, and thousands of fears arise. You don’t know, in the first place, how to cope with the unknown. You are efficient in coping with the known; your system of education makes you capable of coping with the known. Your education is very much against the unknown.You will be surprised to know that your education is against intelligence. Society needs imitators. It wants you to be good in memorizing, not in becoming intelligent. It wants you to become good machines, not beautiful people; efficient machines, but machines all the same. It needs you to function well, but it does not want you to be more conscious because then you would not be a machine, you would start saying no to many things; you would not be so obedient. The society wants yea-sayers. It wants blind people. It does not want you to see because if you see you are bound to be affected by your seeing, you are bound to change your ways.The society wants blind followers; hence it is very rare that a person becomes awakened. In the first place to become awakened, to be a buddha, means to go away from the collective mind; to become so much an individual, integrated, that even if the whole world is against you, you don’t care. You have decided that you will live according to your inner voice.That decision is the first step, but a great step, a quantum leap. It is moving into danger, it is risky. You will be creating enemies. And you will be going into a world which is uncharted, a territory about which you know nothing. No maps exist; no maps can exist, in the very nature of things.Hence it is very rare to find an awakened master. In hundreds of years it happens only once that there is a man like Jesus or Buddha or Lao Tzu. There are thousands of pretenders; they are easily available and they are very cheap. In fact, even if you don’t find them, they will find you. They are constantly searching for followers. Their whole business depends on how many followers they have. Each religion is concerned with having more followers because more followers mean more power.Just a few days ago, the Protestant church of Germany released a report against me, a big report, eighteen pages! The report has been sent to all the churches. They have been alerted that, “This man is dangerous. And the danger is more so,” says the report, “because this man quotes Jesus. And sometimes he explains Jesus in such a beautiful way that Christians may get hooked by him.”I am sitting here. I have never been to Germany and I will never be there. What is the fear?A small commission was made to study all of my books to prepare the report. The commission seems to be a little bit confused. It seems a few of the people from the commission have become interested, because if you have a little bit of intelligence, even just a little bit of intelligence, how can you avoid seeing that there is something? So they say, “There is something, there seems to be something. And it happens to be very much like Jesus’ teaching. But beware. Jesus has said, ‘False prophets will be coming who will speak like me.’ But Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.”There is a great fear that if a few people go away from the crowd, the crowd feels reduced, its power lost. So no crowd wants anybody to leave its fold. It will create all kinds of hindrances. And if you want to become enlightened you have to pass all those hurdles created by the society, by the church, by the state, by everybody around you, by your own family.Remember Jesus has said, “Unless you hate your mother and your father and your family you cannot come with me.” It looks a little harsh and hard on Jesus’ part. It looks as if these words can’t be his – but they are his. And the man was so loving and so compassionate; why should he be so hard on his family? – because they were creating all kinds of hindrances for him.Every family is going to create hindrances because when you go in search of truth you are going away from the power of the family. And everybody is power-hungry. The father is power-hungry, the mother is power-hungry, the husband, the wife. Even the children are power-hungry. Even the children don’t want you to go out of the fold.To become an enlightened person is almost like going the whole way against the current. Hence it is very rare. That’s why Buddha starts the sutra: If the traveler can find… It is a pilgrimage, the greatest, the most adventurous, of coming to oneself. It is a strange journey. You have gone so far away from yourself that you have to come back. You have forgotten the way to come back home. You need a guide, but only somebody who has come home can guide you. And there are thousands of pretenders. It is very easy to pretend. Anybody can talk, advise, say beautiful things; it costs nothing. Anybody can read the scriptures, anybody can quote the scriptures – that’s what is happening all around the world. And religion is a good business. You can exploit people very easily; “for their own good” you can exploit them.Buddha says: If the traveler can find a virtuous and wise companion… Remember: the real master from his side is only a companion, a friend. From your side he is a master; from his side he is only a friend. From your side he is a master because you are unawakened, and he is awakened. From his side he is only a friend because he knows there is no essential difference between him and you. You are just asleep; that is not much of a difference – no difference in quality.You can be awakened. Your buddhahood can become manifest. You are just a bud and he has become a flower, but any bud can become a flower any moment. He was also a bud before; now he has opened his petals, he has become a flower. He has released his fragrance. Everybody is capable of doing it. From the master’s side, the disciple is a friend, a companion.The pseudo master will always pretend that he is higher than you, holier than you, superior to you. He will always talk in such a way that you cannot understand; that is his way of hiding himself. He will talk in spiritual jargon, he will talk in esoteric ways. And there are foolish people who become victims, because people have some idea that if you cannot understand something, there must be something in it. If you cannot understand, it must be very deep, very profound.Even here… I am with you, but there are a few people who pretend they are my mediums. And they tell people that, whatsoever they are saying, I am speaking through them. I am fully alive – I can speak on my own! Wait a little. Let me die, then you can do your business. You will do it, but not now.But I can forgive these people because they earn a little money and they exploit a few people. I cannot understand the people who become victims of these persons. They can’t see the point. I am here: what is the need of somebody to function as a medium, to tell them what I want to tell them? I will tell you myself. Am I not telling you enough? Do you want more? Year in and year out, I go on speaking to you every day.But there are a few people who don’t come to listen, they don’t come here. They avoid the commune, but they go on sitting in the Blue Diamond Hotel, and a few foolish people go on meeting them there. And they roll up their eyes and they pretend to go in a trance, and then they start talking nonsense. The more nonsensical it is, the more philosophical it seems, the more metaphysical it seems. And they always get a few people to listen to them, to follow them. It is a strange phenomenon, but somehow the pseudo has an appeal.One thing about the pseudo master is that he manages a facade, he wears a mask. He wears the mask that you would like him to wear. He fulfills your expectations. The true master never fulfills anybody’s expectations.Jesus proved that he was a true master because at the last moment he frustrated everybody, even his closest disciples. They were hoping that he would do some miracle: “If he can raise people from death, if he can cure blind people, if he can cure crippled persons, he is going to do something when he is crucified. Some great miracle is going to happen…” And nothing happened, nothing at all! That proves his authenticity. He was not there to fulfill your expectations.But the pseudo master always tries to fulfill your expectations. Sometimes he manages beautifully. Sometimes he will do miracles.I know one man. He told his story to me himself because he fell in love with me. He was worshipped by many as enlightened. By and by he became tired of playing the role. It is tiring. When you are not enlightened and you have to pretend to be enlightened and you even have to manage a few miracles, it is tiring.He came to see me. He cried and wept and he said, “Save me from my followers! I am utterly tired and bored, and I have to do things just to keep them satisfied.” He said to me, “Once I had to do a miracle because my followers were expecting something big so that many more people could come.”Followers are also interested that if many more people come to their master, they feel that they are with the right person. If they are alone with the master, then they start feeling a little doubtful. Nobody believes in his own being, nobody trusts in his own intelligence. When you see thousands of people you say, “It must be right. So many people can’t be wrong.” Remember, the reality is just the opposite: so many people can’t be right!The man said to me, “I had to manage a miracle. I stopped a train for seven minutes.”I said, “How did you manage it?”He said, “Simple! I had to bribe three persons. One was the ticket collector. I had managed it that I would be traveling without a ticket and he would come and ask for the ticket. And I would get angry and I would say, ‘There is no need for me to have any ticket. We are saints and we are allowed every freedom.’ So I became very angry. When I became angry, he became angry – he was bribed and he was told to become very angry.” The ticket collector pushed the man outside the railway compartment.This man was traveling with a big group of his followers; almost half of the train was full of his followers. They all got down, and the man said, “Okay, then try to take your train. I will not allow it to move a single inch” – and he stood there with rolled-up eyes. And the driver tried, and the guard was showing the flag and the stationmaster was showing the flag, and nothing was happening. The train was stuck because the driver was bribed, the guard was bribed. Three persons were bribed.Finally they rushed to him, fell at his feet, asked to be forgiven, asked him to come in again and told him, “Nobody will ever again ask you for a ticket. We are stupid people, forgive us!”He entered the train and immediately it moved. That created a great sensation. Thousands of people became his followers because he managed to do this miracle.All miracles are done in this way. If you want to do miracles, you can come in private to me and I will teach you – because these tricks cannot be taught publicly! Once you know, everybody knows; then they lose their whole mystery. All these tricks are done in this way. But people’s expectations are fulfilled.The pseudo masters speak the language of your desires. They say, “If you meditate, you will become rich, you will become successful.” That is absolute nonsense.Maharishi Mahesh Yogi says to people, “If you meditate you will become healthy, you will become rich, you will become successful, you will become famous. In whatsoever line you are working you will be at the top.”That’s what you want, so you say, “Okay, then it is not much of a problem to meditate. Fifteen minutes in the morning, fifteen minutes in the evening…” Just half an hour lost and all success is yours. This is the most successful formula for success – and you want to succeed. You want a thousand and one desires to be fulfilled.Now, there are masters who say, “Whatsoever you want, you will get it through meditation. Money will pour in. Just ask in deep meditation and it is going to happen.”This is speaking the language of your desire. The truth is just the opposite. If you ask me, if you really meditate you will be a failure in life, an utter failure. If you are succeeding, even that success will disappear because meditation will make you so relaxed, so nonviolent, so loving, so noncompetitive, so non-egoistic, that who cares for success? Meditation will make you so joyous that who wants to bother about the tomorrow? Who wants to stake today for the tomorrow?Meditation will make you inwardly rich, certainly. Inwardly you will become ecstatic, but outwardly it can’t be guaranteed that you will become rich, that you will become successful, that you will become very healthy, that no disease will ever happen to you. That is all sheer bullshit!Maharshi Raman died of cancer, Ramakrishna Paramahansa died of cancer. Can you find greater meditators? J. Krishnamurti suffers from many illnesses; he has been suffering from a severe headache for almost twenty years. The headache is so severe that sometimes he wants to hit his head against the wall. Can you find a greater meditator? Can you find a greater buddha alive? If J. Krishnamurti suffers from a headache, if Raman Maharshi dies of cancer, if Ramakrishna dies of cancer, do you think meditation is going to give you health? Yes, in a way it will make you more healthy and more whole, but only in a very inner way. Deep down you will be whole, deep down there will be an inner spiritual health.Raman is dying of cancer, but his eyes are full of joy. He dies laughing. This is real health. In deep agony is his body, but he is just a witness. This is meditation.Buddha says: If the traveler can find a virtuous and wise companion, let him go with him joyfully and overcome the dangers of the way. If you can find a man who is awakened, who is really virtuous and wise, whose virtue is not only a cultivated facade but a spontaneous fragrance, whose wisdom is no longer knowledge, whose wisdom is his own authentic experience… If you can find such a person, then go with him joyfully, wholeheartedly, totally. Then don’t hold back, because this is a rare opportunity.How will you recognize the real awakened person? How will you recognize that he is authentic, true, that what he is saying he knows? How will you recognize him? That is one of the most important questions that has been asked for centuries, and it has not been answered adequately because it can’t be answered adequately. Only a few hints can be given.You cannot recognize a true master through the head. To your head he may look very illogical. Let that be one of the hints – because the pseudo master tries to be very logical. He has to convince you, and you can be convinced only if he is logical. He tries even to give logic about God. He creates theology, which is the most stupid thing in the world – logic about God! There is no way to prove God logically, but the pseudo master tries to prove everything logically because you can understand only logic.The true master speaks paradoxically. He is a living paradox. He contradicts himself, because truth is the meeting of the opposites. And in the true master the truth has happened, the opposites have met. The polar opposites have disappeared in him; they have become one, they have melted into one unity. He is as paradoxical as existence itself. That should be the first hint.The head can only give you this much, so if your head feels somewhere that something is illogical, don’t escape from the place. That illogicality simply means something mysterious is there. Now move to the heart. When your head says something is illogical, the head is saying, “It is beyond me – drop it. I can’t understand it. It is incomprehensible.” Rather than dropping it, drop the head! Then you will be able to see the true master.The true master can only be felt. It is a question of a loving openness on your part. The disciple has to open the heart. The true master comes through the heart, not through the head. He is felt as love, not as logic. He is felt as a song, not as syllogism. He is felt as poetry, not as prose. He is a dance; you can know him only through participation.Be with a true master. Just being with him, sitting by his side in deep silence, with no prejudice, with no idea of what is happening, something transpires. Something jumps from the master into your heart. You can feel it. It is energy, it is an energy phenomenon. It is not a question of a theory, of any hypothesis, of philosophy. It is a jump of energy, a quantum leap. Something invisible radiates from the true master and penetrates to the true disciple. And who is the true disciple? – the one whose heart is open.Once you have felt the presence of the true master, Buddha says: …go with him joyfully… not reluctantly, not with doubts – joyfully, dancing, celebrating. You have found the master. There can be no greater blessing than that, because on the way you will find many problems without the master. The first step will not be possible; only the master can push you. And you can allow him to push you only if you trust.It is just like a new bird who has come out of the egg and sits on the edge of the nest, looks at his mother, father, parents, other birds flying in the sky and a great longing arises in his heart too. He flutters his wings, but he cannot gather courage; he is afraid he may fall down. He has never flown before. He does not know what it is all about, how these people are managing. They may be different, they may have certain qualities. Who knows that he has wings also? He can have a certain feeling that there are wings; he can see a certain similarity. But the fear of falling, of killing oneself or crippling oneself, is also there.The mother goes and calls from the tree far away, gives him a call. He wants to go, but the fear arises. The mother goes around the nest, flies, to show him “What I am doing you can do.” Slowly, slowly he gathers courage, and one day the mother simply pushes him. He has to be pushed. In spite of his fear, when he is pushed he can see that he opens his wings; he is able to balance himself. Of course, in the beginning it is a little awkward, but soon he becomes efficient.Without the master the first step is difficult, the most difficult thing. How can you move into the unknown if there is nobody to push you? But the master can push you only if you trust him, if you love him. It is just like the bird loves the mother and he knows that whatsoever she is doing she will not do any harm. Out of that trust he allows her to push him; in fact, deep down he wants to be pushed. He knows, “I cannot do it on my own.” But if the mother is doing it she must be doing it right.When the disciple feels such a love affair with the master, then things become possible. And then there are many dangers on the way. The first step is the most difficult; then as you move deeper and deeper many more things have to be dropped. Who is going to tell you what to drop and what not to drop? It is all unknown to you. Somebody needs to constantly watch you.Then comes the last step, when the ego dies. That is also very difficult – it seems as if you are dying. The master has to help you die because only through death will you be reborn. The master has to help you understand that this is not death. The seed disappearing in the soil is not dying; it is really being born as a tree. And the river disappearing in the ocean is not dying, it is simply becoming the ocean. It is not losing anything, it is gaining much more. It is losing nothing and gaining all.But if you cannot find…Buddha says, It is not easy to find an awakened master, so:…if you cannot findfriend or master to go with you,travel on alone…Travel you must. If you can find a master, a companion, a friend, you are blessed, you are fortunate. If you cannot find, just don’t make it an excuse that what can you do? – there is nobody like Buddha, Jesus, Lao Tzu available. “What can I do? I have to live the ordinary life. I cannot go into the unknown on my own.” No, you can go. It will be a little bit difficult, hazardous, risky, but the risk is worth taking.…travel on alone –like a king who has given away his kingdom,like an elephant in the forest.Don’t be worried that you are alone. Slowly, slowly you will become able to balance yourself. Slowly, slowly in slow steps, you will be able to go beyond the known. Slowly, slowly you will be able to die as an ego and be born as an egoless presence. It may take a little longer time. It may take you sometimes astray because you are alone and there is nobody to call you back again and again to the right path, but still it is better to travel alone than not to travel at all.The greatest fault, the greatest misery is that people are not traveling at all toward truth. They are simply going in circles in their mundane affairs: the business, the wife, the husband, the children, the office and the home. They go on in circles. Their whole life is just pointless; it makes no sense, it has no meaning, no significance. Still, somehow they go on, afraid of risking.Don’t be afraid of risking. If you can risk, the whole universe is going to help you because this universe is not in any way aloof and unconcerned about you.Buddha has said, “When I became enlightened, the whole universe rejoiced. That moment I felt that the whole universe was helping me, waiting for me to become enlightened.” The story is beautiful. Don’t take it literally. It is symbolic, it is a metaphor. When Buddha became enlightened, trees bloomed out of season. Trees cannot bloom out of season, but we have to express somehow the joy that was felt in existence itself.Whenever there is a man like Buddha, the whole humanity takes an upward surge; it soars higher. Just take two dozen names from human history – Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Mohammed, Bahauddin, Kabir – just two dozen names. Take them out of human history and you will not be human at all; you will lose all your humanity. It is through these few people that great consciousness has been released. And even though you have not done anything you have been blessed by it. It has showered on you without your becoming aware of it.So if you have to travel alone, travel, but travel you must, in spite of all the dangers and risks. The greatest risk is not to travel, because then you are stuck, you don’t grow, you are like a stone, you will never flower. In traveling maybe you will go astray, you will commit a few mistakes. So what? One learns through mistakes, one learns through going astray. And if one keeps alert one can’t go very far away; that alertness brings one back.Travel on alone,rather than with a fool for company.Buddha says: “Just for the company’s sake, don’t move with a fool. Beware of that.”I have been observing thousands of saints and mahatmas – Jaina, Hindu, Mohammedan – and I was surprised to find one thing: ninety-nine percent of them look foolish, stupid. Something dull and dead seems to be inside them. There seems to be no flash of insight; no intelligence radiates around them. They look like walking graves. They have already died. They are worshipped because people worship death, and because people worship them they think they have arrived. They have not moved a single inch! They have even fallen below the ordinary humanity.This is my experience: that your so-called saints are far below the ordinary humanity as far as intelligence is concerned, awareness is concerned. They are not meditators, they don’t know what meditation is. In the name of meditation they go on doing something else. They are utter fools!When Buddha uses the word fool he means somebody who is living an unconscious life. Somebody is accumulating money in an unconscious way, not knowing why, not knowing for what, not knowing that death will come and everything will be taken away. Somebody else has renounced money, but he is as unconscious as the one who is greedy for money. Somebody goes on stuffing himself with food and somebody else goes on long fasts. Both are torturing their bodies in different ways, but both are self-destructive. The man who eats too much tortures his body, remember it – he is also ascetic in his own way – and the man who fasts also tortures his body. Both are self-destructive.By self-destruction you cannot attain to liberation, to godliness, to nirvana. It is only through a tremendous creativity, sensitivity, awareness, that one comes home.So Buddha says to beware of the company of the fool. It is better to be alone rather than to be with a foolish person, because the foolish person is bound to affect you. You will be with him and he will certainly infect you with his foolishness.Intelligence is also contagious. If you live with an intelligent person you start becoming intelligent, because we are not so separate, we vibrate together. If we live with somebody for a long time we start synchronizing with the person.That’s the whole secret of satsang – the communion with the master. If he is awakened, his disciples slowly, slowly start moving toward a subtle awakening. It is bound to happen. If the disciple can simply be in the presence of the master, surrendered, relaxed, in a state of let-go, he may not have to do anything at all. The presence of the master will start flooding him, will start changing his being. We are joined together.Have you not seen it? If four persons are laughing and you are in a sad mood and you go to these people, you forget your sadness; you start laughing. Later on when you remember that you were sad, it looks very strange. How did you forget your sadness? How did you start laughing? What happened? The energy there, the space there, was totally different from you: it was more powerful than you. Those four persons were creating a certain vibe. This is the significance of a buddhafield: the master creates a field around himself; through his disciples he creates an energy field. To be in that energy field is a transformation in itself.But the same happens if you move with the foolish people. Just to keep company, people would like to be with anybody. They are so afraid of being alone.Buddha wants you to beware of that. It is better to be with trees and clouds and rivers and mountains and the ocean, because they will not make you more foolish than you are; they may even help you to become a little more intelligent, because the whole existence is nothing but intelligence. If you can be in deep communion with nature you will become more intelligent. There is all around you tremendous intelligence available, but only intelligent people can feel it. The foolish person remains closed.The fool lives in his own world; that’s why he is called the idiot. The word idiot means one who lives in his own world, one who has his own idiom, one who has his own private reality. He is closed to the real; he has his own fantasy. He lives in his dreams.Pat went to see the doctor about his eyes. The doctor suggested he bathe them every morning in brandy.The next time Pat came to see the doctor, the doctor asked him how his eyes were.“Did you follow my advice?” he asked.“I tried to – but I can’t raise the glass higher than my mouth!”The fool is not only the person who is ignorant. The fool can be very knowledgeable; often he is. He can be a pundit, he can be a priest, he can be a professor. And then he is more dangerous because he appears to talk sense, and deep down he is as ignorant as anybody else, as foolish as anybody else.A famous professor walked into a travel agency to buy a steamship ticket.“To where?” the agent asked.“Have you got a globe of the world?”The travel agent handed him a globe. The professor turned the globe around and around looking at all the countries and continents. After thirty minutes he said, “Pardon me, haven’t you got anything else?”Your professors, your pundits, your scholars, are not very different. And remember, the foolish person may have a certain character. It is easy for the fool to create a certain character because he is stubborn. Stupidity is always stubborn. If some idea gets into his head he may be able to practice it more consistently than the intelligent person because he is stubborn, he cannot be flexible. He is not dynamic, he is stagnant.That helps many foolish people to become respectable. They can do stupid things that nobody else will be able to do, but they do them with such perseverance, with such patience, with such strength, that they succeed in doing them. They can create great characters, they can be great moralists, they can be very pious, and they can impress you.Remember, character is not of much value. What is valuable is consciousness – not conscience but consciousness. Conscience is created by the society. The more foolish you are, the more the society is able to create a conscience in you. It gives you an idea how to live your life. It manipulates you in a very subtle way. It hypnotizes you and conditions you. And the conditioning is so long that you forget completely that these are not your ideas.For example, if you are born in a vegetarian family you will be a vegetarian, thinking that you have renounced all meat-eating, etcetera, that you are great – you are a vegetarian. But if you were born in a non-vegetarian family you would have been a non-vegetarian. It depends on the conditioning; you are not doing it consciously. You are allowing other people to dominate you, to decide for you.The intelligent person is rebellious. He does not allow others to decide for him; he keeps the right to himself. Hence, stupid people become saints very easily because they allow the society to condition them. At least in that particular society they will be very respected. To others they will look very stupid, to others they will look insane, but to that particular society which has conditioned them they will be great saints.Just a few days ago in Mumbai, a naked Jaina saint has come – Acharya Vidyananda. He lives naked. To the Jainas he seems to be a great saint; to others he seems to be a little bit crazy, eccentric. And if you look at his face he looks stupid, although he talks on great scriptures. But his face shows simply stupidity, no radiance. His body seems ugly. If there is going to be a competition, a world competition in ugliness for Mr. Universe, then he may succeed. But to his sect, to his followers he looks so great – that he has transcended his body. And all that he is doing is unnecessarily torturing his body.If you torture the body it becomes ugly. It is a gift from existence – make it beautiful. It is your home, you have to live in it – make it beautiful.But once you are in a certain conditioning, that is your whole universe. You think in terms which others have told you. Unless by some accident you come across a new idea…Old maid Sarah possessed several million dollars, a pedigree female cat, and some very Victorian ideas on the subject of sex. In fact, her feelings about sex were such that for five years she had never allowed her cat to go out of the house for fear of “contamination.”Deciding to take a vacation in Hawaii, Sarah instructed her housekeeper, “Now be sure you don’t let the cat out. I repeat, do not, under any circumstances, let the cat out.”After Sarah had been gone about a week, the housekeeper received a telegram, “Having a wonderful time. Met the nicest young man. Let the cat out!”People are living in small ponds of their own ideology and it is very rare that they will come across something new that will go through their thick layer of conditioning and will make them aware what they are doing to themselves. These are the people you worship, you respect, whom for centuries you have worshipped and respected. And because of this worship and respect the whole humanity has remained tethered to the lowest possibility of intelligence. You could have reached to the Everest of intelligence, but we have not allowed our intelligence to soar high, higher than the collective mind wants it to.Do not carry with you your mistakes.Do not carry your cares.Buddha says: “Go alone, just remember not to carry your mistakes” – that means, don’t carry your past. There is no need even to repent about the past. Your religious people go on teaching you, “Repent!” because it is through repentance that they make you feel guilty, and when you are guilty you can be exploited.A real master always makes you feel good about yourself, not guilty; respectful toward yourself, not guilty. But the priests live on creating guilt in you. They would not like you to forget your mistakes; they want to remind you again and again. They have not even forgotten the sin that was committed by Adam and Eve; they go on reminding you about the original sin. You have not committed it, but you are born into the chain in which the first man and woman committed it and you are carrying the load of it. You have to feel guilty even for that, what to say about your own mistakes? The priests have lived in great power for the simple reason that they have reduced you into guilty sinners.The elderly priest listened in while the young curate took his first confession.“You did well,” he told the young priest, “but I suggest that when you hear the confessions of these pretty young ladies it would be more appropriate if you went, ‘Tsk, tsk, tsk,’ and not ‘Wow’!”Do not carry with you your mistakes. Don’t repent, don’t feel guilty. Drop the past; it is no more.And: Do not carry your cares. That is, don’t think about the future, don’t be worried about it. Live in the present. That is what meditation is all about: living in the present. Mind lives in the past and in the future; and if you can be in the present, mind disappears, and silence prevails – profound silence, virgin silence.See it as a fact; right now, here. If there is no past and no future, then this moment has such beauty, such grace: the birds singing and the traffic noise and this beautiful silence. And something will transpire between me and you. It can transpire only in the present.Travel on alonelike an elephant in the forest.Be in the present and travel on alone – if you cannot find a master. But if you can find a master, let him go with you: …go with him joyfully and overcome the dangers of the way.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I am rejecting my mind and clinging to awareness.Mind has not to be rejected at all; if you reject it, it will remain. Rejection means repression. Anything rejected never leaves you; it simply moves from the conscious to the unconscious, from the lighted part of your being to the dark layers where you cannot face it. You become oblivious to it, but it is there, more alive than ever. It is better to face the enemy than to keep the enemy at your back; that is far more dangerous.I have not told you to reject the mind. Mind is a beautiful mechanism, one of the miracles of existence. We have not been able yet to make anything comparable to human mind. Even the most sophisticated computers are nothing compared to it. A single human mind can contain all the libraries of the world; its capacities are almost unbounded. But it is a machine, it is not you. To get identified with it is wrong, to make it your master is wrong, to be guided by it is wrong. But to be the master and the guide is perfectly right. The mind as a servant is of tremendous value, so don’t reject it. To reject it will impoverish you, it will not enrich you.I am not against the mind; I am in favor of transcending it. And if you reject you cannot transcend. Use it as a stepping-stone. It all depends on you: you can make it a hindrance if you start thinking that the mind has to be rejected, denied, destroyed; or you can make it a stepping-stone if you accept it, if you try to understand it. In the very effort of understanding it, transcendence happens. You go beyond it, you become a witness.You say, “I am clinging to awareness.” That is bound to happen. If you reject mind, you will start clinging to awareness, and clinging is nothing but mind functioning from the back door. Clinging is a process of mind. But that is bound to happen to people who reject, repress.The question is of transformation. The mind has to be used rightly; then there will be no clinging to awareness. Otherwise, afraid of the mind, that it may come back, you will cling to awareness – and in clinging it has already come back, it is already there. Clinging is mind; non-clinging is intrinsic to awareness. You cannot cling to awareness; if you cling, it is just a mind phenomenon. Your awareness too is just a pseudo thing created by the mind because you were asking too much of it. It is false, utterly false; if you have to cling to it, it is false.Real awareness remains with you; you need not cling to it. Who will cling to it? You are awareness. Who will cling to whom? In awareness there are not two – the clinger and the object of clinging; in awareness you are one. There is only awareness and nothing else. One cannot cling to awareness. But it is bound to happen if you reject the mind; the very first step has gone wrong. Don’t reject it – understand it.In fact, the word understand is very significant. When you understand something it stands under you. You become transcendental, you go beyond it; it is below you. It has its utility; great utility. There will be no science without mind and there will be no technology without mind. All human comforts will disappear without human mind. Man will fall back into the world of the animals or even far below without the mind. Mind has given much.The problem is not the mind; the problem is your identification with it. You think you are it, and that is the problem. Disidentify, watch the mind. Be the watcher and let the mind be there watched, witnessed, observed. A great radical change happens through observation. Mind functions far more efficiently when you observe it because all that is rubbish drops and mind need not carry unnecessary weight; it becomes light. When you become a watcher, mind can have some rest too. Otherwise your whole life mind is working, working, day in, day out, year in, year out; it stops only when you die. It creates a deep fatigue, mental fatigue.Now scientists say even metals become tired – metal fatigue. So what to say about the mind which is very subtle, which is very delicate? Handle it carefully. But you remain aloof, unconcerned, uninvolved. When you are writing you don’t become the fountain pen, although you cannot write without it. A good fountain pen is very essential for good writing. If you start writing with your fingers nobody will be able to read what you have written, not even you, and it will be very primitive. But you are not the fountain pen, and the fountain pen is not the writer but only a writing instrument.The mind is not the master but only an instrument in the hands of the master.Be more alert, aware, but don’t cling to it. Clinging will destroy the whole beauty of it. Why cling? What is the fear? We cling only out of fear. You are awareness, you cannot lose it. Even now, when you are unaware of the fact that you are awareness, you have not lost it.Truth cannot be lost. Whether you know it or you know not, it makes no difference. The truth remains the truth, known or unknown. Your innermost being is still pure awareness. You live on the circumference; hence you are not able to see your own center.Sannyas means exploring your interiority, moving toward the center. That’s what meditation is all about. When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body. That does not mean that you start rejecting the body or the mind. You respect the body, you respect the mind. You love the body more so, more than ever. It is a beautiful house. It is your home and you have to live in it seventy, eighty, ninety years. And it is serving you so beautifully; its service is of great value. You respect it, you befriend it, you take care of it. But still you know: “I am neither the body nor the mind. I am consciousness.”Then there is no question of clinging. Knowing that “I am consciousness,” you become part of existence. Then there is no birth for you, no death for you. Then you are part of eternity, and to be part of eternity is to be blissful. When you know you cannot die, all fear disappears and the energy involved in fear is released as love. When you know you are part of the whole there is no anxiety left, no anguish possible, and the energy involved in anxiety, in anguish, is released. You become compassion, love, joy; it starts overflowing you. You are not only a blessing to yourself, you become a blessing to everybody else; you become a blessing to existence itself.The second question:Osho,Is it necessary to go through dream analysis to attain enlightenment?Dream analysis cannot help you to become enlightened, but dream witnessing can certainly help you. That is the difference between psychology and religion: psychology analyzes dreams; religion watches them, helps you to become aware of them. And the moment you become aware of your dreams they disappear; they can’t exist for a single moment longer. They can exist only when you are utterly unaware; for their existence that is an absolute condition.A buddha never dreams, he cannot dream. Even if he wants to dream he cannot. Dreaming simply disappears from his being because even in the night while he is asleep, deep down in his innermost core he is awake. A flame of awareness continues and he knows what is happening. He knows that his body is asleep. Witnessing becomes so ingrained that not only in the day but in the night also it continues. And then dreaming disappears. You dream because you desire; your dreams reflect your desires. Now, you can go on dissecting your desires for lives, and you will not attain to anything. You can go on analyzing your dreams…There are many systems of analysis. If you go to the Freudians they will analyze your dreams in one way: they will interpret everything as sexuality. Imaginable things, unimaginable things, everything has to be reduced to sexuality. If you go to the Adlerians with the same dreams, they will interpret them according to their ideology. Then every dream is reduced to Adler’s idea: will to power. Then everything is nothing but will to power; each dream has to fit with his philosophy. And so is the case with the Jungians and others.One thing has been observed again and again – a very strange phenomenon happens. If you go into psychoanalysis of any kind – Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian – you start dreaming in the way your psychoanalyst expects you to dream. If you go to the Freudian, sooner or later you start dreaming according to his idea. And you are very obliging; you feel sorry for the poor analyst he is making such effort to analyze your dreams.First an analyst starts giving you interpretations of your dreams and then you start dreaming according to his interpretations. Soon you fit with each other as if made for each other. Then he is happy and you are happy. He is happy because his theories are confirmed and you are happy that you are a good boy, dreaming according to the great expert. And when you see your psychoanalyst happy, you feel happy. Seeing you feel happy, he feels happy. It is such a mutual arrangement! Nobody is really helped, and the dreaming continues.I have never come across a fully psychoanalyzed person, because according to Freud, a fully psychoanalyzed person is one whose dreaming has disappeared. And that was not true even about Sigmund Freud himself; he continued to dream to his very last. You will be surprised to know, he was very afraid of psychoanalysis, because he knew his disciples would only prove that all his dreams were sexual.Once Jung wanted to psychoanalyze Freud. Jung was his most beloved disciple in those days, just as once Judas was one of the most beloved disciples of Jesus. And what Judas did to Jesus, Jung did to Freud. People whose names start with J are dangerous!Freud and Jung were traveling and they started talking. Jung said, “The idea occurs to me again and again that I would like to psychoanalyze you. You have not been psychoanalyzed. In fact, nobody who has not been psychoanalyzed should be authorized to psychoanalyze other people. And as you are the founder, you should be psychoanalyzed.”Freud actually started trembling and he said, “No, no, never! That will destroy my prestige.”Jung said, “If that is so, then it has already destroyed your prestige, at least for me. If you are so afraid to talk about your dreams, that simply shows what kind of dreams you must be having.”There is not a single person in the world who is totally psychoanalyzed. And unless dreams disappear, your mind will remain in a turmoil. Dreams simply say you don’t know how to put your mind off; you don’t know where the switch exists so that you can put it on and off according to your needs. When you are going to sleep you can’t put if off; it goes on chattering. Even if you say to it, “Shut up!” it does not listen to you at all; it does not care. And you know perfectly well it won’t listen. You feel so impotent as far as your own mind is concerned that you have to move according to it, it does not move according to you. If it wants to chatter it will chatter; when you fall asleep, still it goes on chattering.The art of meditation makes you aware where the switch is: it is in witnessing. Witnessing is the switch that can put your mind on or off. You become the master, so when you want to use it you use it and when you don’t want to use it you simply put it off and give rest to the mind.Hence the mind of a meditator is far more brilliant, far more intelligent, far more alive, sensitive, than the mind of a non-meditator, because the mind of a meditator has a few periods of deep, deep rest that rejuvenates it. If you see a meditator and he is not intelligent, that simply means he is not a meditator at all. A meditator cannot be stupid, a meditator cannot be mediocre; that is impossible. If he is a meditator, then he will radiate sharpness, intelligence, brilliance. He will be a genius, he will be creative.In fact, if we can create more and more meditators in the world, in every dimension of life there will be more creativity, more intelligence, less stupidity, less lethargy. But it has not happened down the ages. Just the opposite has happened because in the name of meditation, something else has continued. In the name of meditation people either have been concentrating or contemplating; neither is meditation.Concentration is just the opposite of meditation and so is contemplation, in a different way. Concentration means closing your mind, focusing your mind on a certain point, on a certain object. You are so focused on a certain object that you become unaware of everything else; that is concentration. It excludes everything else. It includes only one thing: the object of your concentration, whatsoever it is.Meditation means absolute openness. It includes all, it excludes nothing. Hence it is not concentration at all. It is a state of vulnerability, openness, availability.The person who is trying to concentrate can be distracted. He can be easily distracted by anything. Just a dog in the neighborhood starts barking and he is distracted, a child starts giggling and he is distracted, a bird starts singing and he is distracted. Anything will do, as if he is just waiting for anything to distract him; he is tired of focusing his mind. It is a tension, it is a strain.Meditation is not a tension, it is not a strain. One is never tired of meditation. It is relaxation – how you can be tired of it? It is deep rest, it is utter restfulness. One is available to everything; nothing can distract you.You can listen to me either as concentration or as meditation. If you listen to me as concentration, then anything can distract. A car passes by, the cuckoo starts calling from the distance, the chattering of the birds, anything can distract you, any small thing. Not that the birds are interested in distracting you; they are not concerned with you at all. But you will feel anger arising in you.That’s why so-called religious people become angrier than anybody else. They live almost in rage. If a single person in your house becomes religious, he is enough to create trouble for everybody, because each small thing distracts him and then he takes revenge.You can listen to me in meditation. Then you are not concentrating on me; you are simply sitting available, open. The birds go on chattering; that too comes to you, but because you are not concentrating it is not a distraction, it enriches. What I am saying to you is enriched. The singing of the birds becomes a background to it. And you never feel angry and you never feel tense.Contemplation is also not meditation. Contemplation means thinking. Thinking can be of two types. One is zigzag, in jumps from one object to another, a little crazy; that is ordinary thinking. Anything leads to anything. A dog starts barking and you start thinking about your girlfriend. There seems to be no relationship, but maybe your girl had said once, “I go on barking at you and you don’t listen!” Suddenly the dog reminds you. Or maybe she also has a dog who barks at you whenever you go to see her. And then you go from one thing to another, you will not stay with anything long. The girlfriend reminds you of her mother, and so on, so forth. Nobody knows where you are going to end. When you will look retrospectively you will be surprised: just the dog barking in the neighborhood started the whole process of thought.Contemplation means remaining concerned with one object, thinking about it and only about it. Thinking has a consistency. If you are thinking about love, then you are thinking about love and all its aspects. You don’t jump from one thing to another. Yes, you have a little rope just so that you can move around the subject of love, but you keep moving around it, around and around. You forget the whole world – love becomes your world for the moment.Meditation is not contemplation either because it is not thinking at all – consistent, inconsistent, crazy, sane. It is not thinking at all; it is witnessing. It is just sitting silently deep within yourself, looking at whatsoever is happening inside and outside both. Outside there is traffic noise, inside there is also traffic noise – the traffic in the head. So many thoughts – trucks and buses of thoughts and trains and airplanes of thoughts, rushing in every direction. But you are simply sitting aloof, unconcerned, watching everything with no evaluation.You ask me, “Is it necessary to go through dream analysis for attaining enlightenment?” No, not at all. Have you ever heard of anybody becoming enlightened through psychoanalysis? Yes, people have become mad, but nobody has become enlightened.Psychoanalysis depends on analysis of the mind, and they don’t see anything else in you. The body is taken care of by the physiologists; then all that remains is a constant traffic in the mind either of thoughts or of dreams, memories, imagination, desires. The psychoanalyst has nothing else to do: he looks into your dreaming process. And why does he choose dreams? – because if he asks you what you think when you are awake you are never authentic, you are never sincere. You are so deceptive, so dishonest, that whatever you say about your thinking is bound to be managed; it is not going to be true. You will say only that which is worth saying and you will delete many things. You will edit your thoughts. You will not allow the psychoanalyst to look into your thoughts without any censor, without any editing. You will not allow him the raw material of your thoughts because that will look like you are insane.You can try it. Sit in your room, close all the doors so nobody can come in, and start writing whatsoever is happening in the mind, whatsoever it is. Just go on writing for fifteen minutes, then read it. You will be shocked. This is your mind? All these thoughts are going on in your mind? Are you mad or something? You can’t show it to anybody.It is good that people don’t have windows in their heads; otherwise the wife would look through the window in the head of the husband and she would find everything. She finds everything anyway, window or no window!The psychoanalyst has to depend on your dreams because in dreams it is very difficult for you to deceive him. You don’t know yourself what your dreams mean so you have to say them as they are, and he can find a few clues about you. But this is not going to make you enlightened. This may help you a little bit to become more normal, but what is normality? Even the people who are normal are not normal; they are normally abnormal, that’s all. So you will be normally abnormal.There are two kinds of abnormal people in the world: normally abnormal, abnormally abnormal. The work of the psychoanalyst is to bring abnormally abnormal people to the first category: normally abnormal. He helps you to adjust with the society, with people, with yourself, but he can’t help you to become enlightened.You can go on and on analyzing your dreams and you will never come to your witnessing soul through that analysis. How can you come to the witness by analyzing the dreams? One dream will lead you into another dream. Maybe you will become a very skillful dreamer, very artful. Maybe you will start dreaming in a better way, in a more scientific way, but dreams are dreams. They cannot take you to the witness of the dreams which is your reality.Al: “I had a great dream – I dreamed I broke the bank at Monte Carlo.”Charles: “I had a great dream too – I dreamed I was in a room with Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot.”Al: “Wow! Bardot and Sophia! Why didn’t you call me?”Charles: “I did, but your maid said you were in Monte Carlo!”You can analyze this dream. What will be the gain? Neither the bank in Monte Carlo nor Sophia Loren or Bardot – nothing is going to be your gain. But the psychoanalyst will analyze it. If you go to the Adlerian, his emphasis will be on the bank in Monte Carlo: will to power, money, prestige. He will forget all about Sophia Loren and Bardot; he is not interested in them, that is nothing. If you go to the Freudian he will not think about Monte Carlo and the bank at all; that is nonessential, accidental. The real thing is Sophia Loren and Bardot.And if you go to a Jungian, then nobody knows what he will do with your dream. He is so confused! But he will make much fuss about it, that much is certain. He will create much dust – esoteric dust. He may start looking into your dream and find things which you would have never suspected. He may find some ancient mysteries, maybe Egyptian, or he may go even farther back, to Atlantis! He is really a grave digger. And he goes on finding things which are not there.You must have heard the definition of a philosopher. The philosopher is a man who is blind looking in the dark night, in a dark room, for a black cat which is not there. But Jung finds it! That’s the beauty of Jung – he finds the black cat which is not there; he finds it still. And he creates so much smoke and dust that you cannot deny him. He creates great argument. And he himself is very afraid of going toward the witness.Jung has been in India, where there was a man the like of whom happens only once in a while: Maharshi Raman was alive. And wherever Jung went in India, almost everywhere people suggested to him, “Why are you wasting your time here and there, going to Varanasi and Mumbai? Why don’t you go to Maharshi Raman?” People knew that he is a great psychoanalyst, world-famous. “You should go to Maharshi Raman, who has gone beyond the mind. Sitting by his side you may have a few glimpses. You may come away a totally changed person.”But Jung avoided him, he did not go there. On the contrary, back home he started writing against Eastern mysticism. He could not write against mysticism as such because he was himself creating great mysteries – superficial because he was not an initiate in any mystery school. He was gathering things from superficial sources. He had never been in contact with a living master. He had come so close to a buddha, Maharshi Raman, yet he missed. And in self-defense he started writing back home that Eastern mysticism is not meant for the Western mind, as if there are Eastern souls and Western souls. Yes, there is a difference in the skin of the Eastern people and the Western people; it is not much of a difference, just a little color pigment, four annas’ worth. And remember, the black person has it more than the white. He is more valuable – four annas more valuable – because he has a certain pigment that makes him black which the white skin is missing.Yes, there is a certain difference in the mind, because the Eastern mind is conditioned in one way and the Western mind is conditioned in a different way. Conditionings are different, but the witness is the same. Jesus and Buddha, Mohammed and Mahavira, are not different. Saint Francis and Ramakrishna, Eckhart and Krishnamurti, are not different. One who has known the witness is neither Eastern nor Western. He is no longer the body and no longer the mind, how can he be Eastern or Western?Jung started talking this nonsense in self-defense. He said, “That’s why I avoided Maharshi Raman, because Eastern methods are not suitable to us. The West needs its own Yoga, the West needs its own meditations.” What difference can there be in being aware? Whether you are in the East or in the West, awareness will be the same, and that is the essential core of meditation.They are great interpreters of dreams; in fact, the whole world of the psychoanalyst is the world of dreams. As far as the enlightened person is concerned, for him the whole world is nothing but a dream. For the psychoanalyst, dreams are his whole world, and for the enlightened person the whole world is nothing but a dream.The analyst was annoyed with her patient who said she did not dream the night before.“Look,” he warned her, “if you don’t do your homework, I can’t help you.”Dreaming is a necessity; that is your homework. Do it at home and then come to the psychoanalyst, and he is there with his whole expertise to analyze it.Enlightenment means going beyond desires and dreams. There is no need to waste your time in analyzing. Just go beyond, put your whole energy in going beyond. And when you go beyond, all dreams disappear on their own accord.The third question:Osho,Why do I keep losing everything but my ego?Odum, an elderly black man called before the justice of the peace, was charged with keeping a vicious dog.“That dog bit my girl Bobbie Jo three times,” complained the mother.“Did your dog bite little Bobbie Jo?” asked the judge.“No, sir,” said Odum. “My dog, he never bit any little girl.”“Well,” said the judge to the mother, “this man says that the dog did not bite your little girl.”“I will go home and bring Bobbie Jo here and show you,” said the woman.“Hold on,” said the black man. “In the first place, the dog is so old he ain’t got no teeth and he can’t bite. In the second place, the dog is blind and could not see Bobbie Jo anyhow. In the third place, the dog is deaf and can’t hear a thing. And in the fourth place, he ain’t my dog in the first place.”You cannot lose your ego because in the first place it does not exist at all. You can lose everything else because those things really exist, but how can you lose something which does not exist? You cannot lose your shadow; it does not exist. And the ego is far more false than your shadow; it is not even a shadow. It is not substance, it is not even a shadow. It is just an idea planted by society within you. It has no reality, so how can you lose it?The only way to lose it is to look for it! You will not find it, and when you don’t find it you have lost it. Go within and look for it, search for it.That’s what the meditators have been doing for centuries. They close their eyes and they go in and they search for the ego, where it is – and they can’t find it. When you can’t find it and you have looked in all the nooks and all the corners of your being and it is not found anywhere, then you know you have lost it. In the first place, really it was never there; it was only your belief.It is as if you see a rope in the dark and you believe it is a snake. Then you are trembling and perspiring and running and trying to save yourself from a snake which does not exist at all. All your running and your perspiration and all your shouting is just futile, but it can be dangerous to you. Even a false snake can kill you – you may have a heart attack! That’s the trouble with false things; you cannot lose them – they are not there – but they can do real things to you.You may have experienced it sometimes in your dream, when you are having a nightmare. You are running, and a tiger is chasing you, and the tiger is coming closer and closer, and you are running faster and faster and you know that only a few moments are left. You can almost feel the hot breath of the tiger on your back.And then suddenly you come to a cul-de-sac; the road ends. You can’t go back as the tiger is there and you can’t go ahead. If you jump into the valley you will be dead before you reach the bottom.In that state you wake up. The nightmare is too much; it wakes you up. Your heart is palpitating, your breath is disturbed, you are perspiring on a cold winter night. And there is no tiger, but just your wife putting her hand on your back, breathing close. You are awake, the nightmare has disappeared. You know there is no tiger, it is only the poor wife, but still for a few minutes the perspiration will continue, the heart will go on beating faster. Still, knowing perfectly well that all was false, you are trembling.Exactly is the case with the ego: it is a false entity. When you wake up you can’t find it. So the question is not of dropping it. How can you drop something which is not? The question is of seeing into it, looking for it, searching for it.I don’t say to you, “Seek and search for God.” That is nonsense. How can you seek and search for God, and where? You don’t know the address. And even if you meet the gentleman you won’t recognize him. Even if he says hello, you won’t understand his language. He does not speak German, he does not speak French, he does not speak Italian – not even Italian!But every nation believes that “He speaks our language.” The Indians think that he speaks Sanskrit, that he himself has written the Vedas. And the Mohammedan thinks he speaks Arabic; that he himself has spoken in Arabic through Mohammed, the only messenger. And of course, the Jews think they are the chosen people of God and he speaks Hebrew.After the Second World War a German general was talking to an English general. He said, “I can’t believe how it happened, how we failed. We had better armies than you, more advanced technology, we were better equipped in every way. How did we fail and you succeed?”The English general smiled and he said, “The reason is, we used to pray before starting to fight every day.”The German said, “But we also did. We also used to pray before we started to fight.”The Englishman said, “That we know, but we used to pray in English and you prayed in German, and God does not understand German at all.”Every country believes its language is divine, God’s language. But God knows only the language of silence, and you don’t know silence. So when he says hello it will be a very silent hello. It will not be uttered, it will not be said; it will be only a gesture. And it is almost impossible for you to hear it because it cannot be heard.You cannot recognize his face because it does not resemble Jesus’, it does not resemble Krishna’s, it does not resemble Buddha’s. All faces are his and still he has no face. The Zen people call that face “the original face”; it resembles nobody. Christians will not recognize him because they will be looking for Christ’s face and Hindus will not recognize him because they will be looking for Krishna’s face. Yes, in Krishna’s face also he was and in Christ’s face also, but they are just waves – Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira – and he is the ocean. You can’t recognize the ocean if you only know about a single wave; the ocean is not a wave although all waves belong to the ocean.You cannot search for God, and you are so asleep that all your search is going to be wrong. The first thing is to search for your ego; that is the right direction for the seeker. When you don’t find the ego – when the ego is not found at all, it simply disappears – then is the possibility of recognizing God’s face, because he is egolessness. And when you have the taste of egolessness, a little taste, you will understand him. When the ego disappears you will know what silence is, what space is, what emptiness is. You are so full of non-existential ego; when it is gone you will know great spaciousness within you. And he is space, pure space. Something of him will be known by you; then you can recognize him, you are bridged to him.You say, “Why do I keep losing everything but my ego?” Because everything else has a concrete reality and the ego has no reality at all. If you want to lose your ego you will have to go in. Maybe that’s why people don’t go in – afraid that they may lose themselves. And their fear is right. Beware! If you are ready to lose yourself, then only decide to go in.But that moment is the greatest moment in life – when you lose your ego – because that very moment, immediately, godliness is found. The moment you are not, godliness is. The moment you evaporate, godliness descends in you.The fourth question:Osho,I always feel that animals are very friendly with me. Why?You are an Italian! I will tell you an Italian story.“It is wonderful the power I have got over dumb animals,” boasted Rizzoli to his wife. “You notice wherever we go, dogs – big ones, small ones – no matta how mean, they all-a come up and lick-a my hand.”“Maybe,” said Mrs. Rizzoli, “if you would eat-a with a knife and fork-a once in a while, they would not be so friendly!”Just be a little less Italian, Roberto, so that even human beings can be friendly to you.The fifth question:Osho,What is the right way to handle a woman?There is only one way to handle a woman. The trouble is, nobody knows what it is.The sixth question:Osho,I did not like your telling to us not to look at the sun today while it is in total eclipse. I thought you believed in absolute freedom.You are not the only one to ask this question. At least twenty other fools have also asked the same. Please forgive me that I told you not to look at the sun directly – do it! Please do me a favor! I was utterly wrong to say it so; your freedom is destroyed. Enjoy your freedom; at least today, don’t forget to enjoy it. Look as much as you can at the sun and don’t use any device, because that will hinder your freedom. With the naked eyes – natural eyes – look at the sun. Enjoy it to your heart’s content.I was not going to say it to you. The whole blame goes to Vivek! She nagged me and nagged me to tell you; otherwise I was not going to tell you anything.A few of these twenty fools have said, “We had never thought that you are superstitious.” This is not superstition, these are scientific facts. There are millions of superstitions also. For example, in India, after the eclipse is over then take a bath and if you can take your bath in a holy river like the Ganges it is thought to be very holy, very religious, because Indians believe that the sun has been in deep difficulty and it is out of the difficulty. That is superstition. The sun is not going into any difficulty at all. The eclipse is not happening on the sun; the sun has nothing to do with the eclipse. It is just the moon coming between you and the sun; it is not happening on the moon either. It is only happening for us.Indians give donations after the eclipse is over, rejoicing that the sun god is out of trouble. Those are superstitions.But looking at the sun is dangerous – scientifically dangerous; it is not a question of superstition. You can try it. A few of the others have written, “How can we believe in what you say when your date was wrong, your day was wrong?” That is true. Even if my date is wrong and my day is wrong, the sun in eclipse will have the same effect. About days and dates I am not so sure. In fact, I have no idea of time. I have to go on looking at the clock again and again, otherwise I will go on talking and talking.Just last month it happened: the clock stopped. It stopped at eight twenty. I looked at it again and again. It was actually ten to ten, yet I am so superstitious that I still believed the clock! I was still thinking it was eight twenty. Finally I started seeing some restlessness around me. I thought, “What is the matter? Something somewhere is wrong.” I looked at the clock – again eight twenty. I said, “There is no problem; there is still time enough.”Yes, on the fourteenth I said, “Tomorrow.” Naturally, my date was wrong, but that does not mean that what I said is wrong. Fifteenth or sixteenth, that doesn’t matter; dates are arbitrary. They are just our creation – days are arbitrary. But just because of that, if you ask me how you can believe…I am not telling you to believe anything. You can go and check with the scientists – it is dangerous to the eyes, and sometimes so dangerous that the blindness that will be caused by it is incurable.But this is not a commandment. I am not saying that looking at the sun in eclipse is a sin or a crime. I am not saying that it is something immoral, irreligious, unspiritual. It is simply stupid!The last question:Osho,Is it true that money cannot buy happiness?Yes, it is true. Money cannot buy happiness, but it makes misery more comfortable. That’s why I am not against money, I am all for it. It is better to be comfortably miserable than uncomfortably miserable. I have lived in poverty and I have lived in richness, and believe me: richness is far better than poverty.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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To have friends in need is sweetand to share happiness.And to have done something goodbefore leaving this life is sweet,and to let go of sorrow.To be a mother is sweet,and a father.It is sweet to live arduously,and to master yourself.Oh how sweet it is to enjoy life,living in honesty and strength!And wisdom is sweet,and freedom.Gautama the Buddha does not talk about God, but he talks about love, freedom, truth, authenticity. He talks about the essential religion. He does not waste his breath on heaven and hell, the theory of reincarnation. He is absolutely unconcerned about the so-called great metaphysical problems. He is non-metaphysical, in a sense, very down to earth. He means business. He wants to give you a science which can transform your life. He is interested in creating an alchemy of inner revolution so the baser metal can be changed into gold. His religion is unique, in a way.There are three types of religions in the world. Jainism is the only religion which is emphatically atheistic. It denies God and raises man to his ultimate peak. It declares that man is God and there is no other God. Except Jainism, all other religions – Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity – are theistic. They are rooted in the idea of God; without God they will be at a loss what to do. They are at a loss because since Nietzsche declared “God is dead,” humanity, by and by, has agreed with Nietzsche. His statement became very prophetic; it represents the twentieth-century mind. And the religions which have depended on the idea of God for centuries feel uprooted. They are dying, withering away.Buddha is unique. He is neither atheistic like Jainism, nor theistic like other religions. He is a superb agnostic. He says there is no need to worry about unnecessary things. Think of the essential, think of the intrinsic, and don’t be bothered about the accidentals.If you are authentic, if you are compassionate, if you are meditative, then if there is a God he will come to you; you need not go in search of him. And if there is a paradise it will descend in your heart. There is no need to be bothered about such abstract ideas; they simply waste your time. If you are not authentic, not meditative, not compassionate, not wise enough, even if you come across God what are you going to do? You will feel a little embarrassed and God will feel a little embarrassed facing you. You will both be unnecessarily in a strange situation – what to say, what to do, what not to say, what not to do. You would like to escape and he would like to escape.Just think: if suddenly you come across God, what will you do? You will run away from him as fast as you can!Rabindranath has a beautiful parable. In one of his poems he sings:I searched for God for many lives. I saw him sometimes far away on a star, but by the time I reached there he had left the star long before; he was somewhere else. He was always somewhere else and I was chasing him. The very adventure was beautiful; I was enjoying the thrill of it.Then one day I happened to reach his home. For a moment I was ecstatic that I had arrived, but the next moment I became very sad. Standing at his door I was just going to ring the bell, but my hand became frozen. I thought for a while, “If I ring the bell and he comes out, then what? Then what am I going to do? And after that for whom am I going to search? All is finished! My whole past has been nothing but a search for God; it was meaningful because of the search. If the search disappears, all meaning will disappear.”So Rabindranath says, “I descended back from his steps. I took my shoes in my hand so that he would not hear that somebody had come. Otherwise, who knows? He may simply open the door and he will say, ‘Come in!’ And then I ran away from the place as fast as I could.“And again I am searching for God. Now I know where he is so I avoid that space and I search everywhere else, knowing perfectly well that I am not going to meet him there and my search can continue. I can go on hoping and desiring and deep down I know the whole ridiculousness of it – because he is just around the corner; I can reach his home any moment.”This is a true parable about man: you also know where he is. If he is anywhere at all he is within you, not even around the corner. If he is anywhere, he is in your consciousness, in your heart of hearts. He is your life. There you don’t look at all, afraid you may find him. And you go on searching in Kaaba, in Kailash, in Kashi, and you go on and on searching knowing perfectly well that you will not find him. And the search can continue and the thrill can continue and you can go on hoping and desiring.Buddha simply cuts all your hoping and desiring. He does not say there is no God, he does not say there is. He simply says it is irrelevant. It does not matter whether he is or he is not; it is absolutely beside the point. What matters is your inner transformation, and the inner transformation cannot be postponed for tomorrow; it can happen right now.That’s the trouble with Buddha: if you go with him you have to drop your hopes, you have to drop your desires. You have to be in the present, utterly silent. And then life has a new color, a new joy, a new music. Then life has a new beauty.Right now, in the first place, you cannot meet God because you don’t have eyes to see him and you don’t have ears to hear him and you don’t have the right heart to feel him. You are not loving enough. Your eyes are not clear; they are so full of dust – dust of knowledge, memories, experiences. Your ears only appear to hear, but they don’t listen.But by chance even if you meet him, what are you going to ask? A new wife, a new husband, another place to live, a little longer life, youth…? What are you going to ask for – money, power, prestige? Whatsoever you ask will be stupid.A black man worshipped God, praying every day for six years. He was always asking for this or that problem to be resolved.God became very fed up with him and decided to pay him a visit. So one day while the man was praying, God came to his side in living flesh and said, “Hey man, here I am! What do you want to know? Ask!”The man could not believe his eyes, but he finally asked, “Ah my God, why is my skin so black?”God answered, “Because the sun in your country is very hot and you must survive.”“And why is my hair so short and kinky?”“Because in the jungle you have many trees and your hair would get caught.”“And why am I so thin and fast?”“So that you can fight with lions and other animals in the jungle.”“Then, God, what the fuck am I doing in Chicago?”That’s going to be exactly the case with you. What are you going to ask God? All your questions will come out of your unconscious. In fact, all questions will be absurd. That’s not the way to encounter reality. One has to be silent, utterly silent.Hence Buddha says, don’t be bothered about God. Be concerned with your own preparation, be prepared. The emphasis is totally different. All the religions emphasize God, the object of search; Buddha emphasizes you, the subject. All other religions emphasize the sought; Buddha emphasizes the seeker. And it is certainly more significant to change yourself and prepare yourself for the ultimate encounter with reality – call it God, existence, truth, liberation, or whatsoever you would like to call it. The real thing, the essential thing, is to be prepared for that encounter.If you are ready, if your heart is flowing with love and your head is no longer crazy, no longer full of rubbish, and your eyes have clarity and your ears are ready to listen, then the whole reality turns into godliness; then everything is divine. Buddha does not say anything about it; he goes on emphasizing your inner change.These sutras are simple but immensely beautiful. Truth is always simple; it is untruth which is complicated. The untruth has to be complicated so that you don’t find that it is untrue, so that you can’t find it. Truth is simple, utterly simple and naked.Buddha says:To have friends in need is sweetand to share happiness.He emphasized friendship very much. To translate his word for friendship, maitri, is a little difficult because it has the quality of friendliness more than friendship. Friendship becomes a relationship, fixed; friendliness is more flowing, more fluid. Friendship is a relationship, friendliness is a state of your being. You are simply friendly; to whom is not the point. If you are standing by the side of a tree you are friendly to the tree, or if you are sitting on a rock, you are friendly to the rock. To human beings, to animals, to birds, you are simply friendly. It is not something static; it is a flow, changing moment to moment.He says: To have friends in need is sweet… Friendliness is one of the most significant qualities for the seeker to develop; it is really sweet. It makes your whole life full of sweet music, full of sweet harmony. In Buddha’s vision it is higher than so-called love. Your so-called love is tethered to your biology; friendliness is freedom from biology. The ordinary so-called love is the same in human beings as it is in animals, as it is in the trees. It is sex-oriented. It is only a sugarcoating around the bitter pill of sex. In fact, if love is taken away from your sex, sex will look very ridiculous. It is because of the sugarcoating that you can swallow the pill.Watch animals having sexual intercourse and you are bound to observe one thing; it is impossible not to observe it, it is so emphatically there: they don’t seem to be joyous. They seem to be in a hurry and their faces look sad, as if they are being forced by some unknown energy into certain acts in which they are not interested. Hence animals have their sexual seasons when their biology takes a grip on them, forces them to do something which they are not really interested in at all. They have to do it almost like slaves. And once they are finished with their sexual intercourse they move away from each other with not even a thank-you! They don’t look at each other.Scientists say love has grown in man for the simple reason that man is the only animal in the world who has sexual intercourse face-to-face. You have to say something, you have to smile, you have to say good-bye, you have to say so long. Otherwise it will look awkward to finish suddenly and escape! Because you are facing each other you have to be a little polite, a little cultured, a little polished. You have to behave in a certain manner; you can’t be rude.Animals are not facing each other while making love so they don’t encounter, they don’t look into each other’s eyes. It is a simple biological process and they are almost forced by their biology, by their hormones, to go through it. They go through it, they are dragged through it like slaves. And the same is the situation with you; only the sugarcoating is different.Friendship is a higher phenomenon. It is pure love; it has nothing to do with your biology. Ordinary love can be explained through biology, but friendship cannot be explained. It is a mystery. Friendship is like fragrance; love is gross, because of its sexuality, because of its origins. It is a little heavy. It functions under the law of gravitation: it goes on falling downward, it has no wings. Friendship has wings. It is non-biological; it makes you really human, it helps you to transcend your animality.Buddha praises friendship, friendliness, very highly. He has even chosen that when he comes back again his name will be Maitreya. The word maitreya means “the friend.” He must have loved the word very much. I don’t think he will come again or that anybody ever comes again. Existence never makes the same mistake again, remember! Once is more than enough, twice will be too much. But he must have loved the word so much that he says, “Next time, if I am at all going to come, my name is going to be Maitreya, the friend.” The word contains his whole philosophy.He says: to have friends…is sweet… Why is it sweet? – because with friends your relationship is not physiological, it is not even psychological; it is a spiritual communion. With friends you can sit in silence. When you are with your lover you can’t sit in silence; silence looks awkward. The woman will think, “Why are you silent? Are you angry or something?” And if she is silent you will think that something is wrong, that she is sulking. Why is she so silent? Silence becomes heavy, a burden; it has to be removed. So people go on talking, whether it is needed or not. They go on talking about anything.Mulla Nasruddin was coming from his village to see me in his bullock cart, with his dog. It was too hot, a summer afternoon, and suddenly he was surprised that the dog said, “It is too hot.”He looked around; there was nobody, just his dog. He said to the oxen, “Have you heard? Have you heard what has happened?”And the oxen said, “Yes, he is just like anybody else – always talking about the weather and doing nothing.”If people have nothing else to talk about they talk about the weather. Anything will do, just go on talking. It keeps you, in a way, connected. In fact, it keeps you disconnected. It is not a bridge; rarely is it a bridge. It is a bridge only between a master and a disciple; otherwise it is not a bridge. When the master speaks out of his silence and the disciple listens out of his silence, it is a bridge. Otherwise it is a wall, a China Wall.Lovers are facing each other. They have to say something; otherwise silence becomes awkward, embarrassing. Friends don’t face each other in that way. They face something else: the sunset, a bird on the wing, a beautiful white cloud. Holding hands, sitting together, they face something else. They are both facing something else. They are in a sort of deep communion, they are one. Their hearts are beating in harmony. Real friends sitting together will find that their hearts start beating in the same way. They even start breathing in harmony; when one exhales, the other exhales. This happens on its own accord; it is a synchronicity. When you are feeling in communion, this happens.This happens here every day. When you are in communion with me it happens.Many sannyasins write to me, “Osho, how does it happen? Just before you are going to say something we know you are going to say this. It is so clear and then you say it.” It happens because of a deep communion. As it arises in my being it starts arising in your being.Hence the ultimate between the master and the disciple is silence, sitting together. There is no need to say anything. Whatsoever happens in the master’s being also starts happening in the disciple’s being. The disciple starts reflecting the master like a mirror.On a smaller scale the same happens with friends. But by friends Buddha does not mean acquaintances. By friends he means a love which has gone beyond sexuality, a love which has gone beyond biology, a love which has transcended ordinary nature, transcended gravitation and has become part of the higher law of grace.To have friends in need is sweet and to share happiness. You can share your happiness only with friends. Sharing is possible only when two hearts are open to each other; only in deep trust can you be open to the other. In fear you are closed, in doubt you are closed. You are on guard. You are afraid the other may be a danger to you, the other may do some harm. You are not vulnerable when you are in fear. Only with friends can you be vulnerable, open, available. Then sharing is possible, and sharing is one of the greatest spiritual qualities.The miracle is that the more you share your bliss the more you have it. The more you share, the more it comes to you. The more you share, the more you become aware of an inexhaustible source within yourself.Happiness is great in itself, but to share it makes it immensely rich, multi-dimensionally rich. If one is a miser about one’s happiness he will kill it. To hoard your happiness is to destroy it; to spread it far and wide is to help it grow more and more. Miserliness is very dangerous as far as bliss is concerned.But with whom will you share if you don’t have friends, if you don’t know the art of being friendly? If you know the art of being friendly you can share with as many people as possible, with as many animals as possible, with as many trees as possible. You can go on sharing every moment of your life because you are always with someone. You can share it with the sun, with the moon, with the stars. No distance prevents; you can share your bliss with a friend who is far, far away, thousands of miles away from you. In that moment of sharing, space disappears, time disappears. There is no time gap, no space gap. You are suddenly together. You can even share with friends who are no longer alive. In deep communion they become available to you, non-physically.And to have done something goodbefore leaving this life is sweet,and to let go of sorrow.Friendship is good, it is virtue. Sharing your joy is good, it is great virtue. In fact, all other virtues are by-products of sharing your bliss. Sharing is the very foundation, the source. Share your truth, share your meditation, share your love. Share whatsoever inner beauty arises in you, whatsoever inner glow arises in you. Share your inner flame and never be a miser, and you will become richer and richer, and there is no end to that richness.In the ordinary world sharing will make you poor. If you share your money you will become poor. You have to be a hoarder, you have to be miserly. In the inner world just the opposite is the case: hoard, and you will lose; share, and you will have it.In the inner world a totally different kind of law exists. There you can have your cake and eat it too. And it would be better if you don’t eat it alone, if you invite your friends to eat with you.And to have done something good… What does Buddha mean by “something good”? Buddha always emphasizes that unconscious acts are bad and conscious acts are good. You can do something apparently good, but if you are unconscious it can’t be good. Your intention is good, but the action and its consequences are going to be bad.For example, just the other day somebody asked, “I want to stop smoking. What should I do? What do you say about it?” Now, he is asking a simple question. You can ask the same question to any of your so-called saints – Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist – and they will all say, “Stop it immediately! Smoking is bad.” But I can’t say it that way. I can say to you, “Become more conscious. If your consciousness changes something in you and smoking disappears, good; otherwise, please continue to smoke.” Why?Adolf Hitler never smoked, but I can’t call him a virtuous man. He always got up before sunrise – brahmamuhurt. In India this is a must for a saint. Brahmamuhurt means God’s moment – as if all other moments are the Devil’s and just the few moments before the sunrise are God’s! Getting up early in the morning before sunrise is thought to be very religious. And if you are sleeping late and getting up at nine or ten, certainly you are a sinner.Adolf Hitler was a very religious man, if this is what religion is – getting up early. And he also went to bed very early. He was not a smoker, he was not a drinker.In that sense, Jesus is less religious than Adolf Hitler. Jesus loved drinking, he loved good wine. He loved it so much that once he transformed the whole sea into wine, you know! Now, what kind of religious man is this Jesus? He loved eating with friends, inviting friends. He was always in a festive mood.Adolf Hitler used to eat alone. He was a perfect dog! Dogs eat alone. Even if you are just looking they will keep their backs toward you, afraid you may snatch away their food or something. Some other dog may come and start barking and fighting may start. They can’t invite anybody. Dogs don’t believe in parties! They are loners, very meditative! They eat alone. And of course they eat very silently, no conversation. And they eat quickly, they don’t waste time. Adolf Hitler did the same. He was also afraid of people, just like dogs.It is said that he had not a single friend in the whole of Germany. And Buddha says: “Be friendly. It is sweet to have friends.” Hitler had no friend because he was so afraid of people, so suspicious, that he could not afford friendship. To be friendly means to be intimate. To be friendly means to be available to the other. To be friendly means to trust the other.He never got married in his whole life. He got married only at the very end, just three hours before he committed suicide. When it was absolutely decided that he was going to commit suicide he called a priest and got married, so that at least in death he could have a companion. The woman had to commit suicide with him also. A strange marriage! Why did he avoid marriage his whole life? – for the simple reason that he was not sure whether to allow a woman in the same room at night when he was asleep. Who knows? – she may cut your throat, kill you, poison you. You may start uttering some secret in your sleep; she may hear it. She may open your letters. Women are known to do such things, well known, really. In fact, it is very difficult to get your letter without it being read by your woman; she is bound to read it.Mulla Nasruddin’s wife was fighting with him. “Something has to be done – you have to write to your mother. She has been very cruel and crude toward me.”Nasruddin said, “But she is a thousand miles away. How can she be suddenly cruel and crude toward you?”The wife said, “Yes, she has been. Look at this letter!”In the letter there was a postscript. The letter was written to Nasruddin and the postscript to Nasruddin’s wife read: “Please, after you have read it, give the letter to my son!”Women know each other!Adolf Hitler was very afraid to get married. He remained a bachelor, a brahmachari, a celibate. Now, what more religious qualities do you need in a saint? – no smoking, no drinking, no wife, no friends. He lived the life of a monk!But my feeling is, if he had smoked a little, if he had got drunk once in a while, had fallen into the hands of some woman, had loved somebody, had some friends, played chess or gambled a little bit, he would have been a far more human being and the world would have been saved from the Second World War. But he became almost stonelike.You can do good things, but if you are not conscious your good things are bound to result in something disastrous.In Manhattan, a policeman strolling his early morning beat stopped in front of an East Eighties brownstone. Sitting on the stoop was Millarney, completely snookered.“Why don’t you go home?” suggested the cop.“I live here,” said Millarney.“Why don’t you go inside then?”“I lost my key,” answered the drunk.“Why don’t you ring the bell?”“I did, an hour ago.”“Why don’t you ring it again?” asked the officer.“To hell with them!” snorted Millarney. “Let them wait!”The ordinary humanity is really in a state of stupor. People are asleep. There is no need to be a drunkard, people are already drunk. Naturally we are not born conscious, we are born unconscious, and then we go on becoming more and more unconscious in life – because we are unconscious, we want to be more unconscious. It seems to be natural, it fits with us. To be conscious seems to be a very uphill task; hence the immense attraction for alcohol or for other drugs.From the times of the Vedas up to now it has been the same. The Vedas praise soma very highly. Soma seems to be something like marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, something like that. It has not yet been discovered exactly what it was, but whatsoever it was, it was one of the most perfect of drugs.Aldous Huxley, one of the most intellectual, philosophic persons, a great scholar, has called the perfect LSD “soma.” He says that in the twenty-first century we will be reaching to that perfection. From the Vedas to Aldous Huxley, drugs have been an obsession with humanity, for the simple reason that we are born unconscious and the problems of life, anxieties of life, dangers of life, make us sometimes conscious. They wake up our deep, deep slumber, they disturb it. So we need more drugs, more and more drugs, to remain undisturbed in our unconsciousness. And out of that unconsciousness we act, we live our lives.Ferguson and Malone decided to go hunting one morning.“Listen,” said Ferguson, “I will bring all the guns and such and you bring all the provisions.”“Fine,” said Malone.The next morning when they met, Ferguson was loaded down with guns and ammunition. Malone was carrying a loaf of bread and six bottles of whisky.Ferguson blew his stack. “Look what happens when I leave the provisions to you!” he shouted. “A loaf of bread and six bottles of whisky! What the hell are we gonna do with all that bread?”When Buddha says: And to have done something good… he means when you do something consciously. You cannot do anything bad consciously; that is an impossibility. It is as impossible to do anything bad consciously as it is impossible to do good unconsciously.Before leaving this life be conscious, act out of your consciousness, so that you can beautify this existence a little bit, so that you can sing a little song, so you can dance a little dance, so the world is enriched, so that you can be a little more creative, so that the world is a little more divine than it was before you came into it. Contribute something to it, don’t be just a waste.…and to let go of sorrow. People think sorrow is clinging to you; that is utter nonsense. You are clinging to sorrow, because you have invested so much in sorrow. Your greatest investment is your ego. When you are sad, when you are miserable, your ego can feed on these illnesses, diseases. The ego can keep alive only through these pathologies; the ego lives on them.When you are blissful, really blissed out, ego disappears. You are, but there is no ego, no idea of I, no idea of separation. In bliss there is a merger with the whole; in misery you are alone and separate. Misery makes you an island and bliss takes all your boundaries away from you. In bliss, the river disappears in the ocean. And we are very afraid to disappear as an ego. We want to keep our identity intact.Mulla Nasruddin came across a small boy sitting in the gutter crying loudly.“My boy, don’t cry like that,” said the Mulla.Said the little boy, “Listen, mate, you cry your way, and I will cry mine.”Sorrow has something very personal about it; bliss is impersonal. Your misery is your misery; it defines you. It is nobody else’s misery, it is especially yours; it gives you a certain uniqueness. But bliss? Bliss is universal.Hence Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, Lao Tzu, have disappeared into bliss. They don’t have any personality. They are no-persons, they are nonentities. They are tremendously alive, but they are not separate from the whole. They have allowed the whole to live through them.Buddha says: …and to let go of sorrow. Please watch how you are clinging to your sorrow, your misery. Drop it, let go of it! And your life will have a great sweetness.To be a mother is sweet,and a father.It is sweet to live arduously,and to master yourself.To be a mother is sweet… Why? Just giving birth to a child is not to be a mother, remember. There are millions of mothers on the earth and there seems to be no sweetness. In fact, if you ask the psychologists they will say just the opposite. They will say the only problem to be solved is the mother. The only pathology that millions of people are suffering from is the mother. And what they are saying, they are saying after fifty, sixty years of constant analysis of thousands of people. Everybody’s illness basically comes to one point: that it has been given to you, transmitted to you by your mother.There are people who are afraid of women; and if you are afraid of women you can’t love them. How can love arise out of fear? And why are you afraid of women? – because your childhood was lived in fear of your mother. She was constantly after you, she was constantly hammering you. She was constantly telling you to do this and not to do that – of course, for your own good. She has crippled you, she has destroyed many things in you. She has made you phony because she has told you what is right to do. Whether you like it or not, whether it is spontaneously arising in you or not, you have to follow the order. And you were so helpless; your survival depended on the mother so you had to listen to her. She conditioned you. It is because of the fear of your mother that you are afraid of women.Millions of husbands are henpecked for the simple reason that their mothers were too strong. It has nothing to do with the wife; they are simply projecting the mother on the wife. The wife is only a new edition of the mother. They are expecting everything from the wife that they expected from the mother. On the one hand it cripples them; on the other hand they start expecting things which are not possible from the wife’s side because she is not the mother. So the husband feels frustrated, and how can he make love to the wife?A boy who has really been dominated by the mother, who has been reduced into absolute obedience, will not be able to make love to a woman, because as he will come close to the woman psychologically he will become impotent. How can you make love to your mother? It is impossible.Hence many people become impotent with their wives, but only with their wives. With the prostitutes they are not impotent. It is strange: why are they not impotent with the prostitute? – for the simple reason that they can’t think of their mother as a prostitute; that is impossible. Their mother, and a prostitute? The prostitute is a world apart. But they can think of their wife as a mother, they can project the mother. The wife becomes simply a screen. They want the wife to take care of them like a small child, and if she is not taking care they feel offended.There are thousands of neurotic people and psychotic people in the world because of the mother. And Buddha says: To be a mother is sweet… He must mean something else. He can’t mean a Jewish mother! He does not mean just giving birth to a child; that does not make one a mother. To be motherly is a totally different phenomenon. It is something absolutely human; it transcends animality. It has nothing to do with biology. It is love, pure love, unconditional love.When a mother loves unconditionally – and only a mother can love unconditionally – the child learns the joy of unconditional love. The child becomes capable of loving unconditionally. And to be able to love unconditionally is to be religious.It is the easiest thing for a woman to do. It is easy for her because naturally she is ready for it. She is just on the verge of transcending biology through being a mother. You can be motherly without giving birth to a child. You can be motherly to anybody. You can be motherly to an animal, to a tree. You can be motherly to anything, it is something inside you.Being motherly means being capable of unconditional love, loving the person for the sheer joy of loving, helping the person to grow for the sheer joy of seeing somebody grow.A real therapist is a mother. If he is not, he is not a real therapist. He is only a professional exploiting people, exploiting them because of their misery. But a real therapist is a mother. He becomes a womb for the patient, he gives the patient a new birth. He starts the life of the patient again from ABC. He gives him a clean sheet to write his life again.That’s what I mean when I say “the psychology of the buddhas”; that is real therapy. A master is a real therapist; his very presence is therapeutic. He surrounds you like a mother. He is a cloud who surrounds you from everywhere, from all the sides, in all the dimensions, like a mother.To be a mother is sweet, and a father. To be a father is a little more difficult. To be a mother is easier because each woman is born intrinsically to be a mother. But fatherhood is an institution invented by man; hence it is very difficult to come across a real father. But when you come across a real father it is a miracle. A real father is also a mother. He is called a father because he is a man, but his whole approach is of unconditional love.In ordinary life lovers are exploiting each other; it is a mutual exploitation. Unconditional love means no exploitation. The other is not being used as a means but is respected as an end unto himself or herself.Give your children your love, but don’t give your ideologies. Don’t make them Catholics and Communists; that is poisoning them. Don’t make them Hindus and Jainas and Buddhists; that is very destructive. Give your love, give your loving nourishment, and give them strength enough to inquire who they are, what this reality is all about. Give them every support so they can go on in life with an adventurous spirit. Then you are helping them; then you are really educating them. Ordinarily, whatsoever exists in the name of education is nothing but miseducation.Real education is helping the person to be himself. It is possible only if you love the person for his own sake, for no other motive. If there is a motive, your love is contaminated. Then you are not a real father or a real mother.It is sweet to live arduously, and to master yourself. Life is basically insecure. Only death is secure. Life insurance is a contradiction in terms; there can be only death insurance. Life is an adventure, unpredictable; hence one has to live it arduously. Life is dangerous, only death is safe. So the people who want to live safely die before their death, and the people who want to live without any danger don’t live at all.Life means danger, life means risk. Life means going always from the known to the unknown, from one peak to another peak, always climbing peaks which have not been climbed before, always moving into the uncharted sea with no maps, with no guidelines. Only then do you live ecstatically, and only then you know what life is. Through living dangerously one becomes integrated. Through living a life of insecurity one passes through fire and becomes pure gold.The only way to become a master of oneself is to go into the unknown, unafraid or in spite of all the fears. Buddha invites you to an arduous life. That’s what sannyas is all about.“Hello, hello, police. Please come quickly. There is a big black cat coming to get me. Hurry up! I am afraid.”The policeman replied in a tired voice, “Now, come on! What kind of man are you, afraid of a black cat?”“I am not a man. I am a peacock.”It is very rare to find a real man. Even to find a peacock is very rare. There are only rats, white and black and all colors of rats! It is not an accident that psychologists go on studying rats to understand man. Strange, trying to understand rats so as to understand man! But not really, not really as strange as it appears because the majority of men live like rats.The psychology of Pavlov is based on the study of dogs, and the psychology of Skinner is based on the study of rats. And both are perfectly true as far as the majority of humanity is concerned. Only once in a while they may not be right. If they try to apply their psychology on a buddha they may not be right, but as far as the ordinary humanity is concerned they are perfectly right. What has happened to man? He has lost all meaning and significance for the simple reason that he has become a very cowardly being. He lives in such cowardly ways, he is so afraid of anything new.I know people who have been listening to me for years – ten years, twelve years, fifteen years – and they go on saying to me, “We want to become sannyasins, but we are still thinking.” And they go on finding excuses, sometimes one excuse, sometimes another excuse. They love me, but they are not courageous enough to declare it. They hide the fact. They are not courageous enough to move into this unknown dimension of sannyas. They love me so they listen to me, and they love me so sometimes they think that one day they are going to become sannyasins, but they go on finding excuses to postpone it.It is because of this cowardliness that man has lost all meaning and significance. All joy, all bliss, all ecstasy, has disappeared. Man looks very sad. Even if he laughs, his laughter looks phony, mechanical, false – something cultivated, managed, not coming from the depths. It has no profundity, it does not sound like it is coming from the center. It is only a painted smile on the circumference.Do you know how the word phony came into existence? It came because of the telephone. When the telephone was invented and people started listening to others thousands of miles away on the telephone, the voice sounded strange. It is bound to be so. It is mechanical; it has not that authenticity. There was nobody behind it, it was coming out of nowhere; hence the word phony. You smile, but you don’t seem to be behind it; you may not be there at all.And now even a new thing has come into existence. At least in the old days you could imagine that on the other side there must be somebody. Now there may be just a tape recorder saying, “Hello. How are you?”I have heard…One psychologist became very tired with a patient, tired because he was saying the same things again and again. And he was so rich that there was no hope of getting rid of him! So the psychologist said, “Do one thing. I will leave my tape recorder and you go on talking to the tape recorder. And whenever I have time I will listen to it.”The man said, “That’s perfectly right” – because psychologists sit behind a screen, particularly Freudian psychologists. The patient lies down on the couch and the psychologist sits behind a screen. It is a good device! The psychologist can go to sleep, can read a newspaper, or may even leave. And the patient goes on talking, believing that he is there. Only once in a while he has to say, “Hmm. Yes. Go on,” but this can be done by a tape recorder.Next time, next session, and the psychologist said, “You did perfectly well last time. Now my tape recorder is here again. You go on talking to it. I am going to see a matinee show. When I am back I will listen.”When he was outside he saw the patient walking out. He said, “Where are you going?”The patient said, “To the matinee show.”He said, “What happened? Aren’t you going to talk to the tape recorder?”He said, “I have put my tape recorder there. I have told everything to my tape recorder, and my tape recorder is talking to your tape recorder, so what’s the need of me being there? I’m also coming to the matinee show!”Life has become phony because of us, because we are living in a very cowardly way. We are not living arduously. We are not trying to climb new mountains, new peaks. We are not trying to explore. We have become more concerned with comfort, with security, safety.It is sweet to live arduously… Have you ever enjoyed climbing to the peak of a mountain? It is hard. You perspire, breathing becomes difficult, you become tired. And then you reach to the sunlit peak and then you lie down on the grass, and what relaxation and what joy arises in your being! The silence of the peak and the arduous climb, and you have reached, and the joy of reaching! You could have been dropped by a helicopter, but then there would have been no joy. It would have been comfortable.Edmund Hillary could have reached to the peak of Everest by a helicopter – it was easier – but he tried the hard way. And he writes, “I have never known such bliss. When I reached to the peak I was all alone, the first man on Everest.” Nobody had seen the sky from that point, nobody had seen the world from that point. It was sheer ecstasy. He danced.Sooner or later buses will be going there and hotels will be there and cinema houses, and it will become very comfortable. But don’t hope that you will have the same ecstasy as Edmund Hillary had, although you will be standing on the same spot. You will look a little silly and stupid, that’s all. And you will not believe why this Hillary danced; you don’t see any point. All around there are hotels and tourist centers and guides and everything is available; the whole world is there. You don’t see why he laughed, why he enjoyed, why he danced, because you don’t feel any dance.Life is joy only when you live it raw, when you live it in all its wildness, when you live it naturally, spontaneously. Yes, there are bound to be difficulties, there are bound to be dangers, but they are part of life, and without them life will not be life at all. And this is the only way to master yourself.Oh how sweet it is to enjoy life,living in honesty and strength!Strange words to come from the mouth of Buddha. They would be perfectly right from the mouth of Zorba the Greek, but from the mouth of Buddha? Oh how sweet it is to enjoy life, living in honesty and strength!Just the other day I received a very angry letter from someone who was here for a few days. He is the librarian in Dharmashala of the Dalai Lama’s library – must be a scholar!He writes to me, “You are saying things which are not Buddhist at all. In Mahayana sutras,” he quotes, “Mahayana scriptures, it is perfectly and clearly stated that one has to live life ascetically. And you are changing the whole color of Buddha – you are making him look as if he is a hedonist!”I don’t care about the Mahayana sutras and the scriptures, but I know Buddha, I know his heart. I know that space from my own experience. I am not a scholar; in fact I have never read these sutras before! Every day I have to look at them and start talking to you. I am not concerned much with what Buddha said, but I know what Buddha would have said. I cannot believe that he was a pessimist. He believes, of course, in a totally different kind of life. He does not believe in the ordinary, unconscious life – dishonest, inauthentic, unloving, unmeditative. He calls that life misery, but only a certain kind of life he calls misery. True life cannot be misery, true life is bliss.Oh how sweet it is to enjoy life, living in honesty and strength! We have forgotten all honesty. Out of fear we have become dishonest, out of fear we have become false. Out of fear we follow the crowd and become phony. Out of fear we wear masks so that we look like everybody else, and we are not like everybody else. Everybody is unique; nobody is like anybody else. We have fallen below the animals as far as honesty is concerned.Kaflin was planning a vacation and did not know what to do with his collie. He wrote to the resort hotel and asked if dogs were allowed.He received this answer from the manager: “Dear sir, I have been in the hotel business for over thirty years. Never yet have I had to call in the police to eject a disorderly dog in the small hours of the morning. No dog has ever attempted to pass off a bad check on me. Never has a dog set the bedclothes afire through smoking. I have never found a hotel towel in a dog’s suitcase. Certainly, your dog is welcome. P.S. If he will vouch for you, you can come too.”Of course, a dishonest life cannot be a life of bliss. You think you are deceiving others; you are simply destroying yourself and destroying all possibilities of growth, because growth comes through sincerity, honesty, authenticity. Growth comes through accepting your truth in its total nudity. And then life is certainly a joy, then life is certainly a bliss.But you cannot expect anything else from a scholar. A scholar is bound to be stupid, otherwise why should he be a scholar in the first place? An intelligent person will seek and search for truth. He will not bother about Mahayana sutras and scriptures. I have no respect for scholarship.This man became very disturbed, so much so that he has left already. If he had been here I would have hammered him a little more, but I received his letter just the other day, after he had left. I hope that sometime again he will come, because to me the space of Buddha is a totally different space from what Buddhist scholars think it is.He said, “Whatsoever you are saying is illogical and against the scriptures.” So far so good! If it is against the scriptures it must have some truth in it. If it is illogical then it must be closer to truth, because truth is illogical. Life is illogical. Those who think that life is logical are simply befooling themselves. Life is absolutely illogical because life contains contradictions and logic cannot contain contradictions. Logic is stupid.A cyclist was stopped on the road by a policeman. He was no ordinary man – he was a professor of logic.“Ah so! No light, that is twenty marks. No brakes, that is fifty marks. No bell, that is ten marks.”The cyclist turned round and looked at the row of traffic lined up behind him. He pointed at the man behind him and said, “All right, that is eighty marks. But the poor man behind me, what will he have to pay? He has no bicycle even!”Logically, that’s true. If no bells, ten marks, no brakes, fifty marks, no light, twenty marks – no bicycle, how much will he have to pay?A male scorpion was walking along the bank of a river. At a certain point he saw on the other bank a most beautiful female scorpion dancing erotically to attract him. He desired very much to cross the river, but he could not swim.Suddenly he saw a big red frog and called to him, but the frog, being afraid of the scorpion’s poison, started to hop away.The scorpion, however, was a philosopher, and he said to the frog, “Come on, don’t be afraid. Look at it logically. I am not interested in you, I am interested in her. I just want you to get me across the river. Everything will be okay. I am obviously not going to sting you because if I do, not only will you die, but I will die too because I can’t swim. So come on, be logical and help me get across.”The red frog reluctantly agreed. The scorpion jumped on his shoulders and they began to cross the river. The frog swam very carefully, always looking toward the approaching shore.Suddenly the frog felt a shooting pain in his ass and shortly after he felt the coolness of death slowly overtaking him. He turned to the scorpion and said, “Shit! This is not logic at all!”“Yes,” the scorpion agreed. “It is not logic, it is my nature.”Logic is one thing, life is totally another. My concern here is not logic but life. My statements may not be logical – they cannot be – but they are alive; they have the flavor of life.Buddha says: Oh how sweet it is to enjoy life, living in honesty and strength!And wisdom is sweet,and freedom.Buddha says that meditation brings two things. It brings wisdom, it brings freedom. These two flowers grow out of meditation. When you become silent, utterly silent, beyond the mind, two flowers bloom in you. One is of wisdom: you know what is and what is not. And the other is of freedom: you know now there are no longer any limitations on you, either of time or of space. You become liberated.Meditation is the key to liberation, to freedom, to wisdom.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I understand you to say that the intellect is a barrier to self-realization. Please explain further what you mean by this. I have been very interested to listen to your lectures during the past few days. Far from being unintellectual, they could be described as an intellectual tour de force. Furthermore, a scientist cannot discard his share of knowledge on which he bases his judgments: surely his judgments must be objective. I feel that I must have misunderstood you.I have been saying nothing against intelligence, intellect, but against intellectuality – and that’s a totally different phenomenon. When somebody becomes identified with his intellect, intellectuality is born; when somebody remains the master, unidentified with his intellect, intelligence is born. Intellect is the same. The whole thing depends on whether you get identified with it or you remain transcendental to it. If you become identified, it is intellectuality; if you remain unidentified, it is intelligence.Intelligence is of tremendous importance; intellectuality is a barrier. Intellectuality is a barrier even in the world of science. Intellectuality can, at the most, give you scholars, wordy people who go on and on spinning, weaving systems of thought with no substance at all.In the scientific endeavor, intelligence has to be focused on the objective world; in the religious exploration, intelligence has to move inward. It is the same intelligence, only the direction changes. In science, the object, the outer object, is the goal of inquiry; in religion, your subjectivity, your interiority, is your adventure. The intelligence is the same.If you become an intellectual then you will not be a scientist; you will only write histories of science or philosophies of science, but you will not be a scientist, an explorer, an inventor, a discoverer, on your own. You will be simply accumulating information. Yes, that too has a certain use; as far as the outside world is concerned, even information has a certain limited utility, but in the inner world it has no utility at all. It is a barrier; it has a negative effect on the inner experience.You say, “I understand you to say that the intellect is a barrier to self-realization.” The intellect is neither a barrier nor a bridge; intellect is neutral. If you get identified with it, it becomes a barrier; remain unidentified with it, it is a bridge. And without meditation you cannot know your transcendental nature.In science, concentration is enough; at the most, contemplation is needed. In religion, meditation is the only way. Concentration is not needed, is not a help; it is a positive hindrance. Contemplation also is not a help; it is a compensation for not being meditative, it is a poor substitute for it. Meditation and only meditation can bring the inner revolution.Meditation means getting out of the mind, looking at the mind from the outside. That’s exactly the meaning of the word ecstasy: to stand out. To stand out of the mind makes you ecstatic, brings bliss to you. And great intelligence is released. When you are identified with the mind you cannot be very intelligent because you become identified with an instrument, you become confined by the instrument and its limitations. And you are unlimited – you are consciousness.Use the mind, but don’t become it. Use it as you use other machines. The mind is a beautiful machine. If you can use it, it will serve you; if you cannot use it and it starts using you, it is destructive, it is dangerous. It is bound to take you into some trouble, into some calamity, into some suffering and misery, because a machine is a blind thing. It has no eyes, it has no insight. The mind cannot see; it can only go on repeating that which has been fed into it. It is like a computer; first you have to feed it.That’s what your so-called education is, feeding your computer mind. Then it becomes a great memory in you, so whenever you need to remember anything it can supply it. But you should remain the master so that you can use it; otherwise it starts directing you.Don’t be guided by your car; remain a driver. You have to decide the direction, you have to decide the goal. You have to decide about the speed, when to start and when to stop. When you lose control, when the car takes over and starts going on its own, you are doomed.But I am not absolutely against information. Information is good if it is stored in the memory and whenever you need it you can find it easily. It is dangerous only when you don’t need it and it goes on hammering itself on you; when it forces you to do something, when you are just a victim, then it is dangerous. Otherwise it is beautiful. It is a beautiful means, but it is not the end.At school the teacher was asking his class questions. He turned to Jenkins, “Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?”“Please, sir,” replied Jenkins. “It was not me, sir.”The teacher was very angry. He went straight to the headmaster and said, “I have just asked Jenkins who knocked down the walls of Jericho and he said it was not him. What do you think about that?”The headmaster said, “I have known the Jenkins family for years, and if he said it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him.”The teacher was even more angry. He phoned the Minister of Education and said, “I asked a boy in class who knocked down the walls of Jericho and he said it wasn’t him. I then went to the headmaster to complain. He said he had known the family for years and if the boy said it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him. What do you think about that?”The minister was silent for a second, then said, “Listen, I am fed up with complaints from your school. Get the walls repaired and if there are more complaints, I am going to shut that school down!”Information is not bad in itself – you have to know who knocked down the walls of Jericho! But if information becomes so powerful in your mind that it goes on and on and you cannot put it off, you cannot put the mind in a state of relaxation, then the mind becomes wearied, tired, bored, exhausted. In that state, how can you be intelligent? Your energies are dissipated. Intelligence needs overflowing energies. Intelligence needs health, wholeness.A meditator will be more intelligent than anybody else and a meditator will be able to use his mind both objectively and subjectively. He will be able to move outside as easily as he will be able to move inside. He will be more flexible. He is the master. He can take the car forward; he can take the car backward.When Ford made his first car there was no reverse gear in it. It was a difficult problem to come back home. You had to go round, you had to take the long route, just to come back home. Even if you had gone a few yards past your garage you could not come back to the garage because there was no reverse gear in it. Later on it was added.Meditation gives you the reverse gear. Ordinarily you don’t have it and you have to go round the world again and again, and still you cannot find where your home is; you cannot come back. You cannot go in; you know only how to go out. You cannot back in. A meditator becomes more fluid, more flexible. He becomes more enriched.I am not in favor of those people who in the past, in the name of religion, became fixated with their introversion; that is another extreme. A few people are fixated as extroverts; as a reaction, a few other people become fixated as introverts. Both become dead. Life belongs to the flexible one who can move from extroversion to introversion and from introversion to extroversion as easily as you move outside your house and inside your house. When it is too cold inside you come out in the sun; when it becomes too hot you come inside under the shelter, in the coolness of the house, and there is no problem. It is as simple as that.Meditation does not mean going against the outside world. It has been so in the past. That’s why religion has failed, it could not succeed; it could not have succeeded in any way. Life belongs to the fluid, to the flowing. Whenever you become fixated you become a thing. Your monks were introverts; they closed their eyes to the outside world.That’s why in the East we could not develop science, although the first steps were taken in the East. Mathematics was developed in India. The first steps toward technology were taken in China. But there it stopped for the simple reason that the greatest people in the East became fixated introverts; they lost interest in the objective world, they closed themselves totally to the objective. This is being only half of your total potential.Now the West is doing just the opposite: it has become utterly extrovert, it does not know how to go in. It does not believe that there is any “in,” it does not believe in any soul. It believes in man’s behavior, not in man’s inner existence. It studies the behavior and it says there is nobody inside it – it is all mechanical.Man has become a robot. If you don’t know the soul, man becomes a robot. He is understood to be just a beautiful mechanism developed over millions of years – the long, long journey of evolution – but he is only a sophisticated machine.It was not difficult for Adolf Hitler to kill so many people so easily for the simple reason that if man is a machine, what is the harm in killing people? If you destroy your wristwatch you don’t feel guilty; howsoever sophisticated it was, it was only a wristwatch. If you decided to destroy it, it is for you to decide; nobody can object to it. You cannot be dragged into a court as a murderer.Stalin could kill millions of people easily without any prick in his conscience simply because Marxism believes that there is no soul. Man is nothing but matter; consciousness is only a by-product of matter. This is one extreme.Science has developed in the West, but religion has disappeared. In the East, religion developed but science disappeared. In both ways man remains poor and only half.My effort here is to create the whole man who will be able to be scientific and religious together.A big, mangy dog was threatening a mother cat and her kittens. He had backed them into the corner of a barn, when suddenly the cat reared back on her hind legs and started barking and growling loudly. Startled and confused, the dog turned and ran from the barn, its tail tucked between its legs.Turning to her kittens, the mother cat lifted a paw and told them, “Now do you see the advantage of being bilingual?”I want man to be bilingual. He should know science as much, as deeply as he should know meditation. He should know the mind as much as he should know meditation. He should know science, the language of the objective world; and he should also know religion, the language of the subjective world.Only a man who is able to bridge the objective and the subjective, a man who is able to bridge the East and the West, a man who is able to bridge the materialist and the spiritualist, can be a whole man. The world is waiting for the whole man. If the whole man does not arrive soon, then there is no future for humanity. And the whole man can come only through deep, profound intelligence.I am not against intellect, I am not against intelligence; I am against intellectuality. Don’t get identified with your mind. Always remain a watcher on the hills; a witness to the body, to the mind, a witness to the outer and to the inner, so that you can transcend both the outer and the inner and you can know that you are neither – you are beyond both. That beyond is godliness.Godliness is neither object nor subject. Godliness is neither the outside nor the inside. It is both and it is neither.You say, “I have been very interested to listen to your lectures during the past few days. Far from being unintellectual, they could be described as an intellectual tour de force.” When I am talking to you, even if I am talking about something supra-intellectual, I talk in intellectual ways because otherwise you will not be able to understand what I am saying. Intellect is the only possible communication right now. Unless you learn the language of total silence I have to go on talking in your language. You understand logic, I use logic for a very strange purpose: to help you go beyond logic. I use every possible way to help you transcend duality.I am not unintellectual or anti-intellectual, but my effort here is to help you to go beyond both intellect and anti-intellect, to go beyond both logic and illogic. It is possible. When you are in absolute silence you are neither logical nor illogical, but that silence cannot be expressed directly; that silence has to be translated into your language. That’s what I am doing here. It is an arduous effort because much splendor and grandeur is lost in translating it. That experience of silence is so vast it cannot be put into words. But it has to be put into words – only then will you be able to hear it. Even then very few people hear it, because people are not present; they are absent, they are asleep.I have to start with your language, and slowly, slowly you will start learning my language. I am bilingual and I will make you also bilingual. There are two languages: the language of words and the language of silence. Right now I have to use the language of words to translate the poetry of silence, the music of silence. Later on, when you have developed a little meditativeness, you will be able to understand the poetry of silence, the music of silence directly, just by sitting near me. There will be no need for me to say anything at all.I am waiting for that day and I am really in a hurry for that day, because talking is becoming more and more difficult for me. To you it may seem that I can go on talking forever; as far as I am concerned it is becoming more and more difficult because I can see the impossibility of putting the unknowable into words. It seems murderous – the whole beauty is lost. Only something reaches you and that too depends on you: if you are available to me it reaches to you; otherwise it will not reach you. You will go on listening to that which you want to listen to and you will go on seeing that which you are capable of seeing.For a holiday, Donnelly decided to go to Switzerland to fulfill a lifelong dream of climbing the Matterhorn. He hired a guide and went up. Just as they neared the top, the men were caught in a snow slide.Three hours later, a Saint Bernard plowed through to them, a keg of brandy tied under his chin.“Hurray!” shouted the guide. “Here comes man’s best friend!”“Yeah,” said Donnelly. “And look at the size of the dog that is bringing it!”You hear that which you can hear, you see that which you can see. It is a tug of war between me and you to bring you to a point from where you can see something that I am seeing.Once I have accomplished the right number to create the buddhafield I will go into silence. The way you are going into meditation makes me hopeful that it will happen soon; it will not be long. Soon the right amount of energy will be available. Then I can just sit silently with you; you can dance and sing around me or sit in silence. And there will be a communication – more a communion than a communication. Something is bound to transpire then. But before that can happen I have to go on persuading you through words, through logic. It is a kind of seduction. I have to seduce you toward something which you have utterly forgotten.The second question:Osho,Can you put your philosophy in a nutshell?Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell, belongs there.The third question:Osho,What is pessimism?Man can look at life in two ways: either through a no or through a yes. Either he can be negative in his approach or positive. These are the two easily available ways for the mind.There is also a third way, but to achieve the third you have to go through arduous effort of becoming more and more aware. To the sleeping person these two ways are ready-made, available from the very birth.The positive person lives through a kind of optimism. His optimism is shallow, but he is full of hopes. He counts only the roses on the rosebush; he does not look at the thorns, he ignores them. Sooner or later he is bound to be disappointed.Every child begins with a positive attitude toward life. That is natural because if the child begins with a negative attitude he will not begin at all; he would have died in the mother’s womb. He waited for nine months, he passed through the birth canal, which was a painful process, suffocating. There must be deep down an unconscious hope; hence he is patiently waiting for the day when he can see the sun, see the light, be in the world. He is like a seed, very unconscious; he is not aware of it. But every child is born with great hopes, every child is an optimist; he looks through the positive.But life disappoints everyone. Life is very strange, in a way: if you don’t get what you want, you are disappointed, naturally; but if you get what you want, then too you are disappointed. Disappointment seems to be the destiny. If you don’t get what you want, you suffer – you have failed. You have not been able to prove yourself, you have not been able to prove your mettle. Others have succeeded, you are a failure. You can’t respect yourself, and if you can’t respect yourself, you can’t respect life. It seems like a curse. You would like to return the ticket to God. If you meet him, your first question will be, “Why have you created me? For what? – for all these disappointments? Are you a sadist or something, creating so many people and then giving them so much misery?”And the religious people say, “It is God’s play, his leela.” What kind of play is this? God does not seem to be in his right senses. It seems as if he is enjoying the tortures. He seems to be more like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, than like Gautam Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, who don’t seem to be like God When all your hopes are turned into hopelessness, when all your desires are frustrated, when nothing comes out of your optimism, naturally you become sour, you become bitter, and pessimism is born. Pessimism is nothing but the failure of optimistic attitudes. Then you start counting the thorns and ignoring the roses. Then you look always for the darker side. That is the philosophy of pessimism.Contemplate on these laws of Murphy:First: If anything can go wrong, it will.Second: Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.Third: Everything takes longer than you expect.Fourth: Left to themselves all things go from bad to worse.Fifth: Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.Sixth: Mother Nature is a bitch.Seventh: It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.Eighth: If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.Ninth: If you can keep your head when, all around you, others are losing theirs, you just don’t understand the situation.And the tenth: For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution – and it is always wrong.Pessimism simply means looking at life negatively, always searching for the flaw, for the loophole, for something negative, and accumulating all those negativities. And when you always look at the dark side, of course, there are two nights and only one small day sandwiched between the two nights – dark, dark nights.Optimism ends in pessimism. Every pessimist has been an optimist once – he is an ex-optimist. He hoped too much and because those hopes were not fulfilled he has become sour, angry, enraged. Now he cannot see the flowers and the stars. He can’t see anything beautiful; he goes on looking for the ugly. And when you look for the ugly you will find it on every step. Whatsoever you look for you are bound to find, remember, because life consists of both – positivity and negativity – in the same quantity. Life cannot exist without the other; the other pole is a must.It is just like electricity. Electricity cannot exist with only one polarity, positive or negative; it has to have both poles together. It is possible only through the tension that is created between the negative and the positive.But there is a third kind of person – I call that person the awakened, the enlightened – who looks at life in its totality, who is neither a pessimist nor an optimist, who simply accepts life as it is; who accepts the night, who accepts the day, who accepts the rose and the thorn, because he understands that life is out of necessity dual, dialectical. And in his awareness a synthesis grows between the polar opposites. The synthesis never grows on the outside, as Karl Marx says.Karl Marx says life is a dialectical process between thesis and antithesis and it always comes to a synthesis. Then synthesis turns again into a thesis and creates its antithesis. That is utterly wrong. Outside, life is always thesis and antithesis; it never comes to any synthesis.Synthesis is achieved only in the inner vision of an enlightened being. Synthesis is attained when you have attained to absolute silence. In that silence you are so clear, so transparent, that you can see through and through. Then you know that life needs both: day and night, birth and death. Then there is nothing wrong in death; it is perfectly useful, needed, inevitable. Then a deep acceptance arises in you. Buddha calls that acceptance tathata – suchness. Life is such. You understand it and through that understanding you transcend it.Don’t be a pessimist and don’t be an optimist. Just watch, be a watcher and attain to the ultimate synthesis where you become a third force rising higher and higher and seeing from above, a bird’s-eye view. Deep down everything is in conflict, but it is okay because you understand life cannot exist without it. It is not God’s fault. There is no God as a person who can be blamed for it. It is just the nature of things – Tao, dhamma – that life functions through duality. But consciousness can soar so high that it can transcend all duality and can reach to oneness.The real meditator is neither pessimist nor optimist. He lives in a kind of suchness, in total “accept-ability.”The fourth question:Osho,I am bored with my husband. I have tried everything, but nothing seems to work. Have you any suggestions?Not many, just one. Write a letter to five of your friends like this:Hello there!This letter was started by a woman like yourself, in hopes of bringing relief to a tired and discontented wife.Unlike most chain letters, this one does not cost anything. Just send a copy of this letter to five of your friends who are equally tired. Then bundle up your husband and send him to the woman at the top of the list and add your name to the bottom of the list.When your name comes to the top of the list you will receive 16,478 men and some of them are bound to be a hell of a lot better than the one you already have.Do not break the chain – have faith!One woman broke the chain and got her own son-of-a-bitch back.At the date of writing this letter, another friend of mine received 183 men. They buried her yesterday, but it took three undertakers thirty-six hours to get the smile off her face.The fifth question:Osho,Your message is universal, but is it only for those without a religion? Why are not your fellow Indians crowding at the gate to get in?My message is universal. That does not mean that everybody will be able to understand it. The more universal a message is, the less people will be able to understand it, because the more universal it is, the more mysterious it is. It is beyond the reach of the ordinary, stupid mind just because it is universal.People can understand things which are not universal more easily. They can understand racial things, they can understand national things, they can understand ideological things. But any message that is really universal is bound to be understood only by a very few chosen people.Only the most intelligent people will be interested in what I am doing here. Hence you will see gathering around me intelligent people from all over the world, young, fresh, intelligent.India is not young, it is not fresh. It is very rare to find an Indian who is young. In India everybody is born old. It is such an ancient country with such a long, long tradition that everybody is burdened. A younger country is of course more receptive.For example, America is more receptive to any new message than any other country for the simple reason that it is the latest country in the world – with only a three-hundred-year tradition, which is nothing. India has lived at least ten thousand years – ten thousand years according to the historians, one hundred thousand years according to Indians themselves. The truth may be somewhere in between. I can settle on fifty thousand years, but that too is very long. As a country becomes old it goes on gathering rubbish, junk, and every generation gives its junk and rubbish to the new generation, thinking that it is heritage, thinking that they are giving something very valuable.America is the most receptive. And next to America, Germany seems to be very receptive simply because Adolf Hitler killed the old Germany completely, he destroyed the old completely. He created a discontinuity. The new German generation is no longer looking backward. Adolf Hitler is standing there and nobody wants to look at him, so better forget all about it! Adolf Hitler has done a great service to Germany. He has destroyed the old heritage – not knowing that he was doing such good work, otherwise he would not have done it – not knowing that he was doing something immensely valuable. He has done it unconsciously.India also needs a discontinuity with the past. The past hinders; hence people from other countries are coming to me more. And certainly one becomes curious, just as Gardiner has become curious: “Why are not your fellow Indians crowding at the gate to get in?”India is too old, my message is too new. India is ancient, traditional; I am rebellious. There is no meeting ground between me and India. I am not an Indian, in fact, so please don’t call them “fellow Indians” – they are not. I am not an Indian, I belong to no nation; only then can I be universal. If I am an Indian, then I am already prejudiced in favor of India. Then my message cannot be universal; it will be deep down Indian, basically Indian – camouflaged, hidden behind beautiful words, abstractions, but it will remain essentially Indian; it can’t be universal.Mahatma Gandhi used to say that the whole universe is one, all religions are one. In his ashram he used to teach that Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians are all one. In his prayer meetings all the prayers of all the religions were recited. He loved one prayer the most which says: Allah ishwar tere nam – Ishwar and Allah, both are your names, God.But when he was killed he forgot all about Allah. He said, “Hey Ram!” Then the hidden Hindu came to the surface. His whole life he was saying, “Both are the same, both are names of the same.” But when the bullet went into his heart he forgot all his philosophy. It would have been really beautiful if he had said, “Allah!” But he said, “Ram!”He used to say that the Gita and the Koran and the Bible have the same message, but he worshipped the Gita and he called the Gita his mother. Then what is the Koran? He has not even called the Koran his auntie! The Gita is his mother, and of course, he has chosen a few pieces from the Koran and from the Bible which are in agreement with the Gita. Anything that disagrees with the Gita has not been chosen by him, so the Gita remains the criterion. Now it is so clear that anything that does not fit with the Gita is wrong; it may be in the Koran, it may be in the Bible, but it is wrong. He would not say it so clearly because he was a politician.I am not a politician – I say things as they are. I call a spade a spade – and sometimes a fucking spade! I am not a politician; I simply say whatsoever is the case.Indians are not very happy with me, they cannot be. Neither am I very happy with them, so why should they be? I am utterly against their traditionalism, their egoistic idea that they are holier than everybody else in the world. Nobody is holier than anybody else. I am against their idea that their country is the only religious country in the world, that they are the source of all that is great. These are stupid ideas. Every country carries them and every country believes in them.Ask the Chinese, ask the Japanese, ask the Italians, ask anybody. Every country believes it. And you can find always great arguments to support it.Indians would have crowded at the gate if I were helping in some way, nourishing and feeding their ego. I am not doing that, I cannot do that. Only then can I be universal. I am continuously hammering on their ego. I am continuously trying to destroy their “holier-than-thou” look. They are angry at me. How can they crowd at the gate to come in?If sometimes a few of them out of curiosity come in, within five to seven minutes they start getting up. Only a few stupid Indians get up from here. What I am saying does not suit them. They would like me to praise their Vedas as the only scriptures, the real scriptures, written by God himself. They would like me to praise everything that is Indian. I cannot do that. I can praise only that which is praiseworthy, not because it is Indian. I can praise things, not because they are Hindu, Jaina, Buddhist, but simply because they are beautiful.I praise the Taj Mahal not because it is Mohammedan, but just because it is a beautiful piece of objective art. I praise the Upanishads not because Hindus have written them but because they are so immensely valuable, intrinsically valuable. I praise Lao Tzu in the same way, I praise Jesus in the same way, I praise Mohammed in the same way. Wherever truth has happened, whomsoever it has happened to – to Bahauddin or to Buddha –does not make any difference to me.That makes Indians very angry. They would like me to criticize Mohammed and to praise Mahavira, or if I cannot do that then at least praise Mahavira more than Mohammed, but create a hierarchy in which Buddha, Krishna and Mahavira are at the top. Yes, Jesus is also good, and Mohammed is good, but not at the top – far below in the hierarchy. That I cannot do because I see the same phenomenon happening in Buddha and the same experience in Jesus. I am not helping the Indians’ ego in any possible way, I am doing just the opposite. They cannot crowd at the gate to come in.What I am trying here is not something of the past; it belongs to the future. So only a few Indians will be able to come to me – a few Indians who are capable of rising above their Indian mind, very rare individuals who are ready to rise with me above nationality, above race, above all kinds of egoistic attitudes. They are here, but they are here because they are also no longer Indians.Indians believe that they know, that they are very knowledgeable. Naturally, it is an ancient country; you need not read the scriptures, the scriptures are in the atmosphere. And my idea is that the knowledgeable person can never be religious. Up to now India has believed in the knowledgeable person: the pundit, the scholar, the professor. And my effort is to help you become more and more childlike, more innocent; full of wonder not full of knowledge, full of awe not full of information. There is no need to read the Vedas, because anyway ninety-nine percent of the Vedas is absolutely rubbish! Now this hurts the Indians. Only one percent is beautiful; you have to be very choosy.The same is the case with other scriptures of the world. You look at the Bible, look at the Old Testament; ninety-nine percent is just rubbish. It would be better if we got rid of that rubbish so only diamonds can shine forth. Otherwise the pebbles are so many, the diamonds are lost. But no – no Jew will be ready to drop anything out of the Old Testament. And the same is the case with the New Testament, and the same is the case – more so – with the Koran.But the reason is, in those days everything was written in the religious scriptures: history, geography, mythology. That was the only way. The old religious scriptures are like the Encyclopedia Britannica; they are the encyclopedias of the old days. Everything is written, whatsoever was happening in those days and whatsoever was thought important. It may have been important in those days; now it is irrelevant.Even when I speak on Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, I speak in an absolutely nontraditional way. I speak out of my own experience, I am not a commentator. I love Buddha because I have known the same light, I have experienced the same truth. So when I comment on Buddha it is not a commentary. Buddha’s statements are only excuses, just pegs; I go on hanging myself on those pegs.The Indian mind is very much against that. They think I am distorting. They think I should comment according to the scriptures. I am commenting according to my consciousness, not according to any scripture. And when I see something which cannot be said by a buddha I simply drop it, I don’t comment on it.I know what buddhahood is! I go on creating Buddha again. That is resisted very much. They would like me to be just a historian, a commentator, a scholar. They would like me to quote their scriptures, refer to their scriptures. I never refer, I never quote. In my books you will not find any footnotes. I don’t believe in all that nonsense. I speak out of my heart. I love Buddha, I love Jesus. I speak, I use their statements as grounds to take off, that’s all; they are just jumping boards. It goes against the Indian approach, Indian scholarship.Because my message is universal it will appeal only to those people who are universal, who don’t belong to any country anymore, to any religion, to any church. Yes, you are right. You ask, “Is it only for those without a religion?”Yes, it is for those who are without a religion, without a nation, without a race; it is only for those liberated ones. It is for the new generation. The new generation is courageous; it has dropped much of the load that people have been carrying for centuries. Only then can there be a communion between me and you.You can see this is a universal gathering. People from at least forty countries are here. Except the Chinese and the Russians – except the Communist bloc – you will find people from every country here. And even in Russia the orange people are starting to work underground. Small cells have started functioning. People are meeting in underground basements, meditating. A few people even have become sannyasins. It is very difficult to send them malas and names, but we have found ways and they have found ways. They cannot wear orange in the open.One woman who has become a sannyasin wrote to me, “What to do?” I said, “Use red instead of orange. Wear red and tell people that you love Communism so much that you cannot resist the temptation of wearing red!” She loved the idea. She said, “This is beautiful!”But when they meditate and they meet in underground basements they wear orange, they wear malas, they read the books, they listen to the tapes. They have even translated a few books into Russian; just hand-written, those books are passed from one hand to another. But they are not here; it will be difficult for them to be here.One woman has written that she is ready to escape from Russia if somebody can help her so that she can remain here forever. She is ready to leave her husband, her home, her security, safety, everything.Soon people will be coming here from China and Russia also. This is becoming a universal temple, especially for those who no longer have any interest in religion. They can understand me, because the priests have destroyed their interest in religion. The churches have destroyed any possibility for any intelligent person to be religious.The last question:Osho,Why do I always get sexually excited when I see a beautiful woman?The first thing is that you are an Indian. It is very difficult for an Indian not to get excited when he sees a beautiful woman. Long, long repression… Your unconscious is full of repressions so you don’t miss any opportunity. Of course you don’t show it. It is courageous of you that you have asked the question.Nothing is wrong in being sexually excited by seeing a beautiful woman. You are simply paying a compliment to her, that’s all. You are saying she is beautiful and attractive. In a more understanding world you will simply go to the woman and thank her and she will accept your compliment with gratitude. If a woman passes and nobody gets excited about her, nobody ever, that is really a miserable thing to go through.I was a professor in a university for a few years. One day it happened: I was sitting in the vice-chancellor’s room. A girl came, she was crying and weeping and she said that one boy was continually teasing her. He was throwing small stones at her, writing love letters to her.The vice-chancellor was, of course, very angry. I was sitting there so he told me, “Can you help this girl? Can you console her?”I asked the girl, “If nobody ever teased you and nobody ever wrote a love letter and nobody threw pebbles at you, would that be right? Would you be happy?”Her tears disappeared. For a moment she was shocked. Then she said, “I have never thought of it in that way.”I said, “That will be real misery! This simply shows that somebody is interested in you. Go to him and thank him! Nothing is wrong in it. He is simply a little foolish; he does not know how to pay compliments to a beautiful girl. Send the boy to me and I will teach him a few things! He needs a little tuition – he has no intuition. You need not be worried and you need not be crying: this is natural!”You are one of the species of animals. Man is an animal unless he becomes a buddha. If you become a buddha and then you are excited by seeing a beautiful woman, come and ask the question. Then it will be something worth asking because then it will be a problem. But you are not a buddha, so meanwhile enjoy! Once you become a buddha, then I cannot help – nobody can help. Then even if you want to get down, there is no way.It is an animal instinct, as much in animals as in human beings. Yes, it has to be transcended, but by repression you cannot transcend. Accept it. Acceptance is the first step toward transcendence. And don’t feel guilty about it, it is not a sin.When you see a beautiful sunset you don’t feel any guilt. When you see a beautiful flower and you are attracted you don’t feel any guilt. When you see a beautiful face of a man or a woman, why should you feel guilty if you are attracted, if you want to look back, if you want to go close and have a closer look? Why should you feel guilty about it? But that’s how you have been taught for centuries. If you go closer to the woman, the woman will start shouting for the police and you will start finding excuses.Nobody looks into each other’s eyes. It is thought to be offensive. Even if you want to look into some beautiful eyes you cannot. Only three seconds is allowed. How all over the world people have come to agree on three seconds is something mysterious. Just for three seconds you can look at somebody and the other will not be offended. If you look more than that, the other feels offended.Maybe there is a reason. You don’t know how to look at the other; you don’t know how to look gracefully. Maybe your look is ugly, and it is bound to be ugly if you are carrying much repressed sexuality. Your look will be pornographic. Deep down in your imagination you will be undressing the woman, and she feels offended. Who are you to undress her even in your fantasy? Your look is ugly; it looks as if you are penetrating her being, as if you have found a substitute for sexual penetration through the eyes. You are reducing her into a thing, and nobody wants to be reduced into a thing. Your look has no respect in it. If your look has respect, if your excitement has beauty, grace, there is no problem.Yes, it has to be transcended one day because this is also a duality – man–woman – the same duality as between positive and negative, birth and death, summer and winter. It has to be transcended. One has to come to a point from where nothing disturbs your coolness, nothing distracts you from your center.But the way to come to it is not repression. The first step is acceptance: it is natural. Accept it as part of your nature, as part of your biology, and then try to understand it, watch it, observe it, witness it. Slowly, slowly as your witnessing grows, you will go beyond it. One day you will not find any difference between a man and a woman: you have gone beyond sexuality. That is true brahmacharya, true celibacy, but it is not what has been told to you.In the name of celibacy, sex has been repressed for centuries and you have become just full of sexuality. Rather than transcending it you are boiling within.In order to find out whether his wife was cheating on him, a man bought a parrot. The parrot was an amazing bird, but in a fight had lost both legs and had to balance itself on its pelvis.One day the man questioned the parrot and found out that his wife was, in fact, cheating on him. Quickly he asked the parrot, “What happened?”The parrot said, “First your wife was kissing a strange man, and then she started to take off her clothes…”“And then?” interrupted the man.“And then they both got on the bed…”“And then?” cried the man.“Then she pulled on the blankets…”“And then, and then?”“I don’t know,” said the parrot. “I fell over!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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If you sleep,desire grows in youlike a vine in the forest.Like a monkey in the forestyou jump from tree to tree,never finding the fruit –from life to life,never finding peace.If you are filled with desire,your sorrows swelllike the grass after the rain.But if you subdue desire,your sorrows fall from youlike drops of water from a lotus flower.This is good counseland it is for everyone:as the grass is cleared for the fresh root,cut down desirelest death after death crush youas a river crushes the helpless reeds.For if the roots hold firm,a felled tree grows up again.If desires are not uprooted,sorrows grow again in you.Gautama the Buddha’s most fundamental message to humanity is that man is asleep. Man is born asleep. He is not talking about the ordinary sleep; he is talking about a metaphysical sleep, a deep, deep unconsciousness within you. You are acting out of that unconsciousness, so whatsoever you do goes wrong. It is impossible to do right with this unconsciousness within you. This unconsciousness perverts all of your efforts, it leads you into wrong directions. It is bound to be so.Even if a buddha is with you, you will misunderstand him for the mere reason that you are not conscious. If you are really asleep and a buddha is sitting by the side of you, you cannot recognize him, you cannot see him, you cannot feel him. You will go on dreaming in your own way; you will remain confined to your own private world of dreams.The most private thing in life is your dreaming. When the dreaming disappears you enter into the world of the universal. Then you enter into truth, into godliness, into nirvana. But with all your dreams, that is impossible; you are lost in your own dreams. And it is not only one dream within you; millions of them are constantly growing, one being replaced by another. You think that now you are awake because one dream has left you, but another has taken its place. You can even dream that you are awake. Buddhas go on shouting, but you don’t hear.Jesus says: “If you have eyes to see, see. If you have ears to hear, hear.” He is not talking with deaf and blind people, he is talking with people like you. He is saying exactly the same thing that Buddha is saying: that you are asleep.Jesus had been to India, and when Jesus came to India, Buddha was very much alive. Although he had left his body five hundred years before, the air was still full with his songs. There were still people deeply connected with him; there were still people for whom he was almost a tangible reality.Buddha had said, “My religion will last for five hundred years.” Those years were coming to an end; it was the last phase. The sun was setting, but the sun was still on the horizon.Jesus must have visited Buddhist schools, monasteries. In Ladakh there is still a hand-written scripture in existence in which Jesus has written about his coming to India, his visit, his experiences, what he had gained here. Christian scriptures are completely silent about his life. He is mentioned once when he is twelve years old and then for eighteen years there is a gap. Then he is mentioned when he is thirty, and then he lives only three more years. Where had he been for eighteen years? The people who were writing the gospels must have been aware of the gap, but they were afraid to say anything about those eighteen years, because he was traveling, moving from one mystery school to another mystery school.He talked very much the way Buddha talked. He carried a similar message and a similar understanding to his people. He was misunderstood for the simple reason that he had brought something which was not part of Jewish tradition; he had brought something alien. And the most alien thing was that he was telling people, “You are asleep, you are really dead.”Just being born is not enough to be awake. Awakening has to be achieved through arduous effort; otherwise you can pass your whole life wandering in the forest of dreams. And he was aware that the people who were listening to him were not capable of understanding him at all. He was saying one thing and they would understand another. He was aware that there was something that seemed to be hindering the message.Jesus is sitting at the table with his twelve disciples, eating bread and drinking wine. At a certain point he looks intensely up at his disciples and says, “One of you will betray me. Judas, Judas, why, why you?”At this, in a fit of anger, Judas gets up and screams at the disciples, “Why the hell is it that every time he gets drunk he takes it out on me?”Jesus looks drunk to Judas. Buddha also looks drunk to the people. And in a way, they are drunk – drunk with the divine. They belong to another world. We live in the night, they have seen the dawn. We live in our dreams of achieving this and that, in our ambitions, in our ego trips for power, for money, for prestige. And they live at a totally different point. They live as beings, we live as becomings. We live as desires, as dreams; they are real beings: they have no dreams, no desires. We live in the past or in the future; they live in the present. We live in words, they live in silence. We live in thousands of frustrations, they live in deep peace.Why do we live in frustrations? How do we manage to live in so many frustrations? We have become experts in creating frustrations, though we don’t do it intentionally. We don’t do anything intentionally; our whole lives are accidental. In sleep, your life is bound to be just accidental, at the mercy of the winds. We are just as straws in the wind or dry leaves in the wind. We don’t know who we are, we don’t know where we are going, we don’t know from where we are coming. We don’t know anything about our being, but we have great information about facts, figures which are utterly meaningless.Unless you know yourself, no knowledge is of any meaning. At the very center of your being there is darkness; no light from the outside can dispel it.The greatest problem in the world is how to commune your awakening with those who have never tasted it. They are bound to misunderstand. Misunderstanding is almost inevitable.The color TV was invented in the USA. News of this beautiful new toy arrived up to the kingdom of God. God, being very curious, sent one of his archangels down to the earth to get one.As God sat in front of his new color TV set with the archangel sitting beside him, he pressed the first button. Immediately, the image of naked, tired, sweating people appeared on the screen. They were working incredibly hard in a Johannesburg diamond mine.Upon seeing this, God shouted, “Ah Christ, holy shit, what the hell are they doing down there?”Saint Peter replied, “They are being good and working hard, my Lord, just as you wanted.”“No, no, no, that is not what I meant! They have missed the whole point!” screamed God at the top of his thunderous voice.Then he pushed another button. The image changed to the glorious Vatican in all its pomp and splendor, with his holiness the pope, dressed in gold. He was surrounded by luxuriously dressed nobles and velvet-cloaked cardinals with massive crowns on their heads.God turned to Peter, shouting, “And who are they?”Saint Peter humbly replied, “These are the ones who did not miss the point.”In fact, everybody misses the point; it is bound to be so. Coming from the peaks of awakening to the dark valleys of sleep one cannot expect that it will be understood rightly.Hence Buddha insisted, he always emphasized to his disciples, “Before you start trying to understand what I am saying and what I am doing, be silent at least for two years, utterly silent, thinking nothing. When you have attained to stillness, then you will be able to communicate with me. Then if you have any questions you can ask, and then it will be possible for me to pour my heart into your heart.”But whenever somebody would come and stay for two years in silence, he would never ask anything – because silence is the answer of all the answers. Silence is the answer for all the questions. There would be no need to ask Buddha because in silence he would see the glory, the splendor of Buddha, and it would start permeating his being like a flood, taking away all dust accumulated down the centuries.The first sutra:If you sleep,desire grows in youlike a vine in the forest.Desire cannot be dropped unless you wake up. Millions of people have tried to drop desiring without waking up. In fact, the very idea of dropping desire was another desire and nothing else. They heard from the buddhas, from the awakened ones, that there is great peace if you drop desire, there is great bliss if desires wither away; that you will attain to eternity, that you will not know any birth, any death anymore, that you will become part of the universal celebration that goes on and on if you drop desire. Millions became greedy, thinking that by dropping desire they would attain all those joys. Now, this is a new desire taking root in you. The desire for God, the desire for truth, the desire for liberation, the desire for becoming desireless, is still a desire. You have misunderstood the whole point again. A new greed – religious greed – has taken possession of you.Millions of people have lived in the monasteries – monks and nuns and all kinds of ascetics – torturing themselves in the hope, in the desire, that this is the way to destroy desires. When all desires are destroyed they are going to attain to heavenly pleasures. And those pleasures are real pleasures; they are not momentary like the pleasures on this earth, they are eternal. How can you drop desire by creating a new desire, a bigger desire, a far more dangerous desire?As I see it, the religious people are more in the grip of desire than the non-religious. The non-religious are satisfied with small things – a good house, a beautiful wife, children, a little bank balance – small things. But religious people go on condemning these people as sinners, and they themselves are saints because they want a bank balance in the other world, and a bank balance which will be inexhaustible!It is very difficult to drop desire; unless you wake up you cannot drop desire. Desire is a natural phenomenon when you are asleep. Desire is dreaming and nothing else. When you wake up dreams disappear, and when you wake up desires disappear.Hence it has to be understood that the real point is not to fight with your desires but to fight with your sleep; that is cutting the very root. Otherwise you remain the same, you will function out of your unconsciousness and you will go on doing the same, no matter what it is.Three men were riding in a bus on a hot summer day in Israel. One of them was a Jewish rabbi, one a Greek, and the other a Palestinian.The bus departed, and a fly flew onto the shoulder of the Greek. He simply slapped it away. The fly then flew over to the rabbi’s shoulder and he did the same. The fly then flew over to the Palestinian. The Palestinian immediately grabbed the fly and ate it.A second fly flew into the bus and exactly the same thing happened: the fly landed on the Greek, the Greek slapped it away over to the Jew, the Jew also slapped it away, and finally it landed on the Palestinian who grabbed it and ate it.At this point, the Greek and the Jew both looked at the Palestinian in amazement.Sure enough, a third fly flew into the bus. It flew over to the Greek and was slapped away. It flew over to the rabbi and this time the rabbi grabbed the fly, went over to the Palestinian and asked, “You want to buy a nice fly?”Rabbi or no rabbi, a Jew is a Jew! If there is some business he is not going to miss it.You are living in dreams. Your priests, your rabbis, your monks, your nuns, your bishops, your popes, are all living in the same sleep. Maybe your dreams are a little bit different from each other, but the quality of the dream is the same.Why do you dream? – because there are so many desires unfulfilled, and to live with unfulfilled desires is painful. In dream you try to fulfill them; in dream you create a false feeling of fulfillment. Hence your dreams show much about you: what your desires are, what you want to become. But if you want to become anything in life, you are asleep.The man who is awake knows there is nowhere to go, nothing to become. He is already that which he ever can become. Seeing the grandeur of his being, desires wither away on their own accord. You are not even expected to drop them; they drop by themselves, like dry leaves falling from the trees.If you sleep… says Buddha …desire grows in you… Remember: desire grows only when you are asleep, unconscious, unaware, unmeditative. And this is natural. It grows …like a vine in the forest. And whatsoever you do in this sleep is going to be wrong, remember. You can become an ascetic, you can fast, you can pray, but your prayers will be wrong.Hence, Buddha never says pray; he says meditate. What can you pray? You will always pray for something; it will be a desire. You can go to the churches and the temples and listen to people’s prayers, and you will be surprised: they are always asking and asking. Their prayers are superficial. They have not gone there to thank God; their prayers are not full of gratitude but full of complaints. They want more and they are ready to pray. Their prayer is nothing but buttressing: they praise the Lord; they hope that this buttressing will help their prayers to be fulfilled. And behind the prayer there is a desire.Buddha says: “Don’t be bothered with prayers, because you are asleep and your prayer is bound to be nothing but a desire.” Your asceticism is bound to be nothing but an expression of your desire. Your asceticism is going to be nothing but a deep hedonism. Hence all religions talk about the joys and the pleasures of heaven and paradise. These are the allurements which keep people going to the temples and to the churches and to the mosques.Buddha says: “Go into silence,” because silence creates the right space to wake up. Silence goes to the very center of your being like an arrow and wakes you up. And when you are awake, your whole life is prayerfulness. Don’t go on doing things in your sleep because you can do much more harm. It is better to be ordinary when you are asleep – your harm will be ordinary. Don’t try to be extraordinary, don’t try to be a saint or a mahatma; your harm will be far bigger.Contemplate on this maxim of Murphy:If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three.What else can you do when you are asleep? Try and try and try again; go on trying. But if the fundamental is wrong, whatsoever you do is going to be wrong.The problem with desire is, if you don’t get it – which is almost inevitable because all your desires are impossible, you ask for the impossible; it can’t happen in the nature of things, hence you feel frustrated when it doesn’t happen. And if at all it happens by some miracle, by some accident, then, too, it is not going to fulfill you or make you contented because the moment it happens, again your mind starts asking for more; or, by the time it happens you are no longer interested in it.The soldier boy was unhappy.“But this is Christmas time,” I tried to cheer him up. “Santa Claus and all that!”“What Santa Claus?” he cried. “Twenty years ago I asked Santa for a soldier suit – now I get it!”Murphy’s maxim:Being frustrated is disagreeable, but the real disaster in life begins when you get what you want.Blessed are those who don’t get what they want, because at least they can hope. The real disaster happens when you get what you want, because then there is no possibility to hope; then you are stuck with it. And it is you who have desired it, who have worked for it. But out of sleep nothing else is possible.Sleep is our common disease; we are born with this disease. It is so common, that we don’t think about it at all as a disease, but this is the greatest disease, according to all the awakened ones.Buddha’s suggestion is: “Be conscious.” Bring more consciousness to your inner being and also to your outer actions. He does not want you to create new desires – holy desires instead of unholy desires. He does not want you to become a saint as against being a sinner. He does not want you to substitute your mundane desires with sacred desires, he wants you to do something totally different. This is his great contribution to humanity: he wants you to become conscious.Out of consciousness a radical transformation happens: desires disappear and peace descends – the peace of desirelessness.Like a monkey in the forestyou jump from tree to tree,never finding the fruit –from life to life,never finding peace.Observe what you have been doing: Like a monkey in the forest… Charles Darwin became aware of the phenomenon very late: that man is a descendant of monkeys. And he may not be right, because he thinks that physically man is a descendant of the monkeys. That does not seem to fit the reality: man seems to be essentially different from monkeys as far as the body is concerned.For millions of years, monkeys have been seeing man standing on two feet and they have not learned the trick yet. You don’t see suddenly a monkey walking like a man. How did it happen in the first place that a few monkeys started walking on two feet and became the ancestors of humanity? It does not seem to be likely.But all the awakened ones of the world have known that as far as the mind of man is concerned, it is very like the monkeys; it is not much different. The real monkey is not in your body but in your psychology; it is not physiological, it is psychological.Your mind is continuously jumping from one tree to another tree. It is constantly restless; it cannot remain restful even for a single moment. It wants to be continuously occupied. And what is the gain?Buddha says: Like a monkey in the forest you jump from tree to tree, never finding the fruit – from life to life, never finding peace.Peace is the fruit, and the mind has no idea what peace is. It knows only conflict, it knows only war, violence, destruction. It knows only all sorts of perversions, neurosis, psychosis. It knows a deep inner split, but it knows nothing of peace; it has never tasted it, it is absolutely unknown. It is only a word, empty of any meaning. Meaning comes through experience, otherwise all words are empty. Godliness is an empty word to you because you have not experienced it. Peace is an empty word to you because you have not experienced it.Buddha does not use the word bliss. That was always the case before Buddha: that bliss is the fruit. Sat-chit-anand – truth, consciousness, bliss – these are the three aspects of the ultimate fulfillment. But Buddha does not talk about bliss for a certain reason. The reason is that the moment you talk about bliss you are bound to be misunderstood. People start thinking about happiness and pleasures – maybe on a higher plane, but their idea of pleasure remains the same, their idea of happiness remains the same. They think of sexual pleasure even in paradise.There are religions who even allow homosexuality in paradise, because those religions were born in countries where homosexuality was very prevalent. And every religion promises you beautiful women in paradise. Who has projected these ideas? Frustrated people, those who have failed here; now they are hoping they will succeed in the other world, on the other shore.Buddha does not use the word bliss for the simple reason that it can create a misunderstanding. It creates it because you know something about happiness, and you think maybe there is a great difference between bliss and happiness, but happiness gives you some idea of what bliss will be.Bliss is not happiness. Bliss is more like peace than like happiness. Bliss is neither unhappiness nor happiness; it is peace from that turmoil, that conflict. It is peace, absolute peace, because it is a transcendence of duality. Happiness always lingers with unhappiness; unhappiness is always with its other side, happiness. They are two sides of the same coin. When the whole coin drops from your hand you are neither happy nor unhappy.It is because of this that Buddha never greatly appealed to the Indian masses. Who wants peace? Everybody wants happiness – and everybody knows that happiness is followed by unhappiness, as day is followed by night, as death is followed by birth, birth is followed by death. It is a vicious circle: if you are happy, you can be certain that soon you will be unhappy; if you are unhappy, you can be certain that soon you will be happy again.Seeing this game of happiness and unhappiness, the watcher, the meditator becomes unidentified with both. When happiness comes he knows that unhappiness will be coming, so why get excited? When unhappiness comes he is not at all disturbed because he knows happiness will be coming just around the corner, so why become disturbed? He is neither excited by happiness nor disturbed by unhappiness. This is peace. He remains the same, in a deep equilibrium; his silence is undisturbed. Day comes and goes, night comes and goes, everything comes and goes. He remains a witness, unconcerned, cool. That coolness, that unconcernedness is peace.But nobody wants peace. People who are asleep cannot want peace. While Buddha was alive thousands of people were transformed by him, as had never happened before. Many more people became enlightened around him than around anybody else in the whole history. Still, his religion disappeared from India; it did not appeal to the masses. That carrot was not there hanging in front of you: bliss. He was talking of peace.Peace seems to be very unalluring; it does not ring bells in your heart. Peace, just peace? So much effort for meditation and so much effort for waking up, and the result is only peace? You want something more exciting, more sensational. You want ecstasy, not peace. Your sleep creates the dream of bliss, of ecstasy, of great joys, eternal joys.But Buddha’s choice of the word is very right, absolutely right. He never moves from the inner truth, he goes on insisting on it. Whether it appeals to you or not, he is not much concerned about that. He is not at all going to compromise with you and your desires and your sleep.Of course, when Buddha died, the scholars started interpreting his word peace as bliss, saying that it was another name for bliss. But from India the religion disappeared. The scholars and the pundits learned it a little late. When the religion had disappeared from India, then they thought over it, and why it had happened. And this was the cause: Buddha was talking about peace, about nirvana. Nirvana means cessation, that you will cease totally. Who wants to cease totally? Deep down you want to remain, abide. Yes, you can accept that the body will not be there, the body will fall into dust – dust unto dust. But your spirit, your soul will be there.Buddha says you don’t have any soul, because your soul is nothing but a holy name for your old ego. And what is your spirit? – nothing but another facade for the ego to survive. He is very compassionately cruel. He says you will not be there at all.People used to ask him, “Then why should we meditate? It seems like committing absolute suicide!” And Buddha said, “Yes, exactly it is that. But peace will be there.”Now the problem becomes even more complicated. You can even become interested in peace; tired of your joys, happiness, unhappiness, sadness, misery, suffering, you can even reluctantly, in a resigned way, agree to attain to peace – but you will not be there. Then another problem arises which is far more significant to you in your sleep: “If I am not there, who is going to experience peace? And what is the point of attaining something if you can’t experience it, if you are not there at all?”Buddha is absolutely right. He says: “If you are there, peace cannot be.” When you are not there, peace is. Shakespeare says: “To be or not to be is the question.” Buddha says: “Choose not to be.” To be is the problem; not to be means all problems have been transcended, all worries have been transcended.Buddhists learned that there is something dangerous in Buddha’s message; it has to be changed. They changed it. In Tibet, in China, in Japan, they dropped Buddha’s words or they gave new meanings to those words. While they were translating Buddhist scriptures into Tibetan, into Chinese, into Japanese, Korean, they made it a point that all negatives should be dropped from Buddha and they should be replaced by positives. “You will be there in all your glory, in all your grandeur, in all your beauty. You will be there in your purity. Your soul will be there, utterly purified, pure gold. And you will attain to bliss: mahasukh – great bliss.”Then, like fire, the religion of Buddha spread all over Asia. It disappeared from the country of its origin for the simple reason that Buddha would not compromise with your sleep; it succeeded all over Asia because the followers compromised. They destroyed the purity of Buddhism; they brought it down to your level. Buddha’s effort was to raise you to his level, and his followers brought him to your level.That’s what happens always with the followers, because they are also asleep; they are people like you. They are also dreaming like you, they are also desiring like you. There is a certain understanding between you and them. They can understand your dreams because they are their dreams too. Buddha is as far away from them as he is from you. It is a strange phenomenon, but it has always been so. Christians succeeded when they betrayed Christ and Buddhists succeeded when they betrayed Buddha. You have to betray the master, then you can be a success. When the master starts speaking like sleepy people, then sleepy people become interested; then he is speaking in your language.The other night, Veet Marco had a dream:While Jesus Christ was on the cross, three soldiers were playing cards beneath him. At a certain point one of the soldiers got up and pierced Jesus’ rib with his spear. Jesus moaned, and the soldier laughingly returned to his seat and continued playing cards.Soon after a second soldier got up and held a sponge soaked in vinegar up to Jesus’ face.Jesus screamed, “Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?”The soldier started laughing, then went back to his seat and resumed playing cards.Suddenly the sky became dark, the earth started to tremble, lights beamed from the north and from the south and a mysterious silence filled the air.The nails on Jesus’ hands and feet started disappearing. The third soldier, seeing this, ran to Jesus’ feet and began praying and worshipping God. A terrible wind started blowing and Jesus began to ascend. The soldier hung on to his legs, screaming and crying, “Jesus, Jesus, yours is the power and the glory!”Jesus’ face was filled with light, his hair blowing in the wind, his body donning a white silken robe, ascending up and up into the sky, with the third soldier clinging to his legs, ascending along with him.The soldier, suddenly realizing what was happening, became frightened and cried up to Jesus, “Jesus, Jesus, where are you going?”Jesus smilingly replied, “I am going to my father up in the Kingdom of God.”“And how about me?” quizzed the frightened soldier. “Where am I going?”Jesus, kicking him off, screamed down to the falling figure, “You son-of-a-bitch, you go back to your fucking mother!”Now, Marco’s dream is Marco’s dream; it has nothing to do with Jesus. But in your dreams, Jesus will take a form that is really imposed by you, Buddha will take a form that is imposed by you. Rather than allowing them to transform you, you would like to transform them according to your ideas. This has been happening down the ages.If you are filled with desire…says Buddha,…your sorrows swelllike the grass after the rain.The more desires you have, the more misery you will create for yourself. Misery is a consequence of desiring, and you go on desiring. In fact, you think that if your desires are fulfilled your miseries will disappear. In the first place they are almost never fulfilled; in the second place, if they are fulfilled, nothing is fulfilled by their fulfillment. You remain as empty as you have always been – or even more, because up to now you were occupied with a certain desire; now even that is fulfilled. A deep, deep emptiness comes to you.You wanted to have a beautiful house; now you have it. Suddenly, you don’t know what to do. You were so engaged in earning money, you were so mad after getting the house; now you have got it. For a moment you feel good, not because of the house, remember, but just because the whole tension, that mounting tension has disappeared – the house is yours. All that strain and tension is relaxed; it is the relaxation of that tension that gives you a little experience of pleasure. That you could have experienced any time if you had relaxed; it has nothing to do with the house.See the mechanism of desire! But after that relaxation, after a few moments or a few hours or maybe a few days… It depends how intelligent you are. If you are really intelligent, then within seconds that disappears – you can see the futility of it – if you are not that intelligent, then a few hours; if you are really stupid, then a few days. It is in the proportion of your stupidity: you will remain happier for a longer period if you are more stupid because you will not see the point. But sooner or later, howsoever stupid you are, it is bound to disappear. And then you will be left with a great emptiness, hollowness, and you would like again to strive for something else. Maybe you need more money now or a beautiful woman to suit the beautiful house. Again a new desire, and you rush. Again you will attain – and for a few moments, the relaxation.It is like the sexual experience. The pleasure you attain in sexuality is nothing but the pleasure of a mounting excitement, tension, and then the relaxation. Your energies go on mounting higher and higher and higher, and then you explode – you ejaculate. And suddenly you fall back into a certain calmness; the excitement is gone. But you don’t learn anything from it: that this is the whole secret of all your pleasures. Running, rushing, competing, fighting for something creates great tension.That’s why it happens that if you are involved in something really deeply you may not feel any interest in sexuality. If you are deeply involved in scientific endeavor you may not be interested in sex at all. You may be a little puzzled, confused: “Why are people so interested in sex? What is there?” You have found a new sexuality for yourself. Science is your wife; now you are running after science. Or you may be a politician; then politics is your wife. But one day, when you become the prime minister of the country or the president of the country, you have reached to the climax, and then after the climax there is nowhere to go, and a certain calm falls over you. That calm is misunderstood, as if you have attained it through the experience, by becoming the president, the prime minister, famous, respectable, a Nobel Prize winner. It is not that; it is because of relaxation.If you relax right now without attaining anything, that same calm will fall over you – even deeper because you will be full of energy. But we never look into anything, and even if we look into anything we conclude very superficially.I have heard…A man was passing through a forest, felt his bladder was full, stopped his car, and went behind a bush. As he was pissing, a wild bee stung his prick. He screamed – the pain was too much and he did not know what to do.Then suddenly he remembered, twenty years back when he was just a child it had happened once and his mother had a remedy for it. She had given him a glass of milk and told him to put his prick in the glass, and it had soothed him, calmed him. But where could he find the glass of milk? And the pain was excruciating! Tears were coming down from his eyes as he started driving in the hope of finding somebody in the forest.He was able to find a small hut. He knocked on the door. He was feeling very embarrassed – how to say it and what to say? A woman opened the door, but the pain was so much that he had to say something. So he said, “Please don’t ask me why, just give me a glass of milk. I am in terrible pain, I am dying! Just give me a glass of milk and please, don’t ask why because I cannot answer it. I am feeling so embarrassed!”The woman could see the pain of the man. She rushed in, brought a glass of milk.The man took the glass of milk, rushed toward the back of the house.The woman was curious, naturally, as to what was happening. She had never seen such a thing before! So she went back just silently so she would not disturb the man. And what she saw… She could not believe her eyes! She said, “My God, I have been married for thirty years, and now I know how you fill up these things! I was always wondering how you fill up these things again and again and again! Now I know!”Your conclusions are as superficial as that! That poor man is not filling it up! You pass through experiences, but you never go deep into them to find out the truth, what really happens.You must have made love many times, but have you ever thought about it? – what really happens that gives you calmness, a certain pleasure, a certain joy? Nothing much happens, just a mounting tension is relaxed. First you go into mounting it higher and higher, and then you fall from that height in a deep, deep valley of calmness. But this calmness is available to any meditator without creating any tension.Hence, meditation takes you beyond sex; nothing else can ever take you beyond sex. Everything else is a substitute for sex. Somebody is running after money – money is his sex; and somebody is running after power – power is his sex; and somebody is running after something else. Those are all sexualities, substitutes for sex. These people can easily avoid sex because they have found their own new version.If you are filled with desire,your sorrows swelllike the grass after the rain.But if you subdue desire,your sorrows fall from youlike drops of water from a lotus flower.The word subdue has to be rightly understood. It does not mean repression; it means understanding, it means transforming. It means transcendence. It means that you have become master of your own soul, that now nothing dominates you – sex, power, money, nothing dominates you. It does not mean that you have to renounce the world; it simply means that you have to renounce your unawareness.Desire disappears as you become more and more aware. When awareness is one hundred percent, there is no desire at all …your sorrows fall from you like drops of water from a lotus flower.Ordinarily, people are not raising their consciousness. On the contrary, they live through conscience, not through consciousness. To live through conscience is to live according to the mob psychology, is to follow the crowd. Conscience is created by the crowd; consciousness is an individual phenomenon. You have to create it, society won’t help you at all; it will hinder you in every possible way. The society does not want conscious people at all. They are rebellious, they are dangerous for the status quo, for the establishment, for the church, for the state, for the nation. They are dangerous because they have gone through a revolution and their very vibe creates revolution in others.The society lives through conscience. It gives you the idea about what is right and what is wrong: “Do this and don’t do that.” It goes on giving you commandments. It gives you detailed information about what is right and what is wrong. And in fact that is absolutely absurd, because life goes on changing every day.What was wrong in the times of Moses is no longer wrong today, and what was right in the days of Krishna is no longer right today. Nobody can give you a detailed map of what is right and what is wrong. In fact, something may be right in the morning and may be wrong in the evening. Next moment it may not be right! Life is a flux, and conscience is a static thing. Consciousness goes on moving with life; it is a flow.Murphy says:A conscience cannot prevent sin – it only prevents you from enjoying it.Conscience prevents nothing; it simply prevents you from enjoying your life. You remain the same; you simply become more miserable! That’s why your saints have such long, long faces, look so serious, sad, dead. Nothing has changed in them: they don’t radiate life, they don’t radiate love, they don’t radiate peace. They only show you what conscience can do. It can kill you, it is a slow poisoning.Buddha does not believe in conscience; he believes in consciousness. But buddhas talk about consciousness and you always understand conscience. In fact, there are languages like French in which conscience and consciousness are not two words; conscience means both, consciousness and conscience. That’s actually the process, how you understand.A man lost in the woods finally arrived at his destination, The Old Log Inn. On his arrival, however, he was all beaten up, with swollen eyes, bloody nose and mouth.The alarmed receptionist demanded, “My God, what happened to you?”The man replied, “I was lost and found a couple making love in the woods, and all I asked was ‘How far is The Old Log Inn?’”Please remember, consciousness does not mean conscience. Don’t translate it as conscience; it has been translated so for centuries.And then …sorrows fall from you like drops of water from a lotus flower. So naturally they disappear, they don’t leave a trace behind.This is good counseland it is for everyone:as the grass is cleared for the fresh root,cut down desirelest death after death crush youas a river crushes the helpless reeds.The unconscious man is a helpless victim of circumstances; he is accidental. He has no intrinsic value yet because he has not created any inner light yet. Only with consciousness do you have intrinsic value; otherwise your life is just accidental.When a child was born in Bethlehem, three kings came bearing gifts for him in the stable where he lay.The first king came forward, putting down his gift of frankincense and myrrh before the cradle. The second king set down his gift of a large bar of gold. The third king advanced with his gift, but tripped over the bar of gold.“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed.The father of the child looked up at him and said, “That’s a good name! We were thinking of calling him Fred.”Your names, your lives, your everything is accidental. Consciousness will make you go beyond accidents.For if the roots hold firm,a felled tree grows up again.If desires are not uprooted,sorrows grow again in you.Remember, there is no other revolution except consciousness. It cuts the desires from the very roots and it brings freedom to you.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 9 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 9 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,It is like driving a car in forward and reverse at the same time. I am not going anywhere. Is the ignition switched on or am I just a bad driver?The very idea of going somewhere is basically wrong. Nothing is going anywhere. Existence is now-here; it is not moving toward a particular destiny. There is no destiny, there is no ultimate purpose. But we have been taught for centuries that existence is moving toward a certain goal and we have been also taught to live ambitiously, to prove that you are something, somebody: “Reach somewhere.” But existence is absolutely purposeless.I am not saying that it is not significant. Precisely because it is purposeless it is significant, but its significance is not that of the marketplace. It is a totally different kind of significance: the significance of a roseflower, the significance of a bird on the wing, the significance of poetry, music. It is an end unto itself.We are not to become something; we are already it. This is the whole message of all the awakened ones: that you are not to achieve something, it has already been given to you. It is the gift of existence. You are already where you should be, you can’t be anywhere else. There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve. Because there is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve, you can celebrate. There is no hurry, no worry, no anxiety, no anguish, no fear of being a failure. You can’t fail. In the very nature of things it is impossible to fail, because there is no question of success at all.It is just a conditioning by the society that creates the problem in you. You start thinking, “I am not reaching anywhere, and life is slipping out of my hands and death is coming closer. Am I going to make it or not?” And then there is great fear of missing, frustration that so much is lost. And who knows? – tomorrow may never arrive. “I have not yet been able to prove myself, my worth. I have not become famous yet. I have not accumulated much wealth. I am not a president of a country or a prime minister.”Or you can start thinking in otherworldly terms, but the process is the same. You can say, “I have not yet become enlightened. I have not yet become a Buddha or a Jesus. Meditation is far away. I don’t know who I am.” And you can go on creating a thousand and one problems for yourself.All these problems are created because the society wants you to be ambitious, and ambition can only be created if there is a goal in the future. For ambition, the future is needed, and without ambition, the ego cannot be created. The ego is the basic strategy of the society to rule over you, to exploit you, to oppress you, to keep you miserable. The ego exists in the tension between the present and the future: the bigger the tension, the bigger the ego. When there is no tension between your present and future, the ego disappears because there is no point where it can have shelter, where it can exist.Hence society teaches you, “Become this, become that.” It teaches you becoming; its whole education system is based on the idea of becoming, and what I am telling you here is just the opposite of it. I am talking about being, not about becoming. Becoming is an invention of the crafty politicians and the priests, and these are the people who have poisoned the whole humanity. They go on giving you goals. If you become tired of the worldly things – money, power, prestige – they are there to tell you about paradise, God, samadhi, truth. The whole process starts again.It is easy to be frustrated with the worldly things. Sooner or later you can see the whole stupidity of having more money or more power. Sooner or later you are going to see the futility of the very idea of “more,” because the more brings nothing but more misery. It takes away all bliss from you, all peace from you. It is destructive. It gives you only fear, trembling, anxiety, neurosis. It makes you insane; that can be seen very easily. It has made the whole earth a madhouse.But it is very difficult to see that the otherworldly goals – nirvana and moksha and God and paradise – are also the same. You will need tremendous intelligence to see that those goals are also of the same quality. There is no qualitative change because you are still thinking in terms of becoming, you are still thinking in terms of the future.The future does not exist, it is non-existential, as non-existential as the past. The past is no more, the future is not yet; only the present is. And in the present there is no possibility for desiring, no possibility of being ambitious, not space enough for the ego to exist. Whenever you are now and here there is no ego to be found. You are a pure silence. Right now… See what I am saying. I am not propounding a theory or a philosophy; I am simply stating a fact.Just for a second, see this very moment! Where is the ego? And what heights and what depths of peace suddenly become available to you. They are always within you, but you never look at them – you are running and running. And because you are not arriving anywhere you are very worried.You say, “It is like driving a car in forward and reverse at the same time. I am not going anywhere.” There is no need. This very moment, wherever you are is a blessing, is divine. Where else do you want to go? Why live in the past? It is the past that gives you goals. It is the past that you are carrying in your head which projects goals in the future. Future is only a reflection of the past.From your very childhood you have been taught, you have been hypnotized, by the society, by the priests, by the politicians, by your parents, by the pedagogues. You have been hypnotized continuously that you should have a goal in your life, that you should have some purpose, that you should be a great achiever, that you have to be famous – a Nobel Prize winner or something – that you are not to die just an ordinary man. To die just an ordinary man is ugly; you have to die like a president or a prime minister, as if their death has something special!Because of this constant hammering on your head you have become so accustomed to the idea that it is driving you crazy. Otherwise, life is beautiful as it is; no purpose, no goal is needed. The future can be completely dropped. You live in the future just to escape from the present, and you become so psychologically obsessed with the future that you go on missing that which is, for that which is not.Among the first things that a Jewish boy learns is the biblical injunction: “Honor thy father and mother – or else!”Herschel, aged six, was reminded of the admonition the day his father came home and announced that he had decided to buy a car, the first his family had ever owned.The father was in high spirits. “Imagine, we are in this country only a few years and soon we will own a new car,” he said proudly. “I can just see us riding around in Central Park. In the front I am steering, and sitting next to me is Mamma, and in the back is our little Herschel.”Mamma nodded, smiling her approval. “So, when are you planning to buy the car?” she asked.“In two weeks, a month maybe – no later.”The pleasant interlude was suddenly shattered by Herschel’s mournful cry, “I don’t wanna sit in the back! I wanna sit in the front and help steer!”“Only one steerer we need in this family,” the father reminded his son. “In the front sits Mamma, in the back sits you.”“If I have to sit in the back I will bang my head on the wall, you will see!” wailed Herschel. He ran to the wall and assumed a threatening pose, ready to give action to his words. “Mamma is sitting in the back, I am sitting in the front!”“No, Herschel, you are in the back,” said the father sternly.“In the front, not in the back!” Herschel’s voice rose in a sudden screech. “I ain’t gonna sit in the back!”Father, his manner grim, extended his arm and pointed a commanding finger. “Herschel,” he said coldly, “get out of my car!”People go on living in the future! And the same is the case with your paradise, just like the car. The same is the case with your nirvana, your enlightenment – the same as with the car.It is only the mediocre mind that becomes psychologically obsessed with the future. But the society destroys everybody’s intelligence and makes everybody mediocre. The society does not want you to be really intelligent; it is afraid of intelligence. Intelligent people are dangerous people. They are radicals, they are revolutionaries; they are always sabotaging the status quo. The society wants you to remain mediocre, stupid. It wants you certainly to be efficient, mechanically. It wants you to accumulate as much information as possible, but it does not want you to be really intelligent because if you are intelligent you will not care for the future. You will live in the present and for the present, because there is no other life.Listen to the birds chirping, chattering, look at the trees flowering, the stars, the sun, the moon. The whole existence lives in the present except you, except human mind. And it is only human mind that suffers.Come out of the future! It is your dream. You are not supposed to go anywhere. Be happy wherever you are. Be contented with your being and drop the idea of becoming. Then each moment is so precious, then each moment has such beauty, such grandeur, such splendor. Then each moment is exquisite. Then you can feel God everywhere each moment.God is not a goal; God is the presence right now. If you are present, God is available. If you live in the moment, you are enlightened; there is no other enlightenment. And then ordinary life is so extraordinary. Then to be just a nobody is so fulfilling.I call this whole approach sannyas: dropping the goals, the purposes, the future – becoming part of existence this very moment, not postponing it. Then in this very moment, a great explosion is possible in you: the ego disappears, you are no more, but godliness is. And that is bliss and that is truth.The second question:Osho,Why are so many Jews here?Jews are intelligent people, the most intelligent in the world. That’s why they are hated so much. They have committed only one mistake in their whole history: they crucified Jesus and missed the greatest business that was available to them! It is such a rare phenomenon, that it went into the hands of the Italians – the whole business! It is inconceivable – Jews losing it to the Italians! If the Italians are selling spaghetti, that is okay, but they are selling Jesus! Otherwise, the Jews have never committed any mistakes.That one mistake has cost them very much: they became uprooted. But sometimes blessings come in the form of curses. When they became uprooted, when they lost their land, they became naturally more intelligent than anybody else because they had to exist in adverse conditions. No other race has existed in such adverse conditions as the Jews. And when you live in adverse conditions the challenge is such that you can survive only if you bring your intelligence to its highest peak. If you behave stupidly you will be destroyed. They were always living among strangers antagonistic to them; they became more and more intelligent.More Nobel Prizes go to Jews than to anybody else. And wherever they are they succeed, whatsoever they are doing they bring a certain magic to it. So whenever they feel a certain vibe, a certain phenomenon happening anywhere, they are the first to reach, they are the first to reap the crop.Yes, the question arises to many people. Almost fifty percent of my sannyasins are Jews – so many Jews that sometimes I become suspicious whether I am a Jew or what!You are right, your curiosity is right. But they can understand what I am saying. In fact, they have to drop a certain guilt that they have carried for two thousand years. If they can feel in tune with me, their guilt for killing Jesus will disappear. Deep down the guilt is there; they need somebody who can take away that guilt. It is like a thorn in their very soul and it hurts; they may not say it, but it hurts. They destroyed their greatest flowering.Jesus was their highest potential actualized; he was the highest peak of Jewish intelligence, and they destroyed it. They are carrying the wound; they are wounded people. They want somebody who can heal the wound.But the problem is, if you go to the priests they wound you more. Go anywhere and you will be wounded more, because your so-called religions all exist on your guilt. The greater the guilt, the more is their power over you. They make you feel guilty; they make you feel like sinners.I am a totally different kind of man: I help you to get rid of your guilt. I want to tell you that you are not sinners, and to commit mistakes is just human, to err is human. There is no need to make much fuss about it. And your errors are small; just a little awareness and they will disappear. You do not need to be thrown into hell.Just see the stupidity of the idea: Christians say that once you are in hell you are there for eternity. Nobody comes out of hell. It has no exit, only the entrance. And then for eternity! – the very idea is absurd. Even the greatest criminal need not be punished for eternity.Bertrand Russell has said, “When I look at my sins, if I confess all my sins that I have committed, they are not many, they are not very big. I have not murdered people. Then the cruelest magistrate can send me to jail at the most for four years. And if my thoughts are also to be included, not only my actions, then eight years jail, that’s all.” He has written a beautiful book, Why I Am Not a Christian. Among the many reasons that he has given, this is one: “I cannot agree with the idea of eternal hell. Nobody has committed such a sin that he should be thrown for eternity into hell – forever, no escape. And nobody has done so much good that he should be enjoying paradise for ever and ever.”But religions have existed, and they are powerful, for the simple reason that they create fear in you – fear of hell – and they create greed in you – greed for heaven. They wound you deeply. The more you bleed, the more your wound bleeds, the more powerful they are over you.My effort here is to redeem you from all your wounds, to redeem you from the fear of hell and the greed for heaven. There is no hell and no heaven. They are not places somewhere, they are just your own states of mind. Whenever you are in anger, in rage, you are in hell; and whenever you are in love, in compassion, you are in heaven. So you can move from heaven to hell many times in a day.It is not a question to be decided after death; it is to be decided each moment. And it is absolutely within your capacity to decide.A Sufi mystic was dying. His disciples had gathered and they said, “One thing we want to know. You are departing forever and then we will never know what was the secret. We have never seen you sad, unhappy, miserable. It seems so superhuman. We have watched you for thirty years, forty years; there are a few people who have lived with you for fifty years, sixty years” – the man was almost a hundred years old – “and nobody remembers that you were ever sad, not even a small sadness. What is your secret?”He said, “There is no secret at all. Every morning when I get up, before I open my eyes I say to myself, ‘Listen, old man, a new day is there. What do you want? – to be sad or to be happy?’ And I always say, ‘To be happy.’ So then I remain happy! I decide in the morning and I remain happy. I have to follow my decision. This I do every day. It is a decision.”You choose misery; it is not a punishment, it is your choice. And you choose joy; it is not a reward, it is your choice.Jews have suffered very much; they are wounded. Of course, two thousand years of suffering have made them very mature, intelligent, alert. Hence they can recognize me better than anybody else. That’s why they are here.In July 1974, President Nixon was in the Soviet Union, hoping to achieve a non-aggression pact between that country and the United States, but he was having a hard time of it.“Before we sign,” declared Prime Minister Brezhnev, “you Americans will have to announce to the world that Adam and Eve were Communists.”Nixon, uncertain as to how he should cope with this dilemma, decided to consult an authority on Genesis – in this case, Henry J. Kissinger – who assured him that he had read several pages of the Bible in his younger days.Kissinger retired to his study, pored over the Old Testament and the text. The next day he told Nixon to go ahead and sign the pact with Russia. “The Russians are right,” he said, “Adam and Eve were indeed Communists. After all, they did not have a stitch on their backs, they had nothing to eat but apples, and they still thought they were in paradise!”Three boys, a Catholic, a Presbyterian and a Jew, were discussing how they each spent Christmas Day. The Catholic boy had gone to mass, come back, kissed all his family and given them presents, and later on had Christmas dinner. The Presbyterian boy had not gone to church, but had kissed all the family, given out his presents, and then had Christmas dinner.The Jewish boy said, “Well, dad and I went down to our toy factory, looked at all the empty shelves, sang two verses of ‘What a friend we have in Jesus!’ and then caught a plane for Osho Ashram, Pune, India.”The third question:Osho,If you were here right now, I think I would hit you. If you don't recognize me soon and start saying yes to me instead of no, I am going to have to kill you.Somendra, thank you, Somendra! I also will need a Judas; otherwise the story will remain incomplete. I can be a Jesus only with a Judas. Yes, somebody has to do the work of Judas – it is hard work.There are secret mystery schools which carry the tradition that Judas was one of the most obedient disciples of Jesus. He betrayed Jesus because Jesus wanted to be betrayed.That’s exactly what George Gurdjieff used to say: that Judas was not a renegade, he was simply following Jesus. And his obedience was so total that when Jesus said, “Go and betray me, and sell me for thirty silver coins,” he went and did it. Of course, he felt very sorry for doing it, miserable, in deep anguish, but he had to follow the master. So he betrayed Jesus, Jesus was crucified, and the next day Judas committed suicide. Judas died the next day. He must have felt very bad, although he had to follow the master. He was the most intelligent of all the disciples of Jesus.So, Somendra, somebody has to do the hard work of Judas. Some day, I may choose you – don’t be worried and don’t be in a hurry! One day I may order you, “Now, Somendra, you can kill me.” But before that, let me kill you! And that’s why I go on saying no to you. That is my device to kill you. You would like to be recognized, but it will be too early if I recognize you. It will be nothing but a recognition of your ego. I will recognize you only when I see the ego has disappeared; while the ego is there I will go on destroying it. My no’s are nothing but hits on the ego.Yes will also be said when you have become capable of accepting my no’s joyfully. When you have become worthy of receiving the yes, it will come on its own accord; you need not remind me. Your reminding me will only delay it. Your reminding me will make me say more no’s to you. You cannot force yes from me, you cannot force me to say yes to you. If you can force yes from me, my whole function of being a master is destroyed. You cannot force anything from me.Pass through these no’s: this is the dark night of the soul. And when the night is the darkest, the dawn is very close.The fourth question:Osho,Are scriptures really of no use whatsoever?Scriptures are beautiful, but beautiful only for those who can understand them – not for you. You cannot understand them, you can only misunderstand them. I am not against the scriptures – how can I be? I am speaking on one of the scriptures, The Dhammapada, Buddha’s sayings. I have spoken on Jesus’ sayings, I have spoken on Mahavira, on Krishna. I have spoken on the Upanishads, I have spoken on Tao Te Ching. I have spoken on almost all the beautiful scriptures of the world. How can I be against them and how can I think they are useless? – although I insist that you don’t depend on them. For you they are of no use.Then what is their use? Their use is a totally different thing. When you become more meditative, the deeper you go into meditation, the more will be your capacity and clarity to understand the scriptures. Scriptures will become witnesses to you that you are on the right track. And when you reach to your innermost core, when you realize your being, then you will know what Jesus means by the kingdom of God, then you will know what Buddha means by nirvana, then you will know what the Upanishads mean by truth – not before that.Right now, if you read the Bible or the Koran or the Gita, you will interpret them according to your unconscious state, according to your non-meditative state. You will misinterpret, you will misunderstand. You are not in the right shape; you are upside down, you are topsy-turvy. You are a confusion, a chaos. You are a crowd, you are not yet an individual. You don’t have a center at all. So how are you going to understand Jesus or Buddha or Krishna?Remember one very fundamental thing: you can understand Jesus only if you have tasted something of Christ-consciousness in you; otherwise there is no way. You can have some glimpses of Buddha only when you have attained something of buddhahood, some texture, some taste, some fragrance. When you have entered into the country of Buddha and the buddhas, then you will be able to see the meaning.Otherwise, the words are there, but who will put meaning into those words? You will put meaning into those words. You will be reading Krishna but you will not be really reading Krishna, you will be reading yourself through Krishna. The words will be Krishna’s, the meanings will be yours, and it is the meaning that is significant, not the word.Chauncey de Plotkin was suffering from the heartbreak of psoriasis. After vainly trying the usual patent medicines sold over the counter he finally consulted a doctor and was given a prescription and told how and when to take it.That evening at home Chauncey’s wife was astonished to see her husband swallow a spoonful of the medicine, race out of the house and dash around the block. When he returned he was so exhausted that he flopped down onto the bed and fought to catch his breath.On the second evening he repeated the performance: he gulped down the medicine, galloping around the block and returning home a few minutes later.On the third evening he changed his tactics. This time he took his medicine as usual, but instead of racing he began to skip around the room with all the grace of a prancing pachyderm.The wife could stand it no longer. “Chauncey,” she cried, “what in the world are you doing racing around the block and jumping about like that? Have you lost your mind?”“Of course not,” replied the weary hubby. “I am just following the doctor’s orders. He told me to take my medicine two nights running and to skip the third night.”The words may be of Christ, Buddha, Zarathustra, but who is going to give the meaning to them? Chauncey de Plotkin – he will put meanings into those words! He will impose his meaning, he will project his meaning.I am not against scriptures. How can I be? I am for all the scriptures, but I cannot say to you that through the scriptures you can find the truth. That is not possible.A Christian missionary and a rabbi were traveling together in a train. The Christian missionary said to the rabbi, “Jesus saves.”The rabbi looked at the missionary and then said, “But Moses invests.”Words are bound to be colored by you, they are bound to be part of you. They may descend from very high sources, but it is just like rainwater. When it comes from the clouds it is pure, the purest, but when it falls on the ground it depends on the ground. If it falls in cow dung, then it may be holy for the Hindu but for nobody else! Pure water descending from heaven will have the color of the earth on which it falls, will have the taste of the earth on which it falls.Exactly the same is the case with the words falling from Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. It depends on your earth – on your mind. And what is the state of your mind? Can you think anything original? Can you understand anything original? Your mind only repeats that which it has heard or read, that which it has been taught. It is a machine; it can never produce a single original thought. The original thought never comes from the mind; it comes from the beyond.Buddha uses the mind to communicate with you. He has to use words, obviously, and by using words he is taking a dangerous step. For seven days he was hesitating after he became enlightened, for seven days he didn’t utter a single word.The story is that the gods came from heaven, touched his feet, and asked him to deliver the truth that he had attained because the masses were so thirsty for it. Millions of people would be benefited.He listened in deep silence. He simply said one thing: “As far as I am concerned, for seven days I have been pondering over it and this is my conclusion: that those who can understand me need not hear my words. Those who can understand me are already meditative, they are already on the way. They don’t need my words; they will reach anyway, with me or without. Maybe with me they will reach a little earlier, alone a little later, but what difference does it make in eternity whether you come one year earlier or one year later?“Those who can’t understand me are bound to misunderstand. My words will become a problem for them. They are already confused and I don’t want to confuse them anymore. My words will create more confusion in them.”The gods were at a loss what to say, how to persuade Buddha. They went away. They discussed it among themselves to find some way, and then they came back with a new argument. They said, “You are right, there are people, a very few people, who will understand you immediately. And yes, we agree with you totally, they don’t need it; they will reach anyway. They are just on the borderline: one step more and they will be buddhas. Even without you they will become buddhas, that is certain. If you could become a buddha without any other buddha helping you, they can also become, we can understand it.“And your other point is also right: there are millions of people who will not understand you. But we don’t agree with you that your words will create more confusion. Those people are so confused, there cannot be more confusion. They have already reached to the rock bottom of confusion; you cannot confuse them anymore. So don’t be worried about them.“We have thought about a third category also. There are a few people who are just in between these two categories: who are not so evolved that they will immediately understand you and become enlightened and who are not so unevolved either that they will simply become more and more confused by hearing you. They are just in the middle – a small minority, but those people are there. With your help they will reach to the other shore; without your help they may wander and wander for centuries and centuries.“You are right in saying, ‘What difference does it make in eternity?’ It does not make any difference to you because you know eternity, but for those poor people who live in time it makes much difference. For many, many lives they will be suffering. For you it makes no difference – you have entered eternity – but they are living in time, and time means birth, death and the wheel of birth and death. They will have to go on the wheel, in the vicious circle, millions of times. Compared to eternity it is nothing, but compared to a small life – a seventy-year life, a sixty-year life – it is too much. You have to think about that third category too.”Buddha listened to them and immediately agreed to speak. He followed the argument: yes, there is a third category. The first category is of those people who cannot understand at all. They can understand words; intellectually they are capable of understanding whatsoever is said to them. But deep down the meaning is missed, the significance is missed. They hear the music, but they don’t get the melody of it. They hear the noise, but they don’t feel the harmony; that is a subtle phenomenon. They hear the words.All three categories are here. The majority is hearing my words, but they will not feel my silence, they will not feel my presence in them. It is the same to them. They can read a book, they can listen to a tape or they can hear me directly; it is all the same to them, no difference, because the words are the same.But to the second category there is a difference. To read my words in a book is one thing, because I will not be there in those words, my presence will not be there. I will not be breathing in those words; they will be dead. When you listen to the tape it is a little better than the book, but still my presence is not there. Tapes are mechanical repetitions; there is nobody behind them.Here when you are listening to me, my words are there and my silence is there. My silence can go with the words if you are available. The second category of people will be able to feel my presence, my silence, my song. And the first category of people will immediately realize that this is it. A sudden enlightenment with not even a moment’s gap.The fifth question:Osho,The other day I read that Taru met you once in the streets of Mumbai while you were carrying a bag of gin and whisky in both hands. Are you really a drunkard?If Taru says so, it must be so. I am such a drunkard that I can’t remember! Yes, vaguely I remember Taru meeting me on the streets of Mumbai. I can remember her hug – it is difficult to forget! But my memory is not very good, so maybe I was carrying bottles of whisky in both of my hands.That has been very usual for Zen masters in Japan. That is the last stage of enlightenment! To be enlightened means to be utterly drunk – drunk with the divine.Maybe those bottles of whisky were empty. They must have been, because a drunkard like me cannot keep those bottles full very long. The moment I get them I drink them. I don’t postpone anything! But my memory is not very good.“Doctor, I have a very serious problem,” Max began. “I am losing my memory – maybe I have already lost it completely. I can’t seem to remember anything.”The psychiatrist smiled indulgently. “I am sure it is not quite that drastic. You must remember something.”“No, nothing at all. I tell you, I can’t remember a single thing.”“You mean, of course, such things as names and faces and dates? We all tend to forget them now and then.”“Doctor, you don’t understand. I mean everything!”“Ah, that is pure nonsense!” snapped the doctor. “No one just forgets everything he has ever known. Even a person suffering from amnesia remembers something – such as whether he drinks coffee or tea or whether he smokes cigarettes or not.”“Listen, Doc,” Maxwell said despairingly, “I am telling you for the last time – I can’t remember anything at all. Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I read, it just makes a temporary impression and then goes out of my head forever. That’s it, Doctor, I swear to you. I simply can’t remember one single goddamn thing!”The psychiatrist frowned, leaned back in his chair and pondered this unique malady for several moments. Then he asked, “How long has this been going on?”“How long has what been going on?”That’s my situation too! I don’t remember much. I am not very interested in the past, I am not interested in the future either. My whole interest is in the present moment.And you can see right now – I am a drunkard! Why bother with what Taru says, and somewhere it is written and you read it? Why bother? You can look into my eyes, and they are full of whisky!If you don’t believe me, come to me in private, and I will cry a little and you can taste my tears. And you will know how they taste – they will taste of whisky! If Jesus can turn the whole ocean into wine, can’t I turn my own tears?The sixth question:Osho,No erection happens. Am I still sexy? Fishes come, but go thirsty.Contemplate on Murphy’s maxim:If you play with something long enough, you will surely break it.The big tomcat was eyeing the cute angora from behind a barbed wire fence. Finally, he decided to jump over it to get to her. With a big leap he landed on the other side.“Say, aren’t you Toby, the tomcat?” asked the angora.“Not anymore,” he replied. “That fence was higher than I thought.”The seventh question:Osho,What are the ABCs of psychology?The A of psychology: neurotics build air castles. The B of psychology: psychotics live in them. The C of psychology: psychiatrists collect the rent.The last question:Osho,Why did you decide to speak instead of writing your philosophy?My spelling is far worse than my pronunciation!Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you!Desire and pleasure and lust…Play in your imagination with themand they will sweep you away.Powerful streams!They flow everywhere.Strong vine!If you see it spring up,take care!Pull it out by the roots.Pleasures flow everywhere.You float upon themand are carried from life to life.Like a hunted hare you run,the pursuer of desire pursued,harried from life to life.O seeker!Give up desire.Shake off your chains.You have come out of the hollowinto the clearing.The clearing is empty.Why do you rush back into the hollow?Desire is a hollowand people say, “Look!He was free.But now he gives up his freedom.”Gautama the Buddha’s whole religion can be reduced to a single word. That word is freedom. That is his essential message, his very fragrance. Nobody else has raised freedom so high. It is the ultimate value in Buddha’s vision, the summum bonum; there is nothing higher than that.It seems very fundamental to understand why Buddha emphasizes freedom so much. God is not emphasized nor heaven is emphasized nor love is emphasized, only freedom. There is a reason for it: all that is valuable becomes possible only in the climate of freedom. Love also grows only in the soil of freedom; without freedom, love cannot grow. Without freedom, what grows in the name of love is nothing but lust. Without freedom there is no God. Without freedom what you think to be God is only your imagination, your fear, your greed. There is no heaven without freedom: freedom is heaven. And if you think there is some heaven without freedom, then that heaven has no worth, no reality. It is your fancy, it is your dream.All great values of life grow in the climate of freedom; hence freedom is the most fundamental value and also the highest pinnacle. If you want to understand Buddha you will have to taste something of the freedom he is talking about.His freedom is not of the outside. It is not social, it is not political, it is not economic. His freedom is spiritual. By “freedom” he means a state of consciousness unhindered by any desire, unchained to any desire, unimprisoned by any greed, by any lust for more. By “freedom” he means a consciousness without mind, a state of no-mind. It is utterly empty because if there is something, that will hinder freedom; hence its utter emptiness.This word emptiness – shunyata – has been very much misunderstood by people because the word has a connotation of negativity. Whenever we hear the word empty we think of something negative. In Buddha’s language, emptiness is not negative; emptiness is absolutely positive, more positive than your so-called fullness, because emptiness is full of freedom; everything else has been removed. It is spacious; all boundaries have been dropped. It is unbounded, and only in an unbounded space is freedom possible. His emptiness is not ordinary emptiness; it is not only an absence of something, it is a presence of something invisible.For example, in emptying your room, as you remove the furniture and the paintings and the things inside, the room becomes empty on the one hand because there is no longer any furniture, or paintings, or ornaments, or anything at all left inside; but on the other hand, something invisible starts filling it. That invisibleness is roominess, spaciousness; the room becomes bigger. As you remove the things, the room becomes bigger and bigger. When everything is removed, even the walls, then the room is as big as the whole sky.That’s the whole process of meditation: removing everything; removing yourself so totally that nothing is left behind, not even you. In that utter silence is freedom. In that utter stillness grows the one-thousand-petaled lotus of freedom. Great fragrance is released: the fragrance of peace, compassion, love, bliss. Or if you want to choose the word God, you can choose it. It is not Buddha’s word, but there is no harm in choosing it.Meditate over these beautiful sutras:Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you!The number thirty-six is only a Buddhist metaphor; it stands for “many.” Many streams are rushing toward you. Each moment you are surrounded by a thousand and one desires, and they are all pulling you in different directions. You are a victim and you are falling apart.A young man entered a hotel. He saw a very beautiful woman sitting alone in the corner drinking coffee. She was so beautiful and so attractive, the young man could not resist temptation. He went close to her and asked her, “Can I join you?”The woman looked at him for a few seconds and said, “Do you think I am falling apart?”But that’s exactly the case: everybody is falling apart, even that woman. If I had been in the place of that young man I would have said, “Yes. You need to be glued together.”Everybody is falling apart. You are not one; you have become many, many fragments, and all the fragments are going in different directions. That’s why there is so much misery in your being, because when your parts, which are essentially your intrinsic parts, are being pulled in different directions you feel the pain of it. That’s what misery is: the pain of falling into different directions simultaneously, rushing into different directions simultaneously. That is what creates craziness, insanity.Buddha says: Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you! Beware! Not only one but many streams are rushing toward you. And if you don’t take care, if you are not alert, you will be possessed by them. If you remain unconscious, if you remain sleepy, you will be defeated by those streams. Those streams are not basically your enemies. They are pure energy, and energy is always neutral. When you are awake, those streams become great creative energies for you; but when you are asleep those same streams are dangerous. They are rushing toward buddhas too, but in the hand of a buddha, dust turns into gold. The touch of awareness is alchemical. In your hands, even if by chance you come across gold, it turns into dust. You are so asleep that you impart your sleepiness to whatsoever comes to you.Those thirty-six streams he is talking about are gifts of existence, gifts of great energy. It is coming from everywhere. Now, it depends on you whether you can transform those energies into a synthesis, whether you can transform those energies into an integrated whole, whether you can create an orchestra out of all those energies. Then you become a song, you create great music, your life becomes a melody.But if you cannot transform those energies, then you will be a victim and you will be divided into many parts. You will lose all integrity. You will become a crowd; you will not be an individual anymore.Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you!Desire and pleasure and lust…And so on, so forth. What is desire? Desire means greed for more. It is not fulfillable. It is impossible to fulfill the greed for more because that “more” has no limitation. “More” simply means an unlimited phenomenon. You have ten thousand rupees, you want one hundred thousand rupees. One day you get one hundred thousand rupees – now you want more. You want more and more and more. Whatsoever you get, the distance between you and your goal will remain the same; it is never reduced, not even by a single inch.That’s why beggars are beggars, obviously, but emperors are also beggars. Both are still hankering for more. What is the difference? No difference as far as the quality of their consciousness is concerned. Of course, the beggar does not possess much and the emperor possesses much, but that is not the point. The distance between the beggar’s possessions and what he wants and the emperor’s possessions and what he wants is exactly the same. One is a poor beggar, the other is a rich beggar; that much difference you can make. But both are beggars all the same.To be in the grip of “more” is to be really eccentric, off-center. If you can’t see it then you are not intelligent at all. It is such a simple phenomenon that just a little intelligence is needed to see it. In your whole life you have been trying and it is not that you have always failed; it only looks as if you have always failed. You have succeeded many times, but each time you succeed, your desire for more is projected again and you remain in the same position: miserable, unhappy, frustrated. If you don’t get what you want, you will be frustrated; if you do get what you want, you will be frustrated. It seems frustration is the destiny, the absolute destiny, of the unconscious man.A psychiatrist was going around a mental hospital. He saw a man beating himself, pulling his hair, looking very suicidal. He was kept in a cell as he was dangerous. The psychiatrist asked the superintendent, “What happened to this man?”The superintendent said, “He loved a woman, he loved her very much, but he could not get her. She married somebody else. Since then he has been in this state. He wants to commit suicide, he does not want to live. He says there is no meaning in life: ‘My meaning was in that woman. If I could not get that woman, that means my life is finished.’”Feeling sorry for the man – he was young and beautiful – they moved ahead. They saw another cell and another man was inside it, and he was even more ferocious, very murderous.The psychiatrist asked, “What has happened to this man?”The superintendent said, “This is the man who married that same woman! Since he has married her he wants to kill her, and if he cannot kill her then he wants to kill somebody else instead, but he wants to kill and destroy. He wants to kill the whole world! That woman drove him mad.”One is mad because he could not get her, the other is mad because he did get her. This is the whole history of every human being, more or less. It may not be so extreme, so you don’t see it, but the differences are only in degrees. The man in the grip of desire is bound to become insane.Buddha says: pleasure… Pleasure means that you think the body is the only source of happiness. That is sheer stupidity. The body’s pleasures are very momentary; they are not real pleasures. But everybody is caught in the net of the body. We are born as bodies, but we need not die as bodies. If we die as bodies, our whole life will have been a sheer wastage. You have to grow up.Remember: growing old is not growing up. Everybody grows old, but very few people, very rare people grow up. One who really grows up becomes a buddha. Growing up means you start becoming alert that bodily pleasures are momentary and they can change into their opposite very easily.For example, you love eating and you can go on eating too much. Then it becomes a pain. It was pleasure in the beginning, but there is a limit to that pleasure. It is said of Nero that he used to have four physicians always with him. Even when he was going into war those four physicians used to accompany him. When Nero would eat, their whole work was to help him to vomit so that he could eat again. He used to love eating so much that he would eat twenty times, twenty-five times per day. You will call him mad, and he was mad.Now, where is the pleasure in eating? Maybe there is a little pleasure of taste. On your tongue there are little buds which experience taste. They can be operated on very easily and then you will not feel anything at all. Then the whole pleasure of eating disappears. That’s what happens when you have a fever: your buds become dull, insensitive, so you eat but you don’t feel any taste. People are living to eat; there are very few people who eat to live. Millions are living only to eat.Humanity can be divided into two types of mad people: one type is obsessed with food; another type is obsessed with sex, and there is a deep relation between the two. The person who is obsessed with sex will not bother much about food and the person who is repressive of sex will become obsessed with food.Whenever a country is repressive of sex it becomes very obsessed with food. That’s what has happened in this country: for centuries it has been repressive of sex. That’s why Indians have been very inventive about food – new sweets, thousands of sweets. The world is completely unaware of all those sweets! And Indian food is so spicy that when a foreigner comes he cannot eat it; he cannot understand how people can eat it, it is so burning hot! Why such spicy food? It is repression of sex! If your sex is not repressed you will not eat such spicy food.Just the other day I received two letters, one was from a Western sannyasin, Mudita. She says, “Osho, listening to you I feel great joy, but then suddenly I become horny.” She must have been brought up with Victorian ideas, with Victorian education, outmoded thoughts.Another letter has come from Rekha, an Indian sannyasin. She says, “Listening to you, suddenly I had a great desire to eat spicy food.” Now, she is an Indian! An Indian woman cannot recognize even in herself that she is feeling horny, that is impossible. The whole desire has to move toward spicy food. But both are the same, there is no difference.Food and sex have one thing in common. Food is needed for the individual’s survival; without food you will not survive. And sex is needed for the species’ survival; without sex the species will disappear.Another phenomenon: the person who is living a natural life will not be obsessed with sex or with food. He will not be obsessed at all. But religions don’t allow that: you have to be obsessed with something or other. If you are not obsessed you will not go to the temples and the mosques and the churches and the synagogues. That is the very secret of their trade. This whole business of religion goes on and on with no sign of ever stopping, for the simple reason that you go on being obsessed with something or other.The person who is obsessed with sex will be less selfish; the person who is obsessed with food will be more selfish, because that food means his survival and sex means survival of the species. It is better to be sexual and to be after sexual pleasures than to live just to eat.This country has become very selfish for the simple reason that sex has been completely denied; brahmacharya – celibacy – has been propounded down the ages as one of the greatest values. And the ultimate result has been that everybody has become obsessed with food. Whenever people are obsessed with food they become selfish, obviously, because they are no longer interested in the species.Immanuel Kant, one of the great thinkers of the world, says: “This to me is the fundamental criterion of all morality: any principle that destroys humanity if followed is immoral.” Now, what will Immanuel Kant say about brahmacharya? If brahmacharya is followed by the whole humanity it will destroy humanity. It will be a suicidal phenomenon. According to Immanuel Kant, brahmacharya is immoral; more immoral than stealing, more immoral than dishonesty, more immoral than breaking your promise, more immoral than anything.I agree with Immanuel Kant, rather than with the whole Indian tradition. The criterion is this: you should think what the result will be if the principle is followed by everybody. It will be suicidal, it will be global suicide. There will be nobody left to be celibate anymore.The same is true about the so-called old escapist sannyas which was renunciation: that too is immoral. If everybody follows the escapist idea and drops out and escapes to the Himalayas, the whole humanity will die.In fact, your so-called mahatmas and saints live because you are in the world and you go on supporting them. If you are not in the world, if you are also in the Himalayas, following your saints and mahatmas, they will be at a loss. Who will feed them? Who will support them? They will have to commit suicide with their followers, and the Himalayas is a really beautiful site if you want to commit suicide, the best place in the world. If you could not live beautifully, at least you can die in a beautiful place. Your mahatmas are supported by the worldly people, yet they go on condemning the world. It is an immoral act. Escapism is an immoral act.I agree with Immanuel Kant; his criterion has something really valuable about it. Pleasure means either the pleasure of the tongue, food – which is very childish – or the pleasure of sex, which is also very childish because you are not just the body, you are more than that.Rise from pleasures to happiness. Happiness is psychological, pleasure is physiological. Listening to great music or reading great poetry or watching a sunset or just enjoying a morning walk and the wind passing through the pines and the music that it creates, the sound of running water, thrills you. Although it comes through the body, it reaches deeper than food or sex. It is more fulfilling. But that, too, is not the end because anything that is psychological is bound to be momentary.Beyond happiness is bliss – which is of the spirit, which is a timeless phenomenon. You go beyond time, you go beyond both mind and body. Then you know who you are. Then you function from your center. For the first time you are not eccentric. You become centered, you are not off-center. For the first time you have roots in your being; and those roots connect you with existence, with the whole. You become holy only when you are blissful. But pleasure prevents you; it prevents you at the lowest.I am not against pleasure, remember. I am not against anything. Everything has to be used as a stepping-stone for the ultimate peak. The body is beautiful and enjoying your food is good. Just don’t be obsessed by it. But if your saints are continuously condemning it, you will be obsessed by it.Obsession is created by your so-called saints. Whatsoever they condemn becomes your obsession. In fact, the more they condemn, the more attractive it becomes, the more magnetic it becomes.I am not against sex, but I would like you to go beyond it. Use it as a stepping-stone, use it as a ladder. It is beautiful in itself, but it is not the end, only the beginning. Don’t stop at the first chapter of your life; it has much more, much more hidden value that has to be discovered.…and lust… Lust is even far below pleasure. Pleasure at least respects the other. If you love a woman, you love her company; you love a man, you respect the man. But in lust you don’t have any respect; you simply use the other. Lust is even more degraded than pleasure; it is falling below humanity. You are simply using the other as a means.When you make love to a woman without any respect for her, what you are really doing is nothing more than masturbation. You are using the woman only to deceive yourself. There is no connection between you and her. When you go to a prostitute it is not pleasure; it is lust. You are paying, and love cannot be purchased; only bodies can be purchased.Remember this: when you purchase a body it is a dead body; the soul is not there. The woman is somehow tolerating you because she needs money. She hates you from her very guts; she would like to kill you. But she is pretending to be very loving, very affectionate because she is being paid for it. With her closed eyes she thinks of other things; she simply tolerates you. You are using her as a means, and she is using you as a means. She wants the money, you want the body; it is a mutual exploitation.Lloyd went to visit his favorite lady of the evening. He rang the bell and found there was no answer. Then he put on his glasses and read a note that was pinned to the door: “On vacation. Do it yourself.”It is not more than that. It is a mutual masturbatory practice; it is ugly, it is not even pleasure. Buddha says, “All these streams are rushing toward you.”Desire and pleasure and lust…Play in your imagination with themand they will sweep you away.You are all full of imagination. Making love to your wife you are not making love to her; you may be thinking of Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, and she may be thinking of somebody else. Both are pretending, their imagination is somewhere else. If you could look into the minds of people who are making love you would be surprised. It is very rare to find only two persons in a single bed; you will find a crowd. At least four are absolutely certain. It is always group sex because their minds are fancying, fantasizing.Even grown-up people – so-called grown-up people – are living in imagination. Not only children live in imagination; even old people live in imagination. People go on playing with toys, they never wake up. Their imagination continues to keep them asleep.Once again we enter that handy vehicle, the time capsule, and journey back through the sexy sixties, the nifty fifties, the fighting forties, the dirty thirties, and on into the roaring twenties where we stop, hat askew and shirt-tails flying from that fast and breezy trip. We are at that point in time when the transplanting of monkey glands and other such operations for the restoration of male vigor were in vogue.Surgery for the restoration of youth had just been performed on a seventy-year-old man who had hoped that, as a result, his chromosomes would henceforth be bouncing off the ceiling. As he came out from under the influence of the ether he began to weep bitterly.Mrs. Bernstein, the attending nurse, bent over him.“Mister, it is not necessary for you to feel worried,” she said kindly. “The operation was a big success. Take my word, when you leave here you will feel twenty years younger. Maybe more, who knows?”But the poor old man only continued to wail, the tears coursing down his cheeks and losing themselves in his long white whiskers.“Please don’t cry,” pleaded Mrs. Bernstein. “The pain will soon go away.”“Who is crying from pain?” sobbed the patient. “I am afraid I will be late for school.”Just look deep down inside yourself and you will find the child intact; it has not grown up. The ordinary mental age of every human being is not more than twelve. Physiologically you may be eighty; psychologically you are hanging around twelve. Hence, once in a while, you start behaving like a child, in spite of yourself. If you are pushed and pulled too much you forget that you are a grown-up person. The child is sitting there, covered by many experiences, but those experiences have not been digested; covered by much knowledge, but that knowledge has not become your wisdom because it has not been achieved through awareness. You have been collecting and accumulating it in your sleep, so you have accumulated much rubbish alongside. Yes, once in a while you may have picked up a diamond too, not knowing that it is a diamond but just another colored stone.Play in your imagination with them and they will sweep you away. If you allow, desire and pleasure and lust and greed and anger and jealousy and possessiveness and violence and all these streams rushing toward you will sweep you away. Don’t play with them in your imagination; that is strengthening them, that is getting under their sway.The miracle is that everybody can understand everybody’s imagination except his own. When somebody falls in love with somebody else you say, “How foolish!” Everybody thinks they have gone crazy. “Look at the face of that woman. She looks like a Picasso painting! And why is this man crazy about her? What does he see in her?” But when you fall in love, then it is totally different. She is a Cleopatra! Nobody else will agree with you; it is your imagination. And the same goes on and on in different layers, in different dimensions.The nonsense that is written in your religious scriptures is absolutely right; it is scientific. The nonsense that is written in others’ scriptures is so clearly nonsense; there can be no question about it, no doubt about it. Hindus can see all kinds of stupidities in the Bible, and Christians see all kinds of stupidities in Hindu scriptures. But it seems to be really a miracle that no Hindu will see anything wrong in his own scriptures; everything is scientific. And not only does he think it is scientific, he tries to prove it.Once a Hindu monk was brought to me. He came with many followers. One of his followers said, “He is a very great scholar; he has written many books. His whole effort in life has been to prove that Hinduism is the only scientific religion of the world.”I said, “Can he give any example?”He said, “You can ask anything and he will say why it is scientific.”I asked him, “Why do Hindus cut all their hair but keep a small bunch – the choti – on the top of their heads?”He said, “Simple! Have you ever looked at big buildings? They keep an iron rod there.”I could not see the point immediately.He said, “It is to protect the building from lightning. Hindus discovered it long ago: if you keep a choti – a little bunch of hair – standing up on your head, it saves you, protects you from lightning.”Now, what nonsense he is speaking! But he is known as a great mahatma because he is helping your egos; he is proving that your religion is scientific. He had come to see me with all his disciples. They were all wearing wooden shoes, wooden chappals – kharaoon – and making a great noise. The Hindus have been using those wooden shoes for centuries. It is really difficult because you have to hold them on with your toes, between your toes and they are heavy.I asked him, “Why these shoes? What science is there?”He said, “It keeps one celibate. The pressure of it is such that it keeps one’s sexual glands nonfunctioning.”Great, just great!I said, “Then India need not bother about population. Just give wooden shoes to everybody and let them all grow chotis so electricity does not affect them, sexuality does not affect them. They will all be saints. Such simple formulas!”But Hindus think he is doing a great service to Hinduism. That’s how it is with all the religions. Your imagination is truth; others’ truth is only imagination.A rabbi and a priest were discussing the differences between the Old Testament and the New. It was the priest’s contention that the New Testament gave more proof of divine cooperation because of all its purported miracles.“Remember,” argued the priest, “our Lord walked on water, he raised the dead, he fed hundreds of people with a few loaves of bread and some little fishes, he changed water into wine, and he ascended bodily into heaven.”“So what does that prove?” insisted the rabbi. “The Old Testament includes such miracles as parting the Red Sea, making the sun stand still, Moses ascending bodily to Mount Sinai to talk personally with God and to receive the Decalogue from the very hands of the Almighty.”The priest nodded. “I believe in those miracles too,” he acknowledged. “But be honest about it – do you really think your miracles have as much substance as ours?”The rabbi glared at him. “What is the matter with you?” he snapped crossly. “Can’t you distinguish between fact and fiction?”Our fiction is a fact and your fiction is fiction! Your fact too is fiction. Beware of imagination, it can cloud your mind. It can destroy your capacity to see clearly. Hence I say, unless you drop being Hindus, Mohammedans, Christians, you will not be able to see clearly. Your imagination has been contaminated for centuries. All your ideas and ideologies have to be put aside so that your eyes can face, can encounter truth as it is.Imagination keeps you asleep. If you come out of your imagination you start waking up.Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that the most important thing is to remember in a dream, “This is a dream.” But how to do it? It seems almost impossible. How to remember in a dream, “This is a dream”? But if you practice the Gurdjieffian method, one day you can remember it.The method is simple. You have to go on remembering the whole day, whatsoever you see, “This is a dream.” Walking on the street, “This is a dream”; the dog barking, “This is a dream.” Go on remembering the whole day, “This is a dream, this is a dream.” It takes three to nine months for the idea to sink into your heart. Then one day, suddenly, in your dream you remember and you say, “This is a dream!” – and that is a moment of great illumination. Immediately, the dream disappears. The moment you say it is a dream, it disappears and you are awake, fully awake, in the middle of the night.Of course, these trees and the people on the road are not a dream so they don’t disappear. You can go on saying, “This is a dream.” That was just a method to practice. But when you really remember in a dream that it is a dream, the dream disappears. The dream can exist only if believed; the dream disappears if you don’t believe in it. Our imagination is intoxicating.Lend an ear to this exchange of dialogue, circa 1936, when Dr. William Goldman was professor of English at Brandeis University.It was Graduation Day, and the father of one of the students had celebrated, not wisely, but all too well. He was in the parking lot adjacent to the university campus, peering owlishly at the cars, when Dr. Goldman appeared.“Say, mister,” called the weaving celebrant. “is my car the one on the left or on the right?”“Yours is the car on the right, sir,” replied the professor. “The car on the left is a subjective phenomenon.”It does not exist – just a subjective phenomenon. That’s exactly the meaning of the Indian word maya: a subjective phenomenon, it does not exist. But if you believe, it exists. It depends on you. You can make it almost function as real. There are many things which don’t exist, but you believe in them and for you they are realities. You are surrounded by fictions – religious, spiritual, metaphysical. There are many fictions surrounding you, and you have to wake up from all of them.Powerful streams!Buddha says they are everywhere:They flow everywhere.These streams are powerful, and your sleep is so deep. It seems very difficult to wake up, but you can wake up. My own observation is that these streams are powerful only in the proportion that you are asleep. If you become less sleepy they are less powerful. If you become fully awake, their power disappears totally.A drunk was passing a bus intersection when a large Saint Bernard dog brushed against him and knocked him down. An instant later a foreign sports car skidded around the corner and inflicted more damage.A bystander helped the poor fellow up and said, “Are you hurt?”“Well,” he answered, “the dog did not hurt so much, but that tin can tied to his tail nearly killed me.”Now, when you are not in your senses you go on seeing things which are not there at all or you go on projecting things. The world becomes a screen and you live in a private world. That’s exactly the meaning of the word idiot: to live in a private world, to live in a subjective phenomenon. That’s the meaning of idiot.After each drink at the local pub, Murphy took a small, furry kitten from his pocket, put it on the counter and stared at it. Finally the barman could no longer contain his curiosity and asked Murphy what he was up to.“Well, you see, it is this way,” said Murphy. “So long as I can see one kitten it is all right. But when I see two of them I have to do something.”“Like what?”“I pick up the two of them, put them in my pocket and go home,” said the Irishman.If you are intoxicated you will see the same world but in a different way. Your imagination will get mixed with it. You will not be able to make any distinction between what is fiction and what is fact. You will not have any power of discrimination. That’s exactly what makes these streams so powerful. They flow everywhere.Strong vine!If you see it spring up,take care!Pull it out by the roots.So whenever you see some imagination arising in you, be alert. Don’t let it grow, don’t let it become a big tree. It will be far more difficult then for you to get rid of it because you may have become attached to it; you may have invested many things in it; you may have started liking its company; you may feel unsheltered without it. It is better to cut it from the very roots in the very beginning. The moment you see it arising in you, beware – beware means be aware …take care! Pull it out by the roots.People go on changing. They don’t pull things out by their roots; they substitute one fiction with another fiction. That may give a relief for the moment, but it does not transform their life. Somebody is running after money, then he stops running after money; he starts running after power. Then he stops running after power and starts running after God or meditation or enlightenment. But he goes on running after something or other. He goes on substituting a new fiction for the old; the old no longer functions. He has seen it is fictitious, but he has not yet got the point that one has to uproot all imagination in one’s being.Lovebirds are supposed to be so devoted to one another that if one dies the other dies of a broken heart. A woman who owned a very cute pair had a fire in the house and one of the lovebirds was suffocated. Right away the other bird began to pine. The woman wondered if there was not some way to keep it alive so she put a mirror in the cage.The lovebird let out a joyous coo and cuddled up against the mirror, and lived for two years. It then died – of a broken mirror.One can postpone, but don’t go on postponing. Your life is very precious. If one lovebird dies it is better to come to your senses rather than replace it by a mirror or by something else.Pleasures flow everywhere.You float upon themand are carried from life to life.Watch out. It is a risky phenomenon to remain too attached to your pleasures, to your imagination, because this is how you have been going from one life to another. The seed cause of birth and death is desire, imagination, hankering for more. Remember, you are feeling so discontented in life because of your imagination. The more imaginative you are, the more discontented you will feel.Poets are very discontented people, so are painters, for the simple reason that they can imagine so well. They can imagine such a beautiful world that this world, in comparison, starts looking like hell. Ordinary people are not so discontented because they don’t have that much imagination. This world seems to be good enough for them.When imagination simply disappears from you, this world – this very world – is the lotus paradise. It is because of your imagination that you go on condemning this world. And remember, your imagination will be with you even if you are taken by the back door into heaven. You will condemn it, you will find faults. You will find a thousand and one things which should not be. You will find loopholes, flaws. Even in paradise you are going to be miserable. And a man without imagination, without desire, will find paradise even in hell. It is not outside you that paradise or hell exist; they exist inside you.If your mind is unclouded, if you can see clearly, you will find bliss showering everywhere. Each moment you will find paradise descending in you. Each moment you will find yourself surrounded by godliness. You need not go to Kaaba, you need not go to Kashi, you need not go anywhere. Godliness is coming to you in thirty-six streams, but because you are asleep that which could have been a blessing becomes a curse. Be aware and transform your curses into blessings. Just by being aware the transformation happens on its own accord.Like a hunted hare you run,the pursuer of desire pursued,harried from life to life.You think you are the pursuer, you think you are the hunter; that is not true. You think you are the possessor; that is not true. The possessor is really the possessed: your things start possessing you. Watch, and you will see the fact in your own life. Your things start possessing you: you don’t use them, they start using you. You are not a hunter, in fact you are hunted by your desires; those are the real hunters. You are running, pursuing shadows which you will never find. Who is pushing you from the back? Who is making you run? The real power is in the hands of your desire, imagination, in your unconsciousness.O seeker!Give up desire.Shake off your chains.One day Miss Tilly saw her big tomcat corner a cockroach in the kitchen. He was about to kill the bug when it addressed Miss Tilly: “Have your cat spare my life and I will grant you three wishes.”“A million dollars?” asked the spinster.“Granted!” said the roach, producing the money.“I want to be young and beautiful!”“You got it!” And she was.“Now,” said Tilly, “turn my tomcat into a tall, handsome prince lying next to me in bed!” It was done.“I am so happy!” she exclaimed.“I am glad,” said the prince beside her. “But aren’t you sorry now you had me fixed?”Even if your desires are fulfilled, something or other will be missing.O seeker! Give up desire. Shake off your chains. The more you desire, the more you become imprisoned. People are imprisoned in things, people are imprisoned by wives and husbands, people are imprisoned by their power. People are creating so many prisons – prisons within prisons, boxes within boxes – and still they want to be happy, they want to be joyous. How can they be joyous? Their life is suffocating! And only they, themselves are responsible.The kindly rebbetzyn asked, “Tell me, my good man, why do you drink all that whisky?”“Madam,” replied the good man, “what else should I do with it?”You don’t know what else you can do with your life. You know only how to create prisons. You know only how to create more misery. You have become really skillful! For centuries, for lives together, you have done only one thing: created chains, created misery, created pain for yourself and for others. You are sadomasochistic; that is your whole art. Either you will torture others or you will torture yourself, but you will torture. You don’t know that life can be a dance, a celebration. You can’t know it till you drop your desiring.Desire exists like a cloud of smoke around you; you can’t see anything. And you go on giving more fuel, you go on creating more and more smoke around yourself. Your eyes are burning, your eyes are full of tears, you can’t see, but still you think what you are doing is going to help you to one day attain all the joys of life. What you are doing to yourself is only going to give you more pain, more misery, more suffering.You have come out of the hollowinto the clearing.The clearing is empty.Why do you rush back into the hollow?Once in a while, it happens to you that you come out of your black hole – the black hole of desiring – into the clearing. Once in a while you can see.Right now many of you can see it, and a deep yes arises in you. You know perfectly well that you have been creating your misery, and you don’t want to. It is just that you have become very skillful in the art; you don’t know what else to do so you go on doing it. Without doing it you feel very empty – and you are very afraid of being empty.For centuries emptiness has been condemned. Emptiness is beautiful. And the foolish people have been telling you, “The empty mind is the Devil’s workshop.” The empty mind is God’s workshop! The occupied mind is the Devil’s workshop.But one has to be truly empty. Just being lazy does not mean that you are empty; not doing anything does not mean that you are empty. Thousands of thoughts are clamoring inside. You may be lazy on the outside, but inside much work is going on. Many walls are being created, new prisons are being prepared, so that when you get fed up with the old you can enter into the new. Old chains may break any time so you are creating new chains in case the old chains break; then you will feel very empty.Once in a while it happens naturally, because it is your very nature to be free. So once in a while, in spite of yourself, seeing a sunset, suddenly you forget all your desires. You forget all lust, all hankering for pleasure. The sunset is so beautiful, so overwhelming, that you forget the past and the future; only the present remains. You are so one with the moment, there is no observer and no observed. The observer becomes the observed. You are not separate from the sunset.You are bridged; in such a communion you come into a clearing, and because of the clearing you feel joyous. But then again you are back in the black hole, for the simple reason that coming out into the clearing you need courage to remain in the empty sky.That’s what I call sannyas. This courage I call sannyas – not escaping but coming into the clearing, seeing the sky unclouded, listening to the songs of the birds without distorting. Then again and again you become more and more attuned with the emptiness and the joy of being empty. And slowly, slowly you see that emptiness is not just emptiness; it is fullness, but a fullness of which you have never been aware, a fullness of which you have never tasted. So in the beginning it looks empty; in the end it is full, totally full, overflowingly full. It is full of peace, it is full of silence, it is full of light.You have come out of the hollow into the clearing. Sometimes while meditating it happens, sometimes while listening to music it happens, sometimes while dancing it happens, sometimes while just sitting doing nothing it happens. That’s what meditation is all about: allowing those moments to come more and more often, welcoming those moments, cherishing those moments, so that you become easily capable of coming out of the black hole. As you become accustomed to the clearing and the beauty of it and the blessing of it, you move less and less into the black hole. One day, suddenly you abandon the black hole; it is no longer your home. The clearing becomes your home, clarity becomes your home. That is the day of great rejoicing.Desire is a hollowand people say, “Look!He was free.But now he gives up his freedom.”I can see it happening in you. Many times I see a certain person coming into the clearing and then moving again into the black hole.This is what is happening to Somendra. He was coming into the clearing, he had tasted something of the clearing, but then the very experience of the clearing made him egoistic. It gave him a certain pious egoism. He started feeling special; hence, just the other day he was asking for recognition. He used to sit here in the third row; he wanted to sit in the first row. Now he has disappeared from the third row. He sits somewhere in the back, and there too he sits not facing toward me; his back is toward me! Moving into the black hole again.This is happening to many people. Many people come into the clearing and then so easily they move into the black hole. In a way it seems logical because they have lived in the black hole so long. The experience is new and threatening and the black hole starts claiming them again and again.This is happening to Turiya. She was coming into a clearing, and now moving into a black hole on her own accord. And the beauty of the whole thing is that when people start coming into the clearing they don’t thank me at all. They don’t write letters to me saying, “Thank you, Osho.” But when they start moving into the black hole they write great letters to me: “Why are you doing it to me? Why are you taking it away?” They had never thanked me. In the first place I had not given it to them, so how can I take it away? These things are not given or taken away.These things, you have to understand, happen from your very center. You have to learn one very fundamental rule: when they happen there will be every possibility of moving back to the old pattern. You are so familiar with it, so accustomed to it, you have lived in it for so long; it seems so safe, secure, cozy, warm. And the clearing seems to be cold, vast, empty, insecure. But in the clearing is real security because in the clearing is eternity. That black hole is only your mind, a small mind. But you are familiar with the small mind.You have to learn to love the unfamiliar, the unknown, and one day finally, the unknowable. Then you move into the mysterious more and more. Only then can you say one day, “I know nothing” – because existence is not knowable; it is a mystery, not to be solved. It is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived, to be loved, to be shared.Desire is a hollow and people say, “Look! He was free. But now he gives up his freedom.” And you are ready to give up your freedom, you are ready to give up anything. You are ready to give up your freedom for any toy. You don’t know the value of freedom.When the daughter of an aristocratic French family announces her engagement to a black man, Big Sam, her parents decide they must try to stop the marriage.They call Big Sam in and tell him that their daughter is used to every luxury and has to have the finest, largest house in Paris to live in. The black man draws himself up and announces, “When Big Sam loves, Big Sam buys,” and off he goes.Sure enough, he buys the biggest and best house in Paris.So the parents call him in again and tell him that their daughter longs for the largest, brightest diamond in all of France.“When Big Sam loves, Big Sam gets,” says the groom-to-be, and off he goes, returning with the biggest, brightest diamond the parents have ever seen.In the last-ditch attempt to stop the marriage, the girl’s father goes to see him privately, and tells him that to make their daughter happy he absolutely must have a prick that is twelve inches long.The black man answers firmly, “When Big Sam loves, Big Sam cuts.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Cannot the priests help humanity in some way or other?They have been helping humanity for centuries; hence this miserable state of things. They have helped to create as many lies as possible – lies which appear comfortable. But in the end, lies are lies. Maybe for a short time they give you a feeling of warmth, coziness, security, but only for the moment. Sooner or later you are in a far darker state, far colder than ever.Down the ages, priests have been inventing strategies for you to remain as you are. You don’t want to change; you simply want comfortable lies to be handed over to you so that you can go on living the way you are. To change oneself needs courage; priests help you to remain cowards. You are afraid of death. Priests go on consoling you, “Don’t be worried. Your soul is eternal.” And you don’t have any idea of the soul at all.George Gurdjieff used to say that it is very rare to come across a person who has a soul. Others are just empty; there is nothing inside. Yes, there is a potential to create a soul in everyone, but it is not an actuality. You can be a soul, you can become part of eternity, you can be immortal, but that is only a possibility. Much work – hard work, arduous work – will be needed to make it a reality, to realize it.But priests have been telling you for centuries that you already have a soul. Only the body dies and the soul continues on its eternal pilgrimage. It consoles you. It keeps you, in a certain sense, together. You don’t become too afraid of death. In fact, it would be better if you were too scared of death. That very fear might start an inquiry in you. That very shock might trigger a process of transformation in you.Buddha used to send his disciples to see dead bodies being burned, to meditate there, to watch the flames consuming a body until in the end nothing was left, only a few bones and ashes. This was his usual procedure – for the new sannyasins to be sent to watch the burning bodies for three months at least, so that they could feel the reality of death, so that the reality of death could sink deep into their hearts.Only that can wake you up. But now the priests are helping by giving you tranquilizers, to keep you asleep as comfortably as possible. That has been their service and they have been paid well for their service. They are as ignorant as you are, as unaware as you are. They are in the same situation as you are: they also need consolation. They look into scriptures for their consolation. They go on reading the scriptures, continuously repeating the same scripture again and again, because that’s how one gets auto-hypnotized. The Christian priest goes on reading the same Bible again and again, and the Hindu priest goes on reciting the Gita again and again. Every day, every morning he recites the same scripture. It becomes mechanical, it becomes like a gramophone record. He goes on repeating and it becomes part of his memory with no meaning, no significance. He is just like a parrot. But it gives consolation. Repeating certain truths again and again hypnotizes you.Krishna says: “When the body dies, the soul does not die. You can burn the body, but the fire cannot consume the soul. Na hanyate hanyamane shareere – you can kill the body, but you cannot kill the spirit, you cannot kill the soul, because no arrow can reach to it, no sword can cut it. Nainam chhindanti shastrani, nainam dahati pavakah – neither any weapon can cut me nor fire burn me.” Go on repeating it again and again and again, year in, year out; you become auto-hypnotized. You start believing it, although you have not created any soul in you yet.Krishna is right: the soul is eternal – but first you have to have it. It is not there. Soul means consciousness, soul means integratedness. Soul means that you know through your own experience that you are not the body and not the mind. It arises only through witnessing the bodymind mechanism. It is not created by repetition, repetition is hypnosis. It is experienced just the other way: you have to become dehypnotized, you have to become unconditioned. You have to forget all the scriptures and all the priests and you have to look into yourself. Howsoever fearful it is, you have to encounter your interiority.The priests help you to remain on the circumference. They seem to be great friends, but in the final reckoning they are the greatest enemies. It is not Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong who are the real enemies of religion. The real enemies are the priests, the popes, the shankaracharyas, and so on, so forth. They don’t know what they are doing. How can they help you? They simply go on repeating tradition, handing over conventions to you, ancient conventions, but dead.You ask me, “Cannot the priests help humanity in some way or other?” Yes, they can help, they can disappear! We no longer need them. Man has come of age. All these consolations are not needed. We need people, rebellious people, not conventional priests. We need buddhas, awakened people to wake you up. We need buddhas, not these priests who go on giving you new toys to play with. And they have created beautiful toys, no doubt about it. They are very clever, cunning. They have centuries of experience behind them in how to exploit humanity, how to exploit humanity’s weaknesses.But remember: they don’t differ from you in any way as far as consciousness is concerned. Maybe they know more than you know, their information is greater than yours. That is a quantitative difference; it is not a difference that makes a difference. A qualitative difference is needed.Being led by blind people is dangerous. They have destroyed the whole beauty of human beings, they have destroyed the freedom of human beings. They have destroyed all that is valuable. They have left you just deserted, empty, meaningless. It is felt all over the world. Why are people feeling so empty and meaningless? Who has done this to them? Centuries of priesthoods, of different religions, have been giving them false consolations. All those false consolations are no longer applicable. Man has become more adult. It is good to give children toys to play with, but when somebody comes of age and you go on giving him toys to play with, he will start feeling life is meaningless. He needs something more; he needs something more real. Beware of being led by blind people.A young woman, hardly more than a girl, went to see the local rabbi. “You don’t know me,” she began with a catch in her throat, “but I just had to speak to somebody. You see, I have no mother or father and I don’t know much about worldly matters.”“You don’t have to say another word,” said the rabbi. “I understand perfectly. It is a man, isn’t it?”“Yes, and he is always trying to kiss me. Kiss, kiss, kiss – that’s all he ever thinks of.”You must be firm,” said the rabbi sternly. “That kind of man you don’t need. Just tell him you don’t allow such kinds of goings-on.”As she left, the rabbi said, “Come back in a week and let me know how you are making out.”Sure enough, the girl returned a week later, but this time she was even more disturbed than before.“What is the matter now?” asked the rabbi.“I stopped him from all that kissing,” said the unhappy young lady, “but now – well, I don’t know how to put it…”“Put, put!” urged the rabbi. “With me you got nothing to be ashamed.”“He’s trying to – er – touch me with his hands,” she stammered in embarrassment.The rabbi rose from his chair in righteous anger. “You tell that no-goodnik he should keep his dirty hands to himself!” barked the rabbi. “What kind of a way is that to treat a decent Jewish girl? Tell him to stop at once, you hear?”But when she visited the rabbi again she was almost in tears. “I did everything you said,” moaned the girl, “but now he insists he wants to sleep with me.”“What!” yelled the outraged rabbi. “I never heard of such chutzpah in my whole life. You go right home and the next time you see him I want you to throw that bum out of the house. You understand? I am ordering you! Throw him out!”A few days later she visited the rabbi once more. Her eyes were red from weeping and her face was a picture of misery.“Did you do like I ordered?” demanded the rabbi.She nodded, and, still sobbing, she said through her tears, “Now he wants a divorce!”Your priests are as unconscious as you are, or even more. They are not even aware of the situation man is passing through. They go on handing out old recipes which are no longer relevant. They go on giving you great advice which may have been useful sometime in the past but is utterly out of context in the present situation.You don’t need more priests and their help. You need a few awakened people in the world. You need more meditators, not mediators. The priests have been mediators between you and God. You need more meditators, people who go deeper into their being, people who become centered, people who know the inner silence, the virgin silence and the tremendous beauty of it. They will help humanity, and they will not help humanity directly either. Their very presence will radiate new vibes which can transform.A real person always helps people indirectly. He is not aggressive. He does not command you, “Do this, don’t do that.” He does not destroy your freedom in any way. He simply lives his life in the light that he has found within himself. And being with him, something transpires between you and him.A real master is never a priest. And I have never heard about a priest who was a real master. If you are a master you cease to be a priest, and if you are a priest it is impossible for you to be a master. The priest belongs to a certain ideology – Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan. The master belongs to no ideology. He is more conscious, not more knowledgeable. He has more being, not more knowledge. He has more soul, not a bigger memory. He may not know the scriptures – because he himself is the scripture! And you will not find him in the temples and the mosques and the churches.I have heard about a very religious black man who wanted to go to church, but there was only one church in his neighborhood and that belonged to white people.The priest was a kindly man, as priests are supposed to be. When the man knocked on the door one day, the priest came out. The priest was in an embarrassing situation – whether to say yes to him or no. To say yes was dangerous because the whole congregation will be against it. It was the white people’s church and no black person had been allowed; that was a tacit agreement. But how to say no to this simple man whose eyes were full of tears and who said, “I want to come in and I want to pray to Jesus Christ”?But priests are cunning people. Howsoever kind they may appear on the surface, deep down they are cunning. If they are not cunning they will not be in the profession of the priests at all, because that profession is far worse than any other profession. Even prostitutes are better than priests! At least they sell only their bodies, and priests are selling even their souls.The priest immediately invented some strategy. He said, “Good, you can come, but not right now. First purify yourself, only then will your prayer be heard.”That was a tricky strategy. No white man was ever asked to purify himself first, and then enter into the church. And who is going to decide when the man is pure enough? That will be up to the priest and he can always go on saying, “You are not pure enough yet.”The man went back. He was really in a deep love affair with God; he cried and wept, and he tried in every possible way not to do anything wrong, to avoid anything that may make him impure. For three weeks he remained in isolation, fasting, praying. And after three weeks God appeared to him: his desire was fulfilled.After that experience he went to the church. The priest was very much afraid – this man was coming again, and he had such a beautiful aura around him that the priest was very much afraid to say, “You are not pure yet.” His purity was shining; it was like a sun rising on the horizon. It was so clearly there that to deny it would be a sin, and the priest was afraid.The man came very close to the door, just near the steps, stood there, laughed loudly, and turned back toward home. The priest was very much puzzled why he did this. He ran after him, got hold of him and said, “Why did you do this? Don’t you want to come in the church?”He answered, “No, I don’t want to come in the church. I had just come to see you and the church once more, because last night God appeared to me and when he was there I asked him, ‘Can I enter into the church? Am I pure enough now?’ God said, ‘You are pure, more pure than anybody else who goes into the church, more pure than the priest himself. But please, don’t go into the church. They won’t allow you in. I know it from my own experience because for years I have been trying to go into that church and they don’t allow me. If they don’t allow me into the church, how can they allow you? Drop the whole idea. I have dropped it myself!’”Your churches, your temples are empty. They are graves of religion. Religion no longer flowers there. Yes, when a Jesus is alive there is a great flowering, when Buddha is alive there is a great flowering, but not in a Buddhist temple, not in a Christian church.Priests are the people who take advantage of the awakened ones. Once the awakened person goes, leaves his body, the priests jump upon his doctrine, start making a great business out of it, start making interpretations according to themselves.Christianity has nothing to do with Christ, remember, and Buddhism has nothing to do with Buddha, and Jainism has nothing to do with Mahavira. It is a strange thing, but it has been happening consistently. No religion has anything to do with the original source. In fact, Christians are more destructive to Christ’s message than anybody else, and the priests are the leaders of the Christians. They don’t have any relationship with Christ, they can’t have. They are afraid of Christ. They must be afraid deep down that if sometime they come across Christ and he asks, “What have you done to my message?” how are they going to answer it?I have heard…Once the phone rang in the pope’s room in the Vatican. There was nobody else there so the pope himself took the call. It was from New York, and the archpriest from New York was trembling, his voice was trembling. He said, “Look! Listen! Believe me – a man has come into the church and he looks exactly like Jesus Christ. What am I supposed to do now?”The pope pondered over it for a few moments and then said, “Look busy!”What else to do?Priests have dominated humanity. They are the politicians of the inner world, just as politicians are the priests of the outer world. And there is a conspiracy between the priests and the politicians, a mutual understanding, a division: “You rule man in his subjectivity and we will rule man from his outside.” They have exploited, oppressed. They have destroyed much.And you ask me, “Cannot the priests help humanity in some way or other?” The only way that I can conceive is that because they are no longer needed, they should disappear. That will be their greatest service to humanity.The second question:Osho,I feel an urge for artistic expression and have had a disciplined, classical training in Western music. Often I feel this training imprisons spontaneous creativity and I have found it very difficult to practice regularly lately. I am not sure anymore what the qualities of true art are and by which process the artist produces and delivers authentic art. How can I feel the artist in me?The paradox of art is that first you have to learn its discipline and then you have to forget it totally. If you don’t know its ABC you will not be able to move very deeply into it. But if you know only its technique and you go on practicing the technique your whole life you may become very skillful technically, but you will remain a technician; you will never become an artist.In Zen they say that if you want to be a painter, for twelve years learn how to paint and then for twelve years forget all about painting. Just completely forget – it has nothing to do with you. For twelve years meditate, chop wood, carry water from the well. Do anything, but not painting.And then one day you will be able to paint. Twenty-four years training: twelve years training in learning the technique and twelve years training in forgetting the technique. And then you can paint. Now the technique has become just a part of you; it is no longer technical knowledge, it has become part of your blood and bones and marrow. Now you can be spontaneous. It will not hinder you, it will not imprison you.That’s exactly my experience too.Now don’t go on practicing. Forget all about classical music. Do other kinds of things: gardening, sculpture, painting, but forget about classical music, as if it does not exist at all. For a few years let it remain deep down in your being so that it becomes digested. Then it is no longer a technique. One day a sudden urge will take possession of you and you will start playing again. When you play again, don’t be bothered too much about the technique, otherwise you will never be spontaneous.Be a little innovative – that’s what creativity is. Innovate new ways, new means. Try something new that nobody has ever done. The greatest creativity happens in people whose training is in some other discipline.For example, if a mathematician starts playing music he will bring something new to the world of music. If a musician becomes a mathematician he will bring something new to the world of mathematics. All great creativity happens through people who move from one discipline to another. It is like crossbreeding. And children that come out of crossbreeding are far healthier, far more beautiful.That’s why in every country for centuries, marriages between brothers and sisters have been prohibited; there is a reason in it. A marriage is better if it is between people who are very distantly related or not related at all as far as blood is concerned. It will be good if people from one race marry into another race. And if some day we discover people on some other planet, the best way will be a crossbreeding between earth and the other planet. Then newer kinds, newer people will be coming into existence.The prohibition, the taboo against brother–sister relationship, their marriage, is significant, scientifically significant. But it has not been worked out into detail to its extreme, to its logical extreme. The logical extreme is that no Indian should marry another Indian, no German should marry another German. The best thing is that for instance, a German marries an Indian, an Indian marries a Japanese, a Japanese marries an African, an African marries an American, a Jew marries a Christian, a Christian marries a Hindu, a Hindu marries a Mohammedan. That will be the best thing. That will raise the consciousness of the whole planet. It will give better children, more alert, more alive, richer in every possible way.But we are so foolish that we can do anything, we can accept anything. Then what am I saying…?Chauncey, a handsome, almost pretty young man, was speaking earnestly with his mother.“Mumsie, the time has come – it really has – when we must have a heart-to-heart talk about my relationship with Myron. To be quite candid about it, our relationship has blossomed into – how shall I say it without sounding indelicate? – well, into something beautiful and good and even holy. The truth is, Mumsie dear, I love Myron and Myron loves me in return. We want to be married as soon as possible and we both hope you will give us your blessings.”“But Chauncey,” the mother protested, “do you realize what you are saying? Can you honestly expect me to condone such a marriage? What will people say? What will our friends and neighbors think?”“Ah, Mumsie, you are going to be dreary. I can feel it in my bones. And after we have been such good pals, too. I never would have believed it of you, of all people. I could just cry!”“But, son, you can’t go against convention like this!”“All right, Mumsie, let us have it right out in the open like civilized persons. Exactly and precisely what possible objection could you or anyone else have to Myron and me becoming husband and husband?”“You know perfectly well why I object: he is Jewish!”She is not objecting to a homosexual marriage; she is objecting because he is Jewish. People are so against each other. They have been conditioned for this antagonism for so long that they have forgotten completely that we are all human beings, that we belong to the same earth, to the same planet.The greater the distance between the wife and the husband, the better will be the by-product of the marriage. The same happens in music, in painting, in mathematics, in physics, in chemistry: a kind of crossbreeding. Whenever a person moves from one discipline to another discipline he brings the flavor of his discipline, although that discipline cannot be practiced. What can you do with your music when you go into physics? You have to forget all about it, but it remains in the background. It has become part of you; it is going to affect whatsoever you do. Physics is far away, but if you have been disciplined in music, sooner or later you will find theories, hypotheses, which somehow have the color and the fragrance of music. You may start feeling that the world is a harmony – not a chaos but a cosmos. You may start feeling, searching into deeper realms of physics, that existence is an orchestra. Now, that is not possible for one who has not known anything of music.If a dancer moves into music he will bring something new, he will contribute something new to music.My suggestion is that people should go on moving from one discipline into another discipline. When you become accustomed to one discipline, when you become imprisoned with the technique, just slip out of it into another discipline. It is a good idea, a great idea to go on moving from one discipline into another. You will find yourself becoming more and more creative.One thing has to be remembered: if you are really creative you may not become famous. A really creative person takes time to become famous because he has to create the values – new values, new criteria, only then can he be judged. He has to wait at least fifty years; by that time he is dead. Only then people start appreciating him. If you want fame, then forget all about creativity. Then just practice and practice, and just go on doing the thing that you are doing more skillfully, more technically perfectly, and you will be famous because people understand it; it is already accepted.Whenever you bring something new into the world you are bound to be rejected. The world never forgives a person who brings anything new to the world. The creative person is bound to be punished by the world, remember it. The world appreciates the uncreative but skillful person, the technically perfect person, because technical perfection simply means perfection of the past. And everybody understands the past, everybody has been educated to understand it. To bring something new into the world means nobody will be able to appreciate it. It is so new that there are no criteria against which it can be valued. No methods are still in existence which can help people to understand it. It will take at least fifty years or more; the artist will be dead. By that time people will start appreciating it.Vincent van Gogh was not appreciated in his day. Not even a single painting was ever sold. Now each of his paintings is sold for millions of dollars, and those same paintings people were not ready to accept even as gifts from Vincent van Gogh. He had given them to friends, to anybody who was ready to hang them in their room. Nobody was ready to hang his pictures in their rooms because people were worried. Others would ask, “Have you gone mad or something? What kind of painting is this?”Vincent van Gogh had his own world. He brought a new vision. It took many, many decades; slowly, slowly humanity started feeling that something was there. Humanity is slow and lethargic; it lags behind time. And the creative person is always ahead of his time; hence the gap.So, if you really want to be creative you will have to accept that you can’t be famous, you can’t be well-known. If you really want to be creative, then you have to learn the simple phenomenon: art for art’s sake, for no other motive. Then enjoy whatsoever you are doing. If you can find a few friends to enjoy it, good; if nobody is there to enjoy, then enjoy it alone. If you are enjoying it, that is enough. If you feel fulfilled through it, that is enough.You say, “I am not sure anymore what the qualities of true art are…” True art means: if it helps you to become silent, still, joyous; if it gives you a celebration; if it makes you dance – whether anybody participates with you or not is irrelevant; if it becomes a bridge between you and existence – that is true art. If it becomes a meditation, that is true art. If you become absorbed in it, so utterly absorbed that the ego disappears, that is true art.True art comes very close to religion. So don’t be worried what true art is. If you rejoice in doing it, if you feel lost in doing it, if you feel overwhelmed with joy and peace in doing it, it is true art. And don’t be bothered what critics say. Critics don’t know anything about art. In fact, the people who cannot become artists become critics. If you cannot participate in a running race, if you cannot be an Olympic runner, at least you can stand by the side of the road and throw stones at other runners; that you can do easily. That’s what critics go on doing. They can’t be participants, they can’t create anything.I have heard about a Sufi mystic who loved painting, and all the critics of his time were against him. Everybody would come and show him, “This is wrong, that is wrong.”He became tired of these people, so one day, he hung all his paintings in front of his house and he invited all the critics and told them to come with brushes, with colors, so that they can correct his paintings, because they have criticized enough; now the time has come to correct.Not a single critic turned up. It is easy to criticize, it is difficult to correct, and since then critics stopped coming and stopped criticizing his paintings. He did the right thing.People who don’t know how to create become critics. So don’t be worried about them. The decisive thing is your inner feeling, inner glow, inner warmth. If making music gives you a feeling of warmth, joy arises in you, ego disappears, then it becomes a bridge between you and existence. Art can be the most prayerful thing, the most meditative thing possible. If you can be in any art, music, painting, sculpture, dance, if any art can take a grip of your being, that’s the best way toward prayerfulness, the best way to meditate. Then you don’t need any other meditation; that is your meditation. That will lead you slowly, slowly step by step, into godliness. So this is my criterion: if it leads you toward godliness, it is true art, it is authentic art.The third question:Osho,What do you think of life after death?I totally agree with Tristan Bernard, the French-Jewish writer, who was once asked the same question. He was asked what he thought of life after death. He replied, “With regard to the climate, I would prefer heaven, but with regard to the company I would give preference to hell.”The fourth question:Osho,What to do with the persistence of unblissful, seemingly infinite resistance?Accept it, don’t resist it. Don’t resist the resistance. That’s what you are doing. The first resistance is not the problem at all; the second resistance creates the problem. You are resisting your resistance. Your misery is unnecessarily multiplied. Drop the second resistance and you will be surprised: if you drop the second, the first will evaporate on its own accord.Jesus says: “Resist not evil.” This is a very strange statement; no other awakened person has given such a rebellious statement. Christian priests, missionaries, don’t talk about it at all. They talk about other things, but they don’t talk about this strange statement: resist not evil. It seems very illogical, irreligious. Evil has to be resisted, and Jesus says: “Resist not evil.” Why?There is a secret in it. If you resist evil, you give energy to it. Every resistance gives energy to the thing resisted. “Don’t resist evil” means if you don’t resist it, it will drop on its own accord because you will not be nourishing it by your energy; you are disconnected immediately.You say, “What to do with the persistence of unblissful, seemingly infinite resistance?” Nothing has to be done. If you do anything you will create more and more resistance; that’s how you have made it infinite. It is not infinite. Only godliness is infinite, nothing else. How can your resistance be infinite? But you are making it infinite because you are pouring your energy into it. You are trying to resist it, fight it, repress it in subtle ways, so it comes up again and again.My suggestion is to accept it, and then see what happens. Whatsoever happens is good. In the beginning you may be afraid to accept it. In the beginning you will think, “If I accept it then I will have to follow it.” No, that is not the truth. If you totally accept it you will see it dying immediately, you have cut the very roots. That’s what Jesus means. He wants to destroy evil totally; hence he says: “Resist not evil.” If you resist, you will go on feeding it.The first resistance is never the problem, the second resistance is. And you cannot do anything about the first; you can do something only about the second, because that is yours. What can be done? If resistance is there it is there – welcome it, accept it. But you are doing the second in many ways.Amit Prem goes on writing letters to me: “I feel very sad, I feel very miserable, depressed. I suffer from an inferiority complex.” When I was reading his letter in which he talks about his suffering from an inferiority complex I was reminded about a politician who was going through psychoanalysis…After three years of great psychoanalytic work, the psychoanalyst one day welcomed him beaming with joy, and he said, “Come in. I have found everything. Now there is no need for any psychoanalysis anymore. Your problem is solved!”The politician was also happy. He said, “What solution have you found?”And the psychoanalyst said, “You are not suffering from an inferiority complex. You simply are inferior, so there is no problem!”This is acceptance. Amit Prem, you simply are inferior, accept it! You suffer from an inferiority complex because there is a great desire to be superior. That desire for superiority creates in its wake the suffering of an inferiority complex. Accept it.I am inferior – look at me! You can’t be more inferior than I am. I am so ordinary! I cannot do any miracle, I cannot walk on water. I must be suffering from an inferiority complex because Jesus walked on water. You see how ordinary I am! But I am so blissful because I go on saying, “So what?” I can’t walk on water, that’s true. I don’t make a problem out of it. You can make a problem out of anything.I have heard…When Moses was coming from Egypt and the enemies were following on his heels and they came close to the sea, now there was a problem: what to do? The sea was a barrier and the enemy was closing in. They were coming closer and closer every moment.Then suddenly a miracle happened: the sea became divided into two parts. Huge columns of water rose on both sides and a small pathway appeared in the middle.Moses looked at the sky and said, “My God, only one thing I have to ask you. Why is it always me who has to be the first? Now I have to enter into this danger! Why do I always have to be the first?”You can even complain about your miracles, and I don’t complain even about my ordinariness.Golda Meir, the ex-prime minister of Israel, used to say again and again, “I cannot forgive Moses. For forty years he led our people in the desert, and he found Israel – the only place where there is no oil! I cannot forgive this man. And he passed many places which had oil.”Simply accept the way you are. You can’t be anybody else. Because you are trying to be somebody else, that creates the trouble.Amit Prem goes on writing to me, “I want to be an insider in the ashram, and I remain on the periphery.” So what is wrong with being on the periphery? I am not even on the periphery! You are at least on the periphery. Wherever you are, enjoy it. If you become accustomed to creating misery for yourself, even if you are at the very center you will be suffering. You will say, “God, why do I always have to be at the center and to carry the whole responsibility?”I say, I am not at the center because I carry no responsibility at all. You will not find a more irresponsible person in the whole world than I am. I have no responsibility at all. Even on the periphery you have some responsibilities. Even the guards sitting on the gate have some responsibility.Learn to enjoy wherever you are and whatsoever you are. Don’t make much fuss about it. If there is resistance it is natural, because this whole process is of surrender. Sannyas is surrender. Resistance is natural. So accept it, and through acceptance it will die a natural death.The fifth question:Osho,Are you against the Women's Liberation Movement?I am not against women, I am all for them. But the liberation movement is something ugly – and I know the responsibility is on the male chauvinists. They have been doing so much harm to women down the ages that now the woman wants to take revenge. But whenever you start taking revenge you become destructive. The movement is still in a destructive phase; it has not become creative. And I am against destructiveness.It is of no use to go on looking at past wounds. It is of no use to take revenge because of the past. One should learn to forgive and forget. Yes, it was wrong – accept it. Whatsoever has been done to women down the ages was absolutely wrong. Man has exploited them. Man has been very brutal, very animalistic. Man has reduced women to slaves; even more than that, he has reduced them to things, to possessions. But what is the point of taking revenge? Then you become the pursuer and man becomes the pursued. Then another kind of chauvinism begins to take form and shape. Then the female chauvinist is born. And this is not going to put things right. Then the women will start doing harm to men, and sooner or later they will take revenge. Where is this going to stop? It is a vicious circle.My feeling is that instead of men stopping it, it is far easier for women to stop it, to come out of the vicious circle, because women are more loving, more compassionate. Man is more aggressive, more violent. I don’t have much hope from men, I hope much from women. Hence I am not in favor of the aggressive attitude and approach of the Women’s Lib. Movement.Mrs. Farid presented herself at the gate of heaven and knocked with trembling hand.“Madam,” said Father Abraham, peering suspiciously through a peephole, “from whence did you come?”“From Flatbush I came,” replied Mrs. Farid with embarrassment, as great beads of perspiration spangled her spiritual brow.“Never mind, my daughter,” replied the patriarch compassionately. “Eternity is a long time; you can live that down.”“Mister, I got something to confess,” she went on, obviously worried.“In our religion we don’t have confessions.”“But this is different. If you will take a look in your records, you will see that maybe I don’t belong here. I – I – well – I poisoned my husband and I chopped up my brother-in-law. Not only that, I…”Father Abraham suddenly grew stern. “Your aggressive behavior does indeed present a problem, madam. Were you a member of the Women’s Liberation Movement?”“No.”The gates of pearl and alabaster swung open upon their golden hinges, making the most ravishing music, and the patriarch bowed low.“Enter into thy eternal rest.”But Mrs. Farid hesitated. “The poisoning, the chopping, the…the…” she stammered.“Of no consequence, I assure you. We are not going to be hard on a lady who did not belong to the Women’s Lib. Take a harp.”“But I applied for membership. They would not let me in.”“Take two harps.”Don’t be worried. There are many women here who have belonged to the Women’s Lib. Movement. But as they have come closer to me, their attitudes have changed, their approach has changed. Life’s problems can only be solved by love, they cannot be solved by any violent approach.Men and women are different worlds; hence it is difficult to understand each other. The past has been full of misunderstandings, but that is not necessarily to be so in the future. We can learn a lesson from the past, and the only lesson is that man and woman have to become more understanding of each other and more accepting of each other’s differences. Those differences are valuable, they need not create any conflict; in fact, they are the causes of attraction between them. If all the differences between men and women disappear, if they have the same kind of psychology, love will also disappear because the polarity will not be there. Man and woman are like negative and positive poles of electricity: they are pulled toward each other magnetically. They are opposite poles, hence, conflict is natural. But through understanding, through compassion, through love, through looking into the other’s world and trying to be sympathetic to it, all the problems can be solved. There is no need to create more conflict. Enough is enough.Man needs as much liberation as woman. Both need liberation – liberation from the mind. They should cooperate with each other and help each other to be liberated from the mind. That will be a true liberation movement.That’s what sannyas is all about.The last question:Osho,Are you God the creator?Do you think I am mad?For almost a year, Grandpa Sulzberg had been a constant embarrassment to his family. He would mount a soap box on street corners in his neighborhood and proclaim himself the messiah. Then he would proceed to harangue the amused crowds that gathered, hurling fierce warnings and injunctions, reminding them of the dire consequences of their evil ways. In his long white robe which he had fashioned from a bed sheet, and his flowing, silvery beard, he did indeed look like a biblical patriarch.Old Sulzberg’s delusion gradually worsened, and finally his sons and daughters and grown grandchildren held a conference and reluctantly agreed to send him to an institution. There, they hoped, with proper treatment, he might regain his sanity and then return home.At the Cedars of Lebanon Home for the Mentally Disturbed, the “messiah” got along famously with his fellow patients. Until, that is, he made the mistake of exhorting them to abandon their godless ways.“I am Moses reincarnated,” he thundered like a prophet of old. “I am the messiah!”“Oh yeah?” yelled one of the patients. “Who said so?”“I will tell you who said so,” yelled Mr. Sulzberg-turned-messiah. “God said so!”And from the outer circle of patients an indignant voice rang out: “I did not!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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It is not iron that imprisons younor rope nor wood,but the pleasure you take in gold and jewels,in sons and wives.Soft fetters,yet they hold you down.Can you snap them?There are those who can,who surrender the world,forsake desire, and follow the way.O slave of desire,float upon the stream.Little spider, stick to your web.Or else abandon your sorrows for the way.Abandon yesterday, and tomorrow,and today.Cross over to the farther shore,beyond life and death.Do your thoughts trouble you?Does passion disturb you?Beware of thirstinesslest your wishes become desiresand desire binds you.The most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha is not God, it is not soul. It is freedom: freedom absolute, total, unconditional. He does not want to give you an ideology because every ideology creates its own slavery. He does not want to give you a religion because religion binds you. That’s exactly the meaning of the English word religion – that which binds you together. Religion is a bondage, very subtle, so subtle that unless you are very aware you will not be able to see it. He does not want to give you a philosophy of life because any philosophy given by somebody else is going to fetter you. You have to live according to your own light, not according to somebody else’s light.The whole world is full of slaves for the simple reason that everybody is living according to somebody else. Somebody is living according to Jesus, somebody is living according to Mahavira, somebody is living according to Krishna, somebody is living even according to Buddha.Buddha says: “Be a light unto yourself.” Unless you create a light within your own being you will remain a slave, you will be dominated. There are crafty priests, cunning, very clever, very worldly; and they are very experienced in creating new bondages for you. If you escape from one prison, they immediately create another. They are very clever with words. They go on interpreting words in such subtle ways that you will never be able to understand how these words of the buddhas are being manipulated, distorted. Words that were meant to give you freedom have been made into chains. But man is very unaware; hence he goes on remaining a victim of all kinds of psychological exploitation.Buddha teaches you freedom as the ultimate goal, the summum bonum, the highest good. There is nothing higher than freedom. Every other value is a by-product of freedom; they follow freedom as a consequence.Jesus says: “First seek ye the kingdom of God, then all else shall be added unto you.” Buddha will not say that. He will say: “First seek ye total and absolute freedom, and then all else shall be added unto you.” If you seek God you are again seeking a new prison, maybe better than the old, maybe made of gold, or precious stones, but a prison is a prison all the same. It makes no difference at all whether your chains are made of iron or gold. In fact, if the chains are made of gold it will be more difficult to come out of them because you will become attached. You will think those chains are not chains but ornaments. You will protect them, you will guard them lest somebody steal them away from you.Freedom is the fragrance of Buddha’s whole message. No other enlightened person has emphasized freedom so much. Why did Buddha emphasize freedom so much? – for the simple reason that he had seen all other ideals being changed into imprisonments. He had seen all beautiful philosophies poisoned by the priests. Beware of the priests!Buddha is not a priest, neither is Jesus, nor is Mahavira. No enlightened person is a priest. The priest lives on the words of the enlightened people and goes on exploiting the unenlightened. He certainly is clever but not wise, knowledgeable but not enlightened. He succeeds in manipulating you because you are unconscious.Hence, the second thing Buddha emphasizes is meditation, awareness. Freedom can come only through being more and more aware. By freedom he does not mean any social phenomenon or any political change, as some people have tried to say. I have come across books written by Communists, Marxists, socialists, who try to prove that Buddha’s freedom means Communism, socialism, that his freedom means a social revolution, a political revolution. That is utter nonsense! Buddha has nothing to do with the outside world; his concern is your interiority. He wants to change your unconsciousness into consciousness, he wants to change your darkness into light, he wants to change your death into deathlessness.He is really doing the work of the seers of the Upanishads who have been praying to God, “Asato ma sadgamay. O God, O Lord, take us away from the false, from the untrue, to the truth. Tamaso ma jyotirgamay. O God, O Lord, take us away from darkness into light. Mrityor ma amritamgamay. O God, O Lord, take us away from death to eternal life.” But they were praying to God.Buddha says: “No prayer is going to help.” Unless you do something, your prayer is impotent. There is no need to pray, but there is great need to meditate. His religion is not a religion of prayer. His religion is very scientific in the sense that he does not presuppose any belief. You need not believe in God, you need not believe in afterlife. He says when you can experience, then why believe? All beliefs ultimately reduce you to slaves.Buddha is against all kinds of beliefs and disbeliefs. He is an agnostic. He says remain open; if you believe you become closed. The Hindu is closed, the Mohammedan is closed, the Christian is closed: they have already concluded. They have already accepted a certain belief as true without experiencing it. This is dishonesty, and these people are thought to be religious people. They are not even authentic, they are not even honest, what to say about their religiousness? From the very beginning they are dishonest; belief makes you dishonest.The very process of belief is believing in something that you have not experienced on your own. How can you believe if you are sincere? If your search for truth is authentic you cannot believe; you cannot disbelieve either. You cannot say God is, you cannot say God is not. You can only say, “I don’t know and I am searching and I am seeking and I am experimenting and I am trying to experience.”That is the way of meditation.Prayer requires belief as a presupposition; without belief there is no possibility of prayer. To whom will you pray? To whom will you address your prayers? – to some God which you have accepted because it has been told to you from your very childhood, you have been hypnotized.Every belief is nothing but hypnosis. One is hypnotized into being a Hindu, another is hypnotized into being a Mohammedan; both are living in a kind of deep sleep. Hypnosis means sleep; the very word means sleep. You have been given so much poison, slowly, slowly through belief that you have fallen asleep. You are no longer aware of what you are doing, or why you are doing it. Why are you going to the temple? Why are you bowing down to a stone statue? Why are you reciting something meaningless? Why are you going to Kaaba or Kashi or Girnar? For what? There is something a priori. You already believe that is what religion is, without experiencing, without inquiring.This is the way of the coward, this is the way of the zombie. Meditation requires courage. It requires the basic integrity, sincerity, respect toward your own being. At least don’t deceive yourself.Buddha says: “Let your own experience decide.” If this is understood you are bound to move toward meditation instead of prayer. Then meditation will bring a prayer of its own – a prayerfulness, rather. You will not be praying but you will be in prayerfulness, because more and more you will become silent, more and more you will become still. More and more you will experience the presence, the mysterious presence that overwhelms everything, permeates everything. You may like to call it God, you may not like to call it God; it doesn’t matter what you call it. You may not like to call it anything; you may be silent about it, because that is the most appropriate thing to do. It cannot be put into any words; no words are adequate enough to express it.But Buddha has not been listened to. Humanity has remained in its old, zombielike, sleepy way. It has remained hypnotized, unconscious.Howard Rabinowitz, a huge, granite-fisted, super-tough young fellow, was drinking a whisky in a bar when he heard the announcement of the Six-Day War on the radio. Filled with excitement and Jewish fervor, he rushed to the airport and took the first available flight to Israel where he was immediately inducted into the army.But his reception at the military base was rather cool. He was not exactly avoided by the Israeli soldiers, but neither did they go out of their way to welcome him.“Listen, what’s with you guys?” he complained to his sergeant. “Here I come halfway around the world to help you out and I’m practically ignored. What must an American do to get accepted in this army?”The sergeant eyed the muscular young giant, glanced around somewhat furtively so that he might not be overheard, and then, in a voice that was almost a whisper, he said, “Confidentially and off the record, if you really want to be one of us, there are three things you must do.”“Name them,” said Rabinowitz.“First,” explained the sergeant, “you must drink down a whole quart of our strongest Mount Carmel wine without stopping for a breath. Second, you must kill an Arab army officer. Third, you must make love to an Israeli beauty.”So Howard Rabinowitz chug-a-lugged a whole quart of Mount Carmel wine without stopping.“Now,” he demanded, “where can I find an Arab officer?”“Right across the Suez Canal,” said the sergeant. “I’m afraid you’ll have to swim both ways – that is, if you’re still alive.”“I’ll be alive,” promised the American as he lurched off. “Hell, I was the roughest, toughest, biggest guy on the East Side. What’s a little adventure like this?”A few hours later he returned, soaking wet from his return swim, his clothes torn and his face scratched and bloody.“Okay, I took care of that Arab officer,” he roared. “Now, where’s that Israeli beauty you want killed?”That’s exactly the situation of humanity. You don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you are doing, you don’t know why you are doing it in the first place. You don’t know, even if you succeed, what is the point of it all. But still you go on doing something. It keeps you engaged and keeps you unaware of your unawareness.All your occupations are basically nothing but an effort to remain unaware of your unawareness because it hurts. It hurts to know “I am a zombie,” it hurts to know “I am a slave.” So you go on bragging about your slavery as if it is something very precious and valuable. You go on bragging about your being Indian or Pakistani or Israeli or German or American. You go on bragging about your being Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, and you don’t know you are bragging about your prisons!It is as if two prisoners are saying: “My prison is better than your prison. Look at the flag! My prison has the best flag in the world, the highest pole. And never say a word against my prison; otherwise you will suffer for it, you will have to pay for it.”My nation, my country, my church, my religion is higher than your religion, is higher than your church, is greater than your nation – and we are bragging about our prisons. This is utterly stupid. But why do we go on doing it? It is because that is the only way to save face.If we try to see the point, that all these are prisons, how can we avoid knowing that we are a prisoner not only of one prison but of many prisons, prisons within prisons? And that will destroy our egos. It helps our egos very much that “We are a great nation,” that “Our history is full of bravery,” that “We have created the greatest warriors” or greatest saints, or whatsoever it is. “We have created the most religious society in the world,” or the most democratic society or the most communistic society. This helps us to protect our egos. We find in every way methods and means, devices and strategies so that our egos remain intact.And the ego is the most false phenomenon in existence; there is nothing more false than the ego. It has no substance. It is a balloon full of hot air, or there is no balloon, only hot air! But we are living according to the dictates of this false god, the ego. And there are priests who go on helping us, who go on giving us new strategies, new interpretations. As times change, priests are ready to give us new interpretations.A small boy in the Sunday school was very puzzled when the priest said that God made everything. The boy looked puzzled, almost a question mark in his eyes.The priest asked him, “What is the matter, Johnny? You look very puzzled.”Johnny said, “Yes. You say everything – do you really mean everything? Then where is the reference that God made railway trains? I have never come across it.”And the priest said, “Yes, you must have overlooked it. There is a reference. It is said in the Bible that God made all creeping things; it includes the railway train!”It is not only that they are deceiving small children; they do the same to you.“Rabbi,” said the worried father, “I wish you would speak to my son. Here he is, bar mitzvah age, and all he ever thinks about is baseball.”The rabbi sighed to himself. “With so many delinquent children getting into trouble,” he thought, “this is indeed a minor problem.”“I am sorry to disappoint you,” he said, suppressing a desire to show his annoyance, “but I cannot scold your son for something we Jews have been practicing for thousands of years. In fact, there are several references to baseball in the Bible.”“Are you serious?” demanded the father incredulously. “What are they?”“Well, for example, you will recall that Eve stole first and Adam stole second; Gideon rattled the pitchers; Goliath was put out by David; and the prodigal son made a home run!”Priests are the most cunning people in the world.In Baltimore, at the turn of the century, an itinerant maggid, or preacher, looking for all the world like a prophet of old, with his majestic white beard and flowing, snow-white robe, was invited to speak at the Sanhedrin Temple. The synagogue’s regular rabbi was somewhat apprehensive about the old man’s ultra-orthodox views, but he had come highly recommended. The rabbi’s fears, as it turned out, were justified. The maggid harangued the congregation with a scorching sermon that would have done credit to a Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Baptist preacher. As the venerable patriarch brought his sermon to a close he shouted, “And I say unto you, the Day of Judgment is at hand, and unless you have lived in strict accordance with the law as handed down to us by Moses himself, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!”An old lady in the front row, frightened half out of her wits, cried out, “But, Rebbe, I have no teeth!”“My good woman,” thundered the righteous maggid, “teeth will be provided!”Buddha is not a priest, he is not a prophet either; he is a totally different kind of person. He is an awakened being, he has come to know himself. He is not an incarnation of God, he has no claim like that. He is not a special messenger of God; he has no ego like that. He does not claim that “I am the only begotten Son.” All this looks absurd if you think of Buddha. He is very simple and yet his message is the most practical, most scientific, most penetrating.He says, “I was as unconscious as you are; now I have become conscious and all my fears and sorrows have disappeared. One day I was like you, one day you can be like me; there is no qualitative difference between us. I am awakened, you are asleep; that is the only difference. I am not extraordinary, I am just as ordinary as you are. The only thing that has happened to me is that I have opened my eyes and you are still keeping them closed. Open them and see for yourself!”The sutras:It is not iron that imprisons younor rope, nor wood,but the pleasure you take in gold and jewels,in sons and wives.It is not iron that imprisons you… your prison is not that gross, it is very subtle. It is not so visible, it is very invisible. It is transparent. It is not that you remain in the prison; on the contrary, the prison surrounds you, wherever you go it moves with you. It is something in your mind, not something around your body. It is something in your very approach toward life.He says: It is not iron that imprisons you nor rope, nor wood, but the pleasure you take in gold and jewels… Now one thing very significant has to be remembered: this sutra has been misinterpreted for centuries. There have been twenty-five centuries of misinterpretation. For the first time I am telling you that it does not mean what Buddhists have been saying that it means. They think it means that gold and jewels have to be renounced; it does not mean that. It is so clear: …but the pleasure you take in gold and jewels… It is not the gold that binds you but the pleasure that you take in it. If you don’t take pleasure in it you can live in a palace and you are as free as anybody who lives in a cave in the Himalayas. If you take pleasure in your cave in the Himalayas you are as unfree as anybody who lives in a palace. The question is psychological.And one thing more: why do you take pleasure in the palace, in gold, in jewels, in diamonds? They all decorate your ego. Your ego is empty in itself, it is nonexistential. You have to continuously go on pouring things into it so it goes on giving you the sense that it is something substantial. It is constantly demanding, “Give me this, give me that.” It goes on demanding. It exists in the demand, it exists in the desire.It is just like when you are on a bicycle: you have to peddle it continuously. If you stop peddling, maybe for a few feet the bicycle may move out of the past momentum, but then it is bound to fall. Ego is just like a bicycle: you have to continuously peddle. If you stop peddling it falls then and there, flat on the ground.So if you have a palace the ego will demand a bigger palace and it will take great pleasure in the palace. It will brag about it, it will feel very puffed up. If you are a president of a country, it feels very puffed up. If you become famous, respectable, it becomes very puffed up. And the ways of the ego are very subtle. It moves in your unconsciousness, in the darkest layers of your being. It can take pleasure in gold, it can take pleasure in renouncing gold, but it is the same thing.I know many so-called saints who go on bragging still after thirty or forty years. Forty years before they had renounced the world and they still go on saying that “We renounced so much money, so much gold.” Still they go on talking about it! Forty years have passed, but they are still taking the pleasure.You see the point? You can take pleasure when you have gold, you can take pleasure when you renounce gold. In fact, when you have gold you can’t take as much pleasure as when you renounce it. Why? – because millions of other people have gold, it is nothing very special. But when you renounce you are a rare person: your ego becomes more extraordinary, holier-than-thou, superior-than-thou.I know one person who was a homeopathic doctor. Now, you know about homeopathic doctors – they somehow manage to live. Very rarely had I seen any patients visiting him. Yes, a few people used to come; they used to come to read the newspapers! In fact, that’s how I started going to his dispensary – to read the newspapers and to have a little chitchat, and then we became friends. He was always talking about his troubles and he was very worried.Then one day I heard that he had renounced the world; he became a saint. After three years I met him in Kolkata. He was worshipped, and people were telling me that he had millions of rupees that he renounced. I said, “Don’t be stupid, I know this man! He had only three hundred and sixty rupees in the bank!” Now they have become millions!When you renounce you can go on increasing the amount; nobody can prevent you and nobody can check on it, no auditing is possible. You can go on spreading the rumor how much you have renounced.When I saw him, I asked him, “Doctor…”He said, “I am no longer a doctor.”I said, “You are still the same. I know perfectly well that you had three hundred and sixty rupees in the post office! What millions are you talking about? You should say simply that you have renounced three hundred and sixty rupees!”He looked at me and he said, “Don’t talk so loudly. You will destroy my whole reputation!”The reputation depends on how much he has renounced, so when he moves from one town to another, the amount that he has renounced increases. It has been going on that way. This is not something new; this has happened before, too.Even in Buddha’s life story, Buddhists have written that he renounced so many golden chariots and so many elephants and so many horses and so many palaces. That is all nonsense, because he was not the son of a very great emperor or anything. The kingdom that he belonged to, Kapilvastu, was such a small place that it has almost disappeared from the earth, scarcely even a trace remains. All those palaces have not left any ruins. There were no palaces, and it was such a small village that to keep so many golden chariots there and so many elephants and horses would have been impossible. But the people who were writing the story had to go on making it look bigger and bigger.There was great competition between the Jainas and the Buddhists because Mahavira and Buddha were contemporaries. So you can look in the scriptures and see that Jainas write, “So many horses, so many elephants, so many chariots,” and the next Buddhist scripture makes a bigger claim. Then comes another Jaina scripture which makes a bigger claim than the Buddhist scripture! This went on for hundreds of years, until now it appears as if Mahavira and Buddha were great emperors, as if they dominated the whole of India.The truth is that in Buddha’s time in India there were two thousand kingdoms. Two thousand kingdoms? That means each kingdom could not have been more than a district, at the most, and the father of Buddha was not more than a deputy collector or maybe a collector or, if you insist, a commissioner, but nothing more than that.People take pleasure in gold, so much so that when they renounce it, still the pleasure lingers; one goes on thinking of it. Ego can fulfill itself either by having more money or by renouncing more money, but it always needs money and it always needs more. Remember it.Buddha says: …but the pleasure you take in gold and jewels… that is the real imprisonment; that creates your bondage, not the gold, not the jewels. What can they do? How can they bind you?I have lived in poor huts, they can’t bind you; I have lived in palaces, they can’t bind you. I have lived as a poor man, poverty cannot bind you; I have lived as a rich man, richness cannot bind you. Those things are on the outside. If you start taking pleasure in them, a certain gratification, then the bondage starts. If you take pleasure …in sons and wives. That too has been misinterpreted: renounce your wives and renounce your sons.There is no need to renounce anything; just understand. My interpretation of Buddha is that renunciation is not the point; understanding is the point. And if through understanding, something drops from your life, it is not renounced by you; it has simply fallen like a dead leaf from a tree. You cannot claim any credit for it.Just look into your relationships with your wife, with your son, with your husband, and see the fragility of it all. It has no substance in it. It is all poetry and fiction, it is not a fact.Just a few days ago a man came to me and he said, “I would like to become a sannyasin, but my wife says she will kill herself!”I said, “Let us try, for a change, because I have never seen anybody do it. I have one hundred thousand sannyasins all over the world. No wife has yet killed herself, no husband has yet committed suicide, although many have said that.”People take these things very seriously. Your wife or your husband may say, “I cannot live without you” – and she was living without you perfectly well before! Just a few days before she was not even aware of you and she was living perfectly well, in fact, she was better than she is now! But she says she cannot live without you, and you believe it because it nourishes your ego.Mrs. Goldfarb stood weeping at her husband’s grave when a courtly stranger approached her.“Madam, I regret the unfortunate circumstances under which I say this,” he began in a respectful manner, “but I must tell you I have fallen in love with you at first sight.”“Loafer! Bum!” cried Mrs. Goldfarb indignantly, aghast at this monumental impertinence. “Get out of my sight this instant or I will call a policeman! Is this a time to talk about love?”“I assure you, madam, that I did not intend to reveal my feelings at this sad time,” the gentle stranger explained, “but I was simply overwhelmed by your exquisite beauty!”“Listen,” said Mrs. Goldfarb, “you should see me when I haven’t been crying!”In a single moment things change. In this world, all your relationships are just made of the stuff poetry is made of; they are not even prose, they are fictions. People are living in fictions, and they go on painting, repainting their fictions; they go on keeping the fiction alive.Mrs. Saperstein had just sent the children off to school when the phone rang.“Is your husband’s name Philip Saperstein?” asked a sepulchral voice at the other end of the line.“What else?” replied the lady.“This is the coroner’s office. I am sorry to tell you this, but we have a traffic death here. We found your telephone number in his pocket. Would you please come down here to the morgue and identify the body?”Mrs. Saperstein arrived within half an hour and an attendant escorted her to a figure covered with a white sheet. The attendant then lifted a corner of the sheet and uncovered the victim’s face.“Was this man your husband?” he asked.Mrs. Saperstein eyes widened. “Ai-ai-ai! How did you – yes, that is my husband – ever get your sheets so white?”Don’t believe in fictions. Your wife, your husband, your children, your parents are all beautiful fictions. And I am not saying to renounce them; I am saying, simply understand the fictitiousness of them all. Live wherever you are, but don’t get identified with these imagined roles. Act, but don’t get identified with your acting role.That’s exactly what Buddha means:Soft fetters,yet they hold you down.Can you snap them?They are not very strong fetters, very soft, but Can you snap them? You cannot snap them if you are not conscious; and if you are conscious you need not snap them, they are no longer there. You simply see the point that in this world we come alone, we live alone and we go alone. Yes, we play many games – games of being a husband or a wife, being a friend or an enemy.We play many games because we have to fill the time with something, or else we have to “kill time,” as they say, by playing cards, by playing chess or some other game. And these are all the same kinds of things, nothing more serious. You have seen playing cards – kings and queens – and when you are playing cards they become very real. You can fight, people have even killed each other; just in playing cards they became so serious!We become so identified because we are not conscious at all. It is consciousness that helps you to become unidentified. Then you can go on playing all kinds of games. I am not against games, play them as artfully as you can. Let your life be fun! I don’t want you to be serious, I don’t want you to have long faces. Enough of that! Religious people have suffered much; there is no need. You can laugh and you can enjoy, but remember one thing: that all is just a game. Death will come and the curtain falls and the game disappears and the play is finished.There are those who can,who surrender the world,forsake desire, and follow the way.Who are those who can snap out of these identities? They are the courageous people, the meditators: the people who try to bring awareness to their life, to their acts, to their thoughts, to their feelings.Buddha’s persistent effort was to make you aware in everything that you are doing. If you are walking, walk with awareness. If you are eating, eat with awareness. Don’t simply go on stuffing yourself in a mechanical way. De-automatize yourself, don’t be a machine, be a man. And then you will be surprised to know that desires start fleeing away from you and the way opens.Moe and Ike, aged ninety and ninety-two respectively, had been widowers for many, many years. Both were healthy and handsome-looking despite their years. The Florida climate agreed with them, and many lovely widows were still after them despite their age.One day Moe said to Ike, “Ike, I’m really lonely. It’s been years since I lost my Becky and I’ve never remarried. But I think now is the time and I’m willing to take another chance at marriage, even at my age.”“It sounds like a good idea,” said Moe. “In fact, maybe I, too, should take a new wife.”Soon thereafter, Moe and Ike both married lovely ladies – eighty-nine and ninety respectively – and they both went on honeymoons.A few days later, Moe and Ike met on the boardwalk.“Well,” asked Moe, “how was your honeymoon?”“To tell you the truth, Moe, I couldn’t consummate our marriage.”“Well,” said Moe, “to tell you the truth, I didn’t even think of it!”But even at the age of ninety, people want to continue to play the old, childish games. Children can be forgiven. They need to play, they need to get identified, they need to go astray: they need to commit errors, mistakes, because that is the only way to learn and to mature. But even in old age, people behave as if they have not grown up at all.Remember, you grow only in the proportion that you become aware. You grow only in the proportion that you become unidentified with all the games that life makes available for you.O slave of desire,float upon the stream.Little spider, stick to your web.Or else abandon your sorrows for the way.Buddha calls people who are just slaves of their desires nothing but driftwood, victims of blind forces. They don’t know their destiny, they don’t know any meaning. They are just accidental; they don’t experience any intrinsic significance in life. From one game they move to another game. Their whole lives are a series of keeping themselves occupied somehow so that they don’t become aware of the fact that they have wasted a great opportunity of growing up, of coming home, of becoming a conscious being, of becoming that which they were meant to be. They go on missing.Buddha says: Little spider, stick to your web. It is your own creation. The world in which you live is your own creation, just like the spider creates its web out of itself and then is caught in the web and cannot leave it. You project your world out of your own mind, you project thousands of desires. That’s how you create the web and then you are caught in it. Somebody is caught in the desire for money, somebody is caught in the desire for power, somebody is caught in the desire for renunciation, somebody is caught in the desire for paradise – all desires!A real man of understanding has no desire. He lives in the moment and whatsoever is available, he enjoys it to its totality. He squeezes each moment, he drinks each moment! He eats whatsoever is available. He sleeps, but he is total in whatsoever he is doing.A Zen monk, Rinzai, was asked, “What is your meditation?”He said, “When I feel hungry I eat and when I feel sleepy I sleep, that’s all. I have no other meditation.”He is a real follower of Buddha! But you will miss the point if you are not told that when he says, “When I feel hungry I eat,” he eats with total awareness.In fact, a man who lives in awareness also sleeps in awareness.Krishna, in the Gita, says that the real seeker is awake even while others are fast asleep. When it is night for others it is still day for him. Something deep inside him remains constantly alert.That which is a night for everybody else is not a night for the one who is aware, who is alert, who is meditative, who is balanced, who lives in equilibrium, who lives in silence. Something deep inside him keeps awake. The body sleeps, the mind sleeps, but the soul is always alert. It is never tired so it need not sleep at all. It is awareness itself; it is made of awareness. Little spider, stick to your web.Hilda and Herman were spending a quiet evening at home. That is to say, Herman was quietly engrossed in a book, but Hilda was in a talkative mood.“Honey,” she began, “if I should die before you do, will you promise me something important?”“Yeah,” grunted Herman, without lifting his eyes from the page he was reading.“Promise me you’ll always keep my grave green.”“Aw, don’t be so morbid,” he replied. “What’s the use of talking about dying? You look pretty healthy to me.”He buried his nose in the book, completely absorbed once more, hoping he would not be distracted again.“Well, yes, I feel healthy, dear,” Hilda interrupted again after a minute of blessed silence, “but I want to be sure my final resting place won’t be neglected. You might want to remarry or something, and forget all about me.”“Look, Hilda, I’ll remember you forever. Stop shopping around for an undertaker and let me read!”This time he was rewarded with three whole minutes of peace and quiet, when his wife again took up the thread of conversation exactly where it had broken off.“I’d hate to be forgotten by my own husband. I suppose it is because I’m so sensitive – because I have so much emotion. Darling, are you positive that you’ll keep my grave green?”“Yeah, I’m positive,” he growled, his eyes glued to the page.“Well, that’s a great consolation. Only, I’d like for you to say it with more feeling. Precious, are you absolutely, positively sure you’ll keep my…”“Hilda,” shouted the pestered man, casting his book aside, “I will keep that damn grave of yours green if I have to paint it myself!”First they create these relationships – wife and husband, and then they start hankering for children, great desire for children arises, and it goes on and on. Then they want their children to get married; then they want their children to have children. This is an unending process. They go on and on thinking that this is going to fulfill them; if this is not going to fulfill them, then something else perhaps will, and the whole life is wasted.I am not saying don’t love or don’t have a wife or don’t have a husband or don’t have children. What I am saying is that the most essential thing should be looked at first. First be aware, be meditative, and then if you feel like having a little fun, enjoying a little misery, you are welcome! Get married, have children and children’s children, but don’t forget your awareness because only that is going with you. Only your awareness will pass through the fires of death; everything else will be left behind.And one thing very important, Buddha says: Or else abandon your sorrows for the way. People find it very difficult to abandon their sorrows. It looks, on the surface, somehow not right. Why should people hesitate to abandon their sorrows for the way?A real master never asks you anything except to sacrifice your sorrows. He wants you to give your sorrows to him, nothing else. But it is the most difficult thing to abandon your sorrows because you have lived with them for so long, you are so friendly with them, and to live with the familiar sorrows feels so cozy, so warm. They are old friends, and to abandon them is so difficult. Suddenly all your walls will disappear and you will be under the open sky because your walls consist of nothing but your sorrows. Your prison will disappear! And you have lived in the prison for so long, for so many lives that it has become your home.I know many prisoners. Whenever they are released from the prison, within three or four months they are back; they will do something and they will be back in the prison. I used to visit prisons and I asked a few people who were coming again and again back to the prison, “What is the matter?”They said, “When we leave the prison it feels as if we are leaving our home! We have lived in here so long and all our friends are here.” One man said, “Not only my friends are here, but my whole family is here! Outside I am just a stranger and I start feeling homesick, so I have to do something and come back.”Once a person is imprisoned it is very rare that he will not come back again. He will come back again because the prison gives some security, some safety. You need not bother, you need not worry about tomorrow. At the right time the food will be provided, at the right time you will go to bed, at the right time you will be awakened in the morning. Life is so disciplined; it is like a monastery!In fact, monasteries and prisons are not very different, just the names are different. Monasteries are a little harder, that’s all! Prisons are a little more human. And modern prisons, particularly in the developed countries, are far superior to the monasteries. It is better to be in a prison than to be in a monastery.I have heard about a Trappist monastery. A man entered and he was told by the abbot, “Remember, our rule is that you can speak only once in six years.” So for six years he was silent, boiling within.After six years the abbot called him and asked him, “Have you something to say?”He said, “Yes. The bed is too hard. I need another bed.”The abbot said, “Okay, that will be done. You can go.”For six years again he was boiling. Six years afterward the abbot called him and said, “Have you something to say?”He said, “Yes” – he was really angry. He said, “The people who were bringing the new bed broke the glass of the window and it is too cold.”The abbot said, “Well, it will be mended. You go back.”For six years again he was boiling within. He was called and the abbot said, “Have you something to say?”He was just going to say it and the abbot said, “Wait! For eighteen years you have done nothing but complain and complain. You get out of the monastery! You are not meant to be a monk. You want to live a soft and easy life.”Jails are far better, and modern jails are really worth living in, with color television and everything! Man has been improving continuously for centuries. He has improved his prisons very well. He has become very sophisticated, cultured, civilized. And this is nothing but just painting the prison walls, making them beautiful. And now suddenly a buddha comes and says to you, “Come out in the open. Abandon your miseries, your sorrows.” You cannot abandon your miseries and sorrows so easily.That’s why people who leave the world, renounce the world, create new miseries of their own. If there is nobody else to create misery for them – if you don’t have a wife to create it, if you don’t have a husband to create it, if there is nobody to support you in your misery – you will create it yourself. People are sleeping on beds of thorns; now, no wife prepares it, they themselves work hard on it! People are fasting, almost killing themselves. Now, nobody is doing it to them, that is their own idea.The ascetics are self-destructive; they are suicidal people, masochistic, perverted, but they are worshipped. They are worshipped because they create their own misery! You worship people as saints, as mahatmas, if they create their own misery. They should be entered into mental asylums, they should be treated. They need medical care. They are not mahatmas, they are simply masochists. They have renounced the world, but they cannot renounce misery so they start creating their own misery. And when a person creates misery for himself, you all respect him. You have been told that this is something great; he is sacrificing his life for God.God is not a sadist. He does not enjoy your miseries and your sorrows. Don’t be foolish, don’t be stupid! But the reason is that people cannot abandon their miseries. They can renounce the gold and the palaces and the money and the power, they can renounce everything, but when it comes to renouncing the miseries, this becomes the most difficult thing they encounter – because miseries have been with you so long that you don’t know any other style of living. The only style that you have become accustomed to is sorrow.That’s why your saints are so ugly, so sad, so serious. And the more serious and sad they are, the more they are worshipped, so their ego is again nourished. When their ego is nourished they torture themselves more; you worship them still more, then they torture themselves still more. This becomes a vicious circle.Abandon yesterday, and tomorrow,and today.Cross over to the farther shore,beyond life and death.If you really want to reach to the ultimate, to the deathless, to the timeless, you will have to abandon yesterday. That which is gone is gone forever. Don’t look back and don’t look ahead. That which is not yet is not yet. Don’t look for tomorrow.People are so foolish: they are not only looking for tomorrow, they are looking for life after death; they are even thinking of heavenly pleasures. They are rejoicing in the idea that there will be the eternal possibility of enjoying the same foolish things that they have renounced here. Strange logic! Here they say, “Don’t drink alcohol, it is irreligious.” But in bahisht, in the Mohammedan paradise, there are rivers, streams, waterfalls of alcohol. There you can drink as much as you want, you can swim in alcohol, you can dive deep in alcohol, and you don’t have to pay anything for it!Here they say, “The woman is the door to hell”; particularly Hindu scriptures say, “The woman is the door to hell.” And what is happening in heaven? Beautiful women, continuously dancing! How did these women enter there if they are doors to hell? Your gods must have all reached hell long ago. Here, renounce the woman and then you will be rewarded with beautiful women in heaven. And do you know that those women never grow old? Nothing is told about the men in the Hindu paradise, whether they grow old or not, but it is absolutely certain that the women are stuck at the age of sixteen, they cannot grow beyond that. That is the Hindu idea: sixteen is the climax of beauty, according to the Hindu idea. And ideas differ about heaven.In the Mohammedan paradise, even beautiful boys are available, not only girls, because homosexuality was very prevalent in the days when the Koran was being written. And of course, saints will not be satisfied only with girls, they will need beautiful boys too.Louis Jourdan, the French movie star, was in the United States seeking a good literary script for his next film. He happened to run into Budd Schulberg, the American author and playwright.“There is a new book out called Precocious Paula,” Schulberg suggested tentatively. “It would give you a great co-starring role.”“I nevair hear of zis book,” said Jourdan.“It is something like Nabokov’s novel, Lolita,” explained Schulberg.“And what ees zis Lolita about?”“Well, frankly, it is about a middle-aged man who falls in love with a twelve-year-old.”The Frenchman gave him a blank look. “I do not undairstan,” he said. “A twelve-year-old what?”Man, woman, animal – what? The Frenchman has his own ideas. I don’t know what happens in the French paradise, but it must be worth visiting! Not worth living in, but worth visiting. You will see all kinds of sexual perversions.Two professors were talking, one French, another American, about how many positions there are for making love.The Frenchman said, “One hundred and twelve,” and the American said, “One hundred and thirteen.”The Frenchman said, “You surprise me, because we French are the experts. You start telling me what those one hundred and thirteen positions are.”And the American said, “First, the woman lying down on her back and the man on top of her.”The Frenchman said, “Wait! Yes, there are one hundred and thirteen. I never thought of that!”It must be worth visiting, the French paradise! And what to say about the French hell? That may be even worth living in! You will find great company, and on each step a surprise.And these are the people who all over the world have been thinking of the same joys in a far bigger way in paradise – the same joys they are condemning here! This is not renunciation; this is just repression.Real renunciation comes out of understanding. It is not renunciation at all. The real renunciation is not renunciation at all, it is pure understanding. You see the point, and all that is stupid and all that is false disappears, and you start living your ordinary life with more awareness.Abandon yesterday, and tomorrow, and today. Buddha says: “Abandon time – past, future, present, abandon everything.” Forget about time; that’s the way to enter into a timeless space within yourself. That is meditation. Cross over to the farther shore, beyond life and death.Do your thoughts trouble you?If they trouble you, then something is immediately needed. If your thoughts trouble you that means you have not yet been able to disidentify yourself from your mind.Does passion disturb you?If it disturbs you that means you are still identified with the body. You think, “I am the body,” then passion disturbs you. If you think, “I am the mind,” then thoughts disturb you.Beware of thirstiness…This word thirstiness is a translation of a Buddhist word tanha. Tanha has many more dimensions than thirstiness; thirstiness is a literal translation. Tanha means desire, desire for more, unending desire, endless desire. The more you get, the more you want. It is like throwing fuel in a fire. That is called tanha, and tanha is the root cause of your misery.Beware of thirstiness lest your wishes become desires… Beware, because desires don’t arise suddenly. First they are just wishes, then slowly they condense and become desires. And once they become desires it is more difficult to become aware; you can become aware more easily when they are just wishes. Destroy the seed rather than wait for the whole tree to grow and then to cut it; it will be unnecessary work.…lest your wishes become desiresand desire binds you.Desire is our imprisonment. The man who wants nothing, who is absolutely contented as he is, is free of all bondage. He has attained to ultimate freedom, nirvana, and that is the goal of life. And it is only by attaining that freedom that you will know the significance of being, the song of being, the celebration of being. Your life will become a continuous bliss, and not only that you will be blissful, you will be able to bless others too. The whole existence will be blessed by you, by your very presence.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,You speak on the psychology of the buddhas, the psychology of transcendence, as the essence of the work happening here in the buddhafield. What is the uniqueness of this third psychology? Is there a psychotherapy of transcendence?Sigmund Freud introduced psychoanalysis into the world. It is rooted in analyzing the mind. It is confined to the mind; it does not step out of the mind, not even an inch. On the contrary, it goes deeper into the mind, into the hidden layers of the mind, into the unconscious, to find ways and means so that the mind of man can at least be normal. The goal of Freudian psychoanalysis is not very great.The goal is to keep people normal. But normality is not enough. Just to be normal is of no significance. It means your capacity to cope with the normal routine of life. It does not give you meaning, it does not give you significance. It does not give you insight into the reality of things. It does not take you beyond time, beyond death. It is at the most a helpful device for those who have become so abnormal that they are incapable of coping with their daily life; they cannot live with people, they cannot work, they have become shattered. Psychotherapy provides them with a certain togetherness – not integrity, mind you, but only a certain togetherness. It binds them into a bundle. They remain still fragmentary. Nothing becomes crystallized in them, no soul is born. They don’t become blissful, they are only less unhappy, less miserable.Psychology helps them to accept the misery. It helps them to accept, “This is all that life can give to you, so don’t ask for more.” In a way, it is dangerous to their inner growth because the inner growth happens only when there is a divine discontent. When you are absolutely unsatisfied with things as they are, only then do you go in the search, only then do you start rising higher, only then do you make efforts to pull yourself out of the mud.Jung went a little further into the unconscious. He went into the collective unconscious. This is getting more and more into muddy water, and this is not going to help. Assagioli moved to the other extreme. Seeing the failure of psychoanalysis he invented psychosynthesis. But it is rooted in the same idea. Instead of analysis he emphasizes synthesis.The psychology of the buddhas is neither analysis nor synthesis; it is transcendence, it is going beyond the mind. It is not work within the mind, it is work that takes you outside the mind. That’s exactly the meaning of the English word ecstasy – to stand out.When you are capable of standing out of your own mind, when you are capable of creating a distance between your mind and your being, then you have taken the first step of the psychology of the buddhas. And a miracle happens: when you are standing out of the mind all the problems of the mind disappear, because mind itself disappears; it loses its grip over you.Psychoanalysis is like pruning the leaves of a tree, new leaves will be coming up. It is not cutting off the roots. And psychosynthesis is sticking the fallen leaves back onto the tree again, gluing them back to the tree. That is not going to give them life either. They will look simply ugly; they will not be alive, they will not be green, they will not be part of the tree, but glued, somehow.The psychology of the buddhas cuts the very roots of the tree which create all kinds of neuroses, psychoses, which create the fragmentary man, the mechanical man, the robotlike man. And the way is simple.Psychoanalysis takes years, and still the man remains the same. It is renovating the old structure, patching up here and there, whitewashing the old house. But it is the same house, nothing has radically changed. It has not transformed the consciousness of the man.The psychology of the buddhas does not work within the mind. It has no interest in analyzing or synthesizing. It simply helps you to get out of the mind so that you can have a look from the outside. And that very look is a transformation. The moment you can look at your mind as an object, you become detached from it, you become disidentified with it. A distance is created, and the roots are cut.Why are the roots cut in this way? It is because it is you who goes on feeding the mind. If you are identified you feed the mind; if you are not identified you stop feeding it. It drops dead on its own accord.There is a beautiful story. I love it very much…One day Buddha is passing by a forest. It is a hot summer day and he is feeling very thirsty. He says to Ananda, his chief disciple, “Ananda, go back. Just three, four miles back we passed a small stream of water. Bring a little water – take my begging bowl. I am feeling very thirsty and tired.” He had become old.Ananda goes back, but by the time he reaches the stream, a few bullock carts have just passed through and they have made the whole stream muddy. Dead leaves which had settled into the bed have risen up; it is no longer possible to drink the water, it is too dirty. He comes back empty-handed, and he says, “You will have to wait a little. I will go ahead. I have heard that just two, three miles ahead there is a big river. I will bring water from there.”But Buddha insists. He says, “Go back and bring water from the same stream.”Ananda could not understand the insistence, but if the master says so, the disciple has to follow. Seeing the absurdity of it – that again he will have to walk three, four miles, and he knows that water is not worth drinking – he goes.When he is leaving, Buddha says, “And don’t come back if the water is still dirty. If it is dirty, simply sit on the bank silently. Don’t do anything, don’t get into the stream. Sit on the bank silently and watch. Sooner or later the water will be clear again, and then fill the bowl and come back.”Ananda goes there. Buddha is right: the water is almost clear, the leaves have moved, the dust has settled. But it is not absolutely clear yet, so he sits on the bank just watching the river flow by. Slowly, slowly it becomes crystal-clear. Then he comes dancing. Then he understands why Buddha was so insistent. There was a certain message in it for him, and he understood the message. He gave the water to Buddha, and he thanked him, touched his feet.Buddha says, “What are you doing? I should thank you that you have brought water for me.”Ananda says, “Now I can understand. First I was angry; I didn’t show it, but I was angry because it was absurd to go back. But now I understand the message. This is what I actually needed in this moment. The same is the case with my mind – sitting on the bank of that small stream, I became aware that the same is the case with my mind. If I jump into the stream I will make it dirty again. If I jump into the mind more noise is created, more problems start coming up, surfacing. Sitting by the side I learned the technique.“Now I will be sitting by the side of my mind too, watching it with all its dirtiness and problems and old leaves and hurts and wounds, memories, desires. Unconcerned I will sit on the bank and wait for the moment when everything is clear.”And it happens on its own accord, because the moment you sit on the bank of your mind you are no longer giving energy to it. This is real meditation. Meditation is the art of transcendence.Freud talks about analysis, Assagioli about synthesis. Buddhas have always talked about meditation, awareness.You ask me, “What is the uniqueness of this third psychology?” Meditation, awareness, watchfulness, witnessing – that is the uniqueness. No psychoanalyst is needed. You can do it on your own; in fact, you have to do it on your own. No guidelines are needed, it is such a simple process – simple if you do it. If you don’t do it, it looks very complicated. Even the word meditation scares many people. They think it something very difficult, arduous. Yes, if you don’t do it, it is difficult and arduous. It is like swimming. It is very difficult if you don’t know how to swim, but if you know how, you know it is so simple a process. Nothing can be simpler than swimming. It is not an art at all; it is so spontaneous and so natural.Be more aware of your mind, and in being aware of your mind you will become aware of the fact that you are not the mind, and that is the beginning of the revolution. You have started flowing higher and higher. You are no longer tethered to the mind. Mind functions like a rock and keeps you within the field of gravitation. The moment you are no longer attached to the mind, you enter the buddhafield. When gravitation loses its power over you, you enter into the buddhafield. Entering the buddhafield means entering into the world of levitation, you start floating upward. Mind goes on dragging you downward.So it is not a question of analyzing or synthesizing. It is simply a question of becoming aware. That’s why in the East we have not developed any psychotherapy like Freudian or Jungian or Adlerian – and there are so many in the market now. We have not developed a single psychotherapy because we know psychotherapies can’t heal. They may help you to accept your wounds, but they can’t heal. Healing comes when you are no longer attached to the mind. When you are disconnected from the mind, unidentified, absolutely untethered, when the bondage is finished, then healing happens.Transcendence is true therapy, and it is not just psychotherapy. It is not only a phenomenon limited to your psychology, it is far more than that. It is spiritual. It heals you in your very being. Mind is only your circumference, not your center.The second question:Osho,I feel like I have jumped into an ocean knowing nothing of its waters. I see you as the lifeguard. My fear is that I am a terrible swimmer and there are so many of us out here, you won't see or know when I am drowning.My whole effort here is to help you drown because the moment you disappear, godliness appears. To be drowned is to reach the other shore.Yes, you are right. If I were trying to take everybody to the other shore, it would be really difficult: one lifeguard and one hundred thousand people to be taken to the other shore. It will be really tiring and almost impossible, unmanageable. Then there is every possibility that you will drown the lifeguard!But the beauty of my work is that it is not a question of going to the other shore. If you are drowned, in that very drowning you have reached the other shore. So I need not remember everybody, his name, face – there is no need for me to be bothered with all that. My whole concern is to push you into the water, and then the water takes care. And really it is a deep ocean, and there is no possibility of anybody ever crossing it – so whether you are a terrible swimmer or not does not matter. If you are a terrible swimmer that is better, you will drown sooner than others! Those who can swim a little longer will remain a little longer in misery because they will be saving themselves.There are people here who are good swimmers, but they are the unfortunate ones. The really fortunate ones are those who don’t know even the ABC of swimming, so the moment I push them in the water they go down! That is the way to reach the other shore because only your ego drowns; you cannot. Only your ego dies; you cannot. You were never born and you will never die. No ocean can destroy you, no power can destroy you, no fire can consume you. That’s why I go on pushing you without any worry about you – whether you know how to swim or not, whether you will be able to reach the other shore or not. I talk about the other shore so that I can persuade you to jump into the ocean. Once you have jumped I forget all about you –I have to persuade others too!So don’t be worried. You are fortunate that you are not a good swimmer. Soon you will be drowned. And the moment you are gone is the greatest moment of your life, because in that very death is resurrection.The third question:Osho,What do you mean by understanding something in meditation? How does one go about it, and what part of oneself is involved in the understanding?Meditation and understanding are synonymous. So when I say “understand in meditation,” I am simply saying to be silent, quiet, cool, and see. You are not to do anything else, you have to be just silent, cool and calm, and see. And understanding arises on its own accord. It is the fragrance of being silent.Misunderstanding arises because your mind is very cloudy, noisy. Your mind never allows you to see that which is, never allows you to hear that which is said to you. Buddhas come and go but you remain the same. Yes, you become Christians and you become Buddhists, and you become Hindus, but you don’t change. These are your strategies to escape change, to avoid the awakened ones.You ask me, “What do you mean by understanding something in meditation?” It is not a great problem. Meditation is understanding. You are trying to figure it out intellectually, and that is not possible. You are trying to think about it, what it is all about. Whatsoever conclusion you arrive at will be wrong.It is not a question of thinking what is meant by it. Meditate, and experience. It is something to be experienced.You ask, “How does one go about it?” One does not go at all about it, otherwise you will go about and about. The word about means around, and you will go around and around in circles. Don’t make it an intellectual question; it is an existential approach. But the very word understanding has misled you, because by “understanding” we always think “intellectual understanding.” That is not so. There is nothing like intellectual understanding. Intellectual understanding is pseudo. It is misunderstanding pretending to be understanding. The word understand is beautiful.When you are in meditation everything stands under you, you are so above it. That’s the meaning of understanding. Everything is there far below you, so you can see, like a bird’s-eye view. You can see the whole from your altitude. Intellect cannot see it; it is on the same plane. Understanding happens only when the problem is on one plane and you are on a higher plane. If you are also on the same plane, understanding is not possible, you will only misunderstand. And that is one of the greatest problems to be encountered by every seeker.Jesus says again and again to his disciples, “If you have ears, hear; if you have eyes, see.” He was not talking to blind people or deaf people, he was just talking to people like you. But why does he go on insisting? It is for the simple reason that hearing is not listening, and seeing is not true seeing. You see one thing and you understand something else. Your mind immediately distorts it. Your mind is upside down. It makes a mess of everything. It is in confusion, and you look through that confusion, so the whole world looks confused.Old Nugent loved his cat, Tommy, so dearly he tried to teach it to talk.“If I can get Tommy to converse with me,” he reasoned, “I won’t have to bother with ordinary humans at all.”First he tried a diet of canned salmon, then one of canaries. Tommy liked both, but he didn’t learn to talk. Then one day Nugent had two extremely talkative parrots cooked in butter and served to Tommy with asparagus and french fries. Tommy licked the plate clean, and then – wonder of wonders – suddenly turned to his master and shouted, “Look out!”Nugent didn’t move. The ceiling caved in and buried the old man under a mass of debris. Tommy shook his head and said, “Eight years he spends getting me to talk, and then the dummy doesn’t listen!”You go thousands of miles to listen to a master and then “…the dummy doesn’t listen.”The mind cannot, it is impossible for the mind to listen; it is not in a state of receptivity. The mind is aggressive, it jumps to conclusions so fast, so quickly that it misses the whole point. In fact, it has already concluded, it is simply waiting for its conclusion to be proved right.Please don’t try to understand; rather try to meditate. You must be new here. Dance, sing, meditate, let the mind settle a little bit. Let this stream of the mind, which is full of dead leaves and dirt, settle down a little. Let it become clean and clear, transparently clear; only then will you be able to understand what I am saying. Then it is so simple. I am not talking very complicated philosophy – it is not philosophy at all – I am simply indicating toward certain truths which I have experienced, and you can experience any moment you decide to experience. But it has to be a journey.You say, “How does one go about it, and what part of oneself is involved in the understanding?” It is not a question of any part being involved in it. Your totality is involved.Meditation is not of the body, not of the mind, not of the soul. Meditation simply means your body, your mind, your soul, all functioning in such a harmony, in such wholeness, humming beautifully; they are in a melody, one. Your whole being – body, mind, soul, are all involved in meditation. That’s why my effort here is to start every meditation with the body. That is something new.In the ancient days people tried to start meditation directly in the innermost core. That is a difficult process. You don’t know anything about your inner center; how can you start your journey from somewhere where you have never been? You can start your journey only from where you already are. You are in the body, hence my emphasis is on dancing, singing, breathing – so you can start from the body. When the body starts becoming meditative – don’t be puzzled by my use of the word meditative for the body, for yes, the body becomes meditative. When it is in a deep dance, when it is functioning perfectly, undividedly, as a whole, it has a meditative quality about it, a certain grace, a beauty.Then move inward, then start watching the mind. Then the mind starts settling down. And when the mind has also settled, has become one with the body, then turn toward the center – a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn – and a great peace will descend on you. It will pulsate from your soul to the body, from the body to the soul. In that pulsation you will be one.So don’t ask what part of oneself is involved in the understanding. Your totality is involved, and only when your totality is involved is there understanding. Your body knows about it, your mind knows about it, your soul knows about it. Then you start functioning in unison, in unity. Otherwise the body says one thing, the mind says another, and the soul goes on in its own way. And you are always moving into different directions simultaneously. Your body is hungry, your mind is full of lust, and you are trying to be meditative. That’s why I am not in favor of fasting, unless it is done purely for health purposes, as a dieting for reducing weight, or maybe once in a while just for purifying, so the whole stomach is left for one day to rest, so the whole digestive system can sometimes get a holiday. Otherwise, it is continuously working and working and working – it too gets tired.Now scientists say even machines get tired. They call it metal fatigue, just like mental fatigue. Even metal needs rest, and your stomach is not made of metal, remember. It is not even made of plastic. It is made of fragile material, very fragile material. But it works your whole life. It is good sometimes to give it a holiday. Even God had to rest one day – after six days of work he rested for one day. Even God gets tired.So sometimes, just out of kindness for the poor stomach, which works for you continuously, fasting is okay. But I don’t suggest that it is going to be helpful in meditation. When you are hungry your body wants you to go to the fridge.I am against repressing your sex, because if you repress sex, whenever you will sit silently your mind will start fantasizing about sex. When you are occupied with other things the mind goes on fantasizing like an undercurrent, but when you are not doing anything it comes into the light. It starts demanding, it creates beautiful fantasies: alluring beauties surround you. How can you meditate?In fact, the old traditions have created all kinds of barriers to meditation, and then they say, “Meditation is very difficult.” Meditation is not difficult; meditation is a simple process, a natural process. But if you create unnecessary hindrances, then you make it something like a hurdle race. You create barriers: you put rocks on the way, you hang rocks around your neck, you keep yourself chained, imprisoned, locked from within with the key thrown away. Then of course it becomes more and more difficult, more and more impossible.My effort here is to make meditation a natural phenomenon. Give to the body what is the body’s need, and give to the mind what is the mind’s need. Then you will be surprised, they become very friendly. And when you tell the body, “Now for one hour allow me to sit silently,” the body says, “Okay. You have been doing so much for me, you have been so respectful toward me, I can do at least this much for you.”And when you say to the mind, “Please, keep yourself silent for a few minutes. Let me have a little rest,” the mind will understand you. If you have not been repressing, if you have honored the mind, respected the mind, if you have not condemned it, then the mind will also become silent.I am saying this from my own experience. Respect the body, respect the mind, so that they respect you. Create a friendliness. They are yours; don’t be antagonistic. All the old traditions teach you to be antagonistic to the body and the mind; they create enmity, and through enmity you cannot move into meditation. Then the mind will disturb you more when you are meditating than at any other time. Then the body will become restless – more in meditation than at any other time. It will take revenge, it won’t allow you to sit silently. It will create so many problems for you.If you have tried to sit silently for a few minutes you will know. Imaginary things will start happening. You will think that some ant is creeping on your leg, and when you look there is no ant. Strange… When you were sitting with closed eyes you felt absolutely that it was there, creeping, coming, coming, coming, and when you open your eyes there is no ant, nothing. It was just the body playing tricks with you. You have been playing tricks with the body. You have been deceiving the body in many ways, so now the body is deceiving you. When the body wants to go to sleep you force it to sit in a cinema hall. The body says, “Okay. When the right opportunity arises I will see to it.” So when you sit in meditation the body starts creating problems for you. Suddenly you start feeling your back needs scratching! And you are surprised because it never happens ordinarily.One woman brought me a plastic hand with a battery attached to it, to scratch your back. I said, “But why have you brought this to me?”She said, “You must be sitting in meditation. Whenever I sit in meditation the only problem is my back starts pestering, I feel so much like I have to scratch it, and I cannot reach it. So I have purchased this hand. This is very handy! You put it on and it can scratch anywhere. So I was just thinking that you must be sitting in meditation and you will need this!”I said, “I never sit in meditation. I am in meditation, so I don’t need to sit. Whatsoever I am doing I am in meditation. If my back needs scratching I will scratch it meditatively. What is wrong in scratching your own back? You are not scratching somebody else’s back.”Just take care of the body and the body will repay you tremendously. Take care of your mind and the mind will be helpful. Meditation comes easily when you create friendship, rather than trying to understand, because understanding is not possible before meditation, only misunderstanding.A man walked into a pub one night and sat down at the bar to drink a beer.While he was engaged in conversation with the man on the stool beside him, a monkey clambered down one of the bar posts, stopped at his glass and pissed in his beer.The man noticed it too late.“Hey!” he exclaimed. “Did you see that? That monkey just pissed in my beer!”“Well, no use tellin’ me about it,” said his neighbor. “Tell the barkeeper – he owns this place.”The man called the barkeeper over.“Hey!” he said. “Do you know that while I was talking with this gentleman a monkey came over and pissed in my beer?”“Nothin’ to do with me,” said the landlord. “Go and have a word with the pianist over there – it is his monkey!”The man walked over with his pint mug, tapped the pianist on the shoulder and said, “Hey, do you know your monkey has just pissed in my beer?”“No,” said the pianist, “but if you sing the words, I will play it.”The fourth question:Osho,Is not ego a part of divine play? Who am I to drop it?So please don’t drop it!The venerable old rabbi, known throughout the land for his wisdom, lay in a coma, very near death. On either side of his bed hovered his most worshipful disciples.“Rebbenyu,” pleaded the spokesman for the grieving congregants, “please do not leave us without a final word of wisdom. Speak to us for the last time, dear Rabbi.” For a few moments there was no response, and the weeping visitors feared he had passed on to his well-earned reward. But suddenly the rabbi’s lips moved ever so slightly. They bent over him to hear his final words.“Life is a cup of tea,” he whispered in a faint voice.The disciples looked at each other in perplexity. What did he mean? What great secret of life was hidden in that mystic statement? For the better part of an hour they exchanged opinions, analyzing the sentence from every conceivable standpoint, but they could not decipher the deeper meaning.“We must ask him before it is too late,” said the leader. Once again, he leaned over the still figure of the revered sage. “Rabbi, Rabbi,” he called out urgently, “we implore you to explain. Why is life a cup of tea?”With his last spark of energy, the rabbi lifted his palms and croaked, “All right, so life is not a cup of tea.”You say, “Is not ego a part of divine play? Who am I to drop it?” If you are enjoying the divine play, please don’t drop it. And there is one fear also: somebody may pick it up. It is better you keep yours. One to one is more than enough; somebody will have two if you drop it.Do you understand what is meant by divine play? If you understand it, then where is the ego? If you understand it is all divine play, the ego has disappeared. The ego exists only when you take life seriously. Ego is a very serious phenomenon – false, but serious. If life is a divine play, if you have come to this great wisdom, then where is the ego? Then you are just playing a part, you need not be identified with it. You are only acting. You need not become your acting. Ego simply means you become identified with your part, so much so that you forget that you are separate, you forget that you are consciousness. You become lost in the acting itself, you become it – that’s what ego is.Ego is not something that you have to drop. Ego is only a misunderstanding. You don’t drop misunderstandings, you simply understand and the misunderstanding is no longer there. You don’t drop darkness, you simply bring light in and it is not found at all. Not that first you bring light in, then you catch hold of darkness and throw it out of the house – there is no need. If you are really aware that it is a divine play, that means light has been brought in. Then you cannot ask the second thing.If it is your understanding that life is a divine play, then you cannot ask, “Who am I to drop it?” Then you are not, you disappear. There is no dropper and nothing to be dropped.But the first part of your question is not your understanding. So please, if you have dropped it, put it back, because there are so many foolish people, somebody may pick it up.An angry mother dragged her nine-year-old son to the doctor’s office and asked, “Is a nine-year-old boy able to perform an appendix operation?”The doctor barked impatiently, “Of course not!”The mother said to the kid, “So, was I right? Put it back!”The fifth question:Osho,Listening to you, a desire arises for awareness; but is not this very desire antithetical to awareness?If listening to me a desire arises for awareness, then you have missed the point. Listening to me you will become aware. If you are listening rightly, then awareness will happen through listening. If you are not listening, then a desire will arise to be aware. Desire means tomorrow you will be aware, that you want to be aware tomorrow. And if you are really listening to me, who bothers about tomorrow? This moment is all that is, you are aware.See right now… This is awareness: the birds chirping, the silence, three thousand people lost into one organic, oceanic unity, as if there is nobody. This is awareness, and the taste of it will transform you. And then wherever you want to be aware you can be aware. It is something that is happening in you. Listening to me is only a device.I am not here preaching to you; this is only a meditative device. Just as you are doing other meditations, this is also a meditation in which I participate with you so that your minds can become engaged with me, and your hearts can slip deep into your very core.If a desire arises for meditation, for awareness, then you have missed the whole point, because desire is a barrier. Either be aware right now – either now or never! You can’t say “Tomorrow…” The moment you say tomorrow you have postponed it forever.Yes, a desire is antithetical to awareness. Listening to me, understand that a desire is antithetical to awareness. Desirelessness is awareness. Seeing that desirelessness is awareness, how can you desire awareness? When, sitting with me each morning, you become silent, what is happening? There is no desire to be silent; that’s what is happening. Because there is no desire to be silent you are simply silent, and then that silence will go on surrounding you for the whole day.If you see the point then there is no need for any special situation for you to be aware in. You can be aware anywhere. In the very marketplace you can suddenly become aware. It is not a question of desiring; it is becoming aware suddenly. Any moment shake yourself a little, wake yourself a little.Two drunks were riding a roller coaster when one turned to the other and said, “We may be making good time, but I’ve a feeling that we’re on the wrong bus.”If you are postponing for tomorrow you are on the wrong bus; you are drunk, you are unconscious.A policeman appeared in court as a witness against Max Loeb, arrested for being drunk in public.“How do you know the defendant was intoxicated?” inquired the magistrate.“No doubt about it at all,” said the officer. “When I saw him, he was dropping a penny in a parking meter. Then he looked up at the big clock on the City Hall building and moaned, ‘My God, I have gained eleven pounds!’”Just a little consciousness… And it can happen only now. Existence knows only one time, now, and only one place, here. It knows no past, no future, it knows only the present. If you want to have any communion with reality you have to be aware right now.Wife: “How did you happen to hit a telephone pole?”Drunk: “I hit it in self-defense.”Just watch your life, what you are doing to yourself.The fireman was pulling the drunk out of the burning bed. “You fool,” he shouted, “that will teach you to smoke in bed!”The drunk answered, “I was not smoking in bed – it was on fire when I lay down.”So shake yourself. Don’t say tomorrow. Whenever you remember, whenever you remember me, whenever you remember Buddha, whenever you remember Jesus, just shake yourself. Wake up! See all around – the people, the trees, the birds. Be silent, available to existence, in a deep, deep let-go, and awareness will slowly, slowly go on penetrating deeper and deeper into you.Mulla Nasruddin was saying to me: “I am the sensitive type – a poet. When I see a beautiful woman I want to cry… Or write a poem… Or jump on her!“I was at a party in my hotel and I met this really great girl, and we drank champagne. I managed to get her up to my room. I locked the door and took off my glasses – showed her no mercy! And I winked… And she winked. And I took off my shirt… And she took off her shirt. I took off my pants… And she took off her pants – and I lunged at her. Then I realized I had been looking into a mirror. I was taking glass out of my legs for weeks. I must say I was the best I ever had!”The last question:Osho,Are you an anti-Semite?Levin, me? An anti-Semite? You must be crazy!Louie Feldman – a traveling salesman – caught the last train out of Grand Central Station, but in his haste he forgot to pack his toiletry set.The following morning he arose bright and early and made his way to the lavatory at the end of the car. Inside he walked up to a washbasin that was not in use.“Excuse me,” said Louie to a man who was bent over the basin next to his, “I forgot to pack all my stuff last night. Mind if I use your soap?”The stranger gave him a searching look, hesitated momentarily, and then shrugged. “Okay, help yourself.”Louie murmured his thanks, washed, and again turned to the man. “Mind if I borrow your towel?”“No, I guess not.”Louie dried himself, dropped the wet towel to the floor and inspected his face in the mirror. “I could use a shave,” he commented. “Would it be all right with you if I use your razor?”“Certainly,” agreed the man in a courteous voice.“How you fixed for shaving cream?”Wordlessly, the man handed Louie his tube of shaving cream.“You got a fresh blade? I hate to use one that somebody else already used. Can’t be too careful, you know.”Louie was given a fresh blade. His shave completed, he turned to the stranger once more. “You wouldn’t happen to have a comb handy, would you?”The man’s patience had stretched dangerously near the breaking point, but he managed a wan smile and gave Louie his comb.Louie inspected it closely. “You should really keep this comb a little cleaner,” he admonished as he proceeded to wash it. He then combed his hair and again addressed his benefactor whose mouth was now drawn in a thin, tight line.“Now, if you don’t mind, I will have a little talcum powder, some after-shave lotion, some toothpaste and a toothbrush.”“By God, I never heard of such damn nerve in my life!” snarled the outraged stranger. “Hell, no! Nobody in the whole world can use my toothbrush.”He slammed his belongings into their leather case and stalked to the door, muttering, “I gotta draw the line some place!”“Anti-Semite!” yelled Louie.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Quieten your mind.Reflect.Watch.Nothing binds you.You are free.You are strong.You have come to the end.Free from passion and desire,you have stripped the thorns from the stem.This is your last body.You are wise.You are free from desireand you understand wordsand the stitching together of words.And you want nothing.“Victory is mine,knowledge is mine,and all purity,all surrender.“I want nothing.I am free.I have found my way.Whom shall I call teacher?”The gift of truth is beyond giving.The taste beyond sweetness,the joy beyond joy.The end of desire is the end of sorrow.The whole philosophy of Gautama the Buddha is contained in the first sutra. It is of utmost importance. It is not only to be intellectually understood, it has to be lived; only then will you be able to understand it.Quieten your mind.Buddha does not preach any belief – belief in God, heaven or hell. His whole emphasis is on creating a silent space within you. You are already full of knowledge; more knowledge you don’t need. You need more innocence, you need an innocence like a small child. You need more wonder, more awe, more clarity.All these come to you when the mind is silent. When the mind is silent you are in communion with existence; when the mind is noisy you are disconnected. Your own noise functions like a wall around you. Silence is the bridge; knowledge, noise, is a barrier, and all knowledge creates noise in you. The more you know, the more you become indoctrinated, the more you are full of rubbish, junk.You need a spacious being within you, utterly empty, so empty that even you are not there, so silent that even the idea of “I” has disappeared. Then there is no barrier between you and existence. You fall in harmony. You become part of this tremendous celebration that goes on and on. You dance with the stars, you dance with the wind, you dance with the clouds. Your whole being becomes a dance, a song. You burst forth into thousands of flowers. But a silent being is a must; in a noisy being, nothing is possible. The noisy mind is impotent; it is not fertile, it is not creative. The silent mind is the right soil for your being to grow to its ultimate heights and depths.Hence the first sutra: Quieten your mind. One sometimes feels surprised the way Buddha starts. The way Buddha approaches reality is so unique. It is utterly revolutionary, radical. One would have thought he would start with a prayer to God – but there is no God. In Buddha’s vision God has no place. God is the invention of the ignorant people.For Buddha there is no God as a person; there is no creator because the creation is eternal. Yes, there is creativity, but no creator. There is godliness, but no God. The whole existence is overflowing with godliness, but God is not a person so you cannot pray to him.Remember, prayer is impossible with Buddha. Prayer presupposes a God, a personal God who can favor you if you praise him, who can be very disfavorable to you if you annoy him. This is childish, the whole approach is childish; it is not religious at all.Buddha begins in a very scientific way. Rather than talking about God he talks about you and about your reality. As you are, you are nothing but noise. Look within and you will see the truth of Buddha: you are just noise; not even a moment of silence happens to you. Hence your doors and windows remain closed. You are surrounded by your own garbage that you go on creating and accumulating, thinking that it is great treasure.Quieten your mind. The statement is very significant because the moment the mind is quiet the mind disappears. A quiet mind means a no-mind. A quiet mind is no longer a mind at all. Negatively you can call it a no-mind. That’s what Zen people have done, that’s what mystics like Kabir, Nanak, have done. They call it amani – a state of no-mind. But you can use a positive term also. Mahayana Buddhists call this state bodhichitta – the universal Mind. Mind with a capital M, mind you, not your mind, not my mind, but simply the Mind: the oceanic Mind, the Mind of the whole.Both are good. If you love positive ways of saying things you can call it bodhichitta – the Mind of the Buddha, the universal Mind. Or, if you love to be more accurate, then the negative way of saying it is more correct; call it no-mind, because as noise disappears, mind disappears. It is just as when your disease disappears, health is left behind, not that now you have a healthy disease. Disease is never healthy and mind is never silent. Disease is disease and mind is noise. When there is no disease then there is health; when there is no noise then there is no-mind.But a new experience arises in your innermost core: the experience of a silent music, a soundless sound. The mystics have called it anahat nad, the soundless sound; or, as the Zen people say, the sound of one hand clapping. It is basically paradoxical, hence the expression: the sound of one hand clapping.Buddha says: Quieten your mind. Really he is saying: “Go beyond mind, drop the mind, be finished with it.” And what is the way? How has it to be done?Reflect.That is the first fundamental. Remember, by “reflect” he does not mean contemplate, think. No, by reflect he actually means reflect – like a mirror. The mirror reflects; whatsoever comes in front of the mirror, it reflects it. It does not think about it, it does not contemplate it; it simply reflects. When it has moved, the reflection disappears.This should be the fundamental: reflect things, and when they have disappeared, let them disappear. Don’t go on carrying the past. Don’t become a photoplate; remember to remain a mirror. The photoplate also reflects, but it becomes attached to the reflection, it becomes obsessed with the reflection. It clings to it, it becomes imprinted with it. The mirror remains clean; it is not imprinted by what it reflects. It does not become beautiful when a beautiful face is reflected; it does not become ugly.So the seeker should be. When success comes, reflect; don’t become attached to it. When failure comes, reflect; don’t be disturbed by it. When you are in a palace, reflect the palace, and when you are in a hut, reflect the hut. Don’t become attached either to the palace or to the hut. Let everything come and pass, and simply be a mirror.If you are a mirror you cannot carry the past with you, and if you don’t carry the past you will remain fresh, you will remain young, you will remain in a continuous process of birth. Each moment you will be born anew. We become old… I am not talking about physiological age, I am talking about psychological age. We become very old for the simple reason that we collect the past.You are still carrying something that happened thirty years ago. Somebody had insulted you and that wound is still there; you still hanker to take revenge. You were rich fifty years ago, you cannot forget that yet; or you were poor and you are still carrying that with you.That’s how you find the world full of miserly people. From where do they come? These are poor people who have become rich, but they are still clinging to their poverty. Only on the surface they have possessions, but deep down they are poor, very poor. They can’t leave their poverty, they can’t depart from their past. They are carrying it; it has become a habit, it has become second nature to them. Hence the clinging to money. They cannot spend, they cannot use their money.I know a person who has at least ten buildings and earns a lot of money but lives in a very dirty house. All his buildings are beautiful, but those beautiful buildings have been rented and he lives in a dirty black hole. He has no wife, no children; he is alone.The reason I became acquainted with him was that whenever he would pass through the street where I used to live, at least from one furlong I would know that he was coming, because he used a bicycle so old that it must have been used by Adam and Eve! It made so much noise that I became interested in the man.I inquired, “Who is this man?” and they said, “He is one of the richest men of the town. His bicycle has no brakes, but one thing is good about his bicycle: if you tell him to purchase a new one he says no, because he can leave anywhere the old one and nobody ever steals it! Who will steal it? Anybody stealing it will be known all over the city, it makes so much noise!”I told a common friend that I would like to meet this man, and I asked him, “Why are you living in such misery when you can live beautifully, in a beautiful house? You have enough money, more than you need, and once you are dead there is nobody else for whom you are collecting all this.”He said, “I know it, but somehow I cannot spend. That is impossible. Once I get some money, the hardest thing for me is to spend it.” Tears came into his eyes and he said, “I also wonder what I am doing to myself. But I lived in poverty – my parents died when I was very young. I have been a beggar; slowly, slowly I have earned money. I gambled, I did all kinds of things, and that poverty is still within me. I am still an orphan, I am not a rich man, I am the poorest in this town.”And I could see it in his eyes. This is what happens to people.Just watch your mind and you will see a queue of past events going back, far back, to the age when you were three or four. And all that has become collected; it is heavy on you.Buddha says: “If you want to quieten the mind, the first thing is to learn the art of reflecting.” Just reflect and move on. Yes, live in the moment, live totally. Reflect whatsoever is and then let it move. Don’t cling to it, so that you are again pure, again innocent, again available, again empty, ready to experience again.It is because of your past that you cannot experience the present; your past distorts everything. It is because of your past that you go on desiring the future, because you don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past and you would like to have all the pleasures that you enjoyed in the past, again and again in the future. So your future is nothing but a modified past: all the pains have been deleted and all the pleasures have been multiplied. And between your past and future is the small present – which is real. Between two unrealities you are destroying that which is real. If you learn to reflect, then the past is irrelevant, the future is irrelevant; the only relevance is that of the present. Be present to the present is the meaning of reflecting.And the second thing: to quieten the mind, Buddha says:Watch.What will you do when you reflect? You are not a dead thing, you are not like a dead mirror. Be like a mirror, but you can’t be dead, you are alive. So what will you do? Watch.You think, you imagine, but you never watch. Watching is a totally different process. It means you don’t have any likes, any dislikes. You don’t condemn anything, you don’t appreciate either. You simply see and you are aware and you are alert, not dead like a mirror. You are aware. You are watching what is happening.You see a rose; you reflect it and you watch it. You don’t say anything about the rose. You don’t bring words between you and the rose because all those words are useless. When you are confronting a real rose why bring words in? Why destroy the reality of the rose by bringing in interpretations of the past? You may be quoting great poets – Shelley and Yeats – but by quoting them you are bringing a barrier between you and the rose. Leave your eyes utterly empty, but don’t fall asleep. Watch, just look silently. Be a witness.Watching means looking at things without any evaluation, neither saying it is good nor saying it is bad, because nothing is good and nothing is bad. Things are simply what they are.A rose is a rose and a thorn is a thorn; neither the thorn is bad nor the rose is good. If man disappears from the earth, roses will be there, thorns will be there, but there will be nobody to say that roses are good and thorns are bad. It is our mind that creates these values, and values go on changing.Just a hundred years ago nobody would have ever thought to put a cactus in one’s home. A cactus is all thorns. If you had brought a cactus into your home, people would have thought you were mad, something had gone wrong with you! But now to grow roses in your home is orthodox. The avant-garde people grow cactuses; they are the really cultured people. They keep cactus plants in their bedrooms too – poisonous, dangerous, but the cactus is “in” and the rose is “out.” Fashions change.In this century, ugly things have become beautiful and beautiful things have become ugly. Picasso is valuable – one of the ugliest painters the world has ever known! Just two hundred or three hundred years ago he would have been forced to live in a mental asylum if he had painted things like this. He would have been thought insane, utterly insane, because the world of Michelangelo is a totally different world; a different valuation existed. The world of Leonardo da Vinci is a totally different world.Fashions go on changing. Every day man goes on changing. Nothing is, in fact, good or bad, beautiful or ugly. It all depends on you. Whatsoever you start thinking is good, beautiful, becomes good and beautiful. A Jaina monk moving naked is thought to be great by the Jainas, but others think it a little obscene. Many times problems arise.Just a few days ago in a village, there was a riot because a Jaina monk entered a town and the non-Jainas objected to having a naked man walking inside the town. “This is bad for our children and our wives and our daughters.”I am not against nudity, but I am also not in favor of Jaina monks moving naked. My reason is totally different; my reason is that they look so ugly. Unless you have a beautiful body you don’t have the right to be naked. I can accept Mahavira moving naked. It is said that he had one of the most beautiful bodies, and it seems to be so because all his statues are so beautiful. He must have had a very beautiful body, very proportionate. If he moved naked, that can be understood. To cover his beautiful body with clothes would not be right. But Jaina monks deliberately destroy their bodies. They are masochistic people: they cripple their bodies in many ways. They make them as ugly as they can, because the uglier your body is, the more respected you are. So they become caricatures. They are cartoons, not real people. It is better to cover them in beautiful clothes.It depends on what your criteria are, what your values are. But in reality, nothing is good and nothing is bad; things are simply what they are. If you witness then there is no question of choice. Then a choiceless awareness arises in you.That’s what J. Krishnamurti says; it is basically the message of Buddha. The followers of Krishnamurti think that he is teaching something very original. It has nothing original in it; it is essentially the message of Buddha. It is not J. Krishnamurti’s invention. In a different sense it is original; it is original in the sense that it is his experience. He also knows it as much as Buddha knew, but it is not new, not original in the sense of being new. It is original in the sense that it has originated in him. He is not repeating Buddha, that is true. He is not imitating Buddha, that is true. He is simply saying what he has known. But whatsoever he has known is the same truth as Buddha’s truth.In fact, there are not two truths in the world, so all the awakened ones know the same truth again and again. Their language is different, their expression is different; it is bound to be so. Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha. How can I speak the same language? And how could Buddha have spoken the language that I speak? That is impossible. But the followers of Krishnamurti go on claiming that his teaching is absolutely original, new – that is utter nonsense. It is basically the same teaching as Buddha’s: choiceless awareness. That is the meaning of “reflect” and “watch.”Be aware, but don’t choose. If you choose, you lose watching. If you start clinging – because the moment you choose you will start clinging – then reflection is lost. And once you have fulfilled these two simple things – reflection and watchfulness, then…Nothing binds you.You are free.These simple sutras are enough. If you can practice only these two things – reflection and watchfulness – nothing else is needed. You are free, nothing binds you. You are really freedom; nothing can ever bind you. All bondage is imaginary. You think you are in bondage; hence you are in bondage. It is your thought.Harvey Pincus, the passionate playboy of Prospect Park, oblivious of human limitations, speeded up when he should have slowed down. To his surprise and dismay, he awoke three days later in Bellevue Hospital where he was placed on a strict diet of raw eggs and oysters with wheat germ, garnished with ginseng and soybean sprouts.A week later, his physical desires returned and, after having been rebuffed by Bellevue nurses of various shapes, sizes, ages and national origins, he demanded to be released forthwith so that he might resume his al fresco prowling in the Prospect Park perimeter.Pincus was soon confronted by Dr. Siegel, the hospital’s staff psychiatrist. “Before we release you, you will have to take a Rorschach test,” explained the medic.“What is that?” asked Pincus suspiciously.“A kind of personality gauge. I will just show you some inkblots and you tell me what each one suggests to you.”“So go ahead and test.”Dr. Siegel handed him the first blot. “What does this bring to mind?”“That’s easy,” replied Pincus instantly, his eyes lighting with pleasure. “It is a girl’s hips.”“And this?” asked the psychiatrist, handing him another inkblot.“A woman’s breast. Very nice, too.”“Hmm – how about this one?”“Wow, Doctor, what a gorgeous pair of legs!”Siegel had already reached an obvious conclusion about his patient’s proclivities, but he continued with a half-dozen more inkblots just to make sure. When Pincus continued to respond as though all the “pictures” were sexual symbols, right up to the last blot, the doctor leaned back in his chair and rendered his diagnosis.“My dear fellow,” he began, somewhat severely, “in case nobody ever told you, you have an abnormal fixation on sex.”“What does that mean, if I may be so bold to inquire?”“It means, sir,” Siegel explained bluntly, “that you have a filthy mind.”“Well, look who’s talking!” Pincus yelled, outraged. “You are showing me all those dirty pictures and I’ve got a filthy mind?”What you are seeing in the world is not really there; it is your projection. You will be able to see what the world is like only when your mind has learned to be silent, to watch, to reflect. Then you will know that which is. Right now what you know is nothing but your own mind being projected on the screen of the world. Everything functions as a screen for you and you go on projecting your ideas; hence the insistence of Buddha on making the mind absolutely quiet.When the mind is silent the projector stops, the screen becomes blank, and then for the first time you see the glory of existence. Then for the first time you become aware of the splendor and the blissfulness and the peace that surrounds everything. You become aware of godliness overflowing everywhere. Everything is known then in its authentic reality, undistorted by you.The preacher was telling his congregation that there are over seven hundred different kinds of sin.The next day he was besieged with mail and phone calls from people who wanted the list – to make sure they were not missing anything.If you talk about sin and you want people to stop, what they hear is totally different. They start feeling that they are missing something: “Seven hundred sins – just think about it!” And you will also start feeling, “My God, how much I am missing! Seven hundred, and I have not even committed seven! I go on committing only a few, two or three again and again, and there are seven hundred sins! What a wastage of life!” You don’t even know the names of them.The night clerk at the Hotel Algonquin was surprised to see a battered-looking man, wearing nothing but his undershorts, enter the lobby from the street. The stranger staggered to the desk and paused there, weaving groggily. “What can I do for you?” inquired the clerk.“I would like to be escorted to the third floor, room 302,” said the near-naked man.“Room 302,” repeated the clerk. He consulted the register. “I am sorry, sir, but that room is occupied by Mr. Oscar J. Levine of Toledo. It is pretty late to be rousing a guest!”“I know what time it is, well as you do,” retorted the inebriated one. “Just show me to room 302 without any further con-conver… Any further talk.”“Well, what is your name?”“My name is Oscar J. Levine, and for your information I just fell outa the window!”People are almost asleep, drunk with a thousand and one desires. There is nothing more intoxicating than desire. And it is not only one desire that is intoxicating you, there are many, many desires – seven hundred desires at least! They are all intoxicating you, and they don’t allow you to see that which is. You can’t see that which is unless you stop desiring.Desiring disappears on its own accord if you become silent, because in a silent mind no desire can grow. Desire can grow only in a clouded mind, clumsy and confused.Buddha says:You are strong.You have come to the end.Free from passion and desire,you have stripped the thorns from the stem.This is your last body.If you can fulfill the requirement of being silent, reflecting, witnessing, then you are strong, you are no longer weak. The man who lives in desires always feels weak because thousands of desires are pulling him in different directions. He is almost falling apart. Somehow he is keeping himself together, managing, dragging. He is tired, but he does not know what else to do. Everybody else is doing the same. People are running after desires. Nobody seems to be fulfilled, nobody seems to reach anywhere, but what else to do? When everybody is running, you start running. It is a crowd psychology.To be a sannyasin, to be a seeker of truth, means getting out of the world of crowd psychology, the mob mentality. Unless you become aware that the crowd is dragging you with it and you step out of the power of the crowd, you will never be able to know what truth is, you will never become a buddha. And to be a buddha is your birthright.You are strong. But your desires go on making you weak. Once you have become silent you will be able to see it. A silent state of your being is so strong that you know you have come to the very end, you have come to fulfillment. One comes to fulfillment not by achieving something in the outside world but by reaching to one’s own innermost core: what Jesus calls the kingdom of God, what Buddha calls nirvana, what Mahavira calls moksha.When you have reached to your innermost core suddenly you become aware that all that you have been desiring was useless and what you really needed, what was your real nourishment, has been waiting for you inside you. Your search has to be inner, not outer. You can become Alexander the Great, you can conquer the whole world, and yet you will die with empty hands. Don’t be bothered with all that nonsense. Be a Buddha, not an Alexander!Buddha means one who has seen his truth and is contented, utterly contented with it. Free from passion and desire, you have stripped the thorns from the stem. This is your last body. If you can be free from passion and desire…Passion is a state of fever, it is a hot state. We know only two states: either we are very hot – that is passion – or we are very cold – that is anti-passion. If you love, you become very hot; if you hate, you become very cold. And exactly in the middle is the point where you should stop. That point is neither hot nor cold. It is transcendental to both, it is cool. And when you are really cool, silent, peaceful, mysteries open their doors for you. A feverish man, in a passionate state, is almost blind.Feinberg came home from a business trip and his wife coolly informed him that she had been unfaithful during his absence.“Who was it?” shouted Feinberg, “that rotten Goldberg?”“No,” his wife replied, “it was not Goldberg.”“Was it that crooked partner of mine – that goniff, Levy?”“No, not Levy.”“I know who it was – it was that momzer, Shapiro!”“No, it was not Shapiro, either.”Feinberg glowered at his wife. “What is the matter?” he barked. “None of my friends are good enough for you?”People are not really living, just mechanically moving, victims of blind forces. When sex takes possession of you, you are not your own master. Or when greed takes possession, or anger, or jealousy, you are not your own master. You are being dragged. And it is very strange that you allow it to happen, that you don’t feel insulted or humiliated. Each of your instincts makes you a slave. You not only tolerate this slavery, on the contrary, you enjoy it. On the contrary, you think this is what life is supposed to be. This is not life that you are living. It is biology, it is physiology, it is chemistry, but it is not life. To live under the influence of instincts is not to live at all.Life begins only when you rise above your instincts. And the way to rise is: Reflect. Watch. And you will immediately know: Nothing binds you. You are free. You are a master. In your watchfulness, slowly, slowly passions disappear, because a watchful person cannot be hot.Desires are always leading you into the future. Desire means future; it can only happen tomorrow. So you go on looking at tomorrow, and meanwhile time is passing. And the tomorrow never comes; it can’t come, in the very nature of things. So your whole life is just a waiting for nothing – waiting for Godot! And Godot never comes. In fact, nobody knows who this Godot is.But we go on waiting for something to happen someday, and we know that it has not happened to anybody. It didn’t happen to your father, to your father’s father. It has not happened to your neighbors. You can look around at people’s faces: it has not happened. You don’t see the glow, you don’t see contentment in their eyes, you don’t see joy. You see only a desperate effort to achieve something which they are not really aware of, what exactly it is and whether it is possible or not. But they go on running in hot pursuit, and they go on destroying their lives.“Grandma, how long have you and grandpa been married?” asked the romantic young granddaughter.“Forty-nine years,” replied the old lady.“Ah, what a beautiful life you must have had,” sighed the girl. “And I will bet you never even thought of a divorce.”“Well,” said grandma, “divorce, no – murder, yes!”Just ask the old people what they have attained, what they have been doing. And if they are true and authentic, if they are sincere, they will tell you nothing but, “Life has been a tale told by an idiot, full of fury and noise, signifying nothing. And now comes death, and all is finished.” But to a meditator, death is not the end but the beginning of a new life.Buddha says: This is your last body. If you have quietened the mind, if you have become free from desire and passion: This is your last body. Now you will be born into a bodiless existence. Now you will be part of the invisible life, the eternal life which knows no birth, no death.The body is a limitation, the body confines you. You are unlimited consciousness, but your body forces you into a small, dark hole. You live in a dark hole, in a dark cave. Of course, it is going to be miserable. You are vast and somehow you have been forced to live in a small space. Nobody has done it to you; you yourself go on doing it. Each time you die, you die with desires. Those desires bring you back into new wombs. Those desires give you another body.If you can die without desires, then there is no longer any birth. When there is no birth there is no old age, no death. And when there is no birth there is no time. You go beyond time. You live in eternity, you become divine. That’s what Buddha means by godliness – bhagavata.You are wise.Through silence you become wise, not through learning, not by becoming more informed but by becoming absolutely silent. You are wise. Otherwise you will know only words – hollow words, meaningless words. Yes, you can accumulate much knowledge. You can know the Vedas and the Koran and the Bible and the Gita and you can repeat them, but you will not understand anything. It is more likely that you will misunderstand. From where will you get the right perspective to understand them? With all your passions and desires and all your confusion and clouded mind, how are you going to understand the Upanishads, the Koran? Impossible. They come from people who had gone beyond the body. Unless you go beyond the body you will not understand them. You can understand only that which you have experienced.But the knowledgeable people not only deceive others, they start deceiving themselves, maybe not knowingly, not deliberately. If you go on deceiving others your whole life, pretending that you know, slowly, slowly you start believing in your own pretensions. You forget that you don’t know; you don’t want to remember it. Who wants to know that he is ignorant? Everybody wants to feel that he knows.Ask anybody about God and it is very rare to find a person who will say to you, “I don’t know.” It is very rare, almost impossible. Many will say, “Yes, God is, God exists.” And they are ready to fight, to argue, to kill you or be killed, for something that they know not, not at all. And there are a few who will say, “No, there is no God.” But it is very rare to find a person who will say, “I don’t know,” and that is the real religious person.The agnostic is the real religious person, not the theist or the atheist. One believes without knowing, one disbelieves without knowing; both are deceiving. But I am not doubting their sincerity: they may think that they know, they may be absolutely convinced that they know. You ask other questions about God and then they have to invent answers, because basically they have accepted that they know.Ask them how many heads God has, and they will tell you three or four, and they will make much out of nonsense. They will say that God has four heads because there are four directions and he has to look in all directions, or three because there are three dimensions and he has to look into all dimensions. How many hands has he? And some say he has one thousand hands because he has to work so much and he is so alone, and he has to create the world and manage the whole show all alone. One thousand hands! Two hands are not enough. Do you think one thousand hands will be enough to manage this vast universe? Do you think four heads will be enough to see everywhere?But people go on inventing answers. You ask the question and they invent – they have to invent because they cannot accept one thing: that they don’t know.A blonde took her dog to the vet who advised her to buy some Nair to remove the excess hair around the Schnauzer’s eyes and ears.The blonde entered a pharmacy and asked for the hair remover.“Use it full strength for leg hair,” said the druggist, “but dilute it one half for the underarms.”“Ah,” said the girl, “but I want to use it on my Schnauzer.”“In that case,” said the pharmacist, “you better use one quarter strength and I wouldn’t ride a Honda for a couple of weeks.”The knowledgeable person cannot ask, “What is this Schnauzer?” That shows his ignorance and he cannot show that. Sometimes knowledgeable people commit such stupidities that no ignorant person can ever commit, because the ignorant person can always ask what it is, can say, “I don’t know.” But the knowledgeable person finds it impossible. He cannot say these three words: “I don’t know.” If you can say, “I don’t know,” you have taken one of the greatest steps toward real knowing, toward wisdom.Buddha says: “When mind is empty, silent, you are wise.” By wisdom he does not mean knowledgeability; by wisdom he means innocence. Knowledge comes from the outside, wisdom arises within. Knowledge creates noise, wisdom brings more and more silence. The wise person slowly, slowly becomes utterly silent. Even if he speaks, his words carry the flavor of silence, the music of silence.By wisdom he means spontaneity, childlike spontaneity, eyes full of wonder. When your eyes are full of wonder you can see the beauty that surrounds you. When your eyes are full of knowledge you can’t see the beauty because you have explanations for everything, and explanations only help you to explain things away, nothing else.But knowledgeable people have been doing good business. They have dominated humanity too long; that is their joy.“I’ve got a problem, Doc,” the new patient began.“We all have problems,” replied the doctor, smiling his assurance.“My problem is this, Doc: I get migraine headaches every time I think of my wife. I break out in a rash every time I think of my job. I get cold sweats every time I think of my bank account. Talk about problems! Boy, have I got them!”“Every problem has its answer, of course, and I understand this one perfectly,” said the psychiatrist, nodding. “You will need a hundred sessions on the couch, at twenty-five dollars per session.”The patient gulped. “Well, Doc,” he said after a painful pause, “that solves your problem. Now, how about mine?”The knowledgeable people are doing good business. The priests, the professors, the pundits, the scholars, the theologians, have been doing good business. Without knowing a thing about God, without knowing a thing about themselves even, they go on talking about great problems and great solutions. They talk about metaphysics, about philosophy. They have ready-made answers for everything.Beware of these people! And they are all around, in the churches, in the mosques, in the temples, in the universities; you will find them everywhere. Beware of them. They are the people who will not allow humanity to ever become wise because once humanity becomes wise their profession is finished.You are wise.You are free from desireand you understand wordsand the stitching together of words.And you want nothing.Buddha says: “When you are wise,” not knowledgeable, not well informed, but when meditation has released your inner fragrance, when your inner consciousness has become a fully open lotus, then you will be able to understand words – the words of the buddhas – not before that. Don’t waste your time with the Gita and the Koran and the Gurugrantha unless you become meditative.Once you know your own being, in deep silence you have encountered yourself, then, of course, scriptures are tremendously beautiful. Then you will be able to understand because you will be standing in the same position, you will have the same vision. Now scriptures will become your witnesses, they will witness for you. When you have known something on your own, reading in the Gita or in the Koran suddenly you will come across a sentence that will say exactly the same that you have experienced, and suddenly now the meaning is revealed.Meaning has to come first to you through experience; only then can you understand words, particularly the words of buddhas. In the ordinary world we don’t understand even the words of those who are not enlightened. You can see it happening everywhere. Talk to your wife and you will understand; you both speak the same language, but there is no conversation possible. You say one thing, she understands another. You try to explain it to her, she goes even farther away. She tries to explain something to you and you jump to some other conclusion. It seems conversation is impossible. Both are in a state of madness. Both are so full of their own ideas that before the other has said anything they have already concluded what he means.Nobody is listening to anybody else. Even when somebody is silent and pretending to listen to you, he is not listening. He is thinking a thousand and one things. While you are talking, he is preparing, so when you stop he starts saying something to you.Passing Beth Yisroel Synagogue in Staten Island, in the wee hours of the morning, a drunk noticed a sign that read: Ring the bell for the shammes. He did just that, and a sleepy-eyed old man came to the door.“What do you want at this hour?” the shammes demanded crossly.The drunk looked the old man over for a full twenty seconds and then retorted, “I want to know why you can’t ring that silly bell yourself!”People are bound to understand according to their minds.Tannenbaum, the tailor, had saved up his money for years so that he could fulfill his longtime dream of taking a Caribbean cruise. But he had not reckoned with seasickness. On the second day out from port, the captain noticed him, green-faced, hanging on the ship’s rail.“Sorry, sir,” said the captain politely, “but you can’t be sick here.”“No?” said Tannenbaum. “Watch!”Rabbi Longbleibt of Far Rockaway had a well-deserved reputation for being long-winded. On this Sabbath, he was in especially good form. His topic for the day was “Prophets of the Bible.”“Now then,” he added, after speaking for half an hour, “we have disposed of the major prophets. Next we come to the minor prophets. To what place, my dear friends, shall we assign them?”From a seat in the rear of the temple, a bored-looking stranger arose. He waved an explanatory hand at the seat he had just vacated and said, “One of them can have my place!”It is impossible to understand even the people who are just like you. What to say about buddhas? They speak from sunlit peaks and you live in dark valleys. By the time their words reach you they are no longer the same. By the time you hear them, great interpretation has happened. Your mind has colored them in its own color.Buddha says: You are wise. You are free from desire. That is the sign of wisdom: freedom from desire. Only fools desire; wise people live and live joyously, but without desire. Either you can desire or you can live, you can’t do both. If you desire, you postpone living; if you live, who bothers about desiring? Today is enough unto itself.…and you understand words and the stitching together of words. This is a very beautiful sutra. Buddha says, the words of the awakened ones have to be understood in a special way because they are stitched in a special way. Between two words there is silence; that is the stitching. You have to read between the lines. If you can just understand the lines you will miss the whole point. You have to read between the lines. You have to read between the words. You have to read the silences, the pauses. Hence it is easier to understand a living buddha than to understand a dead one, because with a living buddha you can experience his pauses, his periods, when between two words suddenly there is a gap, the interval, which is far more pregnant than the words themselves.…and the stitching together of words. And you want nothing. Once you have become silent and you have understood the words of the awakened ones, what is there to want? You have already got it. You have got the inexhaustible treasure. You have become a king.“Victory is mine,knowledge is mine,and all purity,all surrender.”In silence, everything is yours: victory for which you have been struggling your whole life, maybe many lives, is suddenly yours. And it is yours without a fight because it has been yours from the very beginning. You simply never looked within. You are not a beggar, nobody is; everybody is born an emperor. But look within. If you look without you are a beggar. In fact, to look without means to become a beggar, and to look within means to become an emperor.“Victory is mine, knowledge is mine…” And now a totally different kind of knowledge happens to you. It is not coming from the outside; it is arising from your very depth, it is welling up within you. It is not borrowed; it is authentically yours.“…and all purity…” Silence is virgin. The most innocent and the purest experience of life is to know a deep silence when everything stops. Time stops, space disappears, ego is nowhere to be found. Not a single thought on the mind, just silence from end to end. This is purity.By “purity” Buddha does not mean any moral purity. Moral purity is never real purity. It is calculated, it is greed. It is greed for the other world, it is greed for heavenly pleasures.There are three kinds of people in the world, three categories. First, the sinners: they have chosen to be immoral. Second, the saints: they have chosen to be moral. But both are half, nobody is whole. The sinner is half, the saint is half. The sinners are attracted toward the saints, the sinners go and bow down to the saints. And the saints are continuously thinking in their minds that maybe they are missing; maybe the sinners are enjoying life.I have heard…A great saint and a prostitute, who lived just in front of him, died on the same day, and the messengers from the beyond came and started dragging the saint toward hell and the prostitute toward heaven.The saint said, “Wait! There must be something wrong. You must have misunderstood the orders. I am the great saint and that woman is the greatest sinner. What are you doing?”And the messengers said, “We have asked God. We also thought that there was some misunderstanding. But God said that there was no misunderstanding. The prostitute was continuously thinking how bad she was, how ugly she was, and she was continuously thinking how pure the saint was. And whenever the saint would do his prayers, would chant his sutras, she would sit silently by the door and listen. She never thought herself capable of entering into the temple. She would sit outside the door and listen from there, and tears would flow from her eyes. And she always thought that the saint was living the life of bliss.“And the saint was continuously thinking of the prostitute, how beautiful she was. And whenever visitors would come to the prostitute he would suffer very much: ‘They must be enjoying. She is enjoying her life, and what have I done to myself? I have become an ascetic. Who knows but maybe I have done something wrong.’ The saint was continuously obsessed with the prostitute. In his dreams he was making love to the prostitute. And in the prostitute’s dreams there was a totally different flavor: she was always worshipping the saint, bowing down to the saint; hence the decision.’“God said to take the saint to hell; that he had lived respectably long enough. And to bring the prostitute to heaven; she had suffered enough in the world.’”The sinner is half, the saint is half, and they both are attached to each other, both are thinking of each other. I know many saints who have confessed to me in private, “Sometimes the question happens in our minds that maybe the whole world is right and we are wrong. But now it is too late. We may have missed real joys to attain something abstract which may not exist at all. Who knows about God and who knows about paradise? We may finally prove to be fools.”That doubt lingers in your so-called saints; it is bound to linger. The more they feel this doubt, the more they condemn the sinner. The more they condemn the sinner, so the sinner thinks they are great saints; he goes to worship them. The opposites attract each other.But there is a third category also: the sage. He is neither a sinner nor a saint; he is beyond both. And he is the person who is always misunderstood in the world. You understand the sinner very well: he lives in immorality. You understand the saint: he lives in morality. The sage is a mystery; you cannot understand him. He seems to be beyond comprehension; hence Jesus is misunderstood, Socrates is misunderstood, Buddha is misunderstood. That has been the fate of all the sages. They have been misunderstood for the simple reason that you cannot put them in the ordinary categories; they are beyond the categories.When Buddha says “purity” he means the purity of the sage who knows nothing of morality or immorality, who has become again a child, who is reborn.“Victory is mine, knowledge is mine, and all purity, all surrender.” When you become absolutely silent, ego disappears; it is not found at all.Just the other day Vedant Bharti asked, “Why should I drop the ego? That too is part of the divine play.” You don’t understand what divine play is, and you don’t understand that no buddha has ever said to you, “Drop the ego.” I am not saying to you, “Drop the ego,” either. What I am saying is: try to find it. You will not find it at all! That is how it disappears, that’s how it is dropped. When you can’t find it, what can you do with it? It has never been found. It exists only when you don’t search for it. It exists only like a shadow. If you look and search, then you come to understand that a shadow is a shadow; it has no substance in it. There is no need to drop it; in understanding it and not finding it there, it is dropped.This is surrender. In silence surrender happens because in silence you can’t find the ego at all. Surrender is not something that you have to do. If you do it, it is not surrender, because if you are the doer how can it be surrender? One day you do, another day you can undo it. One day you can say, “I surrender”; another day you can come and you can say, “I withdraw it.” Who can prevent you? It was your doing, you can withdraw it. But surrender cannot be withdrawn, you cannot undo it, because it is not your doing in the first place. It is a happening. When you are silent, suddenly you see there is no ego; ego disappears. This is surrender, this is purity, this is wisdom, this is freedom.“I want nothing.I am free.I found my way.Whom shall I call teacher?”Buddha says: “Now, whom should I call my teacher?” All of life has been a learning, the whole of life has been my teacher. I have learned through failure, through success, through poverty, through richness. I have learned through pain, through pleasure. I have learned through agony, through ecstasy. Whom should I call my teacher?It is impossible because all of life is, in fact, a teaching device. Life exists so that you can grow up toward wisdom, so that you can grow up toward godliness.And a very beautiful sutra:The gift of truth is beyond giving.Truth is always a gift. You cannot snatch it away, you cannot conquer truth. It is always a gift. When you are silent it simply descends in you. It fills your silence, overfills it, starts overflowing.The gift of truth is beyond giving. But when you have it, the problem is you cannot give it to anybody else. You would like to give it, you would love to share it, but how to share it? The other person has to be utterly silent, only then can it be shared. But when the other person is silent, he need not share your truth; truth descends in him on its own accord. Hence it is beyond giving.The taste beyond sweetness…It is far sweeter than sweetness itself, it is beyond sweetness.…the joy beyond joy.We can call it blissfulness, but it is a blissfulness that goes far beyond our idea of blissfulness. In fact, it is incomprehensible for the mind. It is impossible to express it in adequate words. If we call it joy, yes, only a bit of it is expressed. If we call it sweet, only just a fragment of it is expressed; the total remains unexpressed. It has to be experienced, there is no other way.The end of desire is the end of sorrow.Do only one thing: let desire be gone. And how will desire go?Quieten your mind.Reflect.Watch.Nothing binds you.You are free.Contemplate over these sutras. Try to experience them, because Buddha is not an ordinary religious person. He is not interested in miracles, he is not interested in anything occult, esoteric; he is interested in transforming you. He is very down to earth.Moses and Jesus were playing a round of golf at the Celestial Country Club. First, Jesus teed up and made a hole in one. Then Moses also drove a hole in one.“Well, Moe, we are even so far,” said Jesus.“Now look here, Jake,” Moses protested. “We made our point. Now what do you say we cut out the miracles and play a little golf?”Buddha never did any miracle; that is the greatest miracle. He is not interested in mystifying you. His whole effort is to give you the key so you can open the doors of all the mysteries. He is very existential, non-philosophical, nonintellectual in his approach. He is not heady, but very practical, pragmatic. His whole approach is experimental, experiential. So you will not be able to understand him if you only go on reading.Try to experiment with what he is saying. Try to quieten your mind, reflect, watch, and see what happens: freedom, bliss, truth, wisdom, innocence, purity, thousands of flowers start blooming in you. The spring suddenly bursts forth.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,In wanting to know who I am I often feel in a space of nothingness. In one way it scares me, in another it feels fulfilling. I feel both all and nothing. How to feel one or the other? And where does the distinction lie between a vacuum – that space of neither past, present or future – and a dead space?The first indication of a right, positive nothingness is that it will be paradoxical. It will be felt as all and nothing, both simultaneously. Then it is alive. All that is alive is paradoxical; only that which is dead is logical. Logic is applicable only to dead things; logic has nothing to say about life. Life transcends logic. Life is basically illogical. That’s what I mean by calling it paradoxical: it contains its own opposite.Hence it is a good indication that you feel both all and nothing. If you feel just nothing, then it is a dead space; if you just feel all, then it is all imagination. When you feel both, it is neither dead space nor pure projection; it is something authentically true.Whenever you will feel all and nothing together, naturally, on the one hand you will feel scared because of nothingness, because nothingness looks like death. It is death. It is death of the ego, death of all that you have known up to now as yourself. It is a total discontinuity with the past; hence fear arises. You are losing your identity, and that is the greatest crisis in life. One wants to cling to one’s identity, at least one knows who one is. Even though that identity was nothing but hell, still you would like to cling to it. At least it was something tangible. Now all tangibles are disappearing and all that you have known about yourself is evaporating. A great fear grips you. It seems as if you are going to die. It is natural to feel scared.But you also feel, on the other hand, deeply fulfilled, because it is death and resurrection, crucifixion and resurrection. When you are ready to lose your old identity you are born anew. A new life starts pulsating, a new heart starts beating. As an ego you disappear, but you appear as part of the whole, of the immense vastness, of the totality.This is really the birth of the holy man, because one becomes part of the whole. This is the birth of a buddha, of a christ. So in spite of all your fears, go into it, don’t cling to your past. And remember, fear is very powerful because your whole past will support it, and you have a tremendously long past of millions of lives. Not only this life but many, many lives are contained in your collective unconscious. They will all pull you back. They will say, “Where are you going? Are you going mad? Come back to the old shelter, to the old security!” The past is long; it has immense weight, great gravitation. And the new that is being born is just like a new sprout, very fragile. It can be crushed very easily, it can be destroyed very easily.Remember that unless you go on in spite of all your fears you will never go into the unknown. And to go into the unknown is to go into God. God is never known. He is not only unknown, he is also unknowable. And whatsoever you know about God is just your ideas about God, not your experience.Those who have experienced godliness have kept mum, have kept completely silent. They have not uttered a single word about it. They have indicated the way. Buddha says: “Buddhas point the way, but they don’t say anything about the ultimate experience.” They show how to reach it, but they never say exactly what it is. It is indefinable, inexpressible. God is a mystery. In fact, the very word God is another name for the mysterious universe in which we are living, breathing. We are part of this great mystery and there is no way to demystify it.So you will have to go knowingly, deliberately. You will have to risk your past. You will have to listen to the call of the unknown. It is a faraway, distant call and there is no guarantee for it. Nobody can give you the guarantee, only hints.I can say to you that you have heard the right call. But it is risky because you will be risking all that you know about yourself for something which is far away, invisible, mysterious. One can never be certain. You can’t be calculative about God, you can’t be cunning and clever. You have to go into simple innocence, just like a small child holding the hand of his father can go into the deep forest without any fear. Lions may be roaring, but the child has no fear because he knows his hand is in his father’s hand. The father himself may be trembling, but the child is enchanted with the whole journey, with the whole adventure. Such a simplicity is needed, such innocence is needed; only then can you take the risk.The child is the most courageous being. As he grows in age, in experience, he starts becoming cowardly, he becomes calculating. He thinks twice before he takes a step, and when you think too much you never take any step. Very calculative people remain stuck their whole lives. They never move because each movement creates fear in them.This is the greatest movement. Go joyously into it. And don’t be worried about the distinction between an empty space, a negative space, and a space that is positive, fulfilling. Don’t be bothered. This is how the mind starts calculating, this is how the mind starts functioning. There is no need, you are on the right track.Wherever you feel a paradox happening, remember, that is the criterion that you are on the right track. If you don’t come across a paradox you must have missed somewhere, you are moving in a wrong direction.So don’t ask me, “How to feel one or the other?” If you feel one or the other you will be wrong. When you feel both, then you feel the total. The total is bound to be both, the negative and the positive. It is bound to be both death and life, summer and winter.That’s where mind feels baffled, puzzled. Mind would like clear-cut things, but nothing can be done about it. Mind’s requirements and expectations cannot be fulfilled. Existence has no obligation to fulfill mind’s requirements and demands. You have to accept existence as it is. It is paradoxical and mind is not paradoxical. Mind is linear, logical, not dialectical. As far as mind is concerned it is Aristotelian, and as far as life is concerned it is more Hegelian than Aristotelian. It is dialectics: it moves from thesis to antithesis, and so on, so forth. The whole movement depends on thesis and antithesis. The polar opposites are really not opposites but complementaries.Enjoy the polarity, the paradox. Rejoice that you are on the right track, and go on moving in spite of all the fears. They are natural. I cannot say that you should not feel those fears as they are absolutely natural, but you can go on in spite of them.Remember, the difference between a coward and a courageous man is not that the coward feels fear and the courageous man does not feel fear. No, that is not the difference between the coward and the courageous. Both feel fear. The difference is that the coward listens to the fear and stops his movement, and the courageous takes no notice of it, pushes it aside, and moves in spite of it.The second question:Osho,Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray? In my opinion, meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake, but to pray deeply and calmly gives you the direct and intense connection to God, and his holy spirit comes down to you.I have not said what you have heard. You must be hearing through a thick layer of Christianity, a thick layer of rubbish.In the first place, you say, “Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray?” Because meditation is the only prayer there is, and prayer is possible only in meditation; any other prayer is going to be false, pseudo. If you have not been in deep meditation, how are you going to know that there is God? Then the idea of God is just a conditioning given by others to you.Just think, if you were born in Russia, then you would not have talked about God at all. You would not be talking about the Bible; you would be talking about the Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital. You would not be talking about the holy trinity of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; you would be talking of the unholy trinity of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and V. I. Lenin, because you would have been told and conditioned by Communist education.If you had been born in a Jaina family you would have never thought of prayer, never – because there is no God, so to whom to pray? If you were born in a Buddhist family, things would have been totally different because you would have been conditioned in a different way. It is not you who is asking this question; it is your conditioning. And all conditionings are wrong.Meditation means a state of unconditioned mind. Meditation is the process of undoing the harm that every society goes on doing to every individual – Communist or Catholic, Jaina or Jew, it does not matter. I am not saying that any particular conditioning is wrong; I am saying conditioning as such is wrong.Conditioning is nothing but a process of hypnotizing people: go on repeating from the very childhood, in the church, in the Sunday school… You have been told about God and prayer and you have been told by your parents and teachers and priests and all the authoritative people. That small child has learned how to imitate those who are in power. Now you have completely forgotten the beginning of conditioning.No child is born as a Christian or a Hindu. No child is born with any idea of God’s existence – whether God exists or does not exist, whether there is one hell or seven hells or seventy or seven hundred. No child is born with any theology.Meditation means a process of removing all that has been forced upon you so that you can become again a child. That’s what Jesus says. He says: “Unless you are like a child you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” He is talking about deconditioning, dehypnotizing. He is not using these words deconditioning, dehypnotizing, because these words did not exist in his days, but that’s actually what he is saying. He is saying that unless you become a child again… Again and again he says: “Unless you are born again” because this birth has been contaminated by the people; they have poisoned your minds. You need a new spiritual birth, and it is possible only through meditation; there is no other way.Prayer will mean you will be continuing the conditioning. If you are Christian, your prayer will be Christian. Your very question has the stink of Christianity! A Hindu will not say this, he will not use such words: “And his holy spirit comes down to you.” A Jaina will never use such terminology – impossible, because for a Jaina, nothing comes down, everything goes up! He believes in growing up into a god. God is not someone there high above who comes down to you; there is no God. You have the seed of divineness in you; it grows upward. The holy spirit descending on you is simply something that has been taught to you.You say, “In my opinion…” Opinions mean nothing! If you have some experience, then it is important. Opinion is just opinion. Opinion means something of the mind. You have not experienced anything; it is just a thought. People have all kinds of opinions.I have heard…Two camels were passing through a desert. Both were looking very tired and both wanted to say something to the other, but somehow they were keeping control.Finally one exploded and he said, “Whatsoever people say, whatsoever their opinion, I want to say that I am thirsty!”Thirst is not an opinion, it is your experience. Is it your experience? If it is your experience, the question cannot arise, because then you would have understood exactly what I was saying.Meditation is the process that cleanses you, and when you are utterly clean a fragrance arises in you. That is prayer. Prayer is a consequence of meditation. I am not against prayer; I am against your prayer. Your prayer is false. Your prayer is only a part of your conditioning. The Hindu prays in the Hindu way and the Mohammedan prays in the Mohammedan way, but real prayerfulness is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan. It comes out of an unconditioned being. How can it be Hindu or Mohammedan?A real prayer is simply prayerfulness. It has no words; it is pure silence. It is a surrender in deep silence. In fact, it is not addressed to any God; it is bowing down to the whole existence. It is not an address. God is everywhere, all is God, so you simply bow down in tremendous gratitude, in ecstasy, in joy, in love. But first your love, your ecstasy, your joy have to be released. You are just a seed, and talking about fragrance will be only an opinion heard from others, borrowed, and anything borrowed is ugly; anything borrowed is going to be only verbal.This is what has happened: when you heard me you only understood the literal meaning of the words. You missed the significance.A Christian friend cajoled Rabbi Berkowitz into attending Saint Joseph’s in the city that made Schlitz famous. The old rabbi, long since retired, finally agreed when it was explained that a visiting dignitary would speak about the Jewish influence on the formation of the church.In the front row, Rabbi Berkowitz’s eyes widened as the visiting lecturer announced his topic: “My Name is Joseph, Father of Jesus.”At the conclusion of the talk, when they had been introduced, the rabbi said dryly, “My friend, you have had a most unusual experience!”He misunderstood the whole thing. He took the title of the lecture literally: My Name Is Joseph, Father of Jesus. That was just going to be the subject. The man is not saying that he is Joseph, the father of Jesus. The rabbi said, “My friend, you have had a most unusual experience” – being the father of Jesus, after two thousand years. Jesus was the son of a virgin woman; it was certainly an unusual experience for the father!That’s what has happened to you. I have not said anything against prayer, but I have said that meditation prepares the way. It cleanses you – it cleanses you of all thoughts given by others. It creates the space in which prayerfulness can flower. Meditation brings the spring – and there is no other way. If you pray without meditation, then your flowers will be plastic flowers. Real flowers of prayerfulness grow only in meditation. And then prayer is not addressed to God; in fact, then there is no God.The whole idea of God the Father is childish, and Sigmund Freud is right that it is a projection of our deep desire to cling to the parents. It is a projection of your idea of the father, because your father cannot be with you forever. One day he dies and you miss the protection, the security, the safety, and so you project a father in heaven who is forever and forever, who will never die and who will always take care of you. And you pray on your knees to the father in heaven. The idea is your creation, the prayer is your creation, and you go on doing this stupid thing for your whole life, thinking that you are doing something religious.Sometimes it can happen that certain of your prayers may be fulfilled. That is just coincidence. If you go on praying for thousands of things, once in a while it is bound to happen.One man came to me and he said, “I never believed in God, but now I believe.”I said, “What happened?”He said, “I gave an ultimatum to God that if within fifteen days my son does not get employment, I will become a confirmed atheist forever. And the threatening worked: within fifteen days my son got the employment. Now I am a firm believer.”I said, “It is perfectly good, but never give the ultimatum again because it may not always work. It was just coincidence.”But he did not listen to me. After two years he met me and he said, “You were right. I again gave the ultimatum. My wife was very ill and I told him that he has to save her, otherwise I will become an atheist.”He thought that as the trick had worked once; now he knows how to force God into his service. That’s what people who are praying are doing; they are trying to use God. They are trying to use God as a means for certain ends. And the wife died. Certainly he became an atheist.Prayers sometimes will be fulfilled – not that there is somebody who is there listening to your prayers and fulfilling them – and sometimes they will not be fulfilled. And priests are very clever. They will say, “Whenever your prayer is fulfilled you prayed deeply, truly, sincerely.” And whenever your prayer is not fulfilled they say, “Your prayer was superficial.” The argument has much appeal because, in fact, all your prayers are superficial so you know perfectly well that your prayers are superficial. The priest can always say that you prayed, but deep down there was doubt.There is always doubt because your belief in God cannot destroy doubt; it can only repress doubt. And the repressed doubt is always there boiling within you, ready to explode.So don’t be deceived if sometimes a coincidence happens. That’s how many things continue in the world, how many things can continue in the world. All hocus-pocus!For example, there are so many “pathies” in the world: homeopathy, naturopathy, ayurvedic, and so many others. They all claim to cure and their claims are not false; they cure many people. Try – just go on giving sugar pills to people and you will be surprised; many are cured, so you have invented a new therapy. Seventy percent of people are only falsely ill, they are not truly ill. Seventy percent of illnesses are psychological, so all that is needed is somebody to convince them “This is going to help.” And people go to homeopathy and to other exotic medicines only when nothing else helps them.The trouble with allopathy is that it can help only if your illness is real. If your illness is not real, then a real medicine will do harm instead of helping you. So you have to search for some quack, somebody who can give you a false medicine to cure you of a false disease.Your prayers are false, your diseases are false. Sometimes they do help, and when they help, you become more and more convinced, and in despair, in deep helplessness, you don’t know where else to go. When all human efforts fail you start looking toward the sky. That has been always so; nothing much has changed.In the Vedas it is said: “When there is lightning in the clouds, it is God who is angry; it is his anger. Pray to God.” Now we know it is not God or his anger; now we know it is electricity, natural electricity. Now we are using God’s anger in running our fans and machines. Now nobody prays. In India, still, when you put the light on in the evening, orthodox Hindus will immediately bow their heads with folded hands to an electric bulb! Just an old conditioning.“God” used to do many things; now science is doing all those things. God is being deprived every day! In fact, soon he will be out of employment; you will find him standing before some employment office in a queue! Your God is your invention. Friedrich Nietzsche is right about your God: that God is dead. So don’t be too surprised or convinced when some coincidence happens. Coincidences are always happening.On board an El-Al jet flight to Israel, a young mother and her two children were just getting settled when the youngsters began to clamor that they had to go to the “bafroom.” Two priests on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, seated in front of the little family group, smiled in amusement while the embarrassed mother quickly took the children to the rest rooms on the plane. After a moment’s hesitation, she put the small boy in the compartment marked “Gentlemen,” while she entered the ladies’ room with her little daughter.The boy left quickly and one of the two priests went in, forgetting to lock the door. A few seconds later, the mother emerged from the ladies’ lavatory and opened the other door a mere slit, thinking her boy was still there. “Don’t forget to slide up your zipper,” she whispered.When the priest returned to his seat he was full of praise for the airline. “You have to hand it to these Jewish stewardesses,” he said to his fellow priest. “They think of everything!”Beware of coincidences!You say, “Why do you say that it is right to meditate but wrong to pray?” To pray is not right; to be in prayerfulness is right. To pray means you will be saying something to your God. Your God is your invention, your prayer is your invention. And what are you going to say? Just something trivial: “Do this, do that, don’t do that.” Or: “You are great.” He has been hearing that for so long, he must be fed up! He must be using ear plugs just to avoid these so-called religious people. Millions of people praying and saying all kinds of things to him! He must be getting tired, utterly tired.But to be in prayerfulness is a totally different phenomenon. To pray is one thing; that is childish, out of a conditioned mind. But to be in prayerfulness means to be in love with existence, to be in a dance with existence, to dance with the stars, to sing with the birds, to flow with the river. That is prayerfulness. But that arises only when meditation has created the right space for it. Hence my emphasis is on meditation. I don’t talk much about prayer because when meditation is complete, prayerfulness comes on its own accord. There is no need to talk about it – because if I talk about prayer there is every danger you will misunderstand, because prayer is easy and meditation is difficult.Prayer is easy, very cheap. You can go to the church, kneel down on your knees, fold your hands, talk to God. It costs nothing. Or every night before you go to sleep you pray to God…I have heard about a very, very intelligent man who had put his prayer on the wall just by the side of his bed. And before he used to go to bed he would say to God, “Please read it.”What is the point of saying the same thing every day? And one hopes that God must be at least able to read it! That seems to be far clearer, more intelligent. Why go on repeating it like a parrot every day?I don’t say to you to pray because I know that whatsoever you do right now will be wrong. I teach meditation – and prayer comes inevitably; it can’t be avoided, but a totally different kind of prayer, with a different fragrance, a different texture to it. It is just a joyousness, a cheerfulness, a gratitude. You feel so fulfilled, so blessed, that your whole heart says thank you – not in so many words – your whole heart says yes. Your whole heart becomes the yes. You are surrendered. Your life is prayer. Then you need not go to a church or a temple or a mosque. You live your prayer. You breathe, you drink, you move, and all that is prayer.You say, “In my opinion, meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake.” Have you ever meditated? A mere opinion has no value, and it is a mere opinion. You may have read, you may have heard about it, but don’t give much importance to opinions.You say, “Meditation gives deep inner calm to a person for his own sake.” You don’t have any experience, any taste of meditation. In meditation, the self disappears, the ego disappears. There is no question of “for one’s own sake.” One is no longer an island; one becomes part of the vast continent of existence. Meditation means you disappear, evaporate. You are no longer there, just a pure nothingness. How can it be for one’s own sake? There is no self left. In meditation, no self is ever found so how can it be selfish?People come to me and they ask me – particularly Christian missionaries – they write letters to me: “You are teaching people meditation; that is a kind of selfishness.” They don’t know what they are talking about.Meditation is the only way to get rid of the self. Meditation is the only possibility to create unselfishness in the world. Everything else is selfish. The Christian missionary serving the poor people, the crippled – this is all selfish. Mother Teresa and all her work is absolutely selfish.Why do I call these works selfish? They are doing great service to humanity, but they are doing service to humanity as a means to reach to heaven. They are using the poor people and the blind people and the crippled and the lepers as ladders to reach to heaven.Just think of a world where there is nobody poor, nobody crippled, nobody is a leper, nobody is blind. Then what will Mother Teresa do? Will you still give her a Nobel Prize? For what? The basic requirement is that blind people should be there, poor people should be there, lepers should be there, widows should be there, orphans should be there. Thousands of orphans are needed for one woman to become a great servant of humanity.The head of the Hindu priests, Karpatri, has written a book, Against Socialism. He gives many reasons against socialism, but the most hilarious reason he gives is that in Hindu scriptures it is said that unless you donate to the poor people you will never enter into heaven. And socialism is trying to destroy classes so there will be no poor, no rich. Once there is nobody rich and nobody poor, who is going to donate unto whom? And what will happen to heaven? Very logical! And these people are great servants of humanity. These stupid people are thought to be saints.In meditation, you disappear; in prayer, you are very much there. You have to be there to pray; otherwise who is going to pray and to whom?Martin Buber has written one of the greatest books of this time, I and Thou. He says that prayer is a relationship between I and thou; both are needed. “I” is needed – the one who is going to pray – and “thou,” a concept of God. Then prayer is possible. Prayer is a dialogue between I and thou. Prayer is basically selfish, self-centered.But meditation is not a dialogue at all. Neither I is needed nor thou is needed. No I, no thou. The whole idea of I-and-thou disappears. A silence prevails, a virgin silence, undisturbed with any dialogue. It is not for one’s own sake. One disappears; only then does meditation happen.Meditation is like a flower opening, and prayerfulness is the fragrance of the flower that is released to the winds. I don’t talk about the fragrance, I only teach how to cultivate roses, remember!The third question:Osho,What are the essential things to keep one's wife happy?I don’t know much about wives. I am an unmarried man. You are asking the question to the wrong person. But I have been observing many wives and many husbands. So this is not my experience – just my opinion!There are two things necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First: let her think she is having her own way. And second: let her have it.The fourth question:Osho,Why does truth hurt?Truth hurts because we live in lies. Our whole life consists of lies. Friedrich Nietzsche has said: “Don’t take lies away from man; otherwise it will be impossible for him to live.” Sigmund Freud also says exactly the same thing: that man cannot live without lies; he needs many lies – religious, metaphysical, philosophical, political.Just watch yourself – how many lies you need to support yourself, to go on nourishing your ego. Why does man need so many lies? It is because the basic lie is the ego, and the ego can exist only when surrounded by many lies supporting it. Any truth hurts because it takes away a few lies, a few props, a few supports, and your ego starts falling down. And that is all that you know about yourself. You don’t know that you are something transcendental to the ego.Somebody says to you, “How beautiful you are!” and you believe it immediately. Nobody ever objects. I have told it to many people; nobody ever objects. I have never come across a person who will object, “No, you are wrong because I know my face. I see it in the mirror every day.” Say it to anybody, even the ugliest. Say it to a camel, and he will nod his head. He will say, “Right. I had always known it. You are the first intelligent person who has given it recognition.” Even the ugliest person deep down thinks he is beautiful. He believes, otherwise it will be difficult to exist, to live. The most stupid thinks that he is very intelligent. Hence you go on giving compliments to each other. All those compliments are lies, and everybody is ready to believe. It is not only in the ordinary life; when you enter into your inner journey, there too you expect recognition.Just the other day Somendra asked, “Why don’t you give me recognition?” Everybody wants to be recognized, told, “You are enlightened,” “You have attained,” “You have realized” – and you will be so happy! But that happiness will be only momentary because it is not true.I cannot give you any lie; hence I am offensive, outrageous to you many times. I hurt you – not that I want to hurt you, but to take any lie away from you is like taking a teddy bear from a child who can’t sleep without his teddy bear. He goes on carrying his teddy bear – dirty, but he will carry it everywhere. That is his life; you can’t take it away from him. And you are carrying many teddy bears; that’s why it hurts.Now Somendra is very angry because I said that he can be a good candidate for Judas. Soon there is going to be a notice: “Wanted: a Judas.” And there are many people eligible. Somendra can do the work. He is so angry because I had said that he sits behind keeping his back toward me, so the next day he came to his old place.Today he has disappeared, because today he has asked a very ugly question out of sheer anger. That’s why he has disappeared from here. Even though he has been sitting here for two or three days he does not look at me; he keeps his eyes down. He has not been coming to his group-therapy darshan many times. Last night he appeared, but he did not look at me, he was boiling within. Today he has disappeared because of the question. He must have been afraid. He has put the question in somebody else’s name – but you can’t deceive me! And the moment I saw that he was not there my suspicion became absolutely certain that it was his question.In his question he says, “Are you not a lazy person? And still, what chutzpah you have to tell other people to work and be creative.” I am not a lazy person, I am the laziest! And naturally, the laziest person can live only if others work; otherwise how am I going to live? So I go on teaching, “Work, be creative! Clean the floor meditatively! Clean the toilets!” That is simple. It is not a question of chutzpah, it is simple logic. A man like me needs at least ten thousand people to work for him!And he asks, “How can you tell others to work?” For a man who has never done anything, everything seems to be possible. Even the impossible seems to be possible. I have never worked, not for a single day. That’s why I can say to you to do anything, because I don’t know the trouble. I have no experience of it.Truth hurts. And then it comes in many ways, it expresses itself in many ways. Remember, if anything hurts then meditate over it. There must be something of truth in it, something true. If anything hurts, respect it, go deeply into it. Find out why it hurts, and you will be rewarded. You will grow through that.Lies are sweet; they don’t hurt. So beware of sweet lies. When something does not hurt you it cannot become an impetus for growth; it is useless, not to be bothered about at all. But pay your total attention to anything that hurts, and don’t get angry. You are here to understand, to be aware, not to be angry.Just a few months ago I told Somendra that he had attained his first satori. He was just joy. You should have seen his face that time – all laughter, all smiles, bubbling with ecstasy! That was easy for him to accept because although it was true, the ego jumped upon it, grabbed it, felt very good – and that is how he missed it.When truth – any truth – becomes an ego trip, you miss it, you lose track of it. And remember: before samadhi happens, before enlightenment happens, you may attain thousands of satoris – and you may miss them. If one remains very alert when a satori happens, only then will he not miss it. If you become very gratified about it and you start bragging about it in subtle ways, you are bound to miss it, and many people are doing that.Sometimes it is very difficult for me; even if I see that something beautiful is happening to you I have to control myself not to say it, because there is every danger that just by saying it your ego may feel puffed up. And that will be the point when you will lose it.There are many people who are coming closer and closer to the ultimate, but it is better for me not to say it to them. I go on blessing them as much as I can, I go on loving them as much as I can, but I don’t say it. Saying can be a distraction; it can take them on a different route, it can distract them.So lies are dangerous; sometimes even truth can be dangerous. If it does not hurt, then it can be dangerous; if it hurts, there is no danger. If it hurts, it will wake you up. If it becomes a lullaby, then it is dangerous: it may take you in a deeper dream. You may start dreaming about satoris and enlightenment and becoming a buddha. And all that is possible, it is within your capacity, it is within your reach, but you can lose the thread many times.Hence, don’t ask for recognition. If I feel that the time is ripe and by recognizing something you will not slip back, I will give the recognition. But why hanker for recognition? The real thing is happening to you. The recognition does not matter at all, it is irrelevant. If you are becoming a buddha, you are becoming a buddha whether I say so or not. Sometimes it may be needed that I will go on saying, “No, you are not becoming,” just to help you go on in the right direction.Meditate over anything that hurts, and you will be immensely enriched.The fifth question:Osho,Why do you have so many enemies?Remember two fundamental laws. One is: No good deed goes unpunished. And second: Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.The sixth question:Osho,I very much doubt my wife. What should I do?The wife is not your God. You need not doubt, you need not trust. It is a game, don’t make it so serious! But you have been told to trust your wife, to trust your husband, and because of this very teaching, distrust arises. In fact, you have been told to trust. For centuries it has been known that it is very difficult to trust your own wife, very difficult to trust your own husband; it is next to impossible.If your wife is interested in you, how can you trust her? If she is still interested in men – and you are only a man, and there are many, many men who are far more handsome – how can you trust your wife? If she is interested in you she must be interested in others too. She can be trusted only when she loses all interest in you too; then, of course, you can trust her. She has lost all interest in men, she is almost dead.You can trust your husband only if he is no longer interested in your body. If he is interested in your face, your body, your proportion, your beauty, how can he avoid being interested in other women’s bodies, other women’s faces, other women’s beauty? It is impossible. You are asking something inhuman or something superhuman. And your poor husband is neither inhuman nor superhuman, he is just a poor husband, a poor human being.Don’t demand such impossible things. It is natural; your wife is bound to fantasize about other men. It is impossible for her to dream about you, remember. I have never heard of a wife dreaming about her own husband. Who dreams about one’s own husband or one’s own wife? For what? Is the day not enough? Do you have to devote your night and your dreams also to the same woman, to the same man?In dreams you are free; that is the only freedom left. In dreams you have a private world of your own. Your wife cannot peep in your dreams and say, “What are you doing? Stop!” In dreams you can have a few parties with the neighbors’ wives. And nothing is wrong in it, nobody is harmed. You just have a good sleep and in the morning you have a smile on your face.Don’t ask the impossible.Mulla Nasruddin was saying to me, “For the whole ten years of our married life I always trusted my wife. And then we moved from Kolkata to Pune – and I discovered we still had the same milkman!”There is no need to trust or not to trust. Why bring in the question of trust? It is just a game! Play it joyfully. You make it too serious. And when you start demanding, “Be faithful to me!” you are creating a situation in which it will become impossible for the poor woman to be faithful to you. Give her total freedom; then she may be faithful to you.Life functions in a very strange way. If you give her total freedom you are worth trusting. A great faith may arise in her. If a wife gives total freedom to the husband, that shows she loves him so much that she would like him to be happy in every possible way. Even if sometimes he is happy with some other woman she will feel happy because he is happy. And then a totally different quality of trust may arise. I am not saying that it is bound to arise, it is not an inevitability. I am saying perhaps, because about human beings nothing can be predicted.The relationship between wife and husband is a very strange relationship because these are two different worlds. The woman functions in a different way, from a different center. She is more intuitive and the man is more intellectual. That’s why they are attracted to each other. Not only are they physiological polarities, but psychologically also they are polar opposites. They are intimate enemies. There is bound to be a little conflict, and that is not bad; it keeps the relationship alive. Whenever you see that the husband and wife have stopped fighting completely, that means the marriage is really finished; nothing is left now. If not even fight is left, then all is finished.The butcher and the milkman were discussing the pros and cons of married life. “Do you really believe it is better than being single?” demanded Weiss, the butcher.“In a way,” said the milkman, who was fond of philosophizing. “After all, if it were not for marriage, we would have to do all our fighting with strangers.”Yes, that is true. It is good to fight with your own wife; at least the fight is with a friend. Otherwise you will have to do your fighting with strangers.There is no need to demand trust, faith. Live together joyously. Make as much out of your being together as possible. Rather than doing that, people create such problems, useless problems, and destroy all their joys. The wife has no obligation to be faithful to you, neither do you have any obligation to be faithful to her. You love her, she loves you; that’s enough. Don’t bring faith into it. If love cannot keep you together, nothing else can keep you together. And if love cannot keep you together, then anything that can keep you together is dangerous.The last question:Osho,Are all words really useless?Not all words. The words of the buddhas are immensely significant. They are the same words as your words, but they come from a deeper experience. Let your words come from deep experience; then they will have significance, then they will have some perfume of the unknown, of the beyond. But leaving the buddhas aside, then too all words are not useless. Otherwise, how are you going to communicate? You cannot communicate through silence, you cannot communicate without words.To communicate without words you will have to become a total meditator, and then, too, you can communicate only with another total meditator, not with everybody else. The whole of humanity is not going to be in meditation, not at least in your life, and you will have to talk to people who are not meditators.I am using words, Buddha used words, Jesus used words. You have to use words. Just make one effort: don’t use unnecessary words. Be more telegraphic, be more condensed. Make your words more meaningful. When you use them, don’t just go on using them so that you remain occupied.Little Alma, a pupil in the first grade, arrived home from school all out of breath.“Daddy, Daddy,” she cried, her eyes sparkling with excitement, “we had our very first drill today!”“That’s good, shayneh,” he said, smiling. “I believe in fire drills. Why I once almost died in a fire.”“Ooh, tell me.”“Well, it was like this: I fell into a great big vat of chicken soup. So I climbed on top of the knaidlach to keep from drowning and I hollered ‘Fire’ at the top of my lungs.”“Fire?” exclaimed Alma, “Was there a fire, too?”“No,” grinned the father, patting her curls, “but who would have helped me if I had yelled ‘chicken soup’?”Words are significant.For their first date, the boy takes the girl to a carnival. After walking around for a while the girl says to her date, “I want to get weighed.”So the boy finds a man who guesses people’s weight. The man accurately guesses the girl’s weight.After visiting some other attractions the boy again hears the girl say the same thing, “I want to get weighed.” Again he finds another stall where she again has her weight judged correctly.After some ice cream and taffy, she again says, “I want to get weighed.”The boy replies, “No, this is too much. I am taking you home.”After being deposited on her doorstep, the girl goes inside and seeing her mother, starts to cry and blurts out, “Oh, mother, I had such a wousy time!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The fool is his own enemy.Seeking wealth, he destroys himself.Seek rather the other shore.Weeds choke the field.Passion poisons the nature of man,and hatred, illusion and desire.Honor the man who is without passion,hatred, illusion and desire.What you give to himwill be given back to you,and more.Man is born intelligent, but society does not allow intelligence to flower; it destroys it. In a thousand and one ways it makes every effort to make every intelligent being unintelligent. The unintelligent person seems to be more obedient to the state, to the church, to the society, he is less rebellious. He cannot rebel. Rebellion needs intelligence; the greater the intelligence, the greater the rebellion. The unintelligent person seeks security and safety with the crowd, he cannot be an individual. He is always hankering to become part of a crowd – Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. These are all crowds depending on those people who have become victims of the social strategy of destroying intelligence.An intelligent person will not go to the church in search of God, or to the temple. An intelligent person will go within. He will not go to Kaaba or to Kashi, because if God is not here he cannot be anywhere else – and if he is anywhere else, why not here? If God is not in me, he cannot be anywhere else; and if he is anywhere else, he is bound to be in me too.The intelligent person is an individual; he is not part of a crowd, the mob psychology. He is not a sheep, he is a man. All the vested interests are against the individual – against the man. They want machines. They don’t like people who are intelligent, who decide on their own. They want people who depend on others, on authoritative figures, on the leaders, on the priests, on the saints, but always on others, never on themselves.Society has lived up to now in a very destructive way. It destroys the very possibility of your ever being a Buddha or a Christ. It has always been against the wise; it respects the fool. The fool fits with the society perfectly, the fool is cut out to fit with the society.No child is born foolish, and every child, sooner or later, turns out to be idiotic. The powers are so big, so great, that it is almost impossible for the child to resist. The child cannot survive if he resists too much. It is really a miracle that a few people have escaped from being machines. These few people are the salt of the earth; they are the only flowers. Because of them, humanity has a little perfume, a little fragrance; otherwise, all others are walking dead, corpses, somehow dragging toward the grave.The way of the fool has to be understood because only if you understand it can you go beyond it. The fool also has a way of life. His way of life is the way of the crowd. Whatsoever others say, he repeats. The way others live, he imitates. He is always looking around for clues how to be, how to behave, what is right, what is wrong. He has no insight into anything. He depends on commandments from others. For thousands of years he goes on following commandments that were given in different situations, to a different kind of people, for different purposes, but he goes on following.He is never spontaneous; that is the first thing to be remembered about the fool. He is repetitive: he repeats the past, but he is never spontaneous. He is never responsible; he never responds to the situation. He has ready-made answers. He never listens to the question; he is not concerned with the question at all. The question simply triggers in him a process of memory, and a ready-made answer comes up. He is like a computer.To be responsible means to be aware. Unless you are aware you will not be able to see the situation that is confronting you, and the situation is changing every moment. It is never the same, not even for two consecutive moments; hence one has to be very aware. Only then can one respond to reality, and to respond to reality is to commune with godliness.The fool knows nothing of godliness; he never comes across anything divine. He remains part of the stupid collectivity. Remember, the society, the collective has no soul; the soul belongs to the individual. Hence, those who belong to the collective are destroying every possibility of being souls.George Gurdjieff used to say that it is very rare to find a person who has a soul, and he was right. To have a soul means to have awareness, to have individuality, to have freedom, to be able to respond, and to be able to respond on your own accord, not following dictums from others, directions from others.The fool is never spontaneous; that is the first thing to be understood about the fool. If you become spontaneous you start becoming intelligent. The fool never learns; he is very stubborn about learning, he thinks he already knows.The fool is not necessarily the ignorant person, mind you. The fool may be a great scholar; the fool may be a famous pundit; the fool may be a well-known professor; the fool may have a PhD, a DLitt. In fact, who else bothers about PhD’s? The fool can be very well-informed, but that makes no difference to his foolishness.Information does not transform you. Transformation is a totally different phenomenon than information. Transformation comes through awareness, through being open: open to life, open to people, open to everything possible. The fool lives in a closed world; he is dumb and deaf.That’s exactly the meaning of the English word idiot: closed. He lives in his own private world. He knows nothing of reality. He lives in his own dreams, and he thinks that’s what reality is. He lives in beliefs, in what tradition, what convention has taught him, whatsoever he has been conditioned for.In a Catholic country he will be a Catholic. In a Communist country he will be a Communist – the same person; there is no difference at all. Whether he quotes from the Bible or from Das Kapital, it is all the same: he quotes mechanically. He cannot understand because he is not ready to learn.He remains utterly closed. He is afraid of opening his windows, his doors. He is afraid to be open to the wind, to the sun, to the rain because: “Who knows?” If he opens to life, his ready-made answers may not be adequate. He is very much afraid to lose his ready-made answers; he depends on them. They may be right or wrong, that is not important for him. As long as he believes they are right, they are right for him.Hence the second characteristic of the foolish man: he is dumb and deaf. He is unlearning. He never listens; he may be able to hear, but he is not able to listen. Hearing is a physiological phenomenon, and listening is something deeper. You hear through the ears, when your heart is also joined with your ears, listening happens. The fool’s heart is never joined with his ears. He is not able to see; he goes on seeing whatsoever he wants to see. He never allows the reality to be reflected in him; he is incapable of reflection. He is not a mirror.After a day at the seaside, a bus full of deaf and dumb people stopped at a country pub. The bus driver went in to explain to the barman: “You see those people over there? They are all deaf and dumb. They have a special sign language. Two fingers means a pint of bitter. Three fingers means a lager; four, a light ale; five, a Guinness; a shake of the head, a whisky; a nod to the left, a brandy; and a nod to the right, a vodka.”The barman, having taken in all this information, agreed he could handle the situation.Things went well for the first hour or so, and then the barman noticed three of the party standing at the bar, opening and shutting their mouths. He tried to figure out what they wanted, then gave up and forgot all about them.But ten minutes later, a dozen of the deaf and dumb people were at the bar, opening and shutting their mouths like goldfish in a bowl. He started to feel a bit uneasy and pretended not to notice. But soon the whole crowd from the bus was at the bar, all of them opening and shutting their mouths.Not knowing what to do, he rushed outside, ran over to where the bus was parked and hammered on the window.“Hey, what’s up?” asked the driver.“Well, you know all those people in there? Well, it was okay for the first hour or so – three fingers, two fingers, shake of the head, nod to the left – but now the whole crowd of them is up at the bar, all opening and shutting their mouths!”“Ah, no,” said the driver, “they are not singing again! Now we will never get them home!”The fool lives in a totally closed world. Neither is he available to reality, nor is he capable of expressing anything. He is uncreative because he cannot express.Hence the third characteristic: the fool is uncreative. He is imitative, but absolutely uncreative. He may be able to compose a few things, he may be able to put a few things together, but it is never creativity. Never is a new thing born through his being, he himself is still unborn. He can become a great technician, but he is never a great artist. He can know how to paint – and he can know perfectly well how to paint – but he will not be able to paint anything genuinely new, authentically novel, original. He is absolutely unoriginal. He lives like a robot; he has been reduced to a machine.If man is reduced to his lowest, he becomes a machine; if he is raised to his highest, he becomes a god. Man is a ladder: at the lowest rung, he is a machine; at the highest rung, he is a god. Either you can be a machine or you can be a god. If you remain unintelligent, unaware, you will remain a machine.Conscience cannot change you. You have been told, “This is right and that is wrong,” but that has not changed you. Nobody can change you from the outside. Any change from the outside is going to be only superficial; deep down you will remain the same, and you will persist in your foolishness.I have seen sinners who are foolish, I have seen saints who are foolish in the same way. There is a great difference between the sinner and the saint from the outside, but both may be fools. The sinner may have fallen in a wrong company, that’s all, and the saint has fallen in a right company; that is the only difference. The sinner is following the wrong crowd; it is accidental. And the saint is following the right crowd, but that too is accidental. Deep down, both are the same.Foolishness has a quality of persisting. It persists because for lives together you have lived through it, you have remained identified with it. It has been safe to be a fool. It has been safe to pretend that you know without knowing, because you know perfectly well that the world has not behaved well with the knowers. It has not poisoned any fool, but it has poisoned Socrates, one of the wisest men ever born. It has not crucified any fool, but it has crucified Jesus.Two hippies, short of cash, hit on a way of making money. With their long hair and beards, a couple of nightshirts and a makeshift cross, they headed one Sunday morning for the local Baptist church, arriving in the middle of the service. The first hippie entered, proclaiming aloud, “Make way for the Lord!”The second staggered behind, wielding the cross.The worshippers cried out aloud. Some fell flat on their faces. Coins and bills were showered on them as they paraded up the aisle and back out again into the street. That Sunday they made over forty dollars.The following week they hit the local Catholic church. “Make way for the Lord!” The parishioners tore out their hair and shrieked up to heaven in paroxysms of divine ecstasy. That morning they made over a hundred dollars.The following week, just for a laugh, they tried the synagogue. The first hippie entered crying, “Make way for the Lord!” and the second lumbered in with his load.The old rabbi turned to his neighbor and whispered, “Moishe, get the hammer and nails out. He is back!”To be a fool is safer. To be a Jesus is dangerous, to be a Buddha is to live in insecurity. It is going against the crowd, and the crowd is vast; it is going against the current. Hence your experience of centuries tells you, “Remain a fool. Pretend that you are not foolish.” That is part of foolishness. The moment a person stops pretending, he starts becoming wise.The beginning of wisdom is to know that you are a fool. Then you are not a fool at all; you have stopped being a fool. It is very rare to accept the fact, “I am a fool.”They say that if a madman knows that he is mad, he is no longer mad, sanity has come back. But no madman ever agrees that he is mad; he thinks he is the sanest man in the world. Everybody else may be mad, he is not. That is also part of remaining foolish. The foolish person pretends in every possible way. He will pretend that he knows what he doesn’t know; he will pretend he is somebody he is not. His life becomes acting, just a superficial show. He is always in a kind of exhibition; he becomes a showcase. He has many faces, he wears masks and he forgets his original face completely.Hence, the Zen Buddhists say that unless you discover your original face you will not know who you are and you will not know what this reality is all about, and you will not know the blessing and the benediction of being alive.Discover the original face. Your original face is lost in so many masks. You have been pretending to others and, slowly, slowly you have become convinced of your own pretensions.Now that Jack and Irma were rich they decided to add a little culture to their hitherto shallow lives. At their first opportunity they went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and took a guided tour of the exhibits.“Say, this is a fine bust of Michelangelo,” said Jack admiringly.“That is not Michelangelo,” explained the guide. “That is Leonardo da Vinci.”“Jack,” she hissed, “why do you have to open your big mouth when you don’t know a single thing about the New Testament?”You will find these pretenders everywhere. You will find these pretenders inside you, outside you. You are living with them, you are one of them. Recognize that “I am a pretender,” and that is a great beginning.The fool may try to be good, but he cannot be good because there is nothing like mechanical goodness. Goodness can only be out of consciousness. All that is mechanical is bad. In my definition and in the definition of Gautama the Buddha, to do anything unconsciously is bad, is evil and to do anything consciously is good, is virtuous. It is not a question of what you are doing, it is not a question about your actions in particular; everything depends on what source it is coming from. If it is coming from your deep awareness, then whatsoever it is, is good.For example, Mohammed fought in many wars with a sword in his hand, but I will not call his wars evil. No, his wars are not evil because they are coming out of a deep awareness, a deep meditativeness. He is simply responding to the situation. Of course, what he is doing is violence – but violence, too, in the hands of a conscious, alert person, transforms its quality.Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, but his vegetarianism was not good. His vegetarianism was evil, because it was coming out of a totally unconscious mind. He never smoked, he never drank alcohol, he lived the life of a celibate. He was almost a monk, a Jaina monk. If you look at his life, he lived it in a very disciplined way. He was not in any way an evil person; he never gambled, never even played cards. But he was not good, he was not virtuous, all that was coming out of an unconscious mind.If you find Jesus drinking, and yes, he used to drink, he enjoyed drinking, and I don’t think there is anything wrong in drinking if you can drink the way Jesus drank, with absolute awareness; then there is nothing wrong in drinking, then drinking, too, is good. But you may be a nondrinker like Adolf Hitler, and it is not good. So the question is not what you do, but how you do it, from where comes the action.Molly O’Brien went to visit the parish priest. “Father,” she said, “I feel so bad! Last night I called a man a bastard.”“Now, why,” said the priest, “would you want to do a thing like that?”“Well, Father, you see, he put his arm around me.”“What – like this?”“Yes, just like that.”“Well, that is no reason to call him a bastard.”“Yes, but then, Father, he kissed me!”“What – like this?”“Yes.”“Well, that’s no reason to call him a bastard.”“I know, but then you see, he put me down on the sofa and lifted my dress up.”“You mean like this?”“Yes, Father.”“Well, still that is no reason to call him a bastard.”“Yes, but then he pulled his trousers down.”“Like this?”“Yes.”“Well, that is still no reason to call him a bastard.”“But Father… Then he made love to me.”“Like this?”“Yes.”“And you called him a bastard just for that?”“But Father – you see – then he told me he had the clap.”“Why, the dirty bastard!”The fool can be found in the sinners, in the priests, in the saints. The fool is a very subtle phenomenon; it is not as gross as you think. You cannot judge from the outside whether a man is wise or foolish because sometimes their acts may be the same.Krishna says in the Gita to Arjuna, “Fight, but fight with absolute surrender to God. Become a vehicle.” Now, to surrender means absolute awareness, otherwise you cannot surrender. Surrender means dropping the ego, and ego is your unconsciousness. Krishna says, “Drop the ego and then leave it to God. Then let his will be done. Then whatsoever happens is good.”Arjuna argues. Again and again he brings new arguments and he says, “But to kill these innocent people, they have not done anything wrong – just for the kingdom to kill so many people, so much violence, so much murder, so much bloodshed, how can it be right? Rather than killing these people for the kingdom I would like to renounce and go to the forest and become a monk.”Now, if you just look from the outside, Arjuna seems to be more religious than Krishna. Arjuna seems to be more a Gandhian than Krishna. Krishna seems to be very dangerous. He is saying, “Drop all this nonsense of being a monk and escaping to the Himalayan caves. That is not for you. Leave everything to God. Don’t decide, drop this deciding. Simply relax, be in a let-go, and let him descend in you and let him flow through you. Then, whatsoever happens… If he wants to become a monk through you, he will become a monk. If he wants to become a warrior through you, he will become a warrior.”Arjuna seems to be more moralistic, puritanical. Krishna seems to be totally different. Krishna is a buddha, an awakened being. He is saying, “Don’t you decide. Out of your unconsciousness, whatsoever you decide is going to be wrong because unconsciousness is wrong.”The foolish person lives in unconsciousness. Even if he tries to do good, in fact he succeeds only in doing bad.Paddy McNaughty went to confession: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”“And what is it that you have done, my son?”“I made love to one of the girls in the village.”“My God!” said the priest, “and which of the village girls did you commit sin with?”“Ah, Father, that I cannot tell.”“And if you will not tell me, then I shall not give you absolution.”“Ah dear!” said Paddy.“Was it Molly O’Flaherty?” asked the priest.“No, it was not Molly O’Flaherty.”“Then was it Flora Fitzgibbons?”“Ah no,” said Paddy, “it was not Flora Fitzgibbons.”“Was it Maggie Muldoon, then?” persisted the priest.“Ah, sure no, it was not Maggie Muldoon.”“Then who in heaven’s name was it?”“Ah, sure, Father – that I cannot tell.”“And if you don’t tell me I shall not give ya absolution.”“Ah, Father, that’s too bad!” said Paddy and walked out of the confessional.His friend, Michael, was waiting outside. “Well, Paddy, did ya get yar sins forgiven?”“No,” said Paddy, “but I got the names of a few good broads!”If you are unconscious you may go to get forgiven, you may go to confession, but it is not going to help, you will remain the same. Foolishness tends to persist. Beware of these characteristics of foolishness. Foolishness is very egoistic. In fact, the more intelligent you are, the less egoistic you are. When intelligence blooms in perfection, ego disappears. Hence, foolishness is very argumentative; it always tries to defend itself. In a thousand and one ways it will convince you that this is the right course, this is what is to be done.One has to be very aware of all these deep tendencies; they force you to go astray, they force you to go off center. They make you eccentric. Consciousness centers you; unconsciousness takes you off your center.A man walked into a cafeteria and ordered coffee and a cream bun. “Sorry,” said the attendant, “but we’re out of buns. Why not have a doughnut instead?”“In that case,” said the man, “I’ll have a cup of tea and a cream bun.”“I just told you, sir, we’re out of buns. Why don’t you have a doughnut?”“Hmm… So in that case, I’ll have a toasted bun with butter and a cup of tea.”“Look! How many times do I have to tell you? We don’t have any buns – cream buns or toasted buns, or any other kind of buns!”“Okay then,” said the man. “Then give me a currant bun and a hot chocolate.”“Look here, you!” said the attendant, seizing the man by the collar and shaking him violently, “We don’t have no buns! We don’t have no cream buns, we don’t have no currant buns, nor hot cross buns, or toasted buns with butter – or any other kind of buns. Get it?”“Okay, okay!” said the man. “No need to shout – I’ll just have a bun!”Buddha says:The fool is his own enemy.Seeking wealth, he destroys himself.The fool is his own enemy. There are many reasons why. First: he will die without being born, he will die as a seed. He will never bloom, he will never come to flowers and to fruits. He will never know what fulfillment is. His life will be a sheer wastage. His life will be a desert without any oasis. He will not know any blessing, any benediction, any ecstasy, and these were his birthright. He will be self-destructive. Not to grow into consciousness is the most suicidal act one can commit; hence Buddha says: The fool is his own enemy. He misses a great opportunity.Life is such a precious opportunity to know, to be, but the fool misses. He will not even be aware what he has missed. He will pass through life like a zombie. His whole life is mechanical. He gets up early in the morning, takes his breakfast, goes to the office, does his work, drives back home, he is doing everything, but still he is a robot. He is not yet inwardly full of light; deep inside him there is only darkness. He is doing all these things because he has practiced doing them. He has become skillful.Scientists have been working for centuries to create robots. I don’t see why they should be so much concerned about creating robots – there are so many, millions of them! There is no need to make robots at all; all these millions of robots go on producing more robots! In fact, the question is how to stop them from producing more.Each fool leaves at least a dozen fools – particularly in India – behind him. When he dies he makes the world twelve times more foolish; he leaves a dozen fools as a proof that he has been here. What is the need of creating robots?I was reading a story in which robots have been created – it is a twenty-first century story – and they are so exactly like human beings that it is very difficult to distinguish. If you meet a robot on the way driving his car you will not be able to distinguish whether he is a robot or not. He will look exactly like a man. Only one difference will be there: he will be more efficient. There will be less accidents on the road. He will finish his work in time. He will not go on piling up files on his table; his table will be clean.So a few indications are there to let you judge whether the man is really a robot or a man. Only once in a while you will know who is a robot – when his battery runs down. Then only if he was talking to you and he was giving you great argument, philosophical arguments for God’s existence, and then he suddenly says, “Grrr, grrrr, grrr-rr-rrr!” and immediately runs toward the electric plug and connects himself to the electricity to recharge himself – then you will know that this is not a real man; otherwise there will not be any difference.And that, too, is possible to overcome sooner or later: we can fix two batteries. Why one battery? I was worried: why fix one battery in the poor man? You can fix two batteries so that while one is being used, the other is being charged automatically. If you can create a robot, can’t you create an automatic battery? Why make him look foolish: “Grrr, grrr, grrr”? And this can happen any time. He is making love to his woman, and “Grrr, grrr, grrr!” And he has to say, “Excuse me, I have run out of gas!” Either electricity or petrol he will need.The fool is his own enemy. His first inimical act toward himself is his mechanicalness.“Look what I got today! A brand-new car, and it only cost eight hundred pounds.”“Eight hundred pounds? But that’s impossible – a brand-new car?”“Ah well, you see, it’s got no engine.”“Got no engine?”“That’s right. You talk to it, see… You just talk to it and it goes.”“Is that so?”“Yep, that’s right. Wanna come for a ride? Only one thing, though, before we start. This car only understands a few words. Like, to make it go forward you say, ‘Bloody hell’; to make it stop you say, ‘Bastard.’”“Oh, is that so?”“Yep. Sure is. Come on, I will show ya. ‘Bloody hell’ – she goes, see, and all you have to do is turn the steering wheel, blow the horn, flash the indicators… ‘Bastard’ – see, she stops when you want, too.”“Wow! I’ve never seen a car like that before!”“Let’s take her out into the country. Maybe we can go out toward the cliffs by the sea. See, on a straight road she’ll go up to ninety, no problem – ninety-four, ninety-five…”“Uh…ahem… I say, aren’t we getting a bit close to the edge of the cliffs?”“Come on now, don’t worry. Just watch how she brakes.”“Hey! Hey, careful! That sign says, ‘Road ends in fifty yards,’ and you’re going ninety-five!”“Right! Watch this: Bastard… Hey, come on now – she doesn’t want to stop! Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! We made it! See, she stopped.”“Phew, bloody hell, that was close…!”The fool is his own enemy. Seeking wealth, he destroys himself. By “wealth” Buddha means everything that is outside you: power, prestige, money, sex – anything that is outside you. The fool is extrovert; he never looks in. He accumulates everything on the outside. His whole life is devoted to money, power, prestige, and then one day death comes, but then it is too late. When death comes, he realizes that all that he has been doing has been simply stupid because all is slipping out of his fingers. All that he has been doing was making sandcastles. Just a blow of death, and everything disappears like a dream.Buddha says: Seeking wealth, he destroys himself. He remains constantly extrovert; hence he never becomes aware who he is, why he is, from where he comes, to where he is going, what is his destiny, what is his significance, why this existence needs him, what purpose he is supposed to fulfill, what fragrance has to be released by him. He never looks in. He goes on rushing faster and faster. As death comes closer he runs faster so that he can accumulate a little more wealth, a little more respectability, so that he can become a president or a prime minister.But death destroys everything – your presidents, your prime ministers. You may be rich; death is not going to favor you. Before death, everybody is the same, rich or poor, knowledgeable or not knowledgeable, famous or not famous.Buddha says that if you are putting your energies into such projects which can be destroyed by death, then you are destroying yourself. Attain something that is imperishable. Attain to something that death cannot snatch away from you. Realize something that will go beyond death with you. Realize something that even fire cannot burn, swords cannot cut, atom bombs, hydrogen bombs cannot destroy. Only then have you been a friend to yourself; otherwise you are an enemy.Three couples were killed in a car crash. Saint Peter was waiting for them at the Pearly Gates, his big book under his arm. The first couple was summoned forth.“Name?” shouted Saint Peter.“Jones,” replied the husband.Saint Peter opened his big book and started thumbing through the pages.“Hmmm… Jackson… Johnson… Ah yes, Jones! Hmm… Jones, hey? Well now, Jones, this is not a very good record, is it? Drink, drink, drink – that’s all you’ve ever been after – even married a woman called Sherry. Well, Jones, this isn’t good enough, you know. I’m afraid it is downstairs to hell for you.”The Joneses broke into sobs and hugged each other, but two guardian angels pulled them apart and dragged the man toward the gates of hell. The wife followed shortly.“Next!” called Saint Peter and the second couple shuffled forward. “Name!”“Smith,” they both replied shakily.“Hmm… Scott… Short… Ah yes, Smith! Hmm… Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this one doesn’t look too good either. Money, money, money – that’s all you two have ever been after – even called your sons Buck, Frank and Mark, and your daughter, Penny. Now what kind of a life is that? Well, there’s only one place for people like you. You’ll have to go downstairs – down to hell!”The Smiths wept and fell at his feet, but the verdict was final.“Next!” shouted Saint Peter, as the guardian angels were hauling the Smiths away.The next husband turned to his wife and said, “Come on, Fanny, I’m not gonna stand here and be insulted!”Seek rather the other shore.Buddha says: “Don’t be too concerned with this shore; it is momentary. Tomorrow you have to go.” Even seventy years is not a long time; compared to eternity it is just a moment. Your life lasts only as long as a soap bubble. You think it is long enough, seventy years or so, because you compare your life with the life of flies or mosquitoes; then it looks long enough. But ask the mosquitoes and they think they are doing perfectly well: they are doing everything that you are doing and in a short span. They are born, they fall in love, they get married, they have children – and many more than you can ever have – and they sing and they dance. Maybe they have their own religion and priests and politicians. And then they become old and then they die. Maybe it lasts only for a few weeks, but in those few weeks they have done everything.There are insects that will live only for a few hours, but in those few hours is condensed your whole life: boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and all the fights; I have heard they go even to marriage counselors, they consult sexologists!One woman had a cat and the cat was creating much trouble in the neighborhood. He was a playboy and the whole night he was going from this house to that, and they were making much noise because cats don’t believe in making love silently. They are not Hindus, not Indians! They are all hippies!So the whole neighborhood told the woman, “Do something. It’s too much! We can’t sleep. This lovemaking of your cat is driving us mad!”Finally the woman took her cat to the vet to be operated on. But the neighborhood was in as much trouble as before.People asked the woman, “What is the matter? What kind of operation is this? Your cat has been operated on, you say, but we still see him coming.”The woman said, “Yes, he still goes – now as a consultant.”Time does not matter. In a few hours you can live seventy years or seven hundred years in a condensed way. Seventy years can be condensed into seven minutes, and seven minutes look very small compared to seventy years, but what are seventy years compared to the age of the sun or the moon or the earth or the stars? And what are seventy years compared to eternity?This shore consists of momentary phenomena. Don’t waste your total energy in that which is momentary. Go on remembering the other shore. By “the other shore” Buddha means that which is beyond time and beyond space. This shore is outside you and the other shore is within you. This shore consists of money, sex, power, prestige, and that shore consists only of awareness, silence, peace, prayer.Seek rather the other shore.Weeds choke the field.Passion poisons the nature of man,and hatred, illusion and desire.But you are full of weeds, hence you cannot grow roses. Before you can grow roses you will have to remove all the weeds, you will have to prepare the ground, you will have to prepare the soil. You will have to remove the weeds, the stones, and all that can be a hindrance for the roses. Weeds choke the field.About weeds, one thing has to be understood: you need not grow them, they grow on their own accord. Even if you pull them out they will grow again.Mulla Nasruddin has a very beautiful lawn. A new neighbor moved recently next door to Mulla’s house and he became very interested in Mulla’s garden, particularly his lawn. He also wanted to make a beautiful lawn and a garden. He planted seeds, he planted plants, but so many weeds started growing.He asked Mulla, “How to distinguish which is grass and which are weeds?”Mulla said, “Simple. You pull them both out. The grass will not grow again and the weeds will grow again. That’s how one knows, that’s how one can distinguish.”Weeds have a quality, the same quality as the fools: they persist, they insist, they don’t want to be removed. Everything great in this life is fragile and everything ugly is rocklike, very strong. Weeds grow on their own accord. You have not cultivated anger and you have not cultivated lust. There are no schools where you are taught how to be jealous and how to be greedy. No teachers, no masters are needed to teach you how to be unconscious. These things grow on their own accord.Falling downward is easy; rising upward is difficult, it goes against gravitation. You have to remove the weeds, otherwise they choke the field. You are so full of anger, greed, lust, that they are choking your energies. It will be impossible for you to grow – they won’t allow you to grow. They will suck all your energy; they are suckers, they are parasites.Buddha says: Weeds choke the field. Passion poisons the nature of man, and hatred, illusion and desire. Passion creates many things in you. It creates fever, it makes you more unconscious than you already are. It drags you deeper into the mud. And with passion come hatred, illusion and desire, and you are distracted from your nature. Your nature is poisoned, your innocence is poisoned. You lose all simplicity, all humbleness.Beware of the poisoning by passion. Be warm, be loving – that is a totally different phenomenon – but don’t be full of lust. Warmth is possible with your consciousness. A Buddha is very warm, a Jesus is very warm, very loving. Passion has disappeared. Passion has become transformed into compassion. Their compassion showers on you like flowers. Just as passion poisons you, compassion purifies you. Compassion is nectar if passion is poison. The energy that is involved in passion can be released into compassion.The way to release the energy, the way to rechannel it toward compassion, is what Buddha calls sammasati – right awareness, right remembering; what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering, what Krishnamurti calls simply awareness, what I call meditation. They are all the same, different names indicating the same energy. You have to become alert, conscious of what you are doing.Try to be conscious when you are angry and you will be surprised – you are in for a great surprise. If you become conscious, anger disappears. And suddenly you have found a key, you have stumbled upon a secret. When sex dominates you and you are full of lust, close your eyes, sit silently and meditate on this energy that is surrounding you, this lust that is surrounding you like a cloud. Just watch it, see it. I am not saying be against it, because if you are against it you have already taken a standpoint, and now you cannot watch.For watching, the necessary step, the most necessary, is not to take any prejudice, not to conclude beforehand. Just remain silently watchful, neither for nor against, and within minutes you will be surprised that the great storm of lust is over. And when the storm is over, the silence that is left behind is so profound, is so great, such a blessing that you may not have felt it ever. No sexual experience can give you that beauty that will come if you watch your lust and through watchfulness the lust disappears. Then a silence comes to you which is virgin, which belongs to the beyond, which belongs to the other shore.Honor the man who is without passion… Buddha says: “If you can find a man who is without passion – if you can find a christ or a buddha – honor the man.” For the simple reason that he has done almost the impossible: he has escaped from the ordinary bondage of humanity. He is no longer a prisoner, no longer a slave. He has asserted his individuality, his intelligence. He is no longer a fool. Wisdom has happened in his being. He is full of light; darkness has disappeared.Honor the man who is without passion,hatred, illusion and desire.The moment passion disappears, hatred disappears, and illusion disappears, desire disappears because one feels so contented, one feels so utterly fulfilled. One feels one has come home. There is nowhere to go, nothing else to ask for or desire.Just think of those moments when there is no desire, when there is no tension, when your mind is absolutely quiet. Only then will you know God exists – or it will be more right to say, godliness exists.What you give to him… If you give anything to a buddha, and what can you give to him? You can give him your respect, you can give him your trust, you can give him your self, your surrender.What you give to himwill be given back to you,and more.Whenever a disciple surrenders himself to an awakened master he becomes the richest person in the world. In his very surrender is victory. In his dropping of the ego he attains to beinghood. For the first time he is – and in a very strange way, because he has dropped himself. But the one he has dropped was a false self, and when the false disappears, the real appears. When the false ceases to be, the real starts shining in all its glory, in all its splendor.Whatsoever you give to a buddha comes back to you a thousandfold. The disciple surrenders, the disciple opens his heart, and the buddha starts flowing into the heart of the disciple. The buddha is like a raincloud, so full of love, so full of truth, so full of ecstasy, that if you open your heart, if you are ready to drink out of him, you will, for the first time, feel a deep satisfaction. Your thirst will be quenched.That’s why Jesus says: “Eat me, drink me.” He is not telling you to become cannibals! He is saying to you, “I am available. Just open your heart and let me in.”When the awakened one knocks on your door, please open the door because you may miss the opportunity and you may miss it for many, many lives. It is very rare to come across a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna, a Mahavira, a Mohammed. If you are fortunate enough to come across an awakened person, then don’t be miserly. Then drop yourself totally, then be committed totally.Just the other day somebody has asked, “You say: ‘I am the gate.’ I have come here, I love you. I have come from far away, but I am not a sannyasin and I am not being allowed to see you. Then why do you say: ‘I am the gate’ if I am not allowed to come through you?”You are allowed to come through me, but a few things you will have to leave at the gate: your shoes, your heads. That’s what sannyas is. These are your two extremes, the two polarities: the shoes and the head. Leave both the extremes outside, then you are balanced. The very word sannyas means a state of equilibrium, of balance, of absolute balance.I am the gate, but I am the gate only for those who are ready to pass through me. You have to pay the price, and sannyas is the price. If you love me, then love is always ready to sacrifice. And I am not asking for your money, I am not asking for your house; I am not asking anything of this shore from you. I am asking only for that which you don’t have but you believe that you have. I am asking only for the false things: your beliefs, your ego, your hatred, your passion, your desires, your lust, your greed. I am asking for all your diseases. Give all your diseases to me; that’s what sannyas is all about. Then I am the gate and I am ready. Come through me and you will find that which you have been seeking for lives together.But you can miss the gate if you are so miserly or so cowardly that you cannot take the jump into sannyas. Then what kind of love are you talking about? Love knows how to be committed, how to be involved. Love knows how to die and how to be reborn. Love is ready to pass through any fire because love knows, “Nothing can destroy me, not even fire can burn me.” Love knows its eternity; hence love is always courageous.Sannyas is courage, it is adventure.Buddha says: What you give to him will be given back to you, and more. Don’t be worried and don’t be miserly. Be open with me, be vulnerable, be receptive, so that I can pour myself totally in you. I am ready to be a guest in your heart, but you will have to be ready to be a host and you will have to cleanse your heart of all the weeds. You will have to empty your heart of all the junk that you have collected: of all the past, of all the memories, of all the belief systems, of all the philosophies, ideologies – political, religious, social.When you are absolutely empty you can come into me, I can come into you. The meeting can happen. And that meeting is the greatest orgasmic experience of life.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I feel like such a no-sayer. Is there any hope for no-sayers?No-saying is a good beginning, but not a good end. No-saying is the seed; yes-saying is the flowering of it. The yes has to come through the no; the no is the womb of the yes. If you cannot say no, your yes will be impotent. It won’t have any meaning at all, it won’t transform your life. It will be just on your lips, not in your heart.That’s what has happened to the whole of humanity. People have been forced to become yea-sayers, theists, God-believers, without ever knowing the taste of no. The yes has been forced upon them. They have not arrived at the yes, the yes has been handed over to them, it is borrowed. It is a mere belief, and all beliefs are blind. They keep you blind, they keep you in darkness. They keep you stuck and stagnant.There is nothing wrong in saying no. No has as much beauty as yes. No is the way to arrive at yes. Use the no as a stepping-stone. Don’t let it become a habit; be conscious about it, that’s all. I cannot say to you to start saying yes because that will not yet be ripe for you. Go on saying no as long as the no remains significant to you. The no will destroy all that is false, borrowed. It will negate all beliefs. It will create an empty space in you.In the East we call the whole process neti, neti – neither this nor that. We have never condemned it.It cleans you of all rubbish, it purifies you. It is a fire. Passing through it is a necessary step you cannot avoid. Those who avoid passing through it, their yes is just parrotlike. You can teach the parrot anything and he will go on repeating it. He does not mean it. He has no heart within it, he simply says the words – empty words, hollow words.A man was purchasing a parrot; he went to the pet shop. He liked one very beautiful parrot and asked the price. The price appeared to be a little too much: the man was asking one thousand dollars.The purchaser asked, “Is that parrot worth that much?”The shopkeeper said, “You can ask the parrot himself.”He asked the parrot, and the parrot said, “There is no doubt about it.”He said it so convincingly. It appeared so natural. The man purchased the parrot, and he was very excited to show it to his wife, to his children. He brought the parrot home.He asked the parrot, “What is your name?”He said, “There is no doubt about it.”The man said, “What?”He said, “There is no doubt about it!”The man asked, “Do you know anything else or not?”He said, “There is no doubt about it.”The man said, “My God, I must have been a fool to purchase you!”The parrot said, “There is no doubt about it!”That was all that the parrot knew. You ask any question, the answer is the same. It has nothing to do with the questions, it has nothing to do with the reality, it is not a response. It is just like a gramophone record. It goes on repeating meaninglessly.The people who have been conditioned to say yes – yes to God, yes to the religion, yes to the society, yes to the parents – their yes is bogus, it has no substance. It is not even a shadow. Even shadows have something in them, but this yes is absolutely a nonentity. Parents teach you, “Respect your parents, say yes, be obedient.” Of course, that is their vested interest. The priest says: “Respect the priests, respect the Bible, the Koran, the Gita, respect the tradition, respect convention.” That is his vested interest. And so on, so forth.Somebody asked George Gurdjieff, “Why has respect for parents been emphasized, in every religion, in every country, in every society? Is there something divine in it?” Gurdjieff laughed and said, “Yes. God knows perfectly well that if people are trained to say yes to the parents only then will they say yes to God. He has a vested interest in it.” God is the father figure, the ultimate father. And Gurdjieff also said, “Your parents are sooner or later going to die, and then there will be a vacuum. You respected your parents, you were obedient to your parents, you were always following, imitating whatsoever they said. You were just a carbon copy. You will feel very empty, so much so that you would like to fill your emptiness with something. And that is the place which God will start filling in you.”He was joking. It is not God’s vested interest. Of course it is the vested interest of the priests. God has no vested interest in anything. In fact there is no God as a person; God is only godliness.One need not believe in God, one need not be a yea-sayer. One should learn the process of saying no.So don’t be worried. Say no boldly, courageously. Risk everything for the no. Slowly, slowly you will become aware that the no has limits. There are points when you cannot say no. When you explore the possibilities of saying no, you will come across certain spaces where no-saying is impossible and yes arises within your heart on its own accord, not as a conditioning, not because somebody has told you. Now it is your own flowering. Then that yes has beauty, then that yes has truth, that yes makes you a religious person. Otherwise you remain just imitators – you can imitate Christianity or Hinduism or Mohammedanism; it does not matter whom you imitate.I have seen Christians becoming Hindus, Hindus becoming Christians, and they are the same people. Not only that, I have seen Catholics become Communists – they still remain the same people. I have seen Communists become religious, but they are still the same people, just the object of worship changes. Gods go on changing. One God fails, another God replaces him but the worshipper is the same. Whether you worship Mohammed or Marx, Mahavira or Moses, it is not going to make any difference.If your yes has not come as a growth to you, then it is absolutely useless. Pass through this fire of no-saying, but remember only one thing: don’t let it become a habit. It can become a habit, and that is the danger. The danger is not in no-saying, the danger is that your no-saying may become mechanical. So say it consciously, that’s all I can advise you – say it consciously! Just don’t go on saying it because you have become accustomed. That is as foolish as saying yes meaninglessly. If you say it as a habit, it is meaningless.There are theists and there are atheists, and they are all in the same boat. Somebody has been told from the very beginning that God is – say yes and you will be saved. And somebody has been told there is no God – say no and you are saved. They are both repeating; whom you are imitating is irrelevant.A man entered into a restaurant and ordered a cup of tea. He said, “P-p-please b-bring a cup of tea.”Another man who was sitting across the table also repeated the same, “P-p-please b-bring a cup of tea.”The first man looked at the second man in anger but didn’t say anything. Then a third man entered and he asked that he should be brought a cup of tea.And the second man said, “Yes, bring another cup of tea for me too.”Now the first man was really angry. He said, “Y-y-y-you have been imitating me!”And the second man said, “N-n-no. I am imitating him.”But whom are you imitating? Does it matter? Imitation is imitation. People are imitators. The whole world is full of those imitators. You think those imitators are yea-sayers? You think those imitators are no-sayers? They are not saying anything, they are simply repeating whatsoever they have been told to repeat.So just remember one thing: don’t let it become a habit. Be conscious of it and you will be immensely benefited.I have heard…One ex-Nazi was trying to hide the fact that he had been a storm trooper. He decided to become an opera singer.When the night for his big debut came he walked on stage, looked at his audience and announced, “I am going to sing. And you are going to listen!”Things become unconscious. You cannot hide them; everybody else will be able to see them except you. If you can also see your habits, you start becoming a little detached, unidentified from them, a little aloof. And that very aloofness is a transcendence. Then you will be able to say no when no is needed. And you will be able to say yes when yes is needed. You will not be fixated.To be fixated is insane. I don’t want you to become yea-sayers; I want you to be conscious, alert, watchful, responsive. There are moments when your total being would like to say no. Then say no. If everything has to be risked, risk, but don’t be false to your own being. And there will be moments when your whole being says, “Say yes.” And then too, maybe there is great danger in saying yes, but say it. That’s the way of the sannyasin, the really religious person.Don’t become fixated. You can move from no-saying to yes-saying, and you can still remain unconscious and fixated. Then nothing has happened. Your disbelief has become belief, but you are the same person.Ira Schwartzbaum thought he was God. His worried parents, unable to convince him otherwise, finally took him to see a world-famous psychiatrist.Ira lay on the couch and closed his eyes.“Tell me,” the psychiatrist asked him in an encouraging, sympathetic voice, “how did it all start?”“Well,” Ira said, “on the first day I created the earth, then…”You can be fixated. And once you are fixated on a certain thing, when you cannot have a detached view of it, when you cannot create a distance between it and you, you are insane. What your fixation is, is not important. You may be a Communist or a Catholic, Hindu or a Mohammedan, believer–disbeliever, no-sayer–yes-sayer, it is all the same.Hence, don’t be worried about your no-saying. Be conscious of it. Next time you say no, don’t just say it out of habit, out of a past pattern. Reflect, watch, wait, and let a response arise in you. You may be surprised that a yes is born, and it will be born in you, it will not be imposed from the outside.Your freedom is a supreme value. Nothing is higher than that. But your freedom is possible only if you are not encaged in your habits, unconscious patterns of living. Change your gestalt from unconsciousness to consciousness, and I know that as you become conscious you will be able to say more yes than no.Ultimately a moment comes when life becomes just yes. But it is not fixation, you are still capable of saying no, it is not that you have become incapable of saying no. In fact, the greater is your yes, in the same proportion is your capacity to say no. You may not say no, it may not be needed. Your understanding of life, your love affair with life may have brought you such tremendous joy that you may not like to say no. You may see the childishness of it, the stupidity of it, the stubbornness of it. You may see its poison and you may not say no, but that does not mean that you have become incapable of saying it. The more capable you are of saying yes, in the same proportion you will be capable of saying no, too. But now everything will be decided by your conscious response.Ultimately the awakened person stops saying no. Not that he deliberately decides not to say no, it simply withers away just as dead leaves fall from the trees.The second question:Osho,Why is it so difficult and scary to show your feelings and just to be yourself?It is difficult to show your feelings and just to be yourself because for thousands of years you have been told to repress your feelings. It has become part of your collective unconscious. For thousands of years you have been told not to be yourself. Be Jesus, be Buddha, be Krishna, but never be yourself. Be somebody else. Down the ages you have been taught so continuously, so persistently that it has gone into your blood, into your bones, into your very marrow.A deep self-rejection has become part of you. All the priests have been condemning you. They have been telling you that you are sinners, that you are born in sin. Your only hope is that Jesus can save you, or Krishna can save you, but there is no hope as far as you are concerned, you cannot save yourself, somebody else will save you. You are doomed, you can only pray to Jesus, to Krishna, to save you. As far as you are concerned you are just worthless, you are just dust and nothing more. You have no value, you have been reduced to ugly things, to disgusting beings. It is because of this that one finds it very difficult and scary to show one’s true feelings. You have been taught to be hypocrites.Hypocrisy pays, and whatsoever pays seems to be valuable. They say honesty is the best policy, but remember, the best policy. Even honesty has become only a policy because it pays. If it does not pay, then dishonesty is the best policy! The whole thing depends on what works, what pays, what makes you richer, more respectable, what makes you more comfortable, safer, more secure, what gives you more nourishment for the ego – that’s the best policy. It may be honesty, it may be dishonesty, whatsoever it is, use it as a means; it is not an end.Religion also has become a good policy. It is a kind of insurance for the other world. You are preparing for the other world by being virtuous, by going to the church, by donating to the poor. You are opening a bank account in paradise, so when you go there you will be received with great joy, angels shouting “Alleluia!” dancing, playing on their harps. How big a bank account you have there will depend on how many virtuous deeds you have done here.Religion too has become business, and your reality is repressed. The repressed people have been respected so much. You call them saints; they are really schizophrenic. They should be treated, they need therapy – and you worship them. Out of one hundred of your saints, if even one turns out to be a real saint, it will be a miracle. Ninety-nine are just hocus-pocus, pretenders, deceivers. And I am not saying they are deceiving you; they are deceiving themselves too. They are repressed people.I have known many mahatmas in this country, greatly respected by the masses. I have been very intimate with these people, and in their privacy they have opened their hearts to me. They are uglier than you will find the ordinary people.I used to visit prisoners, to teach them how to meditate, and I was surprised in the beginning to observe that prisoners, even those who have been sentenced for their whole lives, are far more innocent than your saints, are far better people than your saints, far simpler, far more innocent. Your saints are cunning, clever, and your saints have only one quality: that they are able to repress themselves. They go on repressing. Then naturally they become split. Then they have two kinds of lives: one that they live at the front door, and the other that they live at the back door; one that they live as a showpiece, and the other – the real one – that they don’t show to anybody. They are afraid even to see it themselves.And that’s the case with you too, on a smaller scale, of course, because you are not a saint. Your illness is not yet incurable, it can be cured. It is not yet so acute, it is not yet chronic. Your illness is just like the common cold: it can disappear easily.But everybody is influenced by these so-called saints, who are really insane people. They are repressed so much – they have repressed their sex, they have repressed their greed, they have repressed their anger, and they are boiling within themselves. Their inner life is very nightmarish, there is no peace, no silence. All their smiles are painted.I have heard of a beautiful woman who came from the West in search of peace. She went to the Himalayas. She had heard about a great saint who used to live in the caves. It was hard to reach there, but you know Americans: the harder a thing is, the more they become interested; it becomes a challenge.So the American lady reached to the peak where the saint lived. He had lived there for thirty years absolutely alone. Not a single human being had visited him all this time, because Indians are very lazy; they don’t bother to go that far. They have managed in a different way: every twelve years they gather in Allahabad and all the saints from all the caves come down so they can have all the saints together. They don’t often bother to go to the Himalayas. Those who want to be worshipped come on their own.But the American lady reached with arduous effort, and she told the saint who was very old, ancient, “I have come here in search of peace. I want peace of mind and peace of heart.”The saint said, “Yes, you have come to the right place. You will be given both. Don’t be worried, my daughter. It is not difficult. You will have peace of mind and peace of heart.”She was very happy. At last somebody was certain. She had seen many psychiatrists and therapists; they all said that it would take seven years, ten years of analysis, and then too there was no guarantee. This man was so certain, and he looked so silent, so happy, a man from a totally different world, so unearthly.But in the middle of the night the saint jumped into the bed of the woman. She was so shocked, for a few seconds she could not utter a single word. And the saint started making love, wild love, to the woman.The woman said, “What are you doing? You had promised me peace of the mind and peace of the heart! And what are you doing?”He said, “First things first: piece of ass! We will take care of other things later on. One has to begin from the beginning.”Repression was his problem. Peace of mind and peace of heart was not his problem; he must have been repressing for thirty years, and he had not seen even a single woman. And I don’t know whether the woman was really beautiful or not, because if you don’t see a woman for thirty years, any woman looks beautiful! Any woman looks like she is coming from the gods.Hindu scriptures are full of stories that whenever a great saint reaches very close to attaining enlightenment, beautiful women come from the gods to disturb him. I have not yet been able to find out why the gods should be interested in disturbing these poor fellows. Some ascetic, fasting for years, repressing, standing on his head, torturing himself, has not done any harm to anybody else except himself. Why should the gods be so interested in distracting him? They should really help him! And they send beautiful, naked women to dance around and make obscene gestures to the poor fellow. Naturally he becomes a victim, he is seduced, falls from grace, as if the gods are against anyone who is reaching closer to enlightenment. This seems so ridiculous. They should help. Rather than helping they come to destroy.But those stories should not be understood literally; they are symbolical, they are metaphors. They are very meaningful. Had Sigmund Freud come across those stories, he would have utterly enjoyed them. It would have been a treasure for him. It would have supported his psychoanalysis as nothing else. Nobody was coming; those repressed people were projecting their desires, desires so long repressed that now they have become so powerful that even with open eyes they were dreaming.So I don’t know whether this woman was really beautiful, but she must have appeared beautiful to the so-called saint. In India, if a woman is sitting somewhere, the saints are taught not to sit in the same place after the woman has left for a certain length of time, because that space vibrates with danger. Do you see the foolishness of it all? And these have been the teachers of humanity, these are the people who have made you scared of your own feelings because you cannot accept your own feelings. You reject them, hence the fear.Accept them; nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong with you! All that is needed is not repression or destruction. You have to learn the art of creating harmony in your energies. You have to become an orchestra. Yes, if you don’t know how to play the musical instruments, you will create noise, you will drive your neighbors mad. But if you know the art of playing on the instruments you can create beautiful music, you can create celestial music. You can bring something of the beyond to the earth.Life is also a great instrument. You have to learn how to play upon it. Nothing has to be cut, destroyed, repressed, rejected. All that existence has given to you is beautiful. If you have not been able to use it beautifully, it simply shows that you are not yet artful enough. We have all taken our lives for granted, and that is wrong. We are given only a raw possibility. We have been given only a potential for life; we have to learn how to actualize it.That’s what sannyas is all about. That’s what all the devices are: meditation, therapies – all the possible sources have to be used, so that you can know how to use your anger in such a way that it becomes compassion; how to use your sex in such a way that it becomes love; how to use your greed in such a way that it becomes sharing. Each energy that you have can become its polar opposite, because the polar opposite is always contained in it.Your body contains the soul, matter contains mind. The world contains godliness. Dust contains divineness. You have to discover it, and the first step toward discovery is to accept yourself, rejoice in being yourself. You are not to be a Jesus, no, you are not to be a Buddha. You are not to be me or anybody else. You have to be just yourself. Existence does not want carbon copies; your uniqueness is loved, and you can offer yourself only as a unique phenomenon. You can be accepted as an offering but only as a unique phenomenon. An imitation Jesus, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed won’t do. Imitators are bound to be rejected.Be yourself, authentically yourself. Respect yourself. If existence has given you life it respects you. And do you have higher standards than existence itself? Love yourself. Existence loves you. And then start watching all kinds of energies in you – you are a vast universe!Slowly, slowly as you become more conscious, you will be able to put things right, into the right places. You are topsy-turvy, that is true, but nothing is wrong with you, you are not a sinner. Just a little rearrangement and you will become a beautiful phenomenon.The third question:Osho,Am I wasting energy by looking to occultism as a way to explore inner space?Occultism is for stupid people. Godliness is not hidden; Godliness is very much manifested. It is all over the place: singing in the birds, flowering in the flowers, green in the trees, red in the roses. It is breathing in you, talking through me and listening through you, right this very moment. But you don’t want to see the obvious.Man has a very pathological interest in the occult. Occult means that which is hidden. Man wants to be interested in the hidden, and there is nothing hidden! As far as existence is concerned nothing is hidden. Just open your eyes and see godliness surrounding you. Be silent and you will hear the still, small voice within yourself. Why go into occultism to explore inner space? Why not go directly into inner space? Occultism is so much nonsense, and there is no end to it because it is all invention. It is religious fiction. Just as there is science fiction, occultism is religious fiction. If you love fictions, it is perfectly okay. But then don’t think that by reading science fiction you are studying science. Don’t believe in science fiction, and don’t act out of that belief; otherwise you will end up in a madhouse.Occultism is exactly like science fiction. People love fiction; there is nothing wrong in it, but you should know that it is fiction. Enjoy, but don’t take it seriously.In Buddha’s time there were eight great masters. Mahavira is well-known, he was the last enlightened master of the tradition of the Jainas. He used to say there are three hells. One of his disciples became a renegade, betrayed him, declared himself to be a master, and he started talking about seven hells. He used to say to people, “Mahavira does not know much; he knows only about three hells and I know about seven.” Naturally people were impressed. “Mahavira talks only of three hells and he talks about seven!”One great master was Sanjay Belattiputta, another contemporary of Buddha. He must have been a man something like me: nonserious. He started talking about seven hundred hells. He said, “What is this Gosalak talking about? Only seven? There are seven hundred, and there are seven hundred heavens too.”He was joking, but people were very interested: “This seems to be the right man, who has gone so deep into occultism.”Once a follower of Radhaswami, a small sect which is confined to an area near Agra, came to see me. I was in Agra. He was some kind of a priest, and he said, “Do you know that our master has said there are fourteen planes of existence.”I said, “Just fourteen?”He said, “What do you mean, ‘Just fourteen’? Are there more?”I said, “Certainly.”He said, “But our master has said there are only fourteen. Mohammed has reached only up to the third,” he said. He had brought a map, and he said, “Kabir and Nanak have reached up to the fifth. And Mahavira and Buddha up to the seventh,” and so on, so forth. But there had never been another who had reached up to the fourteenth except his so-called master.I said, “I know your master. I have seen him struggling in the fourteenth. He is trying hard, but he cannot get out of it. I know it because I exist at the fifteenth. There are fifteen planes of existence.”He said, “But you are the first man who has said this.” And he was much impressed. When he was leaving he touched my feet and he said, “You have revealed a new secret.”I said, “Don’t be foolish. I was just joking! There are only two categories of people: the people who are not aware and the people who are aware. The people who are aware have no hierarchy that one is more aware than the other, that somebody is at the fifth, somebody at the seventh, somebody at the ninth, somebody at the fourteenth. There is no higher and lower in awareness. Awareness is simply awareness.”But he was not much interested in that. He was more interested in my being on the fifteenth plane.People are interested in religious fictions. Don’t waste your time in occultism, unless you are interested in novels, fictions. Then it is okay, then there is no problem.The lecturer on the occult was warming to his subject of supernatural manifestations.“Ah, my friends,” he exclaimed, a look of dedicated zeal animating his face. “If you could but be made to believe! If only the world would cease its scoffing and come to realize that visitations from the Mystic Shore happen all the time.”The lecturer searched the faces in his audience to find those sympathetic souls who agreed with his philosophy.“I have told you about my own experiences,” he continued, “but surely one of you has also had direct communication with a departed spirit. If there is any such person here in this audience who has been in touch with a ghost, I would appreciate it if he or she would stand up.”From her seat in the front row, Mrs. Faigel Frume got to her feet. “Me,” she said loudly. “Such an experience I had you would not believe.”“This is very gratifying,” said the delighted speaker when the applause died down. “Behold, a volunteer witness; one who is a total stranger to me, arises to give her testimony. My dear lady, do I understand you to say that you have been in touch with a ghost?”“In touch with him?” echoed Mrs. Frume. “Better even than that. When I was a little girl in Russia one of them butted me till I was black and blue.”“A ghost butted you?”“A ghost, you said? Gosh! I thought you said a goat!”Don’t waste your time in ghosts and goats. If you want to explore inner space, explore inner space. How does occultism come in? That’s a way of escaping from inner space, not exploring it. That’s a way of keeping yourself engaged in sheer nonsense! Theosophy, particularly in this age, has released so much nonsense: hundreds of books and all kinds of foolish things. People are so gullible that they are ready to believe anything.Man today exists in a kind of vacuum. Old religions have died or are almost dying. Either they have died or they are on the deathbed; hence new creeds are cropping up everywhere, and all the new creeds need new fictions to allure you.I cannot give you any occult fiction. I am not interested in anything esoteric. I am a very down-to-earth man. I am simply stating the facts. I don’t want to decorate them. I don’t want to create illusions in your mind; I don’t want to create projections in your mind. My effort here is to help you to go beyond the mind and all your occultism and esotericism, theology, anthroposophy, and so many schools. You can create your own; there is no need to believe in anybody else’s, you can create your own. All that you need is a pencil and paper; you can just go on writing your own fiction. That will be far more enlightening. At least it will be something creative. Then give your copy to somebody, and you will find a few believers. Then you will know how people go on believing in any kind of thing.J. Krishnamurti was brought up by Theosophists. He was fed, spoon-fed with all kinds of occultism. He became so fed up that on the day when the Theosophists were going to declare him to be the world teacher, and six thousand leading Theosophists from all around the world had gathered and asked him to declare himself, Krishnamurti stood up and said, “I dissolve this organization. I am nobody’s teacher. I am finished with it all, and I don’t want to say anything more!”They were shocked, but as far as I see it, it was a logical conclusion. For years he was taught all kinds of nonsense by all kinds of stupid people. He was getting fed up with the whole thing. But old ladies, and particularly retired old people, were very interested. They were the majority of the Theosophists – retired people and old ladies who now had nothing else to do – and they would gather and talk nonsense about ghosts and about Tibetan masters who come flying in the air, and about letters from that Master KH. Now nobody knows who this KH. is. His full name is Koot Humi, and that too, nobody knows what it means. The less you understand, the better.Koot Humi, in short KH, used to write letters, until finally it was found that those letters were written by Blavatsky herself. A servant used to hide on the roof. Imagine, just on the roof of Buddha Hall! There was a small hole in the roof, from where, when the Theosophists would be sitting with closed eyes waiting for Koot Humi, the servant would drop a letter. Now, people are so foolish! It was just ordinary paper, they could have seen what brand it was, in what factory it had been made, ordinary ink, and the handwriting was Blavatsky’s. Then the letter would be read, and those letters were collected, and they were great treasures.But in the High Court there was a case against one of the great Theosophists, Leadbeater. He was a colleague of Annie Besant, and he was suspected of homosexuality. Just a dirty old man, that’s all! In the case against him in the High Court his servant confessed that he was the man who used to hide on the roof. He went and showed the hole and the place where he used to hide, and everything was discovered. Still, people go on reading those letters believing that Koot Humi wrote them.When people want to believe, when they are feeling empty, some belief is needed. They cling to anything, they don’t listen to their own hearts. They just need belief; so anybody is ready to supply it. Wherever there is demand there is supply. People need fictions, so there are other clever, cunning people who go on supplying fictions.In a Catholic school, little Hans was asked to give an example of a dependent clause.“Our cat has a litter of ten kittens,” he replied, “all of which are good Catholics.”“That’s excellent,” said the teacher. “You have a good grasp on grammar as well as on our religion.”The following week the bishop visited the school and the teacher called on Hans.“Our cat has a litter of ten kittens,” said Hans, “all of which are good Osho sannyasins.”“That is not what you said a week ago!” snapped the teacher.“Yes,” replied Hans, “but my kittens’ eyes are open now.”Be a little alert, be a little watchful. There are deceiving people all around; you can be easily deceived.Morrissey, the ventriloquist, was on his way down to a bar for a drink when a big shaggy dog fell in at his side.They went in, the ventriloquist ordered a scotch, and for a laugh he looked at the dog and said, “Well, are you having the usual?”“No, thanks, I have had enough this morning,” said the dog.The barman was flabbergasted. He offered fifty dollars for the animal.“No, sir!” said Morrissey. “I have had him since he was a pup.”“I’ll make it a hundred dollars!” said the bartender.Morrissey shook his head. When the offer went to five hundred dollars the ventriloquist grabbed the money and headed for the door.“All right,” he added, “take good care of him.” And with a last look at the dog, “Farewell, old pal!” he exclaimed.“Old pal, my foot!” said the dog. “After what you have just done I will never speak to another human being as long as I live!”Be aware of the cunning people, they are all around. Don’t be exploited. Humanity has been exploited long enough by the cunning and the clever; it is time to put a full stop to it. Be a little more mature.If you want to explore inner space, meditate. Listen to what Buddha says: “Quieten the mind, reflect, watch, and all darkness will disappear on its own accord, and you will be full of light.”The fourth question:Osho,Your jokes are far out! Ease up a little on the priests.I rejoice with existence because of your enlightenment! I feel good to be here, to be home after years of searching.Deva Chintana, I am sorry if it hurts you. I know that Deva Chintana has been a nun. She has been courageous. She dropped out of the monastery and became a sannyasin. And my jokes about the priests must be looking a little hard to her, naturally. I should have thought of her. I will be more careful in the future, Chintana.A joke for you:The pope died, and naturally assumed that he would go to heaven. So, dressed in all his papal finery, he went striding up toward the Pearly Gates, brushed past Saint Peter, and made straight for the entrance.“Hey, you! Where are you going?” shouted Saint Peter, and two guardian angels stepped forward to bar the way.“Look-a here,” said the pope. “I am-a da popa.”“Who?”“Da popa!!! I am-a da popa of da Catholic-a Church-a and I wanna go to heaven.”“The pope?” said Saint Peter. “Never heard of you. We don’t have anyone of that name in our books, do we, Gabriel? No, sorry sir, you cannot come in.”“Hey, come on! I am-a da popa! You gotta let me in. Ask-a God da Father – he knows me!”Saint Peter calls God the Father: “Hey, God, this is Saint Peter – gate duty. Sorry to disturb you but there is a guy here who calls himself the popa and wants to come inside – says you know him.”“Who?” asks God the Father.“The popa.”“Who?”“I think that’s what he said.”“No, never heard of him.”“Sorry, pope – God the Father says he doesn’t know you.”“What? But leesten, I am-a da popa. He must know me! Look-a here, you ask God da Son. For sure he knows me – I am-a his representative on da earth-a, he must-a know me!”Saint Peter calls God the Son, but the answer is the same: “The pope? No, I’ve never heard of him!”The pope is in despair: “Look-a, you gotta help me. Ring-a the Holy Ghost – for sure he knows me! I am da popa – da popa of the Catholic-a Church-a, the spiritual representative of Jesus Christ-a on da earth-a!! He has just gotta know me!”Saint Peter calls the Holy Ghost. “Hmmm, the pope, you say!” answers the Holy Ghost. “Hmm, yes, I’ve heard that name before somewhere. Wait a minute! He’s that bastard who goes on spreading rumors about me and Virgin Mary. Tell him to go to hell!”Chintana, I will try my best. But the priests are the priests; they are the ugliest people on the earth, the most cunning and the meanest, although their appearance is totally different.I am not saying that there are not some good people. Some good people are also caught in the net, but those good people are childish. Those good people are gullible, those good people are easily exploitable.Humanity has to get rid of the priesthood, only then can there be religion. They have been very destructive. It is because of them that the world is not religious yet. They have divided humanity instead of making humanity one whole. Much more blood has been shed in the name of religion than in the name of anything else. In fact, I am not really hard on them, I am very soft with them, they need to be hit harder. When I am hitting them, I am not really hitting them, but simply hitting your conditioning.What do I have to do with the pope or the shankaracharya or the imam or Ayatollah Khomeiniac? I have nothing to do with these people. But when I hit them I am simply hitting the chains inside you that keep you in bondage. My jokes about the priests are just to help you to come out of the prison, laughing. I don’t want it to become a serious affair for you to come out of the prison, because if it becomes a serious affair you will be affected by your seriousness and you will carry that load with you. And there is every danger that you will start projecting your seriousness on me.I can free you from the priest very easily, but the danger is that you may start projecting all that you have been projecting on the priest, on me. That is not freedom at all; only your chains are changed.Someone else has asked me…The fifth question:Osho,I am a coward and I cannot take sannyas. What will happen to me?Jesus was on the cross, a thief on either side of him. Suddenly the guards disappeared and they were alone. Seeing that there was no one around, Jesus addressed the two thieves.“Repent, my brethren!” he said. “Repent, and the Kingdom of God will be opened unto you. I will take you with me to the House of my Father. Repent!”One of the thieves bowed down to Jesus, saying, “I repent, my Lord! Take me with you into the Kingdom of God!”The other thief turned his head away in disdain. “Stop all this crap!” he exclaimed.Jesus insisted, “Repent! Come to my feet!”“Fuck you!” replied the thief.Jesus looked at him compassionately, and said, “Tough luck, old bean! You won’t be in the souvenir picture, that’s all!”So don’t be worried if you are not a sannyasin. If you cannot gather courage to be a sannyasin, you won’t be in the souvenir picture, that’s all. Don’t take it seriously.My whole effort here is to make sannyas as nonserious as possible. I don’t want to become a pope or a shankaracharya. I don’t want to become a replacement for you, a substitute for you. I don’t want to become a father figure to you. I want simply to be a friend.Hence my discourses are not ordinarily religious sermons. I am just chitchatting. They are not gospels, but gossips!Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Master your senses,what you taste and smell,what you see, what you hear.In all things be a masterof what you do and what you say and think.Be free.You are a seeker.Delight in the masteryof your hands and your feet,of your words and your thoughts.Delight in meditationand in solitude.Compose yourself, be happy.You are a seeker.Freedom is the ultimate goal of true religion – not God, not paradise, not even truth, but freedom. This has to be understood because this is Gautama Buddha’s essential message to the world. Freedom is the highest value according to him, the summum bonum; there is nothing higher than that. But by freedom he does not mean political freedom, social freedom, economic freedom. By freedom he means the freedom of consciousness.Our consciousness is in a deep bondage; we are chained. Inside is our prison, not outside. The walls of the prison are not outside us; it exists deep in our unconscious. It exists in our instincts, it exists in our desires, it exists in our unawareness.Freedom is the goal. Awareness is the method to reach that goal. And when you are really free you are a master; the slavery disappears. Ordinarily we may appear free, but we are not free. It may appear that we are the choosers, but we are not the choosers. We are being pulled, pushed by unconscious forces.When you fall in love with a woman or a man, do you think you have decided it, it is your choice? You know perfectly well you cannot choose to love, you cannot force yourself to love somebody. You are not the master, you are just a slave of a biological force. That’s why in all the languages the expression is “falling in love.” You fall in love: you fall from your freedom, you fall from your selfhood. If love were your choice you would rise in love, not fall in love. Then love would be out of your consciousness, and it would have a totally different quality, a different beauty, a different fragrance.Ordinary love stinks of jealousy, anger, hatred, possessiveness. It is not love at all. Nature is forcing you toward something which is not of your choice; you are just a victim. This is our slavery. Even in love we are slaves, what to say about other things? Love seems to be our greatest experience; even that consists only of slavery, even in that we only suffer.People suffer more in love than in anything else. The greatest suffering is that it deludes you, it creates the illusion that you are the chooser, and soon you know that you are not the chooser; nature has played a trick upon you. Unconscious forces have taken possession of you, you are possessed. You are not acting on your own; you are just a vehicle. That is the first misery that one starts feeling in love, and one misery triggers a whole chain of misery.Soon you become aware that you have become dependent on the other, that without the other you cannot exist, that without the other you start losing all sense of meaning, significance. The other has become your life, you are utterly dependent; hence lovers continuously fight, because nobody likes to be dependent, everybody hates dependence. Nobody likes to be possessed by somebody else because to be possessed means to be reduced to a thing. The whole humanity suffers for the simple reason that every relationship goes on reducing you, goes on making your prison smaller and smaller.Buddha says: “This life is not true life.” You are being lived, you are not really living. You are being lived by unconscious forces. Unless you become conscious, unless you take possession of your own life, unless you become independent of your instincts, you will not be a master. And without being a master there is no bliss, no benediction; life remains a hell.The first sutra:Master your senses,what you taste and smell,what you see, what you hear.This sutra has been very misunderstood, misinterpreted, so much so that the Buddhists have taken exactly the opposite meaning of it. Master your senses… does not mean destroy your senses. If you destroy them, whom are you going to master? And that’s what has been done for twenty-five centuries: Buddhists have been destroying the senses. That is easier; hence the mistake. It is difficult, arduous to master your senses. It needs great consciousness to master your senses; to destroy them needs nothing.If you want to make a beautiful house you will have to learn many things, but if you want to demolish it you need not learn anything. Anybody can demolish it, any madman can do that. In fact, a madman can do it faster than anybody else, quicker. You need not know architecture to demolish a building. Destruction needs no art, no intelligence.That’s how this sutra has been interpreted down the ages, for the simple reason that destruction is easier; any stupid person can do it. And your so-called saints are almost always stupid. It is very rare to come across a real saint who is a creative person. They are worshipped as saints because they have been successfully committing suicide – slow suicide, of course – destroying themselves slowly, poisoning themselves slowly. We have worshipped death, destruction. It is time now that we should learn to love life and to love creativity, creation.My understanding of this sutra is totally different. Master your senses… means become more conscious of your senses, become more sensitive. Don’t destroy them; otherwise you will be left without the doors and windows into creation, into godliness, into truth.There is a story of a Hindu mystic. I don’t believe that it is true because I have been deeply impressed by that mystic’s great sayings; they are so beautiful that it is impossible for me to conceive that he could have done such a thing.Surdas is his name. He was a blind man, not born blind; that’s how the story goes. He destroyed his eyes himself because he saw a beautiful woman and became fascinated by her. She took his fancy, he started thinking of her, and he was a monk. He destroyed his eyes because he thought it was those two eyes that had made him aware of her beauty. If the eyes were not there, he would not have been infatuated.I don’t believe the story, but it is true of thousands of other people. My own experience is that Surdas must have been blind from the very beginning, because the insight in his poetry is such that it is inconceivable that such a man would do such a stupid act.By destroying your eyes you cannot get freedom from women or from men. You can close your eyes, but that will not make much difference. In fact with closed eyes women appear more beautiful than they are!That’s why whenever you make love to a woman she closes her eyes; you appear more beautiful. Otherwise, looking at you she will become afraid, because the expression of passion and lust on your face can’t be described as beautiful; it is ugly, it is animal. A man full of lust is nothing but an animal. Women must have learned the art of closing their eyes seeing again and again that the man turns into an animal.I love this famous Zen anecdote:Two monks were coming back to the monastery; they had gone into the village to preach. It was evening, the sun was setting; soon it would be night. They came across a river. A young woman, a beautiful woman, was standing there on the bank hesitating whether to enter the river or not: it may be too deep, it appeared very deep.The older monk followed the Buddhist rule not to look at a woman. But that is a very strange rule: first you have to look, only then will you be able to see whether she is a woman or not. You can follow the rule only by breaking it! So he must have seen, of course a stolen look, and then he must have looked down. The Buddhist rule is: don’t look more than four feet ahead. He must have been trembling inside with fear, and he crossed the river.When he was crossing the river and reaching the other shore, suddenly he remembered his younger fellow monk, who was also coming behind. What had happened to him? He looked back. The younger monk was carrying the woman on his shoulders! The older one was really enraged; in his rage there must have been jealousy also; otherwise why be angry?The younger one brought the girl to the other shore, left her there, and both the monks moved toward the monastery. For one mile the old man didn’t say a single word. Then, when they reached to the gate of the monastery, the old man turned to the younger monk and said, “Listen, I will have to report it to the abbot. This is against the rules. Buddha has said: ‘Don’t touch a woman, don’t look at a woman.’ You have not only seen her, you have not only touched her, you have carried her on your shoulders. This is too much! This is going against the law.”I don’t think that Buddha has said that. A man like Buddha cannot say such nonsensical things. But twenty-five centuries of stupid interpreters have done as much harm as they can do.The young monk said, “But I have left the woman on the bank, far behind. Are you still carrying her on your shoulders?”It has a great truth in it: the old man was really still carrying her. You can see without seeing, you can carry without carrying, you can touch without touching. Man has great imagination.Hence I cannot believe that Surdas destroyed his eyes; otherwise it would be impossible for him to give such beautiful insights. He must have been a man of inner vision, of inner eyes, of great understanding. So I don’t believe in the story, but the story is significant. It is true about so many so-called saints. It may not be true about Surdas but it is true about almost all so-called saints – Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian.In Christianity there has been a sect which used to cut off their genital organs in order to transcend sex. If just by cutting off your genital organs you can transcend sex, things will be very easy. You can just go to the Sassoon Hospital and they will really do a butchery on you! They are official butchers, government butchers, recognized, authorized. But by removing your sexual organs you will not transcend sex; you may become more obsessed with sex than ever before.That’s what happens to old people; hence the expression, “the dirty old man.” You don’t say “the dirty young man.” Why? The old man is called dirty for the simple reason that now all his sexuality has entered into his mind. His sex center has moved into his mind; it has become cerebral. Now he only thinks about it, he continually thinks about it. Physiologically he has become incapable; that does not mean that psychologically he has transcended it, that he has mastery of his sexuality, no.By destroying your senses you don’t, you can’t become masters. Then what is the way to become the master? Buddha says: Master your senses… He could have simply said: “Destroy your senses.” But mastery is a totally different phenomenon; it needs great art, skill, awareness, meditativeness, watchfulness, alertness. Only then will the senses remain there. In fact, the master is more sensitive than the slave.My own understanding is that Buddha smells more deeply; his sense of smell is far deeper than yours. Your sense of smell is repressed, very much repressed. For centuries you have been repressing sex, and the sense of smell is very much connected with your sexuality. You have been repressing your sense of smell. You use many perfumes just to hide the odor of your sexuality. Otherwise, when a woman has her period she has a different odor; you can smell that she has her period. When a woman is sexually aroused she has a unique scent; you can know just by her scent that she is sexually aroused. And the same is true about man: sexually aroused, his body starts smelling because there are great chemical changes happening inside him. They affect his body, his perspiration, his breathing, his blood.Man has been so afraid of his sexuality: somebody may become aware, somebody may note what is happening to him. He has used clothes to hide his body, he has used perfumes to hide his natural odors. He has tried in every possible way to appear as nonsexual as possible. And we have had to repress our noses very much.Animals know through their noses whether the female is willing or not. Just the nose is enough to know whether the female is saying yes. Unless the nose says the female is saying yes, the male won’t approach the female. That is aggression, that is rape. No animal ever rapes, remember, except man. Man is the only rapist animal in the world. I am not including the animals who live in the zoos because they have become more like human beings. Living in the company of human beings they have been distorted; otherwise no animal rapes. Love happens only when both parties are absolutely willing. But man has lost his sensitivity of smell. It is because of the so-called religious teaching down the centuries.My understanding is that Buddha’s sense of smell is far clearer than yours because there is no repression in him. His eyes see better than you can see because his eyes are not clouded by any prejudice, by any a priori conceptions. He hears perfectly well because his ears are not full of noise, his mind is silent.When the mind is utterly silent you are capable of listening. Then you are capable of listening to the song of the birds, a distant call of the cuckoo. Then you are able to listen even to the silence. Just now, listen to the silence; not only sound but soundlessness can be listened to. But you have to be noiseless.You can start smelling people not only in their sexuality, you can start smelling their anger because anger also changes their body chemistry. You can start smelling their greed, their jealousy, their hatred. You can start smelling all kinds of emotions. The moment a person comes to you, if your mind is silent and your senses are clear, unclouded, without any fog, you can smell everything that the man is carrying. He may be smiling on the surface, but deep down you can see that he is angry, a hypocrite. Try smelling people; smell their greed, their anger, their cruelty.If you can learn to smell cruelty, anger, greed, slowly, slowly you will be able to smell more subtle things: their compassion, their love, their prayerfulness. Yes, even their meditativeness, their silence has its own fragrance. When a person is full of greed, he stinks of greed; when a person is full of silence, he exudes something of the beyond, something of the unknown.Buddha is not saying destroy your senses. He is saying master your senses, become more aware of your senses. Bring awareness to your senses so that they become more sensitive. They are doors, windows, bridges with existence. Without them you will be just a closed phenomenon, a Leibnizian monad, windowless. You will not see the light of the sun, moon, stars. You will not feel anything.Destroying your senses will simply mean you are killing yourself. You have five senses. Destroy your eyes and eighty percent of your life is destroyed – eighty percent because your eyes contain eighty percent of your life; eighty percent of your sensibility depends on your eyes. Hence we feel so much sympathy for the blind man. You don’t feel that much sympathy for the dumb or for the deaf. Why, all over the world, do we feel so much sympathy for the blind man? – because he is really suffering much. He can’t see colors, he can’t see the light, and life consists of light and life consists of colors. It is a rainbow. He will remain utterly in the dark, not knowing what a colorful existence was available. He will not know the butterflies and the roses and the marigolds. He will not know the green and the red and the gold of the trees. He will not know the faces of the people, he will not be able to look into the eyes of the people. His main bridge is broken.Destroy your ears, and something more dies in you. Destroy your tongue, and something more dies in you. When you have destroyed all your senses you are just a corpse, you are no longer alive. Life means sensitivity: more sensitivity and you have more life. So I cannot say destroy your senses; you have already destroyed them. Revive them, rejuvenate them, pour energy into them. And the method to pour energy into them is by becoming aware.Sometimes just become aware of your ears, as if you are just the ears and nothing else, as if your whole body has become the ears. Just be ears, and you will be surprised that you become aware of such subtle noises, such subtle happenings around you that you have never been aware of. You may start hearing your own breathing, your own heartbeat. You may start hearing many things, and you have lived always among these things, but you were never aware; you were so occupied with yourself.Buddha says: …what you taste and smell, what you see, what you hear. Master your senses… Bring your awareness to taste. When you are eating, forget everything else; just become your tongue, just your taste buds. Exist there in your totality. Taste your food as deeply as possible and you will be in for a great surprise – and not only one but many surprises.First you will become aware that you cannot eat more than is needed. You need not diet, only foolish people diet. And you can diet for a few days, and then you jump upon the food with a vengeance, and you gain more weight than you have lost! If you are intelligent, bring your awareness to your taste. Why do you eat more? The simple reason is that you don’t taste, and your hunger for taste remains, so you go on stuffing more. If you really taste, soon you will be satisfied, contented. Soon the body will say, “Stop!” And if you are alert you will be able to listen when the body says stop.Right now you are not there at all. You are eating, but you are not there, present. You may be in your office or you may have gone somewhere else, doing a thousand and one things. One thing is certain, that you are not at the table where you are sitting, you are always somewhere else. You are never where you are; you can’t be found where you are. If you are really there, totally absorbed in eating, you will be surprised. The first thing will be that food becomes something divine for the first time.The Upanishads say: “Annam brahman – food is God.” Such a beautiful statement: “Food is God.” These people must have tasted. Without tasting you cannot see God in food. These people can’t be against food, they can’t be for fasting, they can’t teach you to starve your body. The people who have said: “Annam brahman – food is God,” cannot be in favor of starving. Starvation cannot be anything spiritual.Eat, but eat meditatively, silently. When you are eating you are talking. Don’t talk, because if you are talking you will miss the joy of absorbing God into yourself. You will miss the joy of eating, and when you miss the joy of eating, your hunger for taste goes on asking for more, so you go on stuffing. And it seems to be non-ending. People are stuffing the whole day and still it seems they are not satisfied. Eating twice may be enough or at the most thrice, but people are eating the whole day, particularly Americans! If they are not eating they won’t know what else to do. Just doing something with the mouth keeps them occupied. If they are not eating they are talking, if they are not talking they are smoking, if they are not smoking they are chewing gum, as if the mouth has to remain continuously occupied.Stan and Sid, both on the road with noncompeting merchandise, usually traveled together, sharing the same car and hotel rooms to save money.One evening the two friends registered at a small hotel in Schenectady, and Stan immediately sat down to write his wife a letter.Sid happened to notice his buddy’s unusual salutation. “Tell me something, Stan,” he said curiously. “How come you always address your wife as ‘Dear AT&T’? Is she a big investor?”“No, nothing like that,” answered Stan. “AT&T does not stand for American Telephone & Telegraph. It means ‘Always Talking & Talking.’”People are continuously talking, and particularly women for the simple reason that man has taken every other avenue from them. They are left only with one thing: talking. They are not allowed anything else, every other door has been closed, so their whole energy is turned into talking. They are talking because their minds are too noisy and they have to pour them out: it is a kind of catharsis. Even when you are eating you are talking. How can you taste food and how can you be sensitive to taste?When you go into the garden you are talking. If you are not talking with somebody else you are in a constant dialogue within yourself. You divide yourself into many persons, you make a crowd inside yourself. You are questioning and answering within yourself. You don’t look at the flowers. You don’t feel the fragrance, the joy of the birds, the celebration of the trees. You don’t allow yourself any sensitivity, any opportunity to be more sensitive, to be more available to existence, to be more vulnerable.Sensitivity means openness, vulnerability, availability.Buddha says: Master your senses, what you taste and smell, what you see, what you hear. People are either talking or reading newspapers or listening to the radio or watching the television, even five hours, six hours per day, watching television, destroying their eyes! And there is so much to see, and they are sitting before a box, glued to a chair!In his heavenly abode, the patriarch Abraham lit the shabbes candles and then, over a glass of tea and lemon, he settled back to read the Forvetz.Suddenly, from down below on Earth, he heard a raucous tumult.“Now, who could be desecrating the Sabbath like that?” he wondered.With his new laser telescope, he looked down and there he saw a crowd of at least eighty thousand people in the Houston Astrodome watching a baseball game. A quick count showed him that over thirty thousand Jews were among the spectators. Outraged, he picked up the phone and dialed G-O-D. After a few rings, the boss picked up the receiver.“Hello,” said Father Abraham, “that you, Joe?”“Now look here, Abe – the name is Jehovah! Show a little respect!”“All right, Jehovah, then. I have a complaint.”“What is it this time? Those people from the New Testament picking on you again?”“Nothing like that. But you really must do something about all that goyishe conduct back on Earth. Did you know that at this very minute thirty thousand Jews are watching a baseball game at the Astrodome?”“You got something against baseball?”“No, of course not. But that is not the point. This is Friday evening and it seems to me our people ought to be a little more observant of the holy day.”“What is the big attraction they are all watching the game?”“Hank Aaron is coming to bat and he is about to break Babe Ruth’s record.”“You are absolutely right, Abe. That is no excuse for them to act like a bunch of wild Republicans. Call me back after the game and I will do something about it. By the way, what channel is it on?”Not only man but even God is glued to his chair, looking at the television!Buddha says: “Whatsoever you are doing: eating, walking, drinking water, taking a bath, swimming in a river, whatsoever you are doing, lying down in the sun, be utterly there, be totally there. Become your senses. Come down from the mind to the senses, come back to the senses.”And what the Buddhists have done for twenty-five centuries is just the opposite: they have gone more and more into the head, they have destroyed their senses completely. They have become dead as far as their bodies are concerned. Only their heads are continuously working, occupied day and night in great interpretations, and they have created so many absurd laws in the name of Buddha that you will not believe it. Thirty-three thousand laws and rules to be followed; even to remember them is impossible. Thirty-three thousand laws and rules to be followed!Buddha knows only one law and that is awareness, and that’s enough; it takes care of everything. He gives you the master key; you need not carry thirty-three thousand keys with you. Otherwise, whenever the time arises to open a lock you will be at a loss, searching into those thirty-three thousand keys! I don’t think you will be able to find the right key. It is impossible to find the right key, because that’s how things work. If you are supposed to take two pills, open the bottle and they will always come in threes, never twos! If you are supposed to take three pills, they will come in twos, they will never come in threes. Life is very mysterious!Thirty-three thousand keys! And you think you will be able to find the right key when you come across a lock? Impossible! Or it will take thirty-three thousand lives for you to find it; by that time the lock will be gone. Either you will have the key or you will have the lock, but never both at the same time. In your unconsciousness how can you carry thirty-three thousand laws?Mulla Nasruddin came home one night late, utterly drunk. He was trying to open the door, and he had only one key, but it wouldn’t go in the lock because he was trembling and shaking.The policeman came to see because for half an hour Mulla was trying and trying. And he said, “Wait! Give me the key, I will open it.”He said, “No need to bother with the key. Just hold the house in place and I can open it!”In your unconsciousness, thirty-three thousand keys! You will be burdened. That’s what has happened to Buddhism. That’s what has happened to all the religions. So many laws and so many rules that people have become so burdened with them, they have forgotten all about them.Religion is very simple. It consists of a single law – awareness – and that is the master key. Make each act of your life full of awareness. Focus your awareness on each act, and that very focusing transforms it because when you give your awareness to anything it becomes alive; you are pouring your life into it. Your senses will become totally sensitive, and because you are aware you will remain the master. Slavery means unawareness.Karl the Knaidel, king of Kansas City, had everything in life that a man could ask for, except for one thing: he wanted a grandson to carry on the family name, to say nothing of the family business. So he was understandably happy when his bachelor son told him one evening that he had fallen in love and was planning to marry.“It is a smart thing you are doing,” advised Karl. “Until a man marries he is incomplete.”He pondered the wisdom of his own statement for a moment or two and then added solemnly, “He is not only complete – he is finished!”You are not only falling in love, you are falling in a thousand things – in anger, in greed. You are continuously falling, falling victims of some unconscious forces within you that you have carried from your animal heritage.We have to make our unconscious full of light, no nook or corner should be left without light. Only one tenth of our mind is conscious; nine tenths is in darkness, deep darkness. We are like an iceberg: one tenth shows up, nine tenths is hidden underneath, and that nine tenths is nine times more powerful.So you may decide something, but you will not be able to follow it; that nine tenths will destroy it any moment. You may decide to get up early tomorrow at five o’clock, but this decision is only by the one tenth of your mind; nine tenths is completely unaware of your decision, absolutely unaware of your decision. So when in the morning the alarm goes off, nine tenths of the mind says, “What is the hurry? And it is so beautiful and so cozy and so warm. Dynamic Meditation can wait! Tomorrow we can meditate.” And of course, tomorrow never comes. Then when you wake up you will feel guilty, but this is again not the same mind that stopped you from waking up which is feeling guilty; it is another one tenth which is feeling guilty.This goes on your whole life, this hide-and-seek: one part decides, another part cancels. And the part that cancels is nine times more powerful. You have decided many times not to be angry again, but all your decisions are impotent because that nine times more powerful unconscious is always there and it won’t allow the one tenth to take possession, to be powerful.Hence the transformation is not through decisions, through taking vows; the transformation needs a totally different approach. You have to change your unconscious slowly, slowly into consciousness. That’s what meditation is all about: it is making your light grow bigger, spreading it deeper, slowly, slowly diving deeper into your own being.As more and more of your unconscious is reclaimed by the consciousness your decisions will start becoming great fulfillments. Then you can promise yourself something. Right now all your promises are false; you know they are not going to work. You know you have failed so many times and you know you will fail again; but you go on hoping against hope.The ordinary religion taught in the temples and the churches by the priests teaches you character. The real religion, the religion of the buddhas, the awakened ones, teaches you consciousness, not character. Character is a by-product; when you are conscious, character comes on its own accord. The ordinary religion teaches you conscience; it is cheap. The buddhas teach you consciousness, not conscience.Buddha says:In all things be a masterof what you do and what you say and think.Be free.Man can be divided into four parts. The outermost circumference consists of action, what you do. The second layer, a little deeper than your action, consists of your speech, what you say. A little deeper, the third layer consists of your thoughts, what you constantly think. And the fourth is not a layer; the fourth is your reality, your being. That is your center, the center of the cyclone. Your center, your being is surrounded by three concentric circles: thinking, saying, doing.Buddha says: In all things be a master of what you do… Are you aware of what you are doing? Are you doing it consciously or just because others are doing it? Are you an imitator, just following the crowd like a sheep? Be a man, don’t be a sheep! Don’t follow the crowd, be individual. Only then can you be a master; only individuals can be masters. In the crowd you have to be a slave, the crowd consists of slaves. The crowd wants you to remain a slave, as only then can the crowd remain powerful. All the politicians and all the priests of the world want you to remain slaves, only then can they be priests and great leaders. Otherwise who will follow your stupid leaders? Who is going to follow your so-called religious priests?If you are a little alert, aware, you will be able to see perfectly well that your leaders are hocus-pocus, that your priests are pseudo, that you need not follow them, that following them you have been falling in ditches. Who is going to follow Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin or Ayatollah Khomeini? Who is going to follow these people? Only slaves, only people who don’t know what they are doing.A young sports car enthusiast saved up enough money to buy the latest model of sports car. After trying out the car, he went to his favorite pub to brag to all his friends about it. “Shit, man, my new car is so fantastic! I just went from London to Liverpool in one hour!”The next day he was back at the pub again, bragging to his friends. “Today,” he said, “I made it from London to Liverpool in forty minutes!”The day after, the young sports car enthusiast was again at the pub. “Today,” he said, “would you believe it? London to Liverpool in twenty-eight minutes!”After an absence of two days, to the astonishment of his friends, the young man arrived at the pub on foot.“Where is your car?” asked his friends.“I’ve sold it,” he replied sadly.“But why?” they asked incredulously.“I could not help it,” he told them. “What the fuck was I supposed to do in Liverpool every day?”But people go on doing it! This man must have been a little intelligent. People go on going to Liverpool, never thinking why.Why do you go to the church? Why do you go to the synagogue, or to the mosque, or to the temple? Why do you go on following stupid ideologies, ridiculous politicians? Why? You have never asked.I have heard about a man who went to the court and wanted his name changed. The magistrate was a little puzzled, but he could not object. He was puzzled because the new name that he had chosen was very strange. His new name was “None of the above.”The magistrate said, “What kind of name is this?”He said, “But this is what I want.” So he was allowed. He changed his name; he became “None of the above.”Then he ran for president, and the secret was known. All other candidates who running for president objected because this man is dangerous: his name is “None of the above.” Anybody marking his name on the list of candidates meant canceling everybody else. They objected. The man was called back to the court.The court said, “Your name is a little deceptive.”He said, “Whatsoever it is, it is my name and I want to change the president. I want to give people a chance to cancel everybody else. I am not interested in being the president myself; my whole interest is to cancel all the others because everybody knows they are all fools, but you have to choose somebody. So I simply want to give them a chance: if they want to reject all, they can reject. They can simply mark on my name: ‘None of the above.’”If you look at the situation of the world you will be able to see what these politicians and priests have done to humanity: they have made it a hell. There is no need to ask for any proof. Now there is no need to ask whether hell exists or not. Politicians and priests, in a deep conspiracy, have made hell a reality on the earth. Who is going to follow them? That’s why they don’t want you to be intelligent, they don’t want you to think, they don’t want you to be alert. They want you to live in a kind of deep sleep. They want you to be machines, not men.Buddha says: In all things be a master… so you cannot be reduced to a machine …of what you do… Watch what you are doing and why. Is it worth doing? Is it worth wasting your life and your breath? Are you just doing it because you don’t know what else to do? It is better to do nothing than to do something without knowing why, without knowing …of what you do and say and think.You say things and you suffer because of what you say. Many times you have decided not to say such things because unnecessarily you get into trouble; you say something and you are in trouble. But still you will go on saying the same things and getting into the same trouble, as if you never watch yourself, never see what you are doing. You are moving like a somnambulist in your sleep.Have you ever looked at what you think? Have you ever looked inside? You will be surprised: you are carrying many, many mad people inside you. But nobody looks inside; people are continuously occupied on the outside. Nobody thinks about what he is doing, what he is saying, what he is thinking.Rabbi Isaacs was quite fond of the Shapiro family whose members were long-time congregants of his temple. So it was understandable that he would react sympathetically when they asked him to have a serious talk with their daughter, Rachel, who was unmarried but pregnant again for the third time.He confronted the young lady on the following evening. “I can’t understand how a nice Jewish girl could allow such a disgraceful thing to happen,” he began severely. “Three times yet! I suppose the babies all have different fathers!”“Ah no!” said Rachel. “It is the same fellow.”“He is single, this man?”“Certainly. You think I would go with a married man?”“Then why don’t you marry him?” demanded the rabbi.“Well, frankly,” Rachel answered with complete candor, “he does not appeal to me.”Just look at yourself and you will not laugh at Rachel. People are living with each other not knowing why. So many people come to me, or write letters to me. They say, “I am living with a man for fifteen years. I don’t know why because all that he gives me is misery, suffering.” Maybe that’s why! – because you are a masochist. You love being miserable, you want to suffer. That man is giving you good service! People write to me, “I am living with a woman and my life is hell.” But why are you living with that woman? Nobody is forcing you. People say to me, “I am working in a job that I hate” – but why? Get out of it immediately! Walk out of it!I was a professor in a university. One day I was talking to the vice-chancellor and I told him, “This whole thing is nonsense. Just give me a piece of paper so I can write my resignation.”He said, “What are you doing? Are you mad? Such a good job with so little work!” He said, “I know perfectly well that you don’t do even that!” And that was true. “Why are you leaving?”I said, “It is just nonsense. Enough is enough!”He said, “But wait! I have been in this business for thirty years, and I also know it is all nonsense. But how can you leave like this? I have not been able to leave. Many times I have decided, but now look – I have succeeded. I have become the vice-chancellor. One day you may become the vice-chancellor.”I said, “Forget all about it!”When he saw me leaving his office, he rushed out. He pulled me back inside. He said, “What are you doing? Think it over.”I said, “Finished is finished! I don’t think twice!”He thought I was ill or something, or I had taken some drug. He said, “Wait! I don’t think you are in a state to drive back home. I will come with you.”I said, “Don’t be worried. In fact, this is the first time I am perfectly sane. I was insane when I joined this university!”But he came with me just to see whether I could drive back home. For two or three days he continued to come. He said, “Think – I am still keeping your resignation, I have not sent it. I have not told anybody.”I said, “That’s up to you. I am not coming back.”The fourth day he said, “You are really a man! I have also thought many times to divorce my wife, and I could not. Now I have seven children!”Seven children from a wife he always wanted to divorce, why was he with her?I asked him, “Are those children really yours? If you wanted to divorce the woman, why were you making love to her?”He said, “You are right, but what else to do?”For thirty years he had been thinking to drop out of the job because he always wanted to be a musician. And now the poor fellow is dead – just two years ago he died. He could never become a musician; he died a vice-chancellor. What a failure! What frustration! But that’s how things are.Watch your life. Buddha is all for watchfulness. In all things be a master of what you do and say and think. Be free. If you can be a master, if you can be watchful, freedom comes on its own accord. Freedom is the shadow of being a master of your life.You are a seeker.Remember, always remember. Buddha insisted again and again: “Remember you are a seeker.” You are seeking your true home; you have not yet found it. Many lives you have been seeking, this life also you are seeking. Have you found it? Don’t waste your time, don’t go astray. Pour your whole energy into seeking because nobody knows about tomorrow. This may be your last day. Find it so that you can live joyously and you can die joyously. You are a seeker.Delight in the mastery…The only delight in life is when you master something. And when a man has mastered all his being – his action, his saying, his thinking – his delight is infinite. Delight in the mastery……of your hands and your feet,of your words and your thoughts.Buddha never divides your bodymind. He says: “Be a master of both because you are psychosomatic, you are bodymind. So be a master of your body and be a master of your mind. Then you will know who you are. Then you will know the master is you beyond bodymind. Then you will know you are pure consciousness.”Delight in meditation…Delight in silence, stillness; that is meditation.…and in solitude.Delight in being alone. Enjoy being alone as much as feasible, as much as practical. Delight in solitude.Sitting silently, doing nothing,the spring comes and the grass grows by itself.If you can sit silently doing nothing, the spring is not far away, the spring is bound to come. It always comes in silence. It always comes when you know how to delight in your aloneness because only then are you independent. If you delight in others’ company you are dependent. If you feel lonely when you are alone you don’t know aloneness yet.Loneliness and aloneness are two different things, no matter what the dictionaries say. In dictionaries they are synonymous, but in existence they are totally different. Loneliness is negative. It means you are dependent, you are hankering for the other, you are suffering. Your being alone is not a joy, it is a misery. You want to be occupied.The zookeeper guided the visitors to the next cage. “Now here, ladies and gentlemen, we have the laughing hyena. Now, the laughing hyena has sex on only one night in the year.”“Well, what has he got to laugh about then?” asked a young lad in the group.“Aha! Well, tonight’s the night!”People are happy with others, but that happiness is dependent; it can be taken away. It will be taken away, it is bound to disappear. It can’t be permanent, it is momentary.Raleigh Rosenblum, the romantic young bachelor of Palm Beach who was also a big spender, telephoned the girl he had just met the night before. She was not only gorgeous but had also proved to be a real swinger. He wanted another date. To his surprise, however, she turned him down.“How come you are refusing to go out with me tonight?” he demanded. “Only yesterday you said there was something about me you adored.”“There was, baby,” she crooned in a husky voice, “but you spent it.”All happiness that is dependent on others is bound to disappear sooner or later. It is temporary, it is momentary, it is illusory. Only that joy is yours which wells up within your own being. Hence Buddha says: Delight in meditation and in solitude.Aloneness is the joy of being just yourself. It is being joyous with yourself, it is enjoying your own company. There are very few people who enjoy their own company. And it is a very strange world: nobody enjoys his company and everybody wants others to enjoy his company! If they don’t enjoy he feels insulted, yet alone he feels disgusted with himself. In fact, if you cannot enjoy your own company, who else is going to enjoy it?Aloneness, solitude is positive. It is overflowing joy for no reason. It is our very nature to be joyous; hence there is no need to depend on anybody else. There is no other motive in it, it is simply there. Just as the water flows downward, your being rises upward. Just give it a chance – give it solitude. And remember again, solitude is not solitariness, just as aloneness is not loneliness.Compose yourself, be happy.You are a seeker.Buddha reminds you again: You are a seeker. Compose yourself… Be harmonious, be graceful. Learn the art of being alone and yet utterly happy. Then one day, in that solitude, something starts happening which you had never expected. Something immense, something vast descends in you. Something of the beyond penetrates you. A great uplift, a great feeling of levitation arises in you. You are being uplifted, you start rising toward the ultimate. Call that ultimate God, truth, whatsoever you prefer to call it. Buddha calls it freedom, nirvana: cessation of the ego, freedom from the ego, freedom from all bondage, freedom from all dependence on others. You become unbounded, you become as vast as the sky: even the sky is not your limit.Master your senses,what you taste and smell,what you see, what you hear.In all things be a masterof what you do and what you say and think.Be free.You are a seeker.Delight in the masteryof your hands and your feet,of your words and your thoughts.Delight in meditationand in solitude.Compose yourself, be happy.You are a seeker.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Why do I take myself and everything so seriously?The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates sadness in you, and sadness is the necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are very serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously.The real saint cannot be serious. The really religious person has to be a celebrant. Just look around you, look at the trees, are they serious? Look at the birds, listen to them, are they serious? Look at the stars, the moon, the sun, are they serious? Existence is utterly nonserious; it goes on dancing. It is an eternal celebration, it is a festivity.Only man is serious, because only man has been trying to create a separation between himself and existence. He doesn’t want to be part of the whole because then he disappears. He wants his own identity, his own name, his own form, his definition. Even if it creates misery it is okay, even if he has to live in hell he is ready for it.Once George Bernard Shaw was asked where he would like to go after he dies – to hell or to heaven. He said, “Wherever I can be the first, I don’t want to be the second.” In heaven there is no chance to be the first because so many saints have already reached there: Jesus and Zarathustra and Mahavira and Buddha. Who will take note of poor George Bernard Shaw? He is willing to go to hell if he can be the first there.Ego wants to be the first, ego wants to put everybody below itself; hence it takes itself seriously. Hence it is perfectionist: it demands perfection, which is impossible. Nobody is perfect; nobody can exist for a single moment if he is perfect. Imperfection is the way of life because it is possible to grow only if you are imperfect. If you are perfect there is no more growth, no more evolution. If you are perfect you are stuck. Perfection means death; imperfection means flow, growth, movement, dynamism.The ego demands perfection of oneself and of others too. It asks for the impossible, and because the impossible cannot be achieved it can go on living. It is not happy with the ordinary; it wants the extraordinary, and life consists only of the ordinary. But the ordinary is beautiful, the ordinary is exquisite. There is no need of anything extraordinary. The ordinary life is sacred, but the ego condemns it as mundane. It demands extraordinary life. Hence all the religions go on inventing stories about their founders which are all untrue: Moses separating the sea, Jesus walking on the water, all these stories are inventions, lies, created by the followers just to prove that their master is extraordinary; he is not an ordinary human being.In fact, the truth is that you cannot find a more ordinary human being than Buddha, Mahavira, Jesus, Moses, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. They are so simple. They have accepted themselves as they are. They live in suchness, in tathata. They don’t hanker for any perfection. They are perfectly at ease with the imperfect world, utterly contented with it. And they don’t take themselves so seriously that they have to attain to great heights, great peaks, that they have to surpass everybody. They are not insane! They are beautiful people, and their beauty consists in having accepted the ordinary as the extraordinary, the mundane as sacred.You ask, “Why do I take myself and everything so seriously?” Everybody takes himself and others seriously. That’s the way of the ego to exist. Start being a little more playful and you will see ego evaporating. Take life nonseriously, as a joke, as a cosmic joke. Laugh a little more.Laughter is far more significant than prayer. Prayer may not destroy your ego; on the contrary, it may make it holy, pious, but laughter certainly destroys your ego. When you are really in a state of laughter, have you observed that the ego disappears for a moment? You are again a child, giggling. Again you have forgotten that you are special. You are no longer serious; for a moment you have removed your fixation.That’s why I love jokes – they are poison to your ego. You would like me to talk about serious things: astral planes and how many bodies men have, seven or nine, and how many chakras. And every day there are esoteric, occult questions. These are the serious people. They have fallen in the wrong company!I am not serious at all. I don’t laugh with you because that is part of telling a joke: the person who tells it has to be very serious, he cannot laugh with you. All my laughter I have to do alone. But my approach toward life is utterly nonserious, playful, because in my experience this is how the ego disappears.Watch when you laugh: where is the ego? Suddenly you have melted, suddenly you are liquid, no longer solid, but flowing. You are not old, experienced, knowledgeable.Listen to this joke and try to find out whether the ego remains or not.Shortly after arriving at their honeymoon suite, the still nervous groom became worried about the state of his bride’s innocence. Deciding on the direct approach, he quickly undressed, pointed at his exposed manhood, and asked his mate, “Do you know what that is?”Without hesitating, she blushed and answered, “That’s a wee-wee.”Delighted at the idea of instructing his naive wife, the husband whispered, “From now on, dearest, this will be called a prick.”“Ah, come now,” the girl chided, “I’ve seen lots of pricks, and I assure you, that’s a wee-wee.”The second question:Osho,What is happiness?It depends. It depends on you, on your state of consciousness or unconsciousness, whether you are asleep or awake.There is a famous maxim of Murphy:He says there are two types of people – one, who always divides humanity in two types, and the other, who doesn’t divide humanity at all.I belong to the first type. Humanity can be divided in two types: the sleeping ones and the awakened ones, and of course, a small part in between.Happiness will depend on where you are in your consciousness. If you are asleep, then pleasure is happiness. Pleasure means sensation, trying to achieve something through the body which is not possible to achieve through the body, forcing the body to achieve something it is not capable of. People are trying, in every possible way, to achieve happiness through the body. The body can give you only momentary pleasures, and each pleasure is balanced by pain in the same amount, in the same degree. Each pleasure is followed by its opposite because the body exists in the world of duality, just as the day is followed by night, and death is followed by life, and life is followed by death. It is a vicious circle. Your pleasure will be followed by pain, your pain will be followed by pleasure.But you will never be at ease. When you will be in a state of pleasure you will be afraid that you are going to lose it, and that fear will poison it. And when you will be lost in pain, of course, you will be in suffering, and you will try every possible effort to get out of it – just to fall back into it again.Buddha calls this the wheel of birth and death. We go on moving in this wheel, clinging to the wheel, and the wheel moves on. Sometimes pleasure comes up and sometimes pain comes up, but we are crushed between these two rocks.But the sleepy person knows nothing else. He knows only a few sensations of the body: food, sex. This is his world; he goes on moving between these two. These are the two ends of his body: food and sex. If he represses sex he becomes addicted to food: if he represses food he becomes addicted to sex. Energy goes on moving like a pendulum. And whatsoever you call pleasure is, at the most, just a relief of a tense state. Sexual energy gathers, accumulates; you become tense and heavy and you want to release it.To the man who is asleep sexuality is nothing but a relief, like a good sneeze. It gives nothing but a certain relief. A tension was there, now it is no longer there; but it will accumulate again. Food gives only a little taste on the tongue; it is not much to live for. But many people are living only to eat; there are very few people who eat to live.The story of Columbus is well-known. It was a long trip. For three months they saw nothing but water. Then one day Columbus looked out at the horizon and saw trees. And if you think Columbus was happy to see trees, you should have seen his dog!That’s why the Siberian dogs are the fastest in the world: because the trees are so far apart.But this is the world of pleasure. The dog can be forgiven, but you cannot be forgiven.During their first date, the young man, looking for ways to have a good time, asked the young lady if she would like to go bowling. She replied that she did not care to go bowling. He then suggested a movie, but she answered that she did not care for them. While trying to think of something else he offered her a cigarette which she declined. He then asked if she would like to dance and drink at the new disco. She again declined by saying she did not care for those things.In desperation he asked her to come to his apartment for a night of lovemaking. To his surprise she happily agreed, kissed him passionately and said, “You see, you don’t need any of those things to have a good time!”What can be called happiness depends upon people. To the sleeping person, pleasurable sensations are happiness. He lives from one pleasure to another pleasure. He is just rushing from one sensation to another sensation. He lives for small thrills. His life is very superficial; it has no depth, it has no quality. He lives in the world of quantity.Then there are the people who are in between, who are neither asleep nor awake, who are just in a limbo, a little bit asleep, a little bit awake. You sometimes have that experience in the early morning: still sleepy, but you can’t say you are asleep because you can hear the noise in the house, your wife preparing tea, the noise of the samovar or the milkman at the door or children getting ready to go to school. You can hear these things, but still you are not awake. Vaguely, dimly these noises reach to you, as if there is a great distance between you and all that is happening around you. It feels as if it is still a part of the dream. It is not a part of the dream, but you are in a state of in-between.The same happens when you start meditating. The non-meditator sleeps, dreams; the meditator starts moving away from his sleep toward awakening. He is in a transitory state. Then happiness has a totally different meaning: it becomes more of a quality, less of a quantity; it is more psychological, less physiological. He enjoys music more, he enjoys poetry more, he enjoys creating something. He enjoys nature, its beauty. He enjoys silence. He enjoys what he had never enjoyed before, and this is far more lasting. Even if the music stops, something goes on lingering in you. And it is not a relief.The difference between pleasure and this happiness is: it is not a relief, it is an enrichment. You become fuller, you become a little overflowing. Listening to good music, something is triggered in your being, a harmony arises in you, you become musical. Or dancing, suddenly you forget your body; your body becomes weightless. The grip of gravitation over you is lost. Suddenly you are in a different space: the ego is not so solid, the dancer melts and merges into the dance. This is far higher, far deeper than the joy that you gain from food or sex. This has a depth. But this is also not the ultimate.The ultimate happens only when you are fully awake, when you are a buddha, when all sleep is gone and all dreaming is gone, when your whole being is full of light, when there is no darkness within you. All darkness has disappeared and with that darkness, the ego is gone. All tensions have disappeared, all anguish, all anxiety. You are in a state of total contentment. You live in the present; no past, no future anymore. You are utterly herenow.This moment is all. Now is the only time and here is the only space. Then suddenly the whole sky drops into you. This is bliss. This is real happiness.Seek bliss, it is your birthright. Don’t remain lost in the jungle of pleasures; rise a little higher. Reach to happiness and then to bliss. Pleasure is animal, happiness is human, bliss is divine. Pleasure binds you, it is a bondage, it chains you. Happiness gives you a little more rope, a little bit of freedom, but only a little bit. Bliss is absolute freedom. You start moving upward; it gives you wings. You are no longer part of the gross earth; you become part of the sky. You become light, you become joy.Pleasure is dependent on others. Happiness is not so dependent on others, but still it is separate from you. Bliss is not dependent, is not separate either; it is your very being, it is your very nature. To attain it is to attain to godliness, to nirvana.The third question:Osho,What is selfishness?Selfishness is the shadow of the idea of a separate self. It is a shadow of a shadow, a reflection of a reflection. It is as if you see the moon in the lake and then you see the moon reflected in the lake in a mirror. It is far, far removed from reality. Even the reflection in the lake is not real, but the reflection of the lake in the mirror is even more unreal.The ego is a reflection in the lake of your true being. Your true being is the moon; the ego is only a reflection in the lake. The reflection in the lake can be disturbed even by a small pebble. Throw in a small pebble and you will see: the moon is disturbed, distorted. Ripples arise and the moon is broken into thousands of pieces.Selfishness is the shadow of the ego, even more unreal. You are not a self. In Buddha’s words, you are not an atta – a self; you are anatta – a no-self. Hence, Buddha does not teach you altruism, neither do I teach you altruism. This point has to be understood well: I don’t teach you to be altruistic. That’s what the priests of almost all the religions go on doing. They say, “Selfishness is bad.” They don’t say, “Selfishness is false.” They say, “Selfishness is bad, selfishness is sin.” But they accept its reality, they don’t reject its reality. If it is unreal, then they cannot condemn it as a sin. How can you call anything unreal a sin? If it does not exist in the first place, how can it be sin and how can it be bad? So they go on saying, “Selfishness is bad, selfishness is sin.” And to avoid it they teach you to be altruistic: “Serve others, be servants of humanity, public servants.”Many times people who have been conditioned by these priests and missionaries come to me and, of course, they are shocked because I never talk about altruism. They ask me why I don’t teach my sannyasins to be altruistic.I cannot, because in the first place the self is false, so to tell them to be unselfish is absolutely wrong. To tell them to serve others, to be altruistic, is taking them deeper and deeper into unreality. My effort here is to help them to see that the self is false; hence I am not against the self. It does not exist, how can I be against something which does not exist?I don’t teach you altruism. If the disease is false, what is the point of giving you some medicine? I simply tell you to look within yourself; watch silently, and you will not find the ego at all. The self disappears. In fact, to say “disappears” is not right; it has never been there, but you had never looked in. When you look you don’t find it.It is like you say, “In my room there is darkness,” and I give you a lamp and I tell you, “Go and search with the lamp to find the darkness.” You go with the lamp and you search, and you can’t find it. You come back and you say, “I can’t find it!” So I say, “It is finished. Don’t be worried about it. Whenever this itching arises in you, this urge, this doubt, take the lamp and go again and search.” Slowly, slowly the truth will settle in you that there is no darkness; it is only the absence of light.Ego is the absence of your attention, the absence of your awareness, nothing else. If you move in, if you look in, it is not found at all. And with self gone, where is selfishness?Then your life is a life of love, of compassion. Then your life is truly altruistic. I will not call it “unselfish,” I will call it “non-selfish,” because in the word unselfish the reality of the self is recognized. I would like to use the Buddhist word, non-selfish – anatta, no-self.Buddha’s insight is tremendous, very significant. There is no need to teach people to be unselfish. Just let them know that there is no ego, and then their whole life, without any effort, becomes a life of love. They will not become missionaries because they will not be doing anything in particular. They will not brag that they have done so much for humanity; they have done it because they enjoyed it. They are already well rewarded. The reward is not somewhere in a future life, after death, in paradise; the reward is in love itself. Love is its own reward.When you live out of love, your life is tremendously joyous, ecstatic; that is the reward. And when you live out of a false ego, your life is a misery, it is a suffering, it is hell; that is the punishment. There is no need to wait – that after death you will be thrown into hell. Forget all these stories! They are good to tell to children because they can’t understand anything else; they can understand only stories. But to mature people those stories are irrelevant.Each act is either its own punishment or its own reward. If it is arising out of your reality it brings great joy, beauty, bliss, benediction. If it is arising out of some false idea it brings misery, pain, suffering. That’s what hell is.Selfishness is the shadow of a self which does not exist at all. But don’t accept what I say just because I am saying it. You will have to look in, let it become your experience. You will have to become a little more awake to look in. You will have to come out of your slumber.It was down South in a dry state. The railroad station was packed with a party on their way to a football game. Over at one side of the waiting room stood Baxter, a quiet little man, fidgeting about and attempting to hide himself from the crowd.A federal agent, assigned to this moonshine-making area, noticed Baxter had something under his jacket from which drops were falling in slow trickles. The fed, with a gleam in his eye, walked over to him, put a finger out under one of the drops, caught one, and tasted it.“Scotch?” he asked.“Nope,” said Baxter. “Airedale pup.”You missed it! Taste it again! It is not Scotch, it is Airedale pup.There was a big alcoholic party on at this flat in San Francisco. Everything was at its drunkest and wildest when an earthquake happened. Chimneys toppled in the street, water mains were broken. All the guests rushed outside from the wild party. But one man was missing. The heroic host dashed back and there in the bathroom he found the missing man, knee-deep in water. The inebriated guest could only mumble, “Honest, Paul, I swear all I did was pull the handle.”You will have to become a little more conscious, that’s all. Come out of your drunkenness; it is very ancient. For many, many lives we have lived in a drunken state. You will have to make a little effort to pull yourself out of the mud of unconsciousness. And then the ego disappears and a pure space is left behind.Out of that pure space, lotuses bloom – lotuses of compassion, of love, of joy. Not only are you blessed, but you become a blessing to the whole existence.Don’t fight with selfishness, remember. Fighting with it is what you have been told again and again. Don’t fight with it. Fighting with it means you have already accepted its reality; hence I don’t teach you to fight with your ego. If you fight with your ego you will become humble, but then in your humbleness the ego will hide. Then the ego will go on bragging about its humbleness. The ego can even say, “I am the most humble person in the world, the greatest humble person in the world.”Three Christian priests were talking; they met on a crossroad. One belonged to a Trappist monastery. He said, “As far as asceticism is concerned, nobody can compete with us. We are the most ascetic people in the whole Christian kingdom.”The second belonged to another monastery. He said, “That may be so, but as far as scholarship is concerned you are nowhere. Our people sacrifice their whole life for the scriptures to find out the truth and the gems.”The third one smiled and said, “You both may be right, but as far as humbleness is concerned, we are the tops!”“As far as humbleness is concerned we are the tops!” Hence I will not say fight with your selfishness. Fighting has not been of any help; it has only created pious egoists all over the world. My suggestion is watch it, look at it, observe it. Observe how it functions, how you go on creating it, because it is your creation.It is very arbitrary. It is a fiction that you maintain and manage. And the maintenance is very costly because it keeps you in hell; it destroys your whole life just to maintain something false. Watch it. The moment you will see its falseness it is gone. You need not drop it, it simply drops on its own accord. It is not found at all.Then a totally new life begins. You are reborn. That’s what I call sannyas.The fourth question:Osho,Is it really true that you never worked in your whole life?It is really true. I am the original hippie! You may not know it, but I am the founder of the whole movement!The shop foreman, irritation showing plainly in his face, strode over to Sheldon, a hippie.“Listen,” he grated, “do me and everyone else in the shop a big favor and quit whistling while you work.”“Hey, man,” retorted Sheldon defensively, “who’s working?”I have lived, I have not worked! Whatsoever I have done I have enjoyed; it was not work, it was my joy, it was play. I loved it, that’s why I did it. I was not doing any service to anybody, I was not working for any other motive; hence it was not work at all, it was my joy.I am talking to you. It is not work, it is my joy. I enjoy – yakkety, yakkety, yakkety, this is not work! I simply love it. To call it work will not be right, it is fun!Whatsoever I have done in my life has never been work. I have been simply whistling!The fifth question:Osho,You are exactly what I have been seeking for the last twenty years in studies, politics, Yoga, family and communities. Now finally I am here. And it's so beautiful! And tomorrow I leave. And I am happy, too. Why?There is no tomorrow. Today you are here, and that’s more than enough; that’s more than one can ask for. Who knows about tomorrow? I myself may be leaving, even before you leave.It is not a question of being here. If you have found me, you have found me; wherever you are, you will be with me, I will be with you. The whole thing is once you have found the right person with whom you fit together, with whom you find absolute harmony, communion, then no space can divide you. That’s why you are feeling happy. I can understand your problem.You say, “And I am happy, too. Why?” Ordinarily, if you have fallen in love with me and are going tomorrow you should have expected to be miserable because: “Here is the man I have been looking for, for twenty years, and now I have found him, and I have to leave tomorrow.” But you are not miserable. That is a clear-cut indication that you have really found me. To find me and be miserable is impossible!There are a few people who are here and are miserable because they have not found me. And there are people who are not here but are immensely joyous because they have found me, wherever they are.You will belong to me from now on. A single moment of deep harmony is enough, a single moment of love is eternity. Then time does not matter, space does not matter.Your heart knows it, but your mind is questioning because it seems illogical. Your mind says, “If you are really so much in love, then why are you leaving? If you are really enjoying, then why should you go at all? For twenty years you have been searching! You wasted twenty years and now you have found, and you are going! And still you are happy! What is happening to you?” This is your mind which is creating a question mark, but your heart knows you have found me. Now wherever you are, this communion will continue.Whatsoever has transpired between me and you is something beyond time, beyond space. So you can go happily, you can go joyously, and whenever you will close your eyes and remember me, you will be now and here.My buddhafield has not to become confined to the commune; it has to spread all over the earth. So wherever a person exists who loves me deeply, he creates a small buddhafield around himself. Not only will you remain related to me, but you will become a bridge to many people toward me. You will become a messenger – not a missionary but a messenger. A missionary is bogus. A missionary is one who himself has not understood at all, who has not experienced anything at all. A missionary is a professional: he has chosen religion as a profession, he earns his livelihood out of it. You will be a messenger. You will be spreading the word to many more people – to your friends, to people you know, you love.Yes, it is perfectly good; go and share me with others. Whenever it is needed you will be called forth, you will be back here again. And if it is needed to be here forever you will be here forever. Whatsoever is needful will happen.Trust!The sixth question:Osho,Why does nobody take any notice of me?Meditate over Murphy’s maxim:Nobody notices when things go right.You must be going right. People notice only when something goes wrong. If everything goes absolutely right, people are not going to notice you at all.It is said of Mahavira that he wanted to renounce his kingdom. He asked the permission of his mother. His mother said, “Stop this nonsense! Never ask me again; until I die I won’t allow you. If you leave the house without permission you will be doing something very violent to me, and you go on talking about nonviolence. So remember!”Mahavira never asked her again. After two years she died. When they were coming back from the funeral he asked his elder brother on the way home, “Can I leave now? I was just living here because our mother said, ‘Never ask again.’ Now, fortunately, she is dead, so can I go?”The brother said, “Stop all this nonsense! Such a calamity has fallen over us – our mother has died – and you want to leave me? Till I die you are not allowed.”Mahavira was so obedient that he said okay. He started living in the palace as if he had renounced. He would meditate, he would be silent, he would move so quietly and so gracefully that, slowly, slowly he became almost absent. It is a beautiful story, that the family stopped taking any notice of him.Then one day suddenly the brother realized, “For months we have not taken any notice of him.” He remembered, “Where is he?” He went in search of him. He called the whole family and asked them, “What to do now? He has almost left! He has become so silent, so peaceful. He makes no noise, he never interferes, he never says anything to anybody. He is as if he is not in the house at all! So what is the point of preventing him anymore?”They all gathered together and requested Mahavira, “Now you can go. In fact, you have already gone because we have stopped taking any notice of you.”Mahavira said, “It makes no difference now. But if you say to go, I will go.”Don’t be worried. People take notice only when you are doing something wrong. When a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites a dog it is news! So if you want to become news, bite a dog! Do something stupid, become some kind of nuisance. Only people who are a nuisance are taken notice of.That’s why you see all the politicians covered every day in the newspapers, simply because they have nuisance value. You can ask any prime minister or any president of the world on what grounds he chooses his cabinet. It is nuisance value! Whoever is going to create nuisance has to be chosen, if he has not already been chosen. The more you are a nuisance, the more you will be taken notice of, obviously. If you are a silent person living in deep harmony with yourself and existence, who is going to take any notice of you? Do something wrong, anything!That’s why your saints do such stupid things – just to be taken notice of. Stand on your head in the M.G. Road market and a crowd will gather. People will stop wherever they were going. They may have been going on some urgent work, but now a greater thing is happening: a foolish man is standing on his head! They have to stop, they have to watch. Do something stupid.Robert Ripley says that one man wanted to become famous, and he asked Ripley what to do. Ripley is a famous man; he has written the book Believe It or Not. He used to accumulate all kinds of unbelievable things; he was an expert in unbelievable things, true but unbelievable. People used to ask him many things, and somebody asked him how to become famous.He said, “Do one thing. Shave the hair over half of your head and just walk silently all over New York. For three days go on walking and don’t say anything, just let people watch.”Within three days he was in every newspaper! That a strange man with half his head shaved, is walking all over New York, never saying anything. You ask him and he keeps quiet. Very strange!That’s why I have chosen orange for you, so that wherever you are – New York, Berlin, Paris, Rome, wherever you are, everybody has to take notice of you. It helps my work! People start asking, “What has happened to you?” My sannyasins all look like Jesus is back!You must be doing everything right. Be happy that nobody is taking notice of you.The seventh question:Osho,Why do you give the priests such a bad time? They don't stop you drinking and you only have to listen to them once a week.It is enough to poison people if they have to listen once a week to all kinds of nonsense. For centuries nonsense has been propagated, it has come into the air, it has become part of the atmosphere. It is not a question of listening to them only once a week; their vibe is everywhere. They go on reminding you in every possible way. Whenever you pass, there is a church or a temple or a mosque. Do you think it does not remind you of something? They toll bells in the churches just to remind you, “Don’t forget we are still here!” And the towering churches, you can see them from anywhere; they are reminding you. These are subtle processes of reminding you.In India you cannot pass a street without coming across a temple – everywhere temples. It is so simple to make a temple in India: you can just paint any stone. You can try! Just bring a rock from anywhere, put it under a tree, paint it red and just sit by the side with closed eyes. Within a few minutes you will see people start arriving. Somebody will put flowers, somebody will bow down to the rock; they will think this is the statue of Hanumanji!India does not believe in very costly things; it has made everything cheap. It is a poor country, you know, so things have to be cheap, within everybody’s capacity. You can have as many gods as you want. Any stone will do; just, if it is round it becomes Shankara, Shiva. If it is not round, ugly in shape, paint it red; it becomes Hanuman! Just sit by the side and wait, and you will find worshippers have started coming.I am not giving a bad time to the priests. In fact, the intelligent priests are immensely pleased with me. Just the other day I received a card from a priest who is very happy because he has been listening to my tapes, reading my books. He is happy because I am here – a congratulation card from a priest! I am not giving a hard time to intelligent priests. No, I am simply showing them the exit! And a few have escaped. There are many priests, monks and nuns who have become sannyasins, and there is great fear now because if this goes on happening there is danger.The Protestant authorities in Germany have ordered all the Protestant churches of Germany not to mention my name in any sermon. There was an eighteen-page report published by a special commission appointed by the Protestant church to investigate what I am saying. They have read all the books, and my feeling is half of them will be converted because the report seems to be very confused. Sometimes they seem to be favorable to me, sometimes they seem to be against me. They are not in a situation to say whether “this man” is right or wrong. Their report is very revealing.They say, “This man talks like Jesus – yet beware of him.” Now I think more priests, particularly Protestant priests in Germany, will read the books. They have quoted all the books. They have given the names of the books. Even the priests who would not have known about me will know about me now. This is how things happen in the world. This is a very strange world!I am not giving anybody a hard time. At the most, I told a few jokes about the priests. And my feeling is that reading them when they are alone they must be enjoying!The pope stood before a hushed crowd of attentive villagers and spoke to them, “You must not use the Pill!”A lovely signora stepped forward, shaking her finger. “Look,” she chided the pontiff, “you no play da game-a, you no make-a da rules!”The last question:Osho,My husband is mad, but sometimes what he says is true. Is it possible for a madman to do that?Madmen can do anything, obviously – they are mad! They can even say the truth. It is the so-called sane people who are unbelievable, who are expert in lying. Mad people are simple; they can say the truth. They don’t worry, they don’t care.Listen to your husband. He is far saner than the other so-called sane people. If sometimes you find that he is telling you the truth, maybe at other times also he is telling you the truth, you are just not aware of it.Mad people are beautiful people. They are mad only because they are so sensitive that they cannot live in this mad world. This mad world drives them mad. They are so sensitive and vulnerable that they become victims. They are not cunning; they are innocent, sincere and honest people. I know many mad people – in fact, I know only mad people – and I respect them.You ask me, “Can a madman do that? Is it possible for a madman to speak the truth?” Only madmen can say the truth.Jesus must have been mad; otherwise he would not have spoken the truth. He would have played the game of the crowd and he would have become a famous rabbi, not crucified but crowned. But he was mad and he spoke the truth.Socrates must have been mad, utterly mad; otherwise why bother about truth? Live as other people live, imitate them; lie as they lie, deceive as they deceive, be hypocrites as they are. Why try to be true? Why insist on truth? But he must have been mad…The judges, because they also felt sorry for Socrates and they knew his sincerity, at the last moment told him that if he was ready to leave Athens he could be forgiven, but he could never enter Athens again.Socrates said, “That I cannot do. I have lived in Athens, I have taught in Athens, my disciples are here, my people are here. Now in this old age, where am I going to start my business again?”Yes, he actually used the word business.The judges asked, “What do you mean by your business?”He said, “The business of telling the truth. That is my business.”The judges were really sympathetic. They said, “Then do one thing. You can live in Athens, but stop talking, be silent.”He said, “That is not possible. It is better to die because then my death will speak. And let me remind you,” he said to the judges, “even after centuries, when I am dead, my death will go on speaking to people about the truth. And you will be remembered only because of me; otherwise nobody will remember you. I cannot stop my business of speaking the truth. I am ready to die.”He must have been mad. Even his disciples thought that he was mad: “Life is so valuable!” But to a man of truth, truth is more valuable.Mad people can do anything. Help your husband, don’t hinder him. Help him to be authentic and true and don’t call him mad. Who knows who is mad? In fact, no definition exists. Psychoanalysts call Jesus neurotic. Friedrich Nietzsche says Buddha is mad. Freud says Nietzsche is mad. Jung thinks Freud is mad. Who is to be believed?The noted doctor opened the patient’s stomach and a bunch of butterflies flew out.“Say,” the doctor said, “this guy was really telling the truth!”And maybe he is just playing a role, just acting, because sometimes it is really beautiful.I know one madman. When he was alone with me he was absolutely sane, and when he went home he would become mad. I asked him, “What is the matter?”He said, “This is very comfortable. I don’t have to go to work, I don’t have to bother about the family business, I don’t have to worry about anything. I enjoy: I swim in the river, I lie down in the sun, and everybody thinks, ‘He is mad!’ My wife, my children have taken all the responsibility. My wife runs the shop, my children about whom I was always worried are now worried about me. And I am enjoying, I am having the time of my life!” He said, “I have done enough. Now this is the only way.”There are many mad people who are simply pretending to be mad. Just help your husband. Maybe it is just because of you that he is pretending to be mad! Women are dangerous! You should see Aseema…Aseema is a beautiful sannyasin. I have seen her two ex-husbands – both have gone crazy. Then I started thinking, what is the matter? And both are beautiful people – you know both. One is Sarvesh, the ventriloquist. He was perfectly okay before he met Aseema. Now this beautiful sannyasin has driven him mad! Another is Nikunj; Nikunj is mad. The whole credit goes to Aseema. Now, if anybody else is thinking to fall in love with Aseema, think twice, and then stop yourself!A woman goes to a palm reader.“Your husband will die a violent death,” she is told.“One more question,” she asks. “Will I be acquitted?”A group of hikers passing a hillbilly’s cabin smiled as they saw the owner reclining in a rocking chair on the porch. They noticed his wife going into the house via the front, and only door. A few seconds later they saw a wildcat leap through the open window.They rushed up to the mountaineer. “Do something quick!” someone shouted. “A wildcat just leaped into your house and your wife is in there.”“That’s his tough luck,” said the hillbilly. “I never did like wildcats, anyway.”So meditate a little about yourself. Why is this poor man behaving as if he is mad?At the height of the unfortunate American involvement in East Asia, an owlish-looking young fellow approached the recruiting officer’s desk.“What must I do to get to Vietnam as soon as possible?” asked the prospective soldier.“Well, first you have to sign up,” exclaimed the officer with a grin.“Do volunteers have to take a physical?”“Certainly.”“Darn, that’ll slow me up. I wanna get to the front lines right away.”“In any case, you’d have to go to boot camp for training,” explained the officer. “Nobody goes where the fighting is until he’s properly trained.”“Then at least will the army fly me to Vietnam? I’d hate to go there by slow boat.”“What are you so all-fired anxious about?” growled the army man. “Don’t you realize you could get killed or wounded over there?”“So I get killed or wounded. What’s the difference, as long as I’m getting all the glory?”“Listen, buddy,” snapped the recruiter, “why don’t you go home and forget the whole thing? You’re crazy!”The young fellow abruptly reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a paper and thrust it into the army officer’s hands.“Here,” he said quickly. “Just sign!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Why are you continuously misunderstood and misinterpreted by people?It is absolutely inevitable, it is unavoidable. It has to be so; it is part of the destiny of those who speak the truth. They are bound to be misunderstood, misinterpreted. If they were not misunderstood, not misinterpreted, that would be a miracle. It has not happened up to now and there is no hope that it is ever going to happen.Buddhas have always been misunderstood for the simple reason that they speak from a totally different vision which is not available to the masses. They speak from a totally different experience. Their experience is such that it cannot be expressed through words, yet they try to express it through words, they try to do the impossible. Saying it through words creates trouble. They use words in their own way, they give the words their own color, but when those words reach you they have lost all the meaning that was given by the awakened ones. Immediately you interpret them, you translate them into your experience.Buddhas speak from sunlit peaks and you live in dark valleys. They talk about light and you have never seen light. They talk about eyes and you have not even dreamed about eyes. They talk about eternity and all that you know is time; all that you know is temporary and they talk of that which never changes, which is always the same, which abides. The gap is unbridgeable. Unless you also become conscious it remains unbridgeable.Hence only a few disciples, slowly, slowly attain to the meaning of the masters. Very slowly a few people become awakened, they come out of their sleep. It is arduous, too, because all that you know about your life is your sleep and your dreams. Leaving your dreams and your life behind is hard. It is demolishing your whole past. It is entering into an unknown territory without a map. One feels scared.Only disciples can understand; the masses cannot understand. The masses have every investment in not understanding. Even if there is some possibility of understanding they will avoid that possibility. They will not come close to the buddhas; they will try in every possible way to create more and more barriers. They will create rumors, all kinds of rumors. They will surround the buddhas with so much smoke of their own creation that the buddhas become almost invisible to them. They don’t want to listen, it hurts. Their whole life is rooted in lies and the truth hurts, it shatters.And the masses are vast, the blind people are millions. The people with eyes are rare, few and far between. Only once in a while comes a Zarathustra, a Lao Tzu, a Jesus, a Moses, a Buddha. They are doing something unimaginable. They are trying to explain light to the millions who are blind. The blind people can hear the word light, but they cannot understand it, or they will understand it in their own way, whatsoever is their idea, opinion about light. They are not only blind; they have thousands of opinions. They have much knowledge, but they know nothing at all. They are full of scriptures, they hide their blindness behind scriptures. They can quote scriptures, they can argue, they are clever and skillful in argument.In fact, truth cannot be argued about. Either you know it or you don’t. Truth cannot be proved either; either you know it or you don’t. Knowing is all that is possible, or not-knowing; there is no way to prove it.Once it happened:A blind man was brought to Gautama the Buddha. He was a logician, a philosopher, very argumentative. He had been arguing with the village, “There is no light, and you are all blind, just as I am blind. I know it and you don’t know it, that’s the only difference.” He was saying this to people who had eyes! And he was so clever in argument that the villagers were at a loss what to do with this man.He was asking them, “Bring your light. Let me taste it or smell it or touch it. Only then will I believe.”Now, light cannot be touched, cannot be tasted, cannot be smelled. You cannot hear it. And these were the four senses available to the blind man. Then he would laugh in victory. He would say, “Look! There is no light. Otherwise, give me the proof!”When Buddha came to the village, the villagers thought it would be good: “Let us take this man to Buddha.”They brought the man to Buddha. Buddha listened to the whole story and then he said, “He does not need me. I also work with blind people, but of a different kind – spiritually blind people. I heal them, I cure them. But this is physical blindness. Take him to a physician. Take him to my personal physician.”He had a personal physician a king had given him. The greatest physician of those days, Jivaka, was given to Buddha as a gift to take care of his body. “Take him to Jivaka, and I am certain that he will be able to do something. He needs a physician; he does not need great philosophy about light. Talking about light is just stupid. And if you argue with him, he is going to win. He can prove that there is no light.”Remember, to prove that there is no God is very easy; to prove that there is God is impossible. To prove the negative is easy because all logic tends to be negative. To prove the positive is not possible; logic has no opening toward the positive. Hence the atheist is more argumentative and the theist feels almost defeated. He cannot prove the existence of God or the soul.Buddha said, “Take him to Jivaka.” Jivaka cured his eyes. Within six months the man was able to see. He came dancing with many flowers and fruits as a present to Buddha. He fell at his feet and he said, “If you had not been there I would have argued my whole life against light, and light is! Now I know!”Buddha said, “Can you prove it? Where is light? I would like to taste it and touch it and smell it!”And the blind man – the ex-blind man – answered, “That is impossible. Now I know it can only be seen; there is no other way to approach it. Excuse me, I am sorry. I was blind, utterly blind, and in my blindness I was arguing against something which exists and is the most beautiful experience of life. If you were not there I would have argued my whole life against something which is, and I would have remained a blind man. You did well that you did not say a single word about light; otherwise, I had come prepared, fully prepared to argue with you, and I know now, even you would not have been able to prove it. But your insight is deep: you could see that I didn’t need any proof, I needed medicine. I didn’t need philosophy, I needed a physician. You directed me to the right person. I am immensely grateful.”The man never left Buddha. He said, “What you have done to my physical eyes, now do to my spiritual eyes too.”He became a disciple, he became a sannyasin.To be a disciple means to be ready to be operated on. It is a surgery, a very internal surgery: surgery in the very deepest core of your being. Only then can you understand what I am saying to you.But the masses are not ready. And don’t be worried about them. That is none of our business. If they misunderstand, for us it does not matter. If they misunderstand, they miss something. If they misinterpret, it is their loss. Try to help them to come closer to me, but don’t argue with them.I am a physician, I am not a philosopher. My work here is that of a surgeon, not that of a teacher. The master is always a surgeon. He cuts away all that is false in you, chunk by chunk. Slowly, slowly he demolishes the whole edifice of your falsehood. Then what is left behind is your truth, is your being. When you have experienced it, only then will you be able to understand what is being conveyed to you through words, through silence, through communion.I am trying in every possible way to reach you, but I can reach you only if you are open to me. I cannot reach to the masses; that is not possible in the very nature of things.The second question:Osho,How can I become the new man that you speak about?Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” Exactly that’s what I say to you: unless you are born again…There are two births. One is given to you by your parents; that is a physical birth. That is only an opportunity for the second birth. If you think that the first birth is all, you have missed the whole point. The first birth is only a seed. It is of immense value if the second happens; it is of no value at all if you miss the second birth. You have to be twice-born. That’s how we have defined the buddhas in the East.The second birth has to happen within you; it is of consciousness. It is not of your body, it is not even of your mind; it is of awareness.Ordinarily, the first birth makes you only a machine. You start living in a very superficial way; you don’t have any depth, you don’t have any soul yet. You eat, you drink, you work, you sleep, but all like a robot. You don’t see the beauty of existence, you can’t see it. You don’t see the godliness of every moment; it is impossible for you to experience it. It needs a transformation of your whole interiority. It needs a new subjectivity, a new vision, a new perspective.You see in a certain sense, you hear only in a certain sense. Yes, you hear the words, but the meaning is missed. You read the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, but just like a parrot. Even parrots are far more intelligent than your so-called pundits, than your so-called knowledgeable people. You go on repeating like a gramophone record. And you are so egoistic that you can’t accept, you can’t say, “I don’t know.”Jascha Heifetz, the distinguished violinist, was in London where he was scheduled to give a concert. A few hours before curtain time, he noticed that a violin string had broken, so he hurried to a music supply shop for a replacement. He was waited on by a girl who was new to the business.“I would like to have an E string for my violin,” said Heifetz.“A what?” asked the uncomprehending girl.“An E string.”“Sorry, luv,” she replied apologetically, “but ye will have to pick it out yourself. I can’t tell the he’s from the she’s!”People are very reluctant to accept the fact that they don’t know. They try in every possible way to manage a facade that they know. This is the greatest mistake in life. You are not yet born, but if you think you are already born, if you think you have already attained to life, then this whole opportunity is going to be lost. It will go down the drain.You can learn great words; they are available. You can learn them so much that if you meet Jesus you may repeat his words better than he can do it himself, because you have been repeating them for so long. You may defeat him; in a competition he may not be able to survive at all. Some stupid priest may win the competition because he will be just repeating exactly, word for word. Jesus cannot do that; it is impossible. He has to be spontaneous. He will respond to the situation. He may say some new things because twenty centuries have passed. How can he go on saying the same old things? Impossible.That’s why the people who believe that they know are the most ignorant in the world. To be ignorant is not that bad, but to believe that you know, without knowing, is very dangerous.It seems that talking parrots had become quite fashionable. Understandably, Mulla Nasruddin’s wife decided she must have one for herself. However, every store she went to had sold out of parrots. Finally she found a shop that had one left.“But,” the owner cautioned, “this bird was previously owned by a madam in a whorehouse and its language may be quite salty. Perhaps if you keep him covered for a week, he will forget what he has seen and heard.”Mrs. Nasruddin purchased the bird and did as the shopkeeper bid. At long last the week was over and the bird was finally uncovered. He first blinked his eyes and then after adjusting to the light looked around and said, “Hmm… Pretty new house. Hmm… Pretty new madam. Hmm… Pretty new girls too.”Just then Mulla Nasruddin walked in. The bird took one look at him and said, “Ah, shit! Same old customers. Hi, Mulla!”Yes, even parrots are more spontaneous than your pundits. You go on repeating. Your parents believed that they lived and their parents believed that they lived, and they have given you the idea that you are alive. You are not alive, you are only vegetating. To be alive means to be awakened.When I say the new man, I mean the conscious man. Humanity cannot be saved if the conscious man does not arrive. In the past it was not so necessary, but now it is absolutely necessary, it is a must. If the new man does not arrive on the earth, if more and more people are not going to become conscious, alert, awake, then this earth is doomed. Its fate is in the hand of the stupid politicians, and now they have immense power of destruction, such as they never had before. That is something new.Just five years ago they had so much power that they could have killed every single human being seven times, although you don’t need to kill any human being seven times, once is enough. Five years ago we had so much atomic energy – atom bombs, hydrogen bombs – that we could have destroyed this earth seven times. And within five years we have really progressed – now it is seven hundred times! We can destroy seven hundred earths like this earth, and we go on piling up those weapons. And any moment, any mad politician can trigger the process of self-destruction.The coming twenty years are going to be the most dangerous in the whole history of humanity; it has never been so dangerous, we are sitting on a volcano. Only more consciousness, more alertness can save it; there is no other way. We have to de-automatize man. The society automatizes you. It creates efficient machines, not human beings.My effort here is to de-automatize you. I am doing something absolutely antisocial. The society makes you a machine and my effort is to undo it. I would like this fire to spread and reach to all the nooks and corners of the earth, to help as many people as possible to be conscious. If consciousness grows in a great quantity on the earth, there is a possibility, a hope, we can save humanity yet. All is not lost, but time is running short. Everything is being controlled by politicians and by computers, and both are dangerous. Politicians are mad. It is impossible to be a politician if you are not mad enough. You have to be absolutely insane, because only insane people are power-obsessed.A sane person lives life joyously; he is not power-obsessed. He may be interested in music, in singing, in dancing, but he is not interested in dominating anybody. He may be interested in becoming a master of himself, but he is not interested in becoming a master of others.Politicians are insane people. History is enough proof. And now computers are dominating. You know the saying: to err is human. It is true, but if you really want to create a great mess, human beings are not enough, you need computers. Now machines and mad people are dominating the whole world. We have to change the very foundation. That’s what I mean by a new man.A new man means more conscious, more loving, more creative. This whole process is possible through being more meditative. Become more meditative, silent, still. Experience yourself deeply. In that experience, a fragrance will be released through you. And if many, many people become meditators, the earth can be full of a new perfume.The third question:Osho,I never know what is coming next. It is no use being prepared. You are killing me. I am so glad, but it is so painful and so scary.P.S. this is for a few strokes. Please don't cause any more trouble.A few strokes are enough to cause trouble and when you ask it, you get it! Sometimes people get it even without asking. Whatever you need and whenever you need, it is given to you.Pain is not always bad; sometimes it is absolutely necessary. It is a blessing in disguise. You grow through it; you cannot grow if you try to bypass it. One becomes integrated, crystallized through pain. The only condition to be fulfilled is that you should go into it consciously. Then pain, too, is a gift from existence, just as death is. Then everything is a gift, if you can go consciously into it. Then everything prepares you for the new birth, for the new man.You say, “I never know what is coming next.” Nobody knows and nobody needs to know. Samarpan, it is good not to be bothered about the future. The present is enough, and to live in the present, totally absorbed in the present, is the way of the sannyasin.Jesus says to his disciples, “Look at the lilies in the field, how beautiful they are!” And what is their secret? The secret is, they never think of the morrow, they live in the present. The whole existence lives in the present, except man; hence, except man, there is no anxiety, no anguish. All anxiety, all anguish is man-created; it is our own doing. It simply exists in our own minds. We are worried about the past which is stupid because you can’t do anything about it; whatsoever has happened has happened, you cannot go back. But we go on thinking, “Had I done this, had I said this…” You are simply wasting more time. People go on repenting about the past – that which is not is not worth repenting about. People feel guilty about their past. That which is gone is gone forever. Feel disconnected, become discontinuous.Each moment, Samarpan, one has to become discontinuous with the past. If you become discontinuous with the past, only then do you stop worrying about the future, because the future is nothing but a projection of the past. The people who live in the past also live in the future. The future is a reflection of the past. What exactly is your idea of the future? It means you are not going to commit the mistakes that you committed in the past, you are going to delete those mistakes. And you are going to enjoy all that was pleasant in the past more deeply. That’s what your future is: intensifying your pleasures of the past and deleting your pains of the past.But you don’t understand life. Pains and pleasures are joined together. If you want the same pleasures that you enjoyed in the past and you want them to be more intense, you are asking for the pain that you also suffered in the past. And, of course, the pain will be as intense as the pleasure. They are always balanced, they move together, they are inseparable. They are two sides of the same coin.So you are simply wasting time, whether you are thinking of the past or of the future. The future is not going to be according to you. Who are you to decide about the future? This vast universe can’t be decided by your private will, by your ego. You have to stop pushing the river. You have to learn how to go with the river, how to go with the wind.Lao Tzu says: “Be like a dead leaf,” so wherever the wind blows, the leaf goes with it. It has no destiny of its own, it has no private goals of its own, it has no will of its own. It is utterly surrendered. That is the meaning of your name, Samarpan. Samarpan means “totally surrendered”: one who has lost his will into the will of the whole.Jesus says on the cross, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” That is samarpan, that is surrender. “Thy will, not mine.” That is his last prayer and the very essence of prayerfulness, the very soul of a religious man.There is no need to prepare for the future. Live in the present totally, that’s all. That is preparation for the future without preparing at all. Why? – because when you live totally in the present, the future is going to be born out of the present. From where is it going to come? It is going to grow out of this moment. If you have lived this moment in its total beauty, joy, celebration, the next moment will come out of it and you will be able to live it even more totally, even more joyously. But you don’t think about it and you don’t prepare for it because thinking and preparing means missing this moment. And if you miss this moment you will miss the next too, because it will be coming out of this empty moment which you absolutely missed.So a strange phenomenon happens, a very strange law of life: those who prepare for the future are the ones who go on missing, and those who don’t prepare but live in the present, utterly surrendered to the whole, never miss anything. Their future comes out of the present, flows out of the present. Then the whole takes care. When you are surrendered, the whole takes care; when you are not surrendered, you have to take care of yourself. And that is like trying to pull yourself up by your own shoestrings.Mulla Nasruddin went for his first airplane flight. When he came back he was looking very tired – and just a fifteen-minute flight from Mumbai to Pune – he was trembling, his face was looking so pale.I asked, “What is the matter?”He said, “What is the matter! Those two plane flights!”I said, “What two plane flights? You have been only on one plane flight.”He said, “Two – my first and my last! I am finished with this nonsense! I was so afraid, I had to sit just on the edge of the chair.”“But why on the edge?” I asked him.He said, “So that my whole weight was not on the plane, that’s why.”This is the way millions of people are living in the world: so their whole weight is not on the whole; otherwise something may go wrong. The whole is capable of carrying you. You are almost nothing; it is not a problem for the whole.A man who had finished his life went before God. God reviewed his life and showed him the many lessons he had learned. When he had finished God said, “My child, is there anything you wish to ask?”The man said, “While you were showing me my life, I noticed that when the times were pleasant there were two sets of footprints, and I knew you walked beside me. But when times were difficult there was only one set of footprints. Why, Father, did you desert me during the difficult times?”And God said, “You misinterpret me, my son. It is true that when times were pleasant I walked beside you and pointed out the way. But when times were difficult, I carried you.”You say, Samarpan, “I never know what is coming next. It is no use being prepared.” Certainly, it is no use being prepared – or, there is a totally different way of being prepared. That is what I am trying to show you. Live in the moment totally, fully aware. That is the real way of preparing without preparing. That is preparation without preparation. You will be ready for the next moment naturally, without any worry.You say, “You are killing me.” Yes, in a sense. And in another sense… Meditate over this story:A man is taking a walk in a park late at night. Suddenly, behind some bushes he hears strange gasps and muffled screams. Alarmed, he shouts, “Is anybody being killed in there?”“No, no,” shouts back a voice. “Just the opposite!”Yes, in one sense I am killing you; in another sense, I am giving you a new birth. I am doing just the opposite.The master is a womb. He takes the disciple inside his womb. We call that womb the buddhafield. Then the disciple grows in his love, is nourished through his love, in his light. He is showered continuously with his compassion, with his understanding. And one day he comes out of the womb of the master, a totally new man. The old dies and the new is born. This is how you become twice-born.The fourth question:Osho,You talk about the difference between “knowing” and “knowledge.” But to become a master, do you not have to have knowledge as well as knowing? It seems to me that you, in your talks, show much knowledge. Can this not be a part of the way for some?There is a great difference between knowledge and knowing. To you, knowing may appear as knowledge because you are not acquainted with knowing at all; you know only knowledge. Hence you may find much knowledge in what I am saying, but it is not knowledge to me, it is knowing to me. Knowing means my own experience; knowledge means something borrowed.It is not necessary that my knowing should go against the knowing of Buddha or Jesus or Krishna. In fact, it cannot go against anybody’s knowing. Knowing is the same, the process is the same, whether Buddha knows or Zarathustra. It is the same.Knowing means you enter into your interiority, you move inward, you reach to the very center of your being. You experience who you are, and in that very experience you know you are God, because only God exists. To say, “God is,” is a tautology because God means “is”; “isness” is God.Whatever I am saying here may appear to you as knowledge because it can be found in the Bible, in the Koran, in the Gita, in The Dhammapada. So you will think, “Of course, it is knowledge.” It is not. The difference is subtle and delicate.One can know about love – libraries are full; thousands of books about love have been written. You can gather as much knowledge about love as possible. You can make an encyclopedia of love. You can become an encyclopedia of love. Still, if you have not experienced love, all that you know is rubbish, all that you know is verbal, intellectual; it has no existential value.Buddha used to say: “It is like a man who goes on counting other people’s cows and buffaloes every day, while he himself has no cow, no buffalo.” Counting other people’s cows and buffaloes you may become very expert in counting, you may become very reliable, but unless you have your own cow you will not be nourished by that counting.To know means to be silent, utterly silent, so you can hear the still, small voice within. To know means to drop the mind. When you are absolutely still, unmoving, nothing wavers in you, the doors open. You are part of this mysterious existence. You know it by becoming part of it, by becoming a participant in it. That is knowing.Once knowing has happened, then to read the Bible and the Koran and the Gita is beautiful because then they all become witnesses. Otherwise you can read, you can repeat, but they are only words with no meaning, with no content.Knowledge is without content, empty shells with nothing inside. But if you have seen only knowledge, from the outside both will look almost the same. Knowledge comes through studying and knowing happens through meditation. The processes are different. In knowledge you have to go into words, into language, into scriptures. In knowing you have to go within yourself. The processes are not only different but polar opposites. In knowing, first you have to drop knowledge because that becomes a hindrance. First you have to know that you don’t know. You have to become innocent.Jesus says: “Unless you are as innocent as small children you will not enter into my kingdom of God.”The clergyman was telling his guests a story when his little girl interrupted.“Daddy,” she asked, “is it true or is it mere preaching?”There is a great difference whether something is true or is just preaching – “mere preaching.”An old priest had to leave his village one Saturday – the day everyone goes to confession. He taught the new young priest who was taking over his job the necessary basics: “If a woman steals money from her husband – three ‘Ave Maria’ and two ‘Pater Noster’; if someone commits adultery – five ‘Ave Maria’ and three ‘Pater Noster’; for those who have been telling lies – one ‘Ave Maria’ and two ‘Pater Noster’, and so on.”The young priest heard first the confession of a pretty village girl.“Father, I have committed a sin,” the girl said.“What have you done-a, my child-a?” asked the priest.“I have given the boy next door a blow job,” she replied timidly.The young priest was puzzled because he had not been instructed about such a situation. At that moment, he saw the old priest passing by, his suitcase in hand, preparing to leave. Quickly he called out to the old man, “Father, Father, one moment please. There is a young-a girl-a here. What do I give her-a for a blow-a job?”“Fifty dollars,” replied the old priest.Knowledge is borrowed; knowing is yours, your own. It is authentic. Knowledge is information, knowing is transformation.You ask me, “You talk about the difference between knowing and knowledge. But to become a master, do you not have to have knowledge as well as knowing?” Knowing is enough. To be a master, knowing is enough.“It seems to me,” you say, “that you, in your talks, show much knowledge.” I am not a master because of my knowledge, but in spite of it! I was a professor in a university. I had to struggle a great deal to get out of my knowledge. Still something of it goes on lingering around me. Forgive me for that! But it has nothing to do with being a master.Jesus had no knowledge; he was more fortunate. He was not a professor in a university, he was just a poor carpenter’s son. Mohammed was fortunate; he was absolutely illiterate. I was unfortunate. I have suffered a lot from knowledge. My whole problem was how to get rid of it. That’s why I am so concerned about you and I continuously insist on being aware of knowledge – don’t become knowledgeable. I am saying it because of my own experience.It is easy to renounce wealth, it is easy to renounce power, prestige, because they are outside things. The greatest problem is to renounce your knowledge because it goes so deep. It becomes so ingrained it becomes almost a part of your being. You can escape to the Himalayas – the wife, the shop, the power, everything will be left behind, but not knowledge. It will be there with you wherever you go. It is not a shadow, it is something inside your skin. It is easy to get out of your skin; it is more difficult to get out of your knowledge. Hence I go on saying to you: beware, beware of becoming knowledgeable. And there is a great tendency in the mind to become knowledgeable because it is very ego-fulfilling.But one need not be knowledgeable to become a master. If you are already knowledgeable, then put it aside. Become innocent again so that you can know on your own, and when you have known you can use your knowledge. It can be used, but only later on. Knowing comes first, then you can use your knowledge, but your use of knowledge will be totally different from the use of the scholars.That’s why my interpretation of Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, is totally different from the interpretations of scholars. It is bound to be so. Their interpretations are verbal, they are only logical interpretations. They are great argumentators, clever in hairsplitting.My interpretations are not argumentative, are not intellectual. My interpretations are paradoxical. If you are against me you can call them anti-intellectual; if you love me you can call them supra-intellectual. It depends on you. If you are against me, they are irrational; if you are in love with me, they are suprarational. If you are against me, they are self-contradictory; if you love me they are mysterious, paradoxical.When I say anything I am not concerned whether I am being true to Buddha or not. My concern is whether I am being true to myself or not. If I am true to myself I know that I must be true to Buddha; it can’t be otherwise. So I don’t take much care whether I am literally true to Buddha, to Jesus, or not. I take every freedom.Sometimes I change the stories when I see that a story is not possible, it couldn’t have happened to a buddha, and sometimes I invent stories.Once a great Buddhist scholar, Bhadant Anand Kausalyayan, came to see me. He said, “Everything you say is beautiful, but I have come across a few stories which I have not found in any scriptures.”I asked him, “For example?”He said, “For example, just the other day I was reading a beautiful story you have told: Buddha is passing down a street talking to his disciple, Ananda, and a fly sits on his head. He goes on talking and just moves his hand to scare away the fly, and then he stops suddenly in the middle of the road. The fly is gone, but he moves his hand again slowly as if the fly is there.“Ananda is very much puzzled. He says, ‘What are you doing? The fly is no longer there!’“Buddha says, ‘Yes, I know, but this is how I should have done it before. I continued to talk with you and automatically I allowed my hand to move. That is not right for me. I should move my hand with more awareness. So now I am doing it as I should have done.’”Anand Kausalyayan said, “I have never come across this story. I have read all the scriptures.”I asked him, “But do you think the story is beautiful?”He said, “The story is beautiful.”Then I said, “It is perfectly right. Then why bother about the scriptures? Don’t you see a Buddhist flavor in it?”He said, “I can see.”“So that is the whole point!”I am not functioning here as a man of knowledge, but only as a man of knowing.The fifth question:Osho,I am losing my memory and it is worrying me to death. What should I do?Nonsense! Just forget all about it!The sixth question:Osho,What would you say was wrong with the Indians?Almost everything!The seventh question:Osho,Yes! I was not sure until now. I said the same words to Aseema a month ago: “You have driven two other men mad. Don't let it be me.” Wow! We have been in love for maybe one year now, and to tell you the truth I am really allowing her to affect me in all possible ways. Both Nikunj and Sarvesh are affected by her, and for myself I see what it is: love with a witch! Release me, beloved Osho.Ah… What shall I do?It is too late! I am not a witch doctor – now, nothing can be done. In fact, you are already mad.Mulla Nasruddin plays on the sitar, but he goes on playing the same note continuously for hours. His wife has gone mad, his children have gone mad, his parents have gone mad.One day he continued to play the same note, and a neighbor asked him, “Mulla, we have seen many people playing sitar, but they change notes.”Nasruddin said, “I know they go on changing because they have not yet found the right note. And I have found it, so why should I change?”The neighbor said, “But now it is two o’clock in the morning. Please! Just one hour more and I will go mad. Stop it!”Nasruddin said, “It is too late because I have stopped already. It is almost two hours since I stopped! What are you talking about?”One year with Aseema, and you are finished! She is dangerous, as all beautiful women are. All women are witches! In fact, the word witch means wise. It is exactly the equivalent of buddha. If a woman becomes enlightened she becomes a witch.Aseema is just on the verge of becoming enlightened, and on the way she is giving whatsoever help she can. Whosoever meets her, she helps him. You have been helped by her, and there is no way now for you to be released. All is finished! You had better settle in it.Nikunj and Sarvesh got mad because they tried to escape. Only then did they become aware that they were mad. If they had remained with Aseema, there would have been no problem.So don’t try to escape from Aseema, that’s my only advice. Remain with her. She is beautiful and I love her.The eighth question:Osho,Is there any good quality in the institution of marriage?An ancient scripture says, and this is knowledge: marriage is an institution that teaches a man regularity, frugality, temperance, forbearance and many other splendid virtues he would not need had he stayed single.The venerable old man was celebrating his one-hundredth birthday and was asked by a reporter, “To what do you attribute your advanced age and remarkable physical condition?”“I will tell you,” replied the centenarian. “When my wife and I were first married, the rabbi who performed the ceremony suggested that whenever I saw an argument coming I should take a walk around the block. I took the rabbi’s advice and I want you to know that for seventy years the constant exercise did wonders for my health.”The last question:Osho,About this talk you gave in favor of mixed marriages. I come from good old traditional Dutch stock and have recently gotten together with a simple-minded, beer-boozing cockney. Since then I have taken up disco dancing, rock ‘n' roll singing, parties and beer. I am having a ball – but are you sure this is the way to raise the consciousness in the world?Arup, I am absolutely sure!Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 12 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I am an uneducated man. Can I still become enlightened?There is more possibility for you than for an educated man. The education that exists in the world is not true education. True education will be a help toward enlightenment because it will make you more meditative, more silent, more aware, more inward-looking.The education that exists in the world makes you more ambitious, outward-looking, more egoistic, more superficial. It gives you all kinds of wrong values. It is a kind of poisoning. It does not help you to be yourself in any way. It is destructive; it helps you to be somebody else, and that’s its very destructive foundation. It is a poisoning, but so slow that you never become aware. It begins the day you are born and it goes on slowly, slowly destroying you, distracting you from your nature.By the time you come out of the university you are no longer a natural being. You are artificial, arbitrary. Universities are like factories, assembly lines, where man is destroyed and machines are created, where man is reduced to a machine.Enlightenment means discovering your being. It has nothing to do with education. In fact, those who are educated will have to become, in a certain sense, uneducated again. Those who are knowledgeable will have to cease to be knowledgeable. They will have to become again childlike, innocent, so their eyes can be full of wonder, surprise, so they can again see the tremendous beauty of existence, the eternal joy, the celebration that surrounds them. But the knowledgeable person is absolutely unaware because he thinks he knows; that is his barrier.The more you know, the less you are surprised by anything. The more you know, the less you wonder. And godliness is only for those whose wonder is total, who know the experience of being in awe; those who can dance with the wind and the sun and the rain; those who, seeing a roseflower, are so struck by its beauty that they become speechless, that for a moment their minds stop functioning. Only those few can know godliness. Only those few can become enlightened.You are fortunate. Of course, if you are educated you will be able to earn more money – but not more meditation. You will be able to have more political power because you will be more cunning, more clever – but you will not have insight into your own being. You may be able to possess many things, but that will be only a deception. In fact, things will possess you because you will not be your own master. It is better to possess one’s own being than to possess the whole world. It is better to be a buddha beggar than to be Alexander the Great, because the buddha lives a full life and dies a full death, and Alexander the Great lives an empty life, hollow, somehow stuffing it in an effort to convince himself that he is not empty, and then dies utterly empty.When Alexander died he said to his generals, “Let my hands hang out of my coffin.”“Why?” they asked, “because that is not the way to carry a dead body.”He said, “It may not be conventional, but I would like my hands to hang out of my coffin so people can see that I am dying empty-handed.”That’s how his body was carried. Millions of people had gathered to see, and everybody was wondering, “Why are his hands hanging out?” And, slowly, slowly the rumor went around that Alexander wanted it to be known by everybody that he was going empty-handed. His life had been utterly futile.No need to be worried about education, knowledge. In the inner world, the ordinary education is not needed; something else is needed, a true education.The word education is beautiful. It means “drawing something out”: drawing out that which is within you. In fact, we should not use it for the ordinary education. It is wrong to use a beautiful word like education for this rotten system of schools, colleges and universities. It is not education even in the literal sense, because instead of drawing out what is within you it forces things from the outside upon you. It is an imposition.Real education is like drawing water from a well, not pouring something into the well. Real education is drawing out your being so that your inner luminosity starts filtering through your body, through your behavior.I am reminded of a beautiful story. It really happened, it is not just a story.Stosh, a new immigrant, got off a boat at Ellis Island and set about finding himself a job. Door-to-door inquiries brought no luck until he rang the bell of a whorehouse. The madam was sympathetic and employed him to clean up the basement. After completing the task in record time, Stosh asked for further work, whereupon the madam suggested that he become their permanent bookkeeper.When Stosh explained that he could neither read nor write, the madam paid him ten cents and sent him off on his way with her best wishes.With the ten cents Stosh bought two apples in the market. He ate one and sold the other in the town center for ten cents. He returned to the market and bought two more apples which he sold again for ten cents each. Increasing his business this way he eventually became the owner of a small fruit wagon, then several fruit wagons, then a small fruit store, then a supermarket, and finally a chain of supermarkets.When several of the giant national food chains offered to buy him out, he accepted the highest bid – seven and a half million dollars. The contracts were drawn up and the corporate executive and Stosh, surrounded by a large number of attorneys, met in the plush corporate offices atop one of Manhattan’s most prestigious skyscrapers. The contracts were looked over, heads were nodded and finally the executive signed on the relevant dotted line. Then Stosh picked up the solid gold pen and laboriously scrawled his X at the bottom of the page.The corporate executive leaped up from his chair and shouted, “My God, man! You mean to say you have amassed this business worth seven and a half million dollars without being able to read or write?”“Hell!” snorted Stosh emphatically. “If Stosh could read or write, Stosh would still be a bookkeeper in a whorehouse!”The second question:Osho,What is mechanical goodness?There is nothing like mechanical goodness. Goodness cannot be mechanical and anything mechanical cannot be good. It is a contradiction in terms. Goodness can only be conscious, non-mechanical; and evil can only be unconscious, mechanical.But I understand your question. It is relevant, because for centuries something like mechanical goodness has been taught to people because it is easy. People are mechanical. To bring real goodness into their lives, real virtue, you will have to transform their unconsciousness into consciousness, you will have to change their darkness into light. That is an arduous effort, and the society, moreover, is not interested in it at all. In fact, it is afraid of it because whenever a really good person has happened in the world he has created trouble for the society.A Jesus, a Lao Tzu, a Buddha, a Kabir, these are the greatest rebels for the simple reason that they were so conscious they could see through the whole stupid game that we go on playing. They could see through our lies, they could see through our deceptions. It was impossible to deceive them and it was impossible to exploit them and it was impossible to enslave them. Not only was it impossible to enslave them, but they created great movements of consciousness in the world. They created chains, they triggered chains. Many, many people became enlightened through their efforts. Their efforts were thought to be antisocial. That’s why Jesus was crucified.Where can you find a man who is as good as Jesus? What was his crime? His crime was that he was really good. If he had been only mechanically good there would have been no trouble. There were many rabbis who were mechanically good. The society is not afraid of mechanical people; they are manageable. They are dependent on the society. They always live with the collective, they are always following the crowd. The crowd is very happy with these people. And it is easy to create mechanical goodness because, in the first place, people are mechanical. You have just to replace their evil ideas with good ideas, not changing their beings at all.For example, hell was created – the idea of hell – to create mechanical goodness. People are afraid, people live in fear; priests became aware in the very beginning of humanity, that this fear can be exploited: make them more afraid. They depicted hell in such detail, they created so much fear in people, that people became conditioned out of fear.It is the same type of conditioning that can be done now in easier ways because we have more developed technology. There is no need to teach the idea of hell for twenty-five years so a person becomes mechanically good, now you can ask Pavlov, Skinner and other behaviorists: they will teach you some methods. Just electric shocks will do.Somebody smokes and you don’t want him to smoke – just give him electric shocks. Whenever he smokes let him have an electric shock. Within three days he will drop smoking because the moment he takes a cigarette in his hand he will start trembling. He will become so afraid that the shock is coming. That’s how they teach rats, they teach monkeys and chimpanzees, and that’s how they are trying to teach human beings.Religious people created hell, politicians created prisons – just to torture people. If you torture them enough, people become accustomed. Pavlov calls it “conditioned reflex.” He worked his whole life with dogs; he conditioned his dogs.If you set food before a dog, of course, it affects his saliva. He starts salivating, his tongue starts hanging out, saliva starts dripping. Seeing delicious food, it is natural. But if you ring a bell it won’t happen. There is no connection between a bell and saliva glands, but Pavlov did one thing: whenever he would give food to his dogs he would ring a bell. Whenever he would ring a bell he would give food to the dogs. The bell and the food became associated, linked, hooked with each other. After fifteen days he just rang the bell and the dogs started salivating, their tongues hanging out. Now, there is no natural connection between the bell and the tongue, but a new, unnatural connection has been created.Pavlov became the founder of Communist psychology. That’s how in the Soviet Union, in China and other Communist countries, people are being conditioned. They don’t think that man is any different from dogs; maybe a little more developed, a little more complicated, but still a dog.Skinner goes on working on rats and goes on finding how to condition rats, and he says the same is applicable to human beings. You just create fear and then they will not do certain things. You can create greed, that’s why paradise, heaven were created. These are simple strategies for dominating people. Create fear for that which you want people not to do and create the idea of reward for that which you want them to do – and you have created a mechanical behavior. They will not do the bad and they will do the good.But what kind of good is this? It is exploitation by the society, by the church, by the state, by the vested interests. It has not changed the being of man. It has not made him more aware, alert, more joyous, more celebrating. It has not given him any taste of bliss. It has not opened any window for him from where he can have a little glimpse of godliness. I don’t call it goodness, virtue. My idea of virtue is that it should be a by-product of consciousness. You should become so conscious that you can’t do wrong, not because you are conditioned, but because you can see it is wrong.For example, I was born in a Jaina family. Now, Jainas are the most fanatic vegetarians in the world. In my house even tomatoes were not allowed because their redness reminds one of meat and blood. Even poor tomatoes, so innocent! In my childhood, the very idea of somebody eating meat was enough to make me sick. In my family there was no possibility to eat during the night. Jainas don’t eat at night. Who wants to suffer in hell just for eating at night?When I was eighteen years old, I ate at night for the first time. It was against my whole background, but I had to. We had gone for a picnic and all the other boys were Hindus who were not interested at all in preparing food during the day. I don’t even know how to prepare tea, so I had to depend on them. I told them many times I had to eat, but they were not interested. They were interested in exploring the mountains we had gone to, the fort, a very ancient fort, and the statues and many other things that were there.The day was tiring and by the evening we were utterly tired. Then they started cooking food. The food was not ready until the night. I was tired, hungry, and the aroma of the delicious food that they were preparing… I was the only one who was in such suffering! I could not eat because just for one night’s wavering you would suffer in hell for eternity. But I was wavering, naturally. On the surface I was keeping calm and cool as I was supposed to, but they were persuading me, and deep down I was ready to be persuaded. In fact, I was hoping that they would be able to persuade me. Finally they persuaded me and I ate. But I have never suffered so much. The whole night I was sick and vomiting. Nobody else was vomiting, nobody else was sick. It was just my conditioning.Now, this kind of vegetarianism is not good. It does not come out of your consciousness, it is mechanical. Mechanical goodness is not real goodness; it is just a facade. Intelligence is needed to be good, awareness is needed to be good.The unshaven and booze-smelling Polack was arrested for public drunkenness, and now he stood in front of the judge.“Your honor,” he pleaded, “I honestly didn’t mean to drink a whole quart of vodka at one time.”“Then why did you do it?” demanded the judge.“I lost the cork.”A contractor working for the US government in Vietnam submitted a bill for the tiling of a roof. The government office was astonished at the total of over twenty thousand dollars, most of it for medical expenses incurred on the job. A lieutenant was dispatched to the hospital to investigate.This was the contractor’s explanation: “At the outset of the job I attached a pulley to the edge of the roof and ran a rope through it. To one end I attached a large barrel; the other end I tied to a stake in the ground. I then filled the barrel half full with tiles, untied the rope, hoisted the barrel up to the roof, retied the rope to the stake, climbed up the ladder, unloaded the tiles on the roof, lowered the barrel, climbed down the ladder, and repeated this process several times until all the tiles were on the roof.“Early in the evening the job was completed and I began loading the unused tiles into the barrel. I had overestimated the number of tiles needed and so had a full barrel of extras. I climbed down the ladder and unhooked the rope.“It was then that I realized my error. The barrel, now full of tiles, was heavier than I and began descending. In my shock, I forgot to let go and up I went! Halfway up, the barrel and I met, breaking my right hip. I continued up, breaking several fingers and one hand as I hit the edge of the roof. Meanwhile the barrel hit the ground, tipped over and spilled out most of the tiles. The barrel, now lighter than I, came back up. I descended. Halfway down we met again, this time my ribs were crushed. When I hit the ground my left leg was broken.“It was at this time that I had the presence of mind to let go of the rope. A few seconds later the barrel landed on my head giving me a concussion!”More intelligence is needed, more awareness is needed, and then life becomes naturally good, spontaneously good.The third question:Osho,I am homosexual. I feel terribly oppressed and stricken by the stigma of homosexuality. It seems false to me to come here to find a way to come closer to myself and at the same time not to have the courage to show myself the way I am. Then I want to resign and return home so that I don't have to think about it any longer. What can I do?There is nothing wrong in being homosexual. You need not feel guilty about it. One certainly has to go beyond sex, but that is as much applicable to heterosexuality as it is applicable to homosexuality. Heterosexuality or homosexuality are just styles of the same stupidity! You need not feel guilty.In fact, looking at the population of the world, homosexuality should be supported. At least you will not be increasing the population of the world, you will not be loading the earth more. It is already loaded too much. Homosexuality should be valued, respected, it is pure fun! Heterosexuality is dangerous. And what is wrong? If two persons are enjoying each other’s bodies, nothing is wrong. It should be their concern; nobody else’s business to interfere.But society is continuously interfering in everything; it does not leave anybody any privacy. It enters into your bedroom too. Your society is not a free society. It talks of freedom and democracy and all that rot, but it is pure slavery. It is a big prison. Your priests and your so-called God are all Peeping Toms. They are all looking into your private lives, what you are doing. It should be nobody’s business.What is wrong in loving a man or a woman? Two men can love each other; two women can love each other. Love is a value in itself. And fun should not be condemned. Life is already such a burden, such a drag, such a boredom. Leave at least something in life so people can feel a little less bored.Here you need not feel afraid to show yourself the way you are. My whole approach is to help you to be the way you are because that is the only way to help you transcend it. Feel guilty and you will remain the same. Guilt never transforms anybody.Homosexuality is such an innocent phenomenon. Why is it so condemned? The reason is that there is fear that if it is not condemned, almost everybody will turn homosexual because every child has the tendency. Every child passes through the stage when he is homosexual. Every boy, every girl, passes through a time when boys like boys and girls like girls. The fear is that if many people turn homosexual, and particularly in the past when the population was not large and every society wanted more numbers because numbers meant power, then population growth would diminish. To allow homosexuality was therefore dangerous; it had to be condemned, absolutely condemned, so much so that in a few countries it is the greatest crime.For example, in Ayatollah Khomeiniac’s country, Iran, it is one of the greatest crimes. You can be imprisoned for your whole life or you can even be sentenced to death, just for being homosexual. It seems absolutely absurd, ridiculous, but in the past there was some reason in it. Every society wanted to be more powerful. It was a constant struggle between groups, struggle between tribes, struggle between clans, and the deciding factor was numbers, how large your group was. If people became homosexual, then the population would decrease; hence it had to be condemned as the greatest sin.It may have some meaning if you think of the past, but in the present it is absolutely meaningless. In fact, the whole situation has become just the opposite: now heterosexuality is the danger; smaller numbers are needed. If humanity goes on growing as it is, then we cannot support humanity, we cannot live any longer. By the end of this century the population will be so much, the poverty will be so much, that there seems to be no way out except a Third World War which will kill almost everybody – so that a few people can start the whole story again.I have heard a story, a twenty-first century story…The Third World War has happened, and a monkey is sitting on a rock taking a sunbath. A female monkey comes with an apple and gives the apple to the monkey. And the monkey says, “My God, are we going to start it all over again?”Homosexuality is condemned because there is every possibility that if it is not condemned many more people will turn toward it. The inner tendency is there in every person. In fact, the person who is most against it has the most tendency. Deep down, unconsciously, he knows it is there. To repress it he has to be very much against it; he feels disgusted by the very idea.But nobody is telling him to become homosexual. If others feel attracted, then it is not your business to interfere or to condemn them. It is their freedom, and they are not doing any harm to anybody. It is a harmless game – stupid, certainly, but not a sin. But as far as stupidity is concerned all sex is stupid, for the simple reason that it is a biological urge and you are not the master of it, you are just a victim.You need not be so worried about it because homosexuality has a very beautiful origin: it originated in the monasteries. It is something religious! The first homosexuals were monks and nuns – Christians, Buddhists, Jainas; all great religions have contributed their share to it. It was bound to be so because there are monasteries even now in existence where no woman has ever entered.In a Catholic monastery in Europe, Mount Athos, for one thousand years no woman has entered; not even a six-month-old girl has been allowed to enter in. What kind of people are living there? A six-month-old girl and they are afraid even of that! What can they do? But repressing sex creates fear, so the whole monastery is full of men; and homosexuality is a natural by-product if only boys are together or only girls are together.Religious people have contributed greatly. Educationists have contributed greatly, because boys have to be educated separately. They have to reside in different hostels especially for them and girls have to stay aloof in separate hostels, in separate schools. If you put too many girls together they are bound to become lesbians, because when the sexual urge takes possession of them and they cannot find a boy, then anything is better than nothing.In zoos even animals turn homosexual – only in zoos, remember. In their wild state they don’t become homosexual. There is no need as females are available. But in a zoo, if females are not available, they become homosexual. A zoo is worth studying. I used to study zoos because the zoo gives you many indications about human society. The human society is a big zoo because everything has become so unnatural.Go to a zoo and watch the animals and you will be able to see many things. They become homosexuals; they never become homosexuals in their wild state. They are forced to become homosexuals. They go crazy, they become insane, mad. In the wild they never become insane. No animal ever becomes mad in his wild state; he remains sane. But his sanity needs a little freedom.A lion has a big territory in his wild state, miles of territory, and he is the king of the whole territory. In a zoo he is in a small cage. If you go to the zoo you will see the lion walking up and down the cage, up and down, up and down, the whole day. It can drive anybody mad. He needs freedom, he needs a certain territory. In such a small space he is overcrowded. He becomes angry, enraged, violent.Most diseases never happen in the wild. For example, no animal suffers from tuberculosis or cancer, but in a zoo animals suffer from tuberculosis and cancer. Strange! In the wild there are no medical facilities for them and in the zoo every kind of medical facility is available. Doctors are there to look after them, great doctors, doing something great! What they cannot take care of on their own – cancer, tuberculosis – doctors help them with. Animals become victims of illnesses which they have never known before.Human society has been forced to live in very unnatural circumstances, and the monastery is one of the most unnatural circumstances. It is a zoo, a religious zoo! Homosexuality was born there, so you need not feel very bad about it. You are a religious person, and you have a great lineage of homosexuals.If you look for homosexuals you will be surprised. Many poets, many authors, many painters, many musicians, many dancers, many great people, many creative people, were homosexuals. Many Nobel Prize winners have been homosexuals.And don’t be worried about enlightenment either, because at least one homosexual I know has become enlightened – Socrates; he was a homosexual, and there are suspicions about Jesus. I cannot prove it, they are only suspicions, but he always moved with the boys, and with those twelve apostles, who knows? But if he was, nothing is wrong in it. Socrates was certainly a homosexual. Plato was, Aristotle was. Greeks are great people!An American girl was going to marry a Greek. The mother was very worried. She said, “Wait! If you can avoid this marriage…”The girl was mad. She said, “No. He looks so beautiful, just like a Greek god!”The mother said, “I know, but after only a few days you will know he is nothing but a goddamned Greek! And one thing more,” the mother said, “if you marry this man then remember one thing: never turn your back toward him, never! Whatsoever happens, sleep on your back the whole night!”The girl got married. She insisted, and soon she found the mother was right: the Greek god was nothing but a goddamned Greek! And she was also puzzled because he was always trying to tell her, “Why don’t you turn over?” – but she wouldn’t turn over; she was also stubborn!After six months all efforts failed. The Greek said, “Listen. If you don’t turn over you are not going to have children ever.”Then the girl had to turn because she wanted children. The Greek played a logical trick.Greeks have been homosexuals for centuries. All their great people have been homosexuals. So you need not worry, you have a great history behind you! Walt Whitman, one of the greatest poets of all the ages, was a homosexual.There seems to be something in homosexuality that makes people creative, or creative people homosexuals. There is something in it and I can see the point. When you stop creating children, your creativity takes new turns, new dimensions. You create poetry, you create paintings.The people who have been condemning homosexuality for ages are also condemning it for one more reason. As far as the man–woman relationship is concerned it is always on the rocks, because man cannot understand the mind of the woman, the woman cannot understand the mind of the man. They are poles apart. That is their attraction, but that is also their conflict, constant conflict. If homosexuality is allowed, accepted, the fear is that many people will settle into it because a man can understand another man more easily, they have the same mind. And women can understand each other more easily, they have the same mind.That’s why homosexuals are called “gay” people. They are really gay! The heterosexuals look so sad. Whenever you see a couple you can immediately know whether they are married or not: if they are sad they are married, if they are looking dull and dead they are married. Marriage kills all joy for the simple reason that it creates so many conflicts. Hence all societies have condemned homosexuality, for the simple reason that if it is not condemned, what will happen to reproduction? In the past it had some meaning, but now it has no meaning.Now the day has come when homosexuality can be accepted, should be accepted as a natural outlet of your sexual energies. I am not against it, I am not for it either. I am simply saying that if you have to live your sex you can choose your style, you are free to choose your style. If you decide to be stupid, at least you should be given the freedom to choose what kind of stupid you want to be! I give you total freedom.My effort here is to help you to go beyond it, so if you are homosexual you have to go beyond homosexuality, if you are heterosexual you have to go beyond heterosexuality. And there are other people also who are neither, who are autoerotic, autosexual. They have to go beyond their autoeroticism. Man has to transcend sex, whatsoever kind of sex it is, because unless you go beyond your biology you will never know your soul. But meanwhile – before you go beyond – it is your freedom to be whatsoever you want to be.You say, “I am homosexual. I feel terribly oppressed and stricken by the stigma of homosexuality.” There is no need to be “terribly oppressed.” You must be accepting people’s condemnation. Deep down somewhere you are also against it; otherwise, why feel oppressed? If people are against, let them be against! You need not declare to everybody that you are a homosexual. You need not move with a flag that you are a homosexual. You can remain a homosexual. Of course, you cannot hide it because your sex style changes your body language. The way the homosexual walks is totally different from the heterosexual; the way he talks is totally different. And he looks so gay, so happy!So you will have to remain a little less happy, that’s all. Don’t look so happy, and walk a little more consciously, that’s all. Don’t feel oppressed and don’t feel stricken by the stigma of homosexuality. That is all nonsense.You say, “It seems false to me to come here to find a way to come closer to myself and at the same time not to have the courage to show myself the way I am.” What courage are you talking about? Here there is no question of courage. If you are homosexual you are homosexual. Here it does not need courage to declare it. Here you can write on your shirt, “I am homosexual.” Nobody will take any notice of it. People will say, “So what?”This is a totally different world. Here we accept all kinds of people: sane, insane, crazy – we have no objection. Unless you start harming others we have no objection. And homosexuality is a harmless game, absolutely harmless. But you think that this is courageous that you are declaring that you are a homosexual. Here it is not; anywhere else it will be. I will not suggest that you declare it anywhere else; there is no need. Why brag about it? Accept it silently, relax into it.But you wanted to say it because it is boiling within you. Don’t be worried what others say. Just look within yourself, at what you are saying to your own homosexuality. You are not at ease with it. The society has corrupted you, contaminated you. The society has given you ideas. It has created a certain conscience in you and that conscience is pricking, continuously feeling hurt.Now you say, “Then I want to resign and return home so that I don’t have to think about it any longer.” Just by going back home you will not be getting rid of it. Neither will you get rid of homosexuality nor will you get rid of the stigma or the feeling of being oppressed. You will have to drop your conscience that has been created in you by the society. You will have to understand yourself and clean yourself of all ideas imposed by others; only then will you be able to relax.You ask me, “What can I do?” Don’t make a problem out of it. Nothing has to be done about it. I don’t tackle individual problems. My whole approach is that there are millions of diseases, but there is only one cure, and that cure is meditation.Meditate – homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual. Meditate – become more still and more silent. Create inner emptiness, become more transparent, and then things will start changing. You will be able to see what you are doing to yourself. If it is right you will go on doing it with more joy, with more totality, with more intensity, with more passion. If it is wrong it will simply drop, just like dead leaves falling from a tree.So I cannot suggest any specific method because to me all the problems are arising because we have become minds and we have forgotten that deep down there is a space within us which can be called no-mind. Entering that space, no-mind, will give you perspective, vision, clarity.Meditate. Sit silently watching your thoughts – homosexual, heterosexual, whatsoever they are, it doesn’t matter. Watch, become the witness. Slowly, slowly a distance will be created between you and your thoughts, and one day suddenly, the realization will come that you are not your mind. That day a revolution has happened within you. After that day you will never be the same again. A transcendence has happened. After that, whatsoever you do is right; you can’t do wrong then. And before that, whatsoever you do is wrong.So when I say I have nothing against homosexuality I am not supporting it, remember. I am not saying, “Be homosexual.” I don’t have anything against heterosexuality either, but I am not supporting heterosexuality. I am not supporting anything. These are all mind games, and you have to go beyond all the games. Your mind is created by the society.Fifteen-year-old Bobby was running out of a theater where he had just seen a porno movie.The manager stopped him. “Why are you in such a hurry?”“My mother told me,” said Bobby, “that if I ever looked at anything bad I would turn to stone, and I have started!”Two members of London’s exclusive Explorers Club were discussing a mutual friend over large brandies and soda.“Well, I’ll be damned,” said the first old boy. “You say Parkhurst has gone to Africa and married an ape?”“Quite so, old man.”There was a pause and the first clubman asked in a discreet tone, “A female ape, naturally?”“Of course,” came the reply. “There is nothing queer about old Parkhurst.”The mind functions as an agent of the society within you. To go beyond mind is to go beyond society. To go beyond mind is to go beyond the whole history. To go beyond mind is to go beyond past. To go beyond mind is to enter into godliness. Then whatsoever happens is good, is virtue.The fourth question:Osho,The West seems to be obsessed with sex. People are stuffed with endless techniques and porno images. Why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?It is not a question of West or East. Both are obsessed with sex – of course, in different ways. The West is indulgent, the East is repressive, but the obsession is the same. The significant question is: why is the West so indulgent? It is two thousand years of Christianity and its repressive methods that have brought this indulgence.The East is repressive; sooner or later, it is going to become indulgent. The mind of man moves like a pendulum, from the right to the left, from the left to the right. And remember, while the pendulum is moving to the right it is gaining momentum to move to the left, and vice versa. It appears it is going to the left, but it is gaining momentum, energy, to go to the right. When a society is repressive it is gaining momentum to become indulgent, and when a society is indulgent it is gaining momentum again to become repressive.So a strange thing is bound to happen, and in fact, it is happening: the West has been indulgent for a few decades and the repressive trend is arising again. There are many cults which preach celibacy now. The Hare Krishna movement preaches celibacy, brahmacharya, and thousands of people have become interested in it. There are many cults arising which are all agreed on one point: that sex has to be repressed. In the name of Yoga, in the name of Zen, in the name of Christianity, many cults are arising which are again repressive. The West will become repressive soon.In the East, the number of porno magazines is growing every day; porno movies are coming more and more often. The East is a little slow in everything, a little lazy in everything, so it takes a little longer. The West moves with speed. But the East is becoming West and the West is becoming East, and that is one of the greatest problems. If this happens, then the misery remains the same. Again the pendulum has moved and again you will go on doing the same things.This has happened many times in the past. A repressive society becomes indulgent sooner or later. When the repression comes to a point where you cannot repress it anymore it explodes: people go berserk. Or when a society has been very indulgent it starts seeing the futility of it, the sheer waste of energy. And it gives no contentment; rather it makes one feel more and more frustrated. Then one starts thinking of brahmacharya – celibacy. Maybe the ancient rishis were right!In the East also it has happened many times. The Hindu religion, in the beginning, was very indulgent; it was not a repressive religion. The Hindu seers were married people. Not only were they married, they were allowed to have a few other women also as their concubines. They were even allowed to purchase women, because in those days in India, men and women were sold in the marketplaces just like any commodity.Beware of all those people who go on talking about the Golden Age of India. There has never been any golden age, not even in the days of Rama. Hindus talk very much about Ramarajya – the kingdom of Rama is thought to be the highest pinnacle. But people were sold like commodities in the marketplaces, and particularly women were thought to be just property; anybody could sell, anybody could purchase. People used to give them as gifts. A guest would come to your house and he would like one of your women, and you would present the woman to him. Even the so-called saints used to have many women; they were all indulgent. All the stories of those days, even about the gods, are very indulgent.You must have seen Shiva temples – temples devoted to the god Shiva. The statue is nothing but a phallic symbol. If you look, if you observe minutely, you will be surprised: it has both man and woman’s sexual organs in it. It depicts the meeting of man and woman. The story is this:This is the Hindu trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. Brahma is the creator god, Vishnu is the maintainer god and Shiva is the destroyer god. All three are needed to keep the world running. One creates, one maintains, one destroys; then again one creates, the other maintains and the third one destroys. So it remains in a flow.Brahma and Vishnu went to see Shiva. As it happened, the guard was fast asleep, so they entered in without asking any permission, and Shiva was making love to his wife, Parvati. He was so passionately into it, so drunk. He may have taken some drug, because he is perfectly well known to have used drugs. Marijuana and hash and opium were all known to him.He continued to make love and the two gods stood there watching. Great gods! They could not even say, “Excuse us,” and get out. They must have enjoyed the scene – living pornography! Six hours it continued, the love-making, and these two gods stood there for six hours watching. A long blue film! And nothing else, just making love. No other incidents, nothing else, just Shiva making love to his wife. But they were very angry.When Shiva was finished they told him, “We have been waiting for six hours and you have not even taken any notice of us. We are very angry and we curse you that you will be remembered forever and forever by your sexual organs.”That’s why in the Shiva temple you see the phallic symbol: Shiva is remembered by his sexual organ.Now, these Hindus must have been very indulgent. Their gods, too, were very indulgent. But then came a reaction, the pendulum moved. Buddhism and Jainism rebelled against this indulgence and they created a very repressive world, a repressive morality. India still lives under that influence, but it is moving slowly, slowly again toward the indulgent. The West is influencing it: Western films, Western novels are influencing it. The West is being influenced by Buddha, by Zen, by Patanjali, by Yoga, by meditation, and the East is influenced by Playboy. People are reading Playboy, hiding it inside their Gitas!You say, “The West seems to be obsessed with sex.” It is not true only about the West. The whole of humanity, up to now, has remained obsessed with sex, and it is going to remain so unless we change the whole gestalt. Until now the gestalt has been repression-indulgence, indulgence-repression, moving between these two. We have to stop exactly in the middle. Have you ever tried to stop the pendulum of a clock in the middle? What happens? The clock stops, time stops.That’s my effort here. I don’t want you to be indulgent and I don’t want you to be repressive. I would like you to be balanced, just in the middle. It is in the middle that transcendence is possible, and it is in the middle that we can create a humanity which will be neither Eastern nor Western. And it is immensely needed, urgently needed, that a man comes on the earth which is neither Eastern nor Western: a new kind of man with a new vision, freed of all the bondage of the past.You ask, “Why, in all this time, are people still stuck and unable to move into the Tantric experience of sex, of love and of life?” Tantric experience means neither to be repressive nor to be indulgent. Tantric experience is possible only if you move deep into meditation, otherwise not. When you become very, very still, silent, aware, alert, then only is it possible that you will know something of Tantra. Otherwise, Tantra can also become an excuse for indulgence, a new name, a religious name. And you can move into indulgence behind the name of Tantra. Names won’t make much change; your being needs change.Zelda, the Hebrew zebra, was walking down a country lane, some place in the boondocks of Pennsylvania. Soon she came upon a flock of sheep.“Yoo-hoo, may I speak to you, please?” she called out.One of the sheep came to the fence.“What do you want to speak about?”“I represent the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. You are Jewish?”“Oh yes, we are all Jewish here.”“Well, I am on a fact-finding tour. Our zebras are interested in learning how Jewish animals in America earn a living. Would you mind telling me what kind of work you do?”“What do I do?” exclaimed the sheep. “What kind of a question is that? I give wool, what else? Every year they shear it off and next season they do the same thing. Is it any different there in South Africa?”“Oh no, it is just the same. Well, I must be running along. Ta-ta, and thank you most kindly.”Zelda continued on her fact-finding mission until she met a cow.“Excuse me, madam, I am from the Hadassah Zebra Association of South Africa. I am interviewing Jewish-American domestic animals. Would you be so kind as to describe your work?”“Glad to,” murmured the cow. “I am employed by a strictly kosher dairy, being orthodox myself, of course. My work, you ask? Well, I am a purebred Guernsey, and I give Grade A milk. I live up there in that pretty white barn. Sorry I can’t ask you in, but we were not expecting company and the place is a mess.”“That’s perfectly all right. Thank you for your information. You have been most helpful. Toodle-oo.”A short time later, Zelda saw a stallion in a pasture, and there was no mistaking his Jewishness. He happened to see her at just about the same moment. He charged toward the fence, skidded to a four-footed stop and loomed over the zebra with nostrils flaring.“And just what is it that you do, sir?” asked the zebra demurely.“Honey, you just slip out of those fancy pajamas,” he said, “and I will show you what I do!”The whole humanity is suffering from obsession, either through indulgence or through repression. The whole humanity is concerned with sex twenty-four hours a day.Psychologists have discovered that every man thinks of women at least once in three minutes, and every woman thinks of man at least once in six minutes. That may cause enough problems – the difference; that may be the whole trouble between man and woman.Tantric sex is not sex at all; it is meditation. Meditation has to spread all over your life. Whatsoever you do, do meditatively. Walk meditatively, eat meditatively. If you are making love, make love meditatively. Meditation has to become your life twenty-four hours a day; then only the transformation. Then you go beyond sex, you go beyond body, you go beyond mind. And for the first time you become aware of godliness, of ecstasy, of bliss, of truth, of liberation.The last question:Osho,Why are the Indians such a proud people?God knows! They have no reason to be. I am also surprised. There is nothing to be proud about, but the ego clings to anything or it invents something. India goes on inventing a beautiful past. It is invention, pure invention. It has never been there, it has never existed.Yes, there have been people like Krishna and Mahavira and Buddha, but they are not Indians at all. Jesus is not Jewish and Lao Tzu is not Chinese. These people are universal; nobody can claim them. The whole earth belongs to them; they are our common heritage, so you cannot brag about them.But every country has to invent something to feel good. Just as individuals need egos, countries need egos, races need egos, religions need egos. And Indians have a tremendously big ego. They think they are the most spiritual people on the earth, and that is just bullshit! The very idea is unspiritual.To be spiritual means to be humble. To be spiritual means to be nobodies. To be spiritual means not to belong to any country, to any nation. To be spiritual means not to be Hindu, not to be Mohammedan, not to be Christian. But even spirituality is being used as a prop.It happens every day: some new Indians come, once in a while, those who don’t understand me, because it is not possible to understand me if you just come once as a visitor just to look around. You can’t understand me if you come as a tourist. Indians come, but they come only as visitors.The few Indians who have become absorbed into my commune, who have become sannyasins, I don’t count as Indians anymore. They have become universal, it is a universal brotherhood.But when new Indians come they are Indians, very much Indians. And what egos they carry! When I pass around the Buddha Hall with my hands joined together, with my head bowed down to them in love, in prayer, in salutation, they can’t even respond. They sit like stones. They cannot show even a formal gesture. They look so silly, so stupid, and I feel so sorry! How to help them? These people seem to be beyond help, beyond approach. And they see the whole ocean of sannyasins with their hands joined together joyously bowing, responding in love, communing, but they can’t do it. They just sit there like dead rocks. Strange, but not so strange because deep down they think they already know. Deep down they think they are great inheritors of a spiritual tradition. They know the Vedas and the Gita and the Upanishads.I watch them, I watch their spirituality. They don’t look at me, they look at my Rolls Royce. That’s why I have asked my secretary to bring a Rolls Royce: at least for Indians there must be something to see! They are more interested in the car – and they are spiritual people, not materialists! When they come to the ashram, the first question they ask the guides here is, “Where is the Rolls?” They are not interested in seeing meditations, they are not interested in seeing Sufi dancers, they are not interested in seeing vipassana, they are not interested in anything. “Where is the Rolls?” Their whole mind is materialistic, but they go on pretending to be spiritual. And you can always invent something or other.The country is poor so they cannot brag about richness. The country is uneducated, they cannot brag about education. The country is technologically backward, they cannot brag about technology. So they have fallen upon something invisible: spirituality. You can always brag about spirituality. Nobody can disprove it. Of course, you cannot prove it either, but one thing good about spirituality is that it cannot be disproved. So you can go on talking about your spirituality, which exists nowhere, which has never existed.Individuals have been spiritual beings, societies have never been. We have still to wait for that great day when there will be so many individuals awakened that the society will start having the color of spirituality. Up to now, it has not happened. Hitherto it has not been happening; it has only been a hope. But every religion believes that they are religious. Just believing in certain ideas gives you a false feeling of being religious. And whenever you come across a real religious person you shrink back, you become afraid.Hence they are against me, they are bound to be against me. I am shattering all their structures. I am shattering all their egoistic patterns. I am trying to bring them down to the earth, to reality, and it hurts.India has never been against anybody as India is against me, for the simple reason that nobody has ever shattered their egos. I am making every possible effort to shatter their egos because that is the only hope. If India loses its ego, there is a possibility of a rebirth. The country can be reborn. It has great potential. It has the same potential as when you don’t use a field for many, many years, you don’t grow any crop, and the field becomes more and more potential every year.For centuries India has not grown any creativity. It has become the most potential country in the world. If it explodes into creativity it is really going to be something great, something of great consequence to the whole earth. But before it can ever happen the shell of the seed has to be shattered, has to be broken.I am going to be condemned, criticized, rejected; that is bound to be my destiny. But I am the only hope. If I succeed in helping a few intelligent Indians to come out of their closed egos into the open, that will help not only India but the whole world. It will be a great contribution to the growth of consciousness. It is possible, and you are all here to help it happen.Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 10 01-13Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 10 13 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Are you converting people to your own religion?I don’t have any religion at all: a certain kind of religiousness, but no religion in particular. That’s why it is so easy for me to absorb Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Zarathustra, Moses, Mohammed, Mahavira. If I had a religion, then it would not be possible for me to be so universal.To have a religion means to become limited. To have a religion means you have defined life, you have made a dogma out of life, you have demystified it. It is no longer infinite; it is no longer unknown, unknowable. You have reduced it to a system of thought.My whole effort here is to melt all systems of thought, to melt your minds which have become ice-cold, frozen into prejudices, so that a new kind of warmth surrounds the earth. It will be a kind of religiousness, just a vague feeling, not a definite thought. You can experience it, but you cannot explain it. It will not be like a flower, it will be more like a fragrance. If you are not suffering from a cold you will be able to feel it, the fragrance. People’s heads are too full of colds; they are suffering from colds, and they have become frozen. One is a Hindu, another is a Christian.That is the meaning of your name, Christina: a Christian. Be a christ and never be a Christian. Be a buddha, never be a Buddhist. That is settling for rubbish. When you can experience the truth yourself, why settle for secondhand knowledge? All religions are secondhand knowledge.When a master is alive he has a certain climate – there is no doubt about it – a certain atmosphere around him where people start growing, growing into themselves. That is true conversion; conversion does not mean a Hindu becoming a Christian or a Christian becoming a Hindu, that is not conversion. That is simply changing one prison for another, moving from one dead system of thought to another dead system of thought, but you remain the same.Conversion means a radical change in your being. It is not a question of changing your ideology; it is a question of changing your consciousness. In that sense, people are certainly being converted, but I am not converting them, they are allowing themselves to be converted. Remember that difference. I am not interested in converting anybody; I am simply making a space available for those who want to go through this revolution. They can go through this revolution. Neither directly nor indirectly am I trying to make you part of any religion.Just the other day, I was reading where a Hindu has written that I am converting people into Jainism because I was born into a Jaina religion. Jainas think that I am converting Jainas into the Hindu religion because orange is a Hindu color – as if colors can also be Hindu or Mohammedan! Christians have been writing letters to me, writing articles against me, that I am converting Christians to Hinduism. It is a very strange world! Christians think I am converting you to Hinduism, Hindus think I am converting you to Jainism, Jainas think I am converting you to Hinduism, Mohammedans think I am converting you to Buddhism and Buddhists thinks I am converting you to something else.I am not converting you to any organized system of thought, directly or indirectly. I am not interested in that at all. But certainly I am making a dimension available to you. If you are interested in going through a revolution you can go. If you have guts and courage you can have a new consciousness.But I can understand the question, particularly from a Christian, because Christians have been doing this business of conversion all over the earth for centuries, in every possible way, right or wrong. If people cannot be converted by convincing them, then convert them by the sword. If swords have become out-of-date and look ugly, then convert them by money, by bread and butter. People are poor and starving.In India I have never come across a single rich family who has become Christian. Only very poor people who are always on the verge of dying because of starvation have become Christians. The reason is not that they are interested in Christ; they are simply interested in surviving, and Christian missionaries have money. They can give them money, employment, clothes, medicine, schools, hospitals. And when it is a question of survival, who cares about religion? To what religion you belong does not matter, the first requirement is to survive. So in India all the poor people, very poor people have been converted. This is converting them by bribery. Now instead of swords, a very subtle methodology is being used to convert them.But I am not interested in converting anybody. I love Jesus as much as I love Buddha because I don’t see any difference. Both are religious because both are awakened. There is no difference at all between the awakened people. But the churches are not concerned with awakening or the awakened people; their concern is with numbers, and they use every possible way, direct, indirect, gross and subtle to convert people.Hence the question has arisen in your mind: maybe I am doing something like the Christian missionaries. I am not a missionary.Mr. and Mrs. Chotnik had hoped that their son, Stanley, would follow in the path of their own orthodox ways and pursue his higher education at Yeshiva University. Instead, despite their voluble concern, he entered a Christian college. But when he returned home for summer vacation, they were vastly relieved to see that their fears had been groundless. Stanley had not forsaken his ancestral faith, he had not been converted, he had not, it was clear, been affected in the slightest way by his non-Jewish environment. In fact, on the very next Friday, he readily agreed to accompany them to synagogue.That evening, at the close of shabbes services, the rabbi, an old friend of the Chotnik family, greeted the young student with a wide smile.“It is good to see you here in the temple again, Stanley,” said the rabbi, shaking the youth’s hand. “Frankly, your parents and I were afraid you might be Catholicized there at South Bend.”Stanley’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Impossible!” he declared. “No one will ever convert me, Father.”There are subtle ways to convert. The person who is being converted does not become aware at all what is happening. You go on conditioning him, slowly, slowly. You go on repeating the gospels and slowly, slowly without his awareness, his mind becomes full of all that has been repeated. He is being conditioned. It is a process of hypnosis.My effort here is just the opposite: it is a process of de-hypnosis, de-conditioning. I de-condition you, whosoever you are, Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. I simply de-condition you and then I leave it to you so that you can be yourself. I don’t recondition you again. I stop with de-conditioning so that you are free from the old pattern, from the old gestalt that has been imposed upon you. Once you are free then my work is finished, then you can grow on your own according to your own light, according to your own inner needs. Each individual has a birthright to be himself.The world does not need Christians, Hindus and Mohammedans; it certainly needs religious people. What do I mean when I use the words religious people? I mean people who are aware that the world is not only matter, that the world is something more, something plus. It is not finished with matter; matter is only the circumference: consciousness is at the center. This is possible only when you experience consciousness at your own center; then you can experience consciousness everywhere. When you start feeling consciousness everywhere you have come across godliness. This experience is religion.I am certainly interested in introducing you into this vast experience, but you have to come to it on your own. You have to come to it without any beliefs, prejudices; you have to be open, vulnerable, ready to see that which is, rather than to project what should be. I don’t give you any shoulds and should-nots, I don’t give you any commandments. I simply help you like a gardener helps a seed. It is not an effort to make a lotus out of a rosebush or vice versa. The gardener helps the rose to be a rose and the lotus to be a lotus. Whatsoever is your potential, that is what you have to be.I am not here to decide what you have to be; I can only give you hints how to grow into your own being, and that’s how a person becomes a Jesus, a Buddha, a Zarathustra.The second question:Osho,The West is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?Help is possible only through a buddha. Help is possible only through the awakened one.The psychotherapists are as asleep as you are; they are in the same boat. There is no qualitative difference between you and them; in fact they may be crazier than you are. They may be more in a mess than you are because they constantly deal with mad people; day in, day out, they are surrounded by mad people. Rather than helping the mad people to become sane, just the opposite happens: being constantly in contact with mad people, slowly, slowly they become mad themselves.This is natural. They don’t have that awareness which can remain aloof, unaffected. They don’t have that distance, that coolness, that detachment. They are not living on sunlit peaks; they are groping in the same dark valley where you are groping. They are as blind as you are, but they have to pretend that they are not blind, and that is more dangerous.If a person is blind and knows that he is blind and never pretends otherwise, there is every possibility he will walk more cautiously. If he pretends that he is not blind, if he projects that he is not blind, if he convinces others that he is not blind, slowly, slowly he will be hypnotized by his own sayings, auto-hypnotized. He will start believing that he is not blind and he will start walking less cautiously. And that is more dangerous.I have heard…Once a blind man came to visit a Zen master. When he was leaving – it was night, a dark night, no moon, and so many clouds – the master said to the blind man, “Please take this lamp with you.”The blind man laughed loudly. He said, “Are you joking? What can a lamp do for me? I cannot see! It is all the same to me whether I have a lamp or not.”But the master said, “I know that you cannot see, but at least others will be able to see in the darkness that you are coming so they will not stumble into you.”The argument appeared right. The blind man took the lamp, went away. He had only gone about one hundred yards when a man just walked into him. He said, “What is the matter? Are you too blind? Can’t you see this lamp?”The man said, “I am not blind. Excuse me, but your lamp is no longer lit; its flame has gone out.”The blind man went back to the Zen master and said, “Look, never give a lamp to another blind man again. If there had been no lamp I would have walked more cautiously. I always walk cautiously. Because of the lamp I walked as if I were no longer blind. It was the first time that I walked without any fear. But the lamp went out, and how was I to know that the lamp went out? Because of this lamp, for the first time I have been hurt by a man. Otherwise, I have walked so cautiously my whole life in every possible situation, always making a noise with my stick on the road so people could hear that some blind man was there, always groping with my stick in the darkness so I could know where I was, whether I was facing a wall or a door or anything.”That’s what is happening to your psychotherapists. They think they know; they know nothing. They are more informed, but information is not knowing. They are well educated, but they do not have a higher being than you, and help is possible only when somebody higher than you gives you a hand.More psychotherapists go mad than any other profession and more psychotherapists commit suicide than any other profession. And it is natural. Living with mad people, one can understand – they become affected.A few scenes will be helpful to you…The first scene:A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office.“You must help me!” he exclaims.“What do you do for a living?” asks the shrink.“I am an automobile mechanic.”“Get under the couch!”The second scene:First psychiatrist: “Hello!”Second psychiatrist: “I wonder what you mean by that?”The third scene:The patient: “Of course I am upset, doctor. I have eleven children and I find out my husband does not love me.”The doctor: “You are very lucky. Imagine if he did!”The fourth scene:“Doctor, my wife accuses me of being a compulsive card-player.”“That’s ridiculous. Now shut up and deal!”And the fifth scene:“Doctor, now that you have cured me of my homosexual tendencies and since this is our last session, may I kiss you good-bye?”“Don’t be ridiculous – men don’t kiss. I shouldn’t even be lying on the couch with you!”You ask me, “The West is overpopulated with psychotherapists and their patients, but why does no one seem to be helped?” Help is possible only from higher sources. A person who is on the same ground as you cannot be of any help to you. Help is possible only when a fully conscious man tries to help the unconscious. It is as if you are asleep; do you think somebody else asleep can help you in any way? Only somebody who is awake can wake you. If you want to be awakened at a particular hour, you don’t say to somebody else who is asleep, “Please wake me up at five o’clock in the morning. I have to go for that goddamned Dynamic Meditation!” You have to ask somebody who is awake. Only somebody awake can wake you up. In fact, the person who is asleep may help you to fall into a deeper sleep.You may have watched it happen. If a few people are sitting just by your side yawning, you start feeling sleepy. They create a certain vibe; they create a certain atmosphere in which anybody vulnerable will start feeling it is better to go to sleep.The same happens with awakened people: a buddha creates a totally different vibe. He shakes you up, he wakes you up. He goes on shocking you in many ways; he finds devices to shock you.Kavita has asked, “Osho, sometimes you use such words that I feel shocked – and I used to think that no word can ever shock me. Don’t you have any couth?” Kavita, I will go on using these words unless you wake up. You would like to listen to lullabies, but lullabies are not going to help. What appeals to you, what you like is not going to help. Something that shocks you may. I am going to use rough words till you stop yawning.Whenever I see somebody yawning somewhere, immediately I have to say something which shocks you, and I can see his yawning disappears. The moment I say “bullshit” – immediately I say it he stops yawning! His spine is erect, his kundalini is rising upward!Unless you all become awakened I am not going to leave you at ease; I will go on hitting you in every possible way.Help is possible only from the awakened ones. You don’t need psychotherapists, you need buddhas. Secondly: you go to the psychotherapist, but you don’t really want to be helped. You have great investment in your pathology.A few scenes again…First:“Doctor, my wife thinks she is a refrigerator.”“Why don’t you divorce her?”“I would but I need the ice.”Second scene:“Doctor, my girlfriend thinks she is a rabbit.”“Bring her in. I will see what I can do.”“Okay, but whatever happens, I hope you don’t cure her.”Nobody really wants to be helped. People are only playing games. They go to the psychiatrist in the hope that he can’t do anything, that he is not going really to change them. Nobody wants to be changed; everybody wants to remain the same as he is. You have become so accustomed to your misery, to your pathology; it is your life, it is your way of life.If you want to be changed you will seek a master, not a psychotherapist.The third question:Osho,Is there any truth in the philosophy of physical immortality which says that it is only our belief in the inevitability of death which produces old age, disease and death? To what extent do our thoughts manifest results?Man is afraid of death, hence he goes on creating all kinds of stupid ideas. Physical immortality is sheer nonsense because anything that begins is bound to end. Physical immortality is possible only if you are not born through parents but manufactured in a factory. If you are made out of plastic, if you are not a real man, then there is a possibility. Plastic seems to be the only immortal thing.So if you don’t have skin but plastic instead, if you don’t have real blood but synthetic blood which you can go to the petrol pump and change any time, and all that you have in your body – your bones, your joints, everything, is replaceable so whenever there is some problem, things can be replaced with available parts, you may just have to go to a garage for a time and get things screwed or re-screwed, then you can be physically immortal. But then you will not be a man, you will be a machine.If you are born you are bound to die. Yes, it is possible your life can be prolonged; life has been prolonged. As medicine has evolved, as scientific technology has come to help human beings, as we have become more and more aware of the secrets of life, life has been prolonged. It may be prolonged from seventy years to seven hundred years, but then too you will not be physically immortal.I don’t think many people would like to live seven hundred years; even seventy years is too much! People start thinking after a time, “Now it will be better to die.” Death is a relief, a relaxation. Everything wants rest; death is going into rest. Your body also gets tired, matter also gets tired. It wants to go back to its original source: water into water and air into air and earth into earth and fire into fire. Everything wants to go back to its source to rest, to rejuvenate itself, and come back again. But man has always cherished these ideas of physical immortality. And not only ordinary people, even people who are thought to be extraordinary also go on having such stupid ideas.Sri Aurobindo and the mother of Sri Aurobindo both believed in physical immortality, and both died! When Sri Aurobindo died nobody believed it, because all the disciples who had gathered there had gathered for the simple reason that he knew the secret of physical immortality and by being his disciples they were going to become physically immortal. How could they believe that he had died?For three days it was kept a secret that he had died. They waited: he may be in deep samadhi, he may come back. But after three days when they saw no sign of his coming back and his body started stinking, then they had to bury it. Then they hoped that the mother would be immortal. She lived a long life, but a long life does not mean physical immortality. When she died, again they were shocked. Their whole philosophy was confused by these two persons’ deaths.But one thing is good about death: now you cannot ask Sri Aurobindo, “Why have you been saying your whole life that physical immortality is possible, that you know the secret, that you have been able to bring God into the physical world?”But fools gathered. Fools always become attracted to strange things. Deep down the fear is there; nobody wants to die. Why? Why in the first place are you afraid of death? Death is not the enemy. To a man who has really lived, death is the friend. It is like sleep. Nobody wants to remain wakeful twenty-four hours a day.There are a few people who think that sleep is also just an old habit and they try to reduce it. For centuries they have tried. Yes, it can be reduced, it can be reduced to two hours because two hours is the essential sleep; you also sleep only two hours in a deep way. Somewhere between two and four, or three and five, you sleep for two hours very deeply; those are the refreshing moments. All dreaming disappears, you are almost dead. Hence the ancients used to say sleep is a small death. But people have been trying to avoid sleep also.The logic is, if you can avoid sleep then you can one day avoid death too. If sleep is a small death and you have conquered sleep, you will be able to conquer the big sleep, death, too. But why? What is wrong in dying? The people who are afraid of death are the people who have not really lived their lives. They are not afraid of death, they are simply afraid that they have not lived yet and death has come.Rather than thinking of physical immortality, think of living your life totally. While you are here, live your life in a multidimensional richness. And then when death comes you will feel it as a crescendo, as a peak, as an ultimate – life reaching to the highest – and you will enjoy death as much as you have enjoyed life. You will be utterly satisfied with death because it will give you rest, relaxation; it will renew you. It will take away the old garments and it will give you new garments.But people go on philosophizing. They have created things like Christian Science, mind over matter. They think that if you believe that you are not going to die then you will not die.I heard about a man who was a Christian Scientist. One day he met a young man. He asked the young man, “Any news about your father?”The young man said, “He is very ill.”The Christian Scientist said, “All nonsense! Tell him, ‘Mind over matter.’ He believes he is ill, that’s all; it is his belief that is creating illness. Don’t believe in illness and you will be healthy.”After a few days again the young man came across this Christian Scientist, and the Christian Scientist asked, “How are things now with your old man? How is he?”And the young man said, “Now he believes that he is dead.”It is not a question of belief: illness has a reality, and death too has a reality. Yes, by believing also you can create a few illnesses – which are false, bogus – and by disbelieving in them you can destroy them. But you cannot destroy a real illness; the illness has to be false in the first place. If you believe in it and create it, then by disbelieving in it, it can be dropped.But death is not your belief; otherwise why do animals die? They don’t believe, they don’t believe that they are going to die. Why do trees die? They don’t believe that they are going to die, they don’t have any belief system. Why do stars and suns and moons die? Why do earths die? They don’t believe; death is a universal phenomenon, it happens everywhere. It is part of life; it is the other side of the coin.I am not in any support of Christian Science. It is neither science nor Christian; it is simply nonsense.Two middle-aged men were walking off the tennis court after only a few minutes of play. The older, somewhat corpulent fellow was puffing heavily.“I guess I am in pretty poor shape,” he confessed ruefully.“How long have you been playing, Herbie?” asked the young man.“About two weeks.”“Then let me give you a little practical advice. Try the Christian Science way – mind over matter.”“I already have,” admitted the fat one. “When my opponent serves the ball to me, my Christian Science mind says, ‘Now, Herbie, you just race right up to the net, slam a blistering drive to the far corner of the court and then jump back into position.’ That’s exactly what my Christian Science mind tells me…“But my Jewish body says, ‘Herbie, to make a schlemiel out of yourself you don’t need!’”In fact, body and mind are not two things: the body is the outer side of the mind, the mind is the inner side of the body. To use the phrase ‘body and mind’ is not right; you are bodymind, not even a hyphen in between. We should use it as a single word bodymind, psychosomatic. So of course, your inner affects your outer, your outer affects your inner – you are bodymind – but you are not finished with the bodymind. There is a witness also.Rather than bothering about physical immortality, get in touch with your witnessing soul which watches both the body and the mind. It watches life, it watches death; hence it transcends both life and death. Only this witness is immortal because it is never born and it never dies.The Zen people call it the original face. This witnessing is your original face, and meditation is nothing but an art to discover your original face. You are immortal, but not physically; just in your awareness, in your consciousness you are immortal, you are universal.The fourth question:Osho,Was Buddha not a poet? Did he not have a logical mind? How are we as new men and women to go beyond what you have called his one-dimensionality, when it seems that your basic teaching, as well as that of Buddha, is simply awareness?Gautama the Buddha was not a poet if you understand him directly, but if you understand him via me, he is a poet. When I am speaking on Buddha it is very natural that my color is reflected in him. I love poetry and I go on finding poetry even where it is not.Buddha is like a desert, but I love oases and I go on discovering them. If you had seen Buddha you would have seen immediately that he couldn’t have anything to do with poetry. Poetry was fiction for him, as much fiction as it was for Plato. In his Republic, Plato says that poets will not be allowed, for the simple reason that they are liars, they live in lies. What is poetry? Beautiful lying! Buddha was also of the same mind; he would have agreed with Plato. He was very insistent on truth.My approach is different. I don’t see religion as a dry, dead thing. To me religion is a song, a dance. If I am going to create a republic, a utopia, then poets will be the only citizens there; they will be the only ones allowed because beauty is far more valuable than truth itself. The poet discovers beauty, and not only discovers, he creates, the poet is creative.It is because of me that in Buddha you will find poetry. Excuse me, I cannot do otherwise. That’s why Buddhists are not happy with me; particularly Buddhist scholars are not happy at all. They say I go on finding in Buddha things which are not there. I am not much concerned whether they are there or not. I use Buddha only as an excuse, just as I use Jesus and I use Mahavira and I use Patanjali. I am not a commentator – I have my own vision. I use them as pegs to hang myself on.When you are hearing Buddha through me, it is a totally different phenomenon. You are looking through my eyes; hence Buddha will look like a poet, but he was not. He was a very logical man; hence I say he was one-dimensional. He was utterly logical, as logical as Ludwig Wittgenstein.Wittgenstein says you should not speak about something which cannot be spoken of. That’s exactly Buddha’s standpoint; Buddha would have immediately agreed with Wittgenstein. That’s exactly what he said twenty-five centuries before Wittgenstein. He never spoke about God because nothing can be spoken about God; hence don’t say anything. Even to say that nothing can be spoken about God is to say something about God; better not to say even that.The Upanishads say: “Nothing can be said about God; he is indefinable.” Buddha will not say even that because that is self-contradictory. To say that nothing can be said about God is self-contradictory because you have said something already. Even to say that nothing can be said is saying something. Buddha was utterly logical, absolutely logical. He kept absolutely silent.Whenever he would enter a town, a city, a village, his disciples would go ahead of him to declare, “Don’t ask Buddha these eleven questions because he is not going to answer, so don’t waste your time and his time.” Those eleven questions consisted of everything that philosophy, theology, metaphysics is made of. If you don’t ask those eleven questions, nothing is left to ask, nothing metaphysical. Then you can ask only actual problems. You can ask about your anger, your greed, your sex. You can ask about your misery, suffering, how to get rid of it, but you cannot ask whether God is or is not. You cannot ask what will happen after death. You cannot ask what is truth, what is beauty, what is good; he forbade it. He was a very logical man and one-dimensional.Life is three-dimensional. And up to now there have been people, great people, but they were all one-dimensional. For example, Buddha is logical, so is Socrates. There have been great poets – Kalidas, Rabindranath, Shelley, Shakespeare. They are one-dimensional: beauty is their god. And there have been moral people, absolutely moral people, virtuous people whose whole life was devoted to being just as virtuous as possible: Mahavira, Lao Tzu. But all are one-dimensional.Humanity has come now to a crossroads. We have lived the one-dimensional man, we have exhausted it. We need now a more enriched human being, three-dimensional. I call them three C’s, just like three R’s.The first C is consciousness, the second C is compassion, the third C is creativity.Consciousness is being, compassion is feeling, creativity is action. My sannyasin has to be all three simultaneously. I am giving you the greatest challenge ever given, the hardest task to be fulfilled. You have to be as meditative as Buddha, as loving as Krishna, as creative as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci. You have to be all together simultaneously, only then will your totality be fulfilled. Otherwise something will remain missing in you, and that which is missing in you will keep you lopsided, unfulfilled. You can attain to a very high peak if you are one-dimensional, but you will be only a peak. I would like you to become the whole range of the Himalayas, not just a peak but peaks upon peaks.The one-dimensional man has failed. It has not been able to create a beautiful earth, it has not been able to create paradise on the earth. It has failed, utterly failed! It created a few beautiful people, but it could not transform the whole humanity, it could not raise the consciousness of the whole humanity. Only a few individuals here and there became enlightened. That is not going to help anymore. We need more enlightened people, and enlightened in a three-dimensional way. That is my definition of the new man.You ask me, “Was Buddha not a poet?” He was not. But the people who will become awakened here with me are going to be poets. When I say “poets” I don’t mean that you have to write poetry; you have to be poetic. Your life has to be poetic, your approach has to be poetic. Logic is dry, poetry is alive. Logic cannot dance; it is impossible for logic to dance. To see logic dancing will be like Mahatma Gandhi dancing! It will look very ridiculous. Poetry can dance; poetry is a dance of your heart. Logic cannot love; it can talk about love, but it cannot love. Love seems to be illogical. Only poetry can love; only poetry can take the jump into the paradox of love. Logic is cold, very cold; it is good as far as mathematics is concerned, but it is not good as far as humanity is concerned. If humanity becomes too logical then humanity disappears; then there are only numbers, not human beings, just replaceable numbers.Poetry, love, feeling, give you a depth, a warmth. You become more melted, you lose your ice-coldness. You become more human.Buddha is superhuman, about that there is no doubt, but he loses the human dimension. He is unearthly. He has a beauty of being unearthly, but he does not have the beauty that Zorba the Greek has. Zorba is so earthly.I would like you to be both together: Zorba the Buddha. One has to be meditative, but not against feeling. One has to be meditative but full of feeling, overflowing with love. And one has to be creative. If your love is only a feeling and it is not translated into action, it won’t affect the larger humanity. You have to make it a reality, you have to materialize it.These are your three dimensions: being, feeling, action. Action contains all creativity, all kinds of creativity: music, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, technology. Feeling contains all that is aesthetic: love, beauty. And being contains meditation, awareness, consciousness.You say, “It seems awareness is your basic teaching, as well as that of Buddha.” I have no basic teaching, I cannot have a basic teaching. I am not a teacher at all. I don’t teach you, I am simply a presence. You can learn, but I don’t teach. You can imbibe my spirit, and my spirit and its implication will depend on you.There are people whom awareness will help as a basic teaching; they will learn awareness from me. And there are people whom love will help; then they will learn love as a basic teaching from me. It will depend on you. I am multidimensional; hence I can absorb all kinds of people.Buddha would not have accepted you all, remember, neither would Jesus or Mahavira; they would have chosen. A few people would have been chosen by Buddha and a few would have been chosen by Jesus and a few would have been chosen by somebody else. But I don’t choose at all, I am absolutely choiceless. Whosoever comes to me is accepted, absolutely accepted, totally accepted, because I don’t have a basic pattern. I have only hints – and hints for all, for all kinds of people.It is not a teaching; teaching becomes rigid, becomes defined. It is only a presence. I am only a window; through me you can look into godliness. And once you have looked into godliness, then you can look into godliness on your own – I am not needed anymore.The fifth question:Osho,Why are all the awakened ones against desiring? What is wrong with desire?Meditate over Murphy’s maxim:Be careful about what you want because you are liable to get it.The sixth question:Osho,Why do I always find it difficult to relate to my wife?Because you are British, and you know British wives!Sent to Australia for an extended business trip, the Englishman was asked if he missed his wife, who was still back in London.“Ah, I don’t miss her all that much,” he explained. “One day a week I hire a local woman to come in and nag.”After they had been discussing their problems for more than an hour, the prissy English lady said to the marriage counselor, “I think it is unfair to suggest that I don’t enjoy sex. But what can you say about a man who wants it five or six times a year?”And the last:“I am taking Kung Fu lessons just in case some sex fiend tries to rape me on some dark night,” the prune-faced Englishwoman told her long-suffering husband.“Why bother?” remarked the husband. “It will never get that dark.”The seventh question:Osho,All the buddhas say that one should learn to be silent, but in day-to-day life one has to speak. Then what should one do?First meditate over Murphy’s maxim:Think twice before you speak and then don’t say anything.But if you have to say something, then meditate over this:Walker, a newspaperman, was on vacation up in Maine. He came across a lonely hut and began interviewing the owner with the idea of doing a story on the locale.“Whose house is this?” asked the reporter.“Moggs’,” replied the Mainer.“What in the world is it built of?”“Logs.”“Any animals natural to the locality?”“Frogs.”“What sort of soil have you?”“Bogs.”“How about the climate?”“Fogs.”“What do you live on chiefly?”“Hogs.”“Have you any friends?”“Dogs.”Be telegraphic!The eighth question:Osho,Aha! I thought there was something familiar about him – Murphy is a Jew! Used to be called Moshe Kapoyer?This is a remarkable discovery! I wonder how you managed to find it out. It is true:Moshe Kapoyer was the only Jew in a small town and since business was bad he decided to change his name. There were other reasons also to change his name: because he was a Jew and the only Jew, people were avoiding him and his business was suffering. And secondly because his name, Moshe Kapoyer, means Mr. Topsy-turvy or Mr. Upside-down, so he was not very happy with his name either.He went to a judge and became Mr. Jones. One week later he was back before the same judge asking that his name be changed to Murphy.“Why do you want your name changed? I just changed it last week.”“So that when people ask me what my name was before it was Murphy, I can say it was Jones.”The ninth question:Osho,Can I also be a god?Krishna Deva, I have given you the name Krishna Deva. It means God Krishna. Yes, there is no trouble about it. In fact you are a god; even if you want to be somebody else you cannot. Everybody is trying to be somebody else, but nobody has ever succeeded in being somebody else. Godliness is our nature. You can forget all about it, but you cannot change it.Flaherty and Gluckstein were discussing the merits of their religion.“Answer me this,” said the Irishman, “could one of your boys be pope?”“No,” answered Gluckstein. “Could one of your boys be God?”“Why, of course not!” replied Flaherty.“Well,” said Gluckstein, “one of our boys made it!”If Jesus can make it, if Buddha can make it, why not you? In fact, they could make it because it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be discovered. We have forgotten it; it is already there like an undercurrent. Our godliness is always there; wherever you go it goes with you. It is you. It is in the sinner, it is even in the saint!The tenth question:Osho,I loved your answer the other day to Arup's question. The only trouble is that I have started coming home early and not drinking so much, while Arup is getting disco parties together, going out and generally having a good time. Am I becoming meditative, while Arup is becoming as loose as a goose?Now you know why I said to Arup that this is absolutely the sure way to raise the consciousness of humanity. She has started – she has begun with you. You are her first victim!The eleventh question:Osho,What is misunderstanding?Three stories for you:Anna: “Is it true what I hear about your husband cutting down on his smoking?”Hannah: “Yes, now he is smoking only after meals – his meal, my meal, the children’s meals, everybody’s meal!”The second:The defendant was accused of sullying the honor of a pure young maiden, according to the lady’s testimony, and he was having a difficult time explaining the circumstances.“I am innocent, Your Honor,” he declared. “All I did was offer her a scotch and soda, and she reclined!”And the third and the last:Young Moishe was getting married. On the day of his wedding, his father took him aside and said, “Look here, Moishe, if you want to have a successful marriage you’ve got to make three things clear right from the start: you’ve got to show your wife that you’re the master of the house, that you’re a man, and that you’re independent.”Moishe thanked his father and went off to his wedding and honeymoon – Kavita, if you are asleep, be awake!After the couple had returned and father and son were alone together in a quiet moment, the father asked how his advice had worked.“Ah, beautiful!” beamed Moishe. “I put it into practice on the first night of our honeymoon. When we were alone in the hotel room, I first ripped off her clothes to show her who’s the master; then I ripped off my clothes to show her that I’m a man; and then I jerked off in front of her to show her that I’m independent!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The Buddha said:Hold your tongue.Do not exalt yourselfbut lighten the wayfor your words are sweet.Follow the truth of the way.Reflect upon it.Make it your own.Live it.It will always sustain you.Do not turn away what is given you,nor reach out for what is given to others,lest you disturb your quietness.Give thanksfor what has been given you,however little.Be pure, never falter.Life is full of complications. Even when we are born there is a string attached. The greatest complication, the source of all complications, is unawareness, unconsciousness. We are focused on the objective world and we are totally unaware of who we are.The whole message of Gautama the Buddha is to turn in. The message is simple, but the implementation is arduous. It is arduous because for many, many lives we have lived outwardly, we have lived the life of an extrovert. We have completely forgotten how to relate with our own beings, how to be with ourselves. We have forgotten the path, the language, the method. Not only that, we have become completely oblivious that there is an interiority to us. We think that we have only an outside. That is stupid. The outside can only exist with an inside; without the inside the outside is impossible. If we can see out, we can also see in. In fact, it is easier to see in because we are rooted there.But never seeing in, we go on rushing in all directions, doing all kinds of things, not knowing why, just because others are doing them. We are imitating, following. We become carbon copies, and to be a carbon copy is the ugliest thing in life. Man can never be blissful unless he is original, unless he knows his original face.I have heard a very beautiful story. It may be true, it may not be true. Its truth is not historical but, far more significant, it is metaphorical.The story is:On his way to India, Alexander the Great met a fakir sitting by the roadside with a round, small, crystal-like object in his hand.“What’s that?” inquired Alexander.“I will not tell you,” said the fakir, “but I will bet you that it is heavier than all your gold, silver and jewels.”Alexander ordered an enormous balance to be brought along with all of his treasures. On one side of the balance he piled all the treasures; the fakir put his small round crystal on the other side, and lo! It was heavier. Down it went and the vast treasures were lifted into the air. Alexander was amazed.Then the fakir said, “I will show you one more thing.” He took a little dust and spread it over the crystal. It immediately became light, went up into the air, and the treasures came down.Alexander could not contain his amazement and asked the fakir, “Please, you must tell me. What is this object?”Said the fakir, “It is nothing special. It is only a human eye.”Man has the capacity to see himself, but that capacity is full of dust. We have an inner eye too, but that eye is not functioning. We have not used that eye for so long it has gone out of function completely; it has become a paralyzed part in our being.Now physiologists have discovered a certain part in the human brain which seems to be absolutely superfluous. They are puzzled because nature never creates anything superfluous. It must have a purpose, but it seems to have no purpose, it can be removed without affecting you at all.But all the mystics down the ages have been saying the same thing. Not in scientific terminology, of course; they have their own way of saying it. They call it the third eye. A certain part of your mind is capable of functioning in an introspective way only. Meditation creates the right atmosphere, the right climate for it to function.Meditation simply means removing the dust that the fakir threw on the eye. That dust is nothing but the whole mind process of thoughts, desires, imagination, memory. If you become capable of a few intervals, gaps, when all thought processes cease, then suddenly you are, and the turning happens; immediately there is a radical change in your vision, your gestalt changes. The outside world disappears and the inside world appears.It is because of this that the mystics say that the outside world is illusory. It is not that it does not exist; it does exist, but it is illusory because the mystic knows a certain state of consciousness when it simply evaporates, it is no longer found. You enter into a totally different dimension: the dimension of bliss, the dimension of peace, the dimension of Buddha, Christ, Krishna.These sutras today are very special. This series is the last series of Buddha’s sutras. Up to now he was talking to the disciples who were getting ready. Now this last part of his sutras is meant for the bodhisattvas, for those who have become ready, for those who have experienced something of the inner. It is not for the initiates, it is not for the adepts; hence this last part is the most important part.Buddha says there are two kinds of enlightened people in the world; he is very scientific about his approach. His categories are very significant; nobody has done this before or since. He says those in the first category of the enlightened ones are called arhats. The arhat is a mystic; he has known, he has realized, but he is utterly unconcerned about others. He has found the way. He has reached his home and he does not care about others who are seeking and searching, because his understanding is that if they seek and search authentically they will find the way themselves. And if they are not true seekers, nobody can make them true seekers; hence no help is needed. The arhat does not help anyone. He has traveled alone and he knows everybody has to travel alone.When Buddha became enlightened, his first idea was to become an arhat. For seven days he remained absolutely silent, not saying a single word.The story is:The gods came from heaven. They were very worried because only once in a while does a person become awakened, and if he remains absolutely silent, the world will miss his message. And his message is medicine for those who are dying; his message is nourishment for those who are starving for truth. His message can be a boat to the other shore. His message has to be delivered, he has to be persuaded. They came, and they argued.But Buddha said, “You must agree with me that nobody was able to help me although I knocked on many doors, because it is something which is not transferable. Even if they had it they could not give it to me; I had to find it by my own effort. Hence I think that is the only way: people have to seek and search; it cannot be borrowed.”He was right and the gods had to agree. And he said, “Even if I say it, only one out of ten thousand people will understand. The remaining ones will not understand; on the contrary, they will misunderstand. So why create so much misunderstanding in the world? The world is already in confusion, why create more confusion? Out of compassion I am keeping quiet. The one who will understand will find it himself anyway. The man who can understand what I say is so intelligent that really he needs no help. So what is the point? Why should I bother?”The gods were silenced. They moved into the woods to ponder over the matter. “How can we convince him? He appears to be right, he is logical, but some way has to be found.” It is good that they were able to find some way, otherwise we would have missed The Dhammapada; these beautiful sutras would have been missed. The world would have been far poorer. The whole credit goes to those anonymous gods who persuaded Buddha.They pondered over the matter for hours; they found a way. They came back and said, “We agree with you, but there is one point on which we cannot agree. We understand that only one person out of ten thousand will understand you, so you need not bother about that one person; he will find himself sooner or later. It is only a question of time, and time does not matter because existence is eternal. So what does it matter, how does it matter, whether one achieves today and somebody else achieves tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? All those who have become awakened are contemporaries; it does not make much difference at all.”That’s why I say I am a contemporary to Buddha, a contemporary to Jesus, a contemporary to Zarathustra, a contemporary to Lao Tzu. Once you know, you become contemporary to all who have known. All small time gaps simply disappear, they are so tiny. Twenty-five hundred years make no difference at all.That’s why in the East we have not bothered much about time. Nobody knows when Krishna was born. We could have also created a calendar in the name of Krishna – before Krishna, after Krishna – we could have made a history. And Krishna certainly preceded Jesus by at least three thousand years, so his calendar would have been five thousand years old by now. But we have never bothered about it. Nobody knows when the founder of Jainism, Adinatha, was born or when he died. He must have preceded even Krishna by at least five thousand years. If we had a calendar then, his calendar would by now have been at least ten thousand years old. I am saying “at least,” because Jainas say that he is far older. According to them he is almost ninety thousand years ancient; it is possible.But we have not created history, we have not written history, for the simple reason that the people who are worth writing about go beyond time; for them time becomes irrelevant. And the people who are not worth writing about, only they make noise in the world of time. Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeiniac, these people make much noise in the world of time. A Buddha, a Krishna, a Jesus, a Zarathustra simply make no trace in time; they disappear without leaving a trace. It is as if they are not part of history, or they are part of a totally different kind of history, a history which is non-temporal.The gods argued their one point with Buddha. They said, “We agree about that one person: he will find it whether you tell him or not, he is so intelligent; if he can understand you immediately, then he will find it by himself. And we also agree about the others, that thousands will not understand you at all; they will, on the contrary, misunderstand you. But they are already misunderstanding, what more misunderstanding can there be? So you need not be worried about that point. They are already in confusion, you cannot confuse them anymore.”This is also my experience: howsoever I try, I cannot confuse you anymore. You have already touched the rock bottom; there is nothing below it, you can’t go deeper than that. You are utterly secure.So the gods said, “You cannot confuse them more. They are so skillful in confusing themselves, they have done it already to the maximum. So about that we don’t argue.“But there is one thing more: there may be one or two people among ten thousand who are just between these two sorts of people – the one who can understand you and the millions who cannot understand you and are bound to misunderstand you. Between these two do you think,” they said to Buddha, “there is a possibility that a few people, one or two or three – yes, they will be very few, they can be counted on the fingers – who may be just in the middle, neither so confused that they cannot be helped at all nor so clear that they can find their path on their own? Speak for them; they will be helped by you.”Buddha had to agree; it was not an argument for argument’s sake. People like Buddha don’t argue for argument’s sake; he saw the truth of it. He said, “I have to agree with you. Yes, there are a few people who are exactly in the middle, on the boundary line. If I don’t say anything to them they may be lost in the crowd; if some help is given to them, a little hand, they may be pulled out of their mud. I will speak for them.”He was going to be an arhat, one who has arrived but is unconcerned about others, almost cold, does not care a bit. He became a bodhisattva; that is the second category.A bodhisattva is one who is not only a mystic but also a master, who has not only known himself, but tries to make it known to others. Of course, the work of the bodhisattva is far more difficult; the arhat is in a better position. The bodhisattva has to struggle with all kinds of insanities – insane people, split people, schizophrenic people, neurotics, psychotics. Humanity is full of these people. The bodhisattva has to go into the crowd, into the mud where you are, because that is the only way to help you. Unless he comes among you, unless he lives with you, unless he relates with you, communicates with you, in a thousand and one ways seduces you, creates the longing for truth in you, he cannot help you. And these are not easy things.People are not concerned about truth at all. They are concerned about money, they are concerned about power, about prestige. They are not interested in being liberated, they don’t want to be sane. They protect their insanity in every possible way because they have invested so much in their insanity. It is their insanity and they are very proud of it.Are you not proud of being a Christian, of being a Hindu, of being a Mohammedan? Are you not proud of being a German or British or an Indian? You are proud of all these insanities. These divisions have been destructive. These divisions have proved curses to humanity. They have been calamities, but you are very proud. Everybody seems to be proud.I have heard…An Englishman was talking to an Italian. And the Englishman asked the Italian, “If you had been given a choice before you were born, what nationality would you have chosen?”He said, “Of course I would have been British!”And the Englishman asked, “How would you have felt?”He said, “I would have felt very proud!”These were the days of the Second World War and the Italians and the Germans were being defeated. They were losing their prestige and their power, they were condemned all over the world.The Italian asked the Englishman, “If you had not been born British, how would you have felt?”And the Englishman said, “I would have felt ashamed.”That’s why the British seem to be the most neurotic of all – very obsessed with being British, as if it were something very great.The same is the case with the Indians; they also suffer from the same chronic disease. They feel very proud of being Indian. They don’t think that anybody else in the world is really human; all are a little below. But that’s how everybody thinks deep down.When the first Westerners reached China, they wrote in their diaries that they could not believe the Chinese were human. Encountering such a different race for the first time it must have been difficult for them to accept them as human. And what about the Chinese? Their records say that looking at the Western people they were very puzzled – they had never thought that monkeys could speak like human beings!Everybody tries to protect his insanity; hence it is difficult work.“Psychiatry is a lot of junk,” said one man to another.“Oh?” said his companion. “Why do you say that?”“Well, today my psychiatrist told me that I am in love with my umbrella. Have you ever heard of anything so silly?”“It does sound rather daft.”“I mean, me and my umbrella certainly have a sincere affection for each other. But love? That is just ridiculous!”Affection is okay: “…a certain affection between me and my umbrella, that’s okay, but love? That’s ridiculous!”Just watch yourself, the functioning of your mind, how you go on protecting, how you go on defending yourself. And what are you? Nothing but a bundle of insanities!These sutras are for the bodhisattvas, for those who are going to work with the crowds, with the insane people. These are suggestions for them. Try to understand each single sutra as deeply as possible.Hold your tongue.Buddha says: “Speak, but speak only when it is absolutely necessary.” Speak, but speak only to those who are ready to listen. Don’t go on speaking to each and everybody as that is a sheer wastage. Speak only to the disciples because only a disciple is ready to risk. It is really a risk to transform yourself, it is a risk to encounter yourself, it is a risk to find yourself, to know yourself. It is a risk because by knowing yourself all your old projects will fall down in the dust, and your whole life that you have spent working for them will be gone down the drain. You will have to start from ABC, afresh.Unless you are very courageous you cannot make an effort to know yourself. Yes, you would like to know about yourself; that is cheap. Knowing about is cheap because it is only information, it is not transformation. But knowing oneself is transformation; it hurts, it cuts you. It has to cut the many chunks out of your being which are unnecessary, which are only a drag on you, which are only an unnecessary weight and a barrier to your growth. It hurts because it goes against your idea of yourself, your image of yourself.Hence Buddha says: “Speak, but be alert.” Speak only to those who are ready to listen, speak only to those who are surrendered to listening. Otherwise: Hold your tongue.Buddha is asked thousands of questions by all kinds of people; he rarely answers. He answers only when a disciple asks.This also happens here every day. Many people ask questions who have come just for one day – visitors, tourists, and immediately they ask great questions. I never answer their questions; they feel offended. They write angry letters: “Why don’t you answer my questions?” I cannot answer your questions unless you are ready to listen, unless you are a disciple.A disciple means one who is ready to learn. If your question comes out of your knowledge I am not going to answer it; if it comes out of your innocence, certainly I am here to answer it. If you are asking only to confirm that whatsoever you think is right, I am not going to answer because I am not here to confirm all kinds of stupid ideologies.Somebody believes in UFO’s and goes on asking, “What do you think about UFO’s?” Why should I think? I don’t think at all.Just a few days ago somebody was here who was asking about the theory of the hollow earth. I laughed at his question, I joked about his question. But people are so encapsulated in their knowledge. Back in America he wrote a letter thanking me, saying, “Whatsoever you say, I know you believe in the theory of the hollow earth.” How does he know that I believe in the theory of the hollow earth? He gives the reason that it is impossible for an enlightened person not to believe. Now if I am to be an enlightened person I have to believe in the theory of the hollow earth. Buddha never heard about it and he was enlightened; Jesus never knew about it and he was enlightened. But this man writes a letter saying, “You may joke, you may laugh at it, because you don’t want to say anything about it. There may be some reasons why you don’t want to talk about it, but I am absolutely certain that you know that it is so.”Even if you deny it, even if you laugh and joke, the people who are convinced of a certain idea, whatsoever it is, howsoever insane, absurd, will find ways and means to get support for it. If you don’t answer they will think you are not answering because other people, the common people, won’t understand it; it is such a subtle matter that only very few people can understand it.Now one woman has inquired, “Osho, what do you say? I feel I have become enlightened.” I never asked anybody. Why should you ask me? If you are enlightened, very good. Get lost! What are you doing here? Now become a bodhisattva and help others to become enlightened. Go to California because there you will find so many enlightened people, and all confirming each other.Buddha says: “The first thing to remember when you move into the masses is to hold your tongue.”Once he was convinced of the fact that people are in need of great help he insisted his whole life that unless you find it absolutely contrary to your innermost nature, become a bodhisattva. But there are a few people for whom it may be against their inner nature; then they have to remain arhats. Don’t force them. Remember: people need help. If you can be of any help, do whatsoever you can, but if you cannot, if it feels simply something totally against your intrinsic nature, your inner voice, then forget all about it.An arhat also helps in his own way; without helping, just by his presence he helps. He remains in his silence, he lives his ordinary life without telling anybody anything, without manifesting his experience, without expressing his joy. He lives joyously, but he makes no deliberate effort to communicate. Still, a few sensitive souls will be attracted to him. They will start following him silently, they will sit by his side. He will not say anything; they will listen to his silence. If he has arrived, then there is an aura around him; they will be nourished by this aura. If he has found his home, there will be such peace radiating that they will be bathed in it, they will be blessed to be with him. He will be able to help only indirectly.A hot and flustered city gent in his big car was hopelessly lost in a maze of country lanes. Spotting a local sitting on a gate, chewing a piece of straw, he drew up opposite and shouted, “I say, my good man, can you tell me where this road goes to?”“No,” was the reply.“Can you tell me where that road goes to, that turns off to the left?”“No.”Getting quite a bit irritated, the city gent yelled, “Well, where does that road that goes off to the right go to?”“Don’t know,” was the reply.“You must be some sort of idiot!” yelled the frustrated gent.“Maybe,” said the cool man, “but at least I know where I am.”This is the way of the arhat: he knows where he is. He will not say anything about any road, anything about any way, but he knows where he is and he is utterly contented with that. You can sit by his side, you can be nourished by his presence, but he is not going to make any direct effort. Indirectly he will help. If you can drink out of his presence you are welcome, but he will not call you forth, he will not seek and search for you.Buddha says: “Mostly it happens that fifty percent of the enlightened ones are arhats and fifty percent are bodhisattvas.” That’s how nature keeps its balance on every plane. So don’t be worried if you feel one day that you have arrived, but there is no desire to help anybody; then don’t force it. Forcing it will be ugly, will be violent, will be destructive. If it is not there, it is not there. Then existence is happy with you as you are.But if you feel that there is a desire arising in you to help, to be compassionate, to hold somebody’s hand, to make a boat and take people to the further shore, then don’t be worried about the troubles. The troubles are there, but the world needs some people who can show the way, and only those who know can show the way. Even for them it is difficult. The world is in immense need because it is being led by stupid people. It is being guided by politicians and priests, all kinds of people who don’t know what they are doing. That’s why it is always in such chaos.Mulla Nasruddin’s son came home late from school. The Mulla grabbed him and gave him a beating, saying, “Let this be a lesson to you not to come home late!”The next day the boy came home with his clothes dirty from playing. The Mulla gave him a good smacking, saying, “Let this be a lesson to you not to dirty your clothes!”The following day the boy came home with bad grades. The Mulla beat him again, saying, “Let this be a lesson to you not to get bad grades!”The fourth day, as soon as the son came home, the Mulla just grabbed him and beat him.“What is the matter, father?” asked the boy, crying. “Today I came on time, with clean clothes, and with good grades!”“Let this be a lesson to you,” said Mulla Nasruddin. “There is no justice in the world!”Now these are the people who have created the world, and who are guiding it, and who are teaching. And these are the people who are bringing up new children to create more chaos in the world.Yes, bodhisattvas are needed, but their path is far more arduous than the path of the arhats. The mystic enjoys his bliss. He is like a beautiful roseflower, fragrant, dancing in the wind, in the sun, in the rain, but unconcerned about anything else. The bodhisattva takes the burden of others on his shoulders. He tries to help people who are mostly incapable of taking any help, who are not only incapable of taking any help but who are also very stubborn in their refusal of it, who feel offended if you try to help them.That’s why Buddha says: Hold your tongue.Be very conscious of what you are saying, to whom you are saying it, for a few reasons. The first: the truth that you have found cannot be said; language is inadequate. You can only indicate, you can only make a few gestures – fingers pointing to the moon. You cannot argue for it. You can persuade, but you cannot convince anybody. It is not their experience, so don’t be angry if they don’t listen to you. If they go against you, don’t feel that they are ungrateful. They are simply behaving the way they can behave. You have to be very, very patient with them. You have to accept all kinds of abuse that they will throw on you. You have to accept their stones as flowers. Even if they kill you, you have to die loving them.That’s how Jesus died: with a prayer on his lips to God, “Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”Secondly: to say the truth is to falsify it – so try to say it indirectly; never make direct statements about it. Don’t say “God is” or “God is not.” These direct statements have created much confusion in the world; rather than helping people they have created conflict, wars, murders. Don’t make any direct statement about God or truth or nirvana. You have to be very, very subtle. You have to live in such a way that people become aware that you have attained something which is missing in their lives, that there is something more in life which is not available to them. That’s all that you can do.Speak not in prose but in poetry. Sing a song – no syllogism is needed. Let your laughter and your joy trigger some process in them so that they can also start searching and seeking. Let you be the proof rather than making great arguments. A bodhisattva is not a theologian, he does not argue for anything. He is the proof; he gives no other proof.Truth is something which is beyond words and beyond even meaning. It is closer to music. So let there be a music around you: Hold your tongue, otherwise your words may destroy the music. Silence is more musical, more eloquent. Words give to truth a certain meaning, naturally, because words have meanings. Meaning gives a frame to the truth which is infinite.It is like when you are looking from the window toward the starry sky and your window gives a frame to the sky. The sky has no frame; it begins nowhere, ends nowhere, but now your window is making a frame on the sky. That frame belongs to the window, but the person who has always lived inside the window, and has never gone out of it, will think that the sky is square like the window, that it has the same shape and form.People live in words, they have never known anything wordless, so give them an experience of wordlessness. Help them to meditate. Rather than giving them a doctrine give them an experience.Third: remember always, whatsoever you say is bound to be misunderstood by millions. So don’t feel offended, don’t feel angry, don’t feel judged. When they are misunderstanding you they are simply saying something about themselves, not about you. Unless you can remain cool with all kinds of misunderstandings being heaped upon you, you cannot be of any help to them; then you yourself will need help.Two very hippie hippies were walking down a country lane.One hippie turned to the other and asked, “Did you shit in your pants?”“No,” replied the other.A little further down the lane the first hippie again asked the other, “Are you sure you haven’t shit in your pants?”“Quite sure,” said the other.Further on down the lane the first hippie said, “Come on, take down your pants and let me see.”When the other hippie had obliged, the first hippie exclaimed, “There, I told you so!”“Oh,” said the other, “I thought you meant today!”People understand according to themselves.Mulla Nasruddin was going to Italy, so I told him, “Nasruddin, learn a little bit of Italian.”He said, “I have done it. I have been taking lessons from Radha.”When he came back from Italy he was very angry. I said, “What is the matter?”He said, “One day I went-a to a big town to a big-a hotel. In-a the morning, I go down to breakfast. I tell-a the waitress, ‘I wanna two piss toast.’“She bring-a me only one piss. I tell-a her, ‘I wanna two piss.’“She say, ‘Go to the toilet.’“I say, ‘No, you no understand – I wanna two piss on-a my plate.’“She say, ‘You better no piss on-a the plate, you sonavabitch!’“Later I go out to eat at a big-a restaurant. The waitress bring-a me a spoon and knife, but no fock. I tell-a her, ‘I wanna fock.’“She say, ‘Everyone wanna fock.’“I tell-a her, ‘You no understand – I wanna fock on-a the table.’“She say, ‘You better no fock on-a the table, you sonavabitch!’“So I go to my room in-a hotel and there is no shits on-a my bed. I call-a the manager and tell-a him, ‘I wanna shit.’“He tell me, ‘Go to the toilet.’“I say, ‘You no understand – I wanna shit on-a the bed.’“He say, ‘You better no shit on-a the bed, you sonavabitch!’“I go to check out and the man at the desk say, ‘Peace to you.’“I say, ‘Piss on-a you too, you sonavabitch. I gonna go back home!’”When you are learning Italian, avoid Radha! I have also been learning from her, but since Mulla Nasruddin told me I have stopped – it is dangerous.People have their own language, their own minds, their own prejudices, their own concepts, their own systems of philosophy, religion. When you talk to them you are talking to a mind which is full of garbage; you are not talking to somebody who is silent. And unless one is silent one is bound to misunderstand. Hence Buddha says: Hold your tongue.And the fourth reason is: truth is something existential, it is not philosophical. Philosophy can be talked about; in fact, you can’t do anything with philosophy except talk about it. About and about it goes, round and round it goes. The word about means round and round. But truth is existential. You have to help people to taste it. So talk only if you see that through talk you can persuade a person to meditate, to be silent.It is a very paradoxical effort, hence the difficulty. You have to talk to people to help them become silent. You have to talk about silence because people can’t understand silence directly. It is very absurd – talking about silence, teaching people to be silent – but that has to be done, particularly in the beginning.Second:Do not exalt yourself…It is very natural when you become enlightened. It is not egoistic, it happens very naturally. It has nothing to do with the ego because if the ego is still there you cannot become enlightened.Buddha says: Hold your tongue. Do not exalt yourself… because when you become enlightened the ego has disappeared – you can become enlightened only when you have fulfilled that condition – but now the experience is so vast, so overflowing, so ecstatic that it starts expressing itself. You have to learn…It is said of al-Hillaj Mansoor – who, like Jesus, was crucified, but in a far more inhuman and cruel way than Jesus himself – it is said about him that the day he became enlightened, he shouted, “Ana’l haq – I am the truth! I am God!”His master, Junnaid, was present. He came close to him, whispered in his ear, “Mansoor, keep it inside you. Please keep it inside you! Contain it! I know it is very difficult to contain it, it is so vast, almost uncontainable. It expresses itself. I know you are not uttering it, it is being uttered by some unknown force, by God himself, but still I say to you, hold your tongue.”And Mansoor promised, “I will hold my tongue.” He understood the point, but again and again he would forget. Again and again he would come into that same state of inner light, joy, bliss. And again the shout – the lion’s roar, as Buddha used to call it – would come out of him in spite of himself.He would come and apologize to Junnaid, his master, but the master would say, “Mansoor, something has to be done; otherwise you are going to get into trouble unnecessarily. You could be of great help to humanity, but this way you will be unnecessarily in trouble. And not only you, you will stop my work too. It happened to me too, but I had to contain it and you have to contain it too.”But Mansoor was not capable of it. Junnaid sent him to Kaaba for a three-year pilgrimage. “Maybe on this three-year-long journey, being with many mystics, he may cool down. The experience is so new; by and by he will become accustomed to it.” But he could not become accustomed to it; when he came back he was again in the same state, proclaiming the same things. Because it was a Mohammedan country and it was one of the greatest crimes, the greatest sins, to call oneself God, to declare oneself God, he was caught by the king, by the people and was killed.For centuries it has been discussed among Sufis who was greater, Junnaid or Mansoor. Ordinarily one would say Mansoor: he was really a great martyr: he suffered and suffered laughingly. He died with laughter. Even Jesus had gone to the cross a little forsaken. When the last nail was put in his hands he looked at the sky and said, “God, have you forsaken me? Have you forgotten me? Why is all this happening to me?” There must have been a little doubt, just a shadow of doubt. He understood immediately, he apologized. He said, “No, forgive me. Let thy will be done.” But for a moment he had wavered. Mansoor never wavered.And he was killed so mercilessly that Jesus’ crucifixion seems to be very humane compared to Mansoor’s. First his legs were cut off, then his hands were cut off, then his eyes were destroyed, then his tongue was cut out, then his head was cut off. But even though all this suffering was there he was all laughter.Before his tongue was cut out, somebody asked, “Why are you laughing?”He said, “I am laughing because you cannot destroy my experience; whatsoever you do is irrelevant. And I am laughing because you are killing one person and I am somebody else. You are such fools, that’s why I am laughing! And I am also laughing at God. I am laughing at him, ‘You cannot deceive me. In whatsoever form you come I will recognize you. I recognize you in the butcher who has cut off my feet, who has cut off my hands. It is you who are in him, and nobody else.’”In fact, Junnaid seems to be a little cowardly; many people think that he was a little cowardly. Why should he tell Mansoor to keep it inside? But that is not true, He was not a coward, in fact he sacrificed far more than Mansoor. Mansoor’s sacrifice is apparent; Junnaid’s sacrifice is not apparent, it is very subtle.To contain the truth when it happens is a superhuman feat, it is a miracle. And he tries to contain it so that he can help people. He is a bodhisattva and Mansoor is an arhat. He cares nothing for the work, he cares nothing for anybody else. He has attained, now there is no problem. Death is not a problem at all, he knows he is immortal.Junnaid is working silently, in the dark, to help people who are blind. And you don’t know his suffering. His suffering is that he has to contain something which is uncontainable.Buddha says: Do not exalt yourself… Avoid any exaltation, avoid any declaration unless you find it is going to help, unless you find it is going to prepare the way; then it is okay.Buddha himself declared, “I am the most perfect enlightened one.” He knew that this was going to help. But if Jesus had asked him he would have said, “No, contain it,” because Jesus was in a wrong country with wrong people. To declare there, “I am God” was just asking for your death, nothing else.Jesus could only work for three years. Hence Christianity is so poor, because the master lived only three years. Up to his thirtieth year he was working for his own enlightenment. When he was ready he came out of the monasteries, started working, and then lived only three years. By the age of thirty-three he was crucified. Now, three years’ time is not enough at all. Buddha worked for forty-two years; even that is not enough.If Jesus had asked Buddha, Buddha would have told him, “Keep quiet, work silently. Just be an ordinary rabbi. There is no need to declare that you are the Son of God. You know it, that’s enough; and God knows it, that’s enough.”But in India, Buddha himself declared it. It is a totally different milieu, it is a totally different climate. For centuries buddhas have happened in this country, they have prepared the way; hence it is very simple to declare, no problem.Still Buddha says: Be very cautious, because your function is to:…lighten the way…Don’t create more trouble for people who follow you. They are already in trouble, they are living in hell. You have to make their burden light.…for your words are sweet.If your words come out of silence, compassion, understanding, out of absolute emptiness – if your words don’t come from somebody who is extraordinary, but from somebody who is just ordinary – then they will be sweet and they will help people far more deeply than anything else.Follow the truth of the way.What is the truth of the way? Buddha is always for experience and never for believing. He says: “Whatsoever you have experienced, now follow it.” Don’t believe it because it has been told by other buddhas. Follow it only when you have experienced, and follow it only to the extent that you have experienced. If you follow it to that extent, your light will fall a little further ahead and you will be able to follow in that light a little more and a little more. Just by a small lamp one can travel thousands of miles; one can pass the dark night of the soul very easily, howsoever long it is.Remember never to find a shortcut. Belief is a shortcut; experience is not a shortcut.Just a few days ago my samurai-in-chief, Shiva, had a fall from a wall. Now, a samurai is not supposed to be a Humpty-Dumpty! So I inquired, “What happened?” I came to know that he was trying to find a shortcut from one house to another by crossing the wall. And the shortcut turned out to be a long cut – he had twelve stitches!Avoid shortcuts; shortcuts don’t help. There are no shortcuts in life. Life has to be lived in all its totality. A shortcut means you are avoiding a few things. You are jumping to the conclusion, avoiding the process, avoiding a few steps. You may reach the conclusion, but it will not be your conclusion. And if it is not your conclusion it is of no value, it is borrowed. You are like a parrot. Even a parrot can be very knowledgeable, but that does not make him a buddha.Rastus, the hot, black Harlem stud, decided that he needed an exotic parrot for his classy apartment.After searching for some time, he finally found a pet shop that sold talking parrots. The shopkeeper showed him one for twenty-five dollars.“Polly wanna cracker?” inquired Rastus, to which the parrot did not respond. “This parrot doesn’t talk,” said Rastus, “I wants me a talking parrot. Do you have any others?”The owner said there was one for seventy-five dollars. He brought out a cage from behind the counter and uncovered a most attractive bird.“Polly wanna cracker?” asked Rastus again, and again there was no response. “This parrot don’t talk!” shouted Rastus with annoyance. “Don’t you have any birds that talk?”The shopkeeper told him that he did keep another one in the back room, but that it was quite expensive – two hundred and fifty dollars.He brought out the most beautiful bird Rastus had ever seen, and he excitedly asked, “Polly wanna cracker?” There was no response. Rastus was outraged. “Do you or don’t you have any talking birds?” he asked.The shopkeeper hesitated and then replied that he did have one bird that was quite exceptional, and although he had not planned to sell it, for two thousand dollars he would consider it. He led Rastus to a room at the very back of the shop. There, surrounded by one of the most complete libraries Rastus had ever seen, was the parrot. He was sitting in an overstuffed chair under a reading lamp, book in his lap, wearing glasses, a smoking jacket and slippers. He was smoking a pipe, deeply involved in his reading.“Polly wanna cracker?” inquired Rastus breathlessly from the doorway.Slowly, slowly the parrot looked up from his reading and wryly responded, “Nigger want a watermelon?”Even then a parrot is a parrot!Unless you have experienced, whatsoever beliefs you have are absolutely worthless. Hence Buddha says: Follow the truth of the way. He means that which you have experienced by moving on the way of meditation.Reflect upon it.Before you start helping others, reflect upon the experience that has happened to you through meditation – because it is one thing to experience, it is totally another to express. Meditation is not as difficult as expressing the experience of meditation and persuading people to meditate. Mystics have been many, masters are very few.A master has a golden touch. The moment he touches you, something in you starts growing. He is like a gardener who has a green thumb.Reflect upon it.Make it your own.Absorb it totally. Meditation in the beginning is just an experience and you are the experiencer. Slowly, slowly the distance between the experiencer and the experience disappears; it takes time. Unless the experience and the experiencer become one you cannot help others. Unless meditation becomes your very heartbeat you will not be able to persuade anybody. It is almost a seduction. Make it your own.Live it.Before you start helping others, live it in all possible ways. Walk meditatively, eat meditatively, sit meditatively, even sleep meditatively. Let meditation be spread all over your life. It should become a twenty-four-hour phenomenon, like breathing, so much so that you need not remember to meditate. It becomes so much your own that it is always there like an undercurrent. Only then can you help.Live it.It will always sustain you.Do not turn away what is given you…Remember, meditation will give you many joys, many blessings, many gifts will descend on you.Do not turn away what is given you… Don’t be a miser in receiving. People are miserly in giving, they are miserly in receiving too. When great gifts descend on you, you shrink away, you back away; you become afraid because those great gifts are so great that you feel you may be drowned. When bliss comes to you it is like a flood.Hence Buddha says: Do not turn away what is given you… because if you turn it away you will miss the opportunity, and it may not knock on your door again for a long time. One never knows when the moment will come again. So whenever something happens to you in meditation, open your heart. Even if you are afraid of the unknown, still go into the unknown. And go dancing, go joyously, because in meditation nothing wrong can ever happen to you. In meditation, only blessings are possible.…nor reach out for what is given to others…But that’s how our minds function. Even when the minds are gone, even when the snake is no more, it leaves its trace on the sand. People become more interested in what is happening to others. Rather than receiving that which is happening to them, they start becoming interested in what is happening to others; they start striving for those things.Remember, that which is happening to you is yours, and that which is not happening to you, you are not yet ripe for. It cannot happen before its time, so don’t hanker for it. Wait. Keep yourself as patient as possible. Receive whatsoever comes and don’t hanker for that which does not come on your way; it will come.…lest you disturb your quietness.You can disturb your quietness in two ways. One: by refusing that which comes to you, out of fear. And two: by asking for that which has not come to you, out of ambition.Give thanks…For all that comes to you, be grateful.…for what has been given you,however little.Be pure, never falter.Whenever Buddha uses the word pure he always means innocent. Don’t become knowledgeable. Even if you have come to know yourself, don’t become knowledgeable. Even if you have encountered godliness, don’t become knowledgeable. Whatsoever you have known, forget all about it. Become again innocent. Remain always in the state of not-knowing, then much more will go on happening to you.What ordinarily happens when you move into meditation is that something happens, but you don’t feel grateful. On the contrary, you feel this is your due – in fact it should have happened long ago. You are such a worthy person, so virtuous, so holy, and you have done so much; why should you be grateful?That is a wrong approach; that means you are stopping the process. In gratefulness much more will come to you. So even if a little glimpse comes to you, feel grateful. If just a ray of light comes, feel grateful, as if the whole sun has come to you. The whole sun will be coming, following the ray. But if you are not grateful you become closed; even the ray will disappear and you will again be in your darkness, back in your darkness.Remember to remain always in the state of not-knowing. Don’t start becoming knowledgeable, don’t start philosophizing, don’t start creating systems of thought. This happens; that’s why Buddha is making his bodhisattvas alert.I would like you to remember these sutras because many of you – at least fifty percent of you – are going to become bodhisattvas sooner or later. So remember these sutras – they are for you. I am not interested in The Dhammapada, I am interested in you, I am speaking for you. The Dhammapada is just an excuse. I would like to say the same things to you, but Buddha has said them so beautifully, so poetically that I don’t see any need to say them on my own. I can just comment on him, because the truth is eternal and it remains the same forever.Avoid philosophizing when you enter into the world of meditation. It arises, it arises inevitably – the itch to philosophize – because so many beautiful things are happening and you would like to create systems of thought around them. All the philosophies in the world have arisen in this way. Something, just a little, had happened, and they started creating a big palace out of that. Just a brick was there and they made a big house, a palace, just an imaginary palace, out of it. Even the brick is lost in that imaginary palace.Three small mice were sitting in front of their holes in a field. They were in a sad mood, as they silently watched the birds flying from one tree to another. After a while one mouse said, “It must be wonderful to be a bird and to fly in the sky.”All three mice pondered about it for a long time and became sadder.Eventually the second mouse said, “It would be very nice to be one bird, but it would be even nicer to be two birds. If you were two birds you could fly behind yourself.”The mice thought about this even longer and they became even sadder than before.After a long time the third mouse said, “The most beautiful feeling must be to be three birds, because then you could watch yourself fly behind yourself!”This is what philosophy is. People just go on thinking things which are nowhere. But you can enjoy it. Philosophy is enjoyed by many people for the simple reason that everybody can afford it. If these three mice can afford it, what about man? Every man is a philosopher.Buddha is very much against philosophy. He says philosophy corrupts, it makes you knowledgeable; without making you a knower it makes you knowledgeable. It brings impurity, it pollutes your inner being.Be pure and never falter from your purity.If you want to help people, these sutras have to be remembered constantly. Meditate over them, make them your own, live them. They will always sustain you; they are a great nourishment.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Why can't I take sannyas? I go on thinking and thinking and thinking.Sannyas has nothing to do with thinking at all. It is the crazy man’s way to enlightenment. By thinking you can never come to a decision as far as sannyas is concerned. Thinking, at the most, can only help you to postpone it, and you can go on postponing it ad infinitum. Thinking, in fact, is a process of postponement.Sannyas is not something that you can think about. You don’t know it, you have not experienced it. Thinking moves within the world of the known; it has no approach toward the unknown, no bridge with the unknown, and sannyas is unknown to you. You may have seen sannyasins; that does not mean that you know what sannyas is. By seeing lovers you cannot know what love is. By seeing meditators you cannot know what meditation is. There are things which are known only existentially.Sannyas is not a philosophical phenomenon, it is something existential. You have to take the jump. You can think later on – then think as much as you want, to your heart’s content. But once you have tasted it, there is no way of going back.Thinking is part of the head and sannyas happens in the heart; it is a love affair. It is utterly mad, as mad as love or even madder, because love happens biologically and sannyas happens spiritually.Sannyas happens only to a very few, rare human beings. Love is ordinary; it happens to animals, to birds, even to trees. It is nothing special. Religion is absolutely supernatural: it surpasses your instinctive world. But our hearts are not functioning, and the head cannot work in the place of the heart.That’s what you are doing, Richard. You can go on doing it, but you will never arrive in the world of sannyas. The head is impotent; it cannot act because it is never spontaneous. It is only the heart that acts. The head only reacts; the head only goes on repeating the past. You have not been a sannyasin before, so how can you think about it? What can you think about it? There is no base to begin with.Only the heart is courageous enough to take a jump into the unknown, into the unfamiliar. But millions of possibilities open up with the unfamiliar. With the unknown you start growing. With the known you go on moving in circles. Be a little heartful, not so thoughtful.Richard, your name means hard. Transcend hardness, become a little soft, a little more feminine, a little rounder. Losing a few corners will be of tremendous help. Logic is hard, love is soft. Logic is always a coward; it thinks and thinks before it acts. In fact, by the time it comes to act it is already too late, and the moment has passed.Life is not static. It won’t stand still for you, it won’t wait for you. Who knows? Tomorrow I may stop giving sannyas. Then what? Then you will have missed the train. And remember, the sannyas I am giving to you nobody else can give to you. Gather a little courage. Today is the day.The two skeletons in the corner closet were grumbling about the heat, the dust, the boredom.“What are we staying here for anyhow?” one asked.“Damned if I know,” the second skeleton answered. “I would leave in a minute if I had any guts.”The second question:Osho,I am more afraid of living than of dying. Is it possible?It must be possible if it is happening to you. Do you think you are managing the impossible? In fact, it is a very common phenomenon, nothing extraordinary about it, very normal. Nobody is more afraid of dying than of living. The fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of life.That’s why thousands of people around the earth commit suicide, and many more think many times in their lives of committing suicide. Many try but are prevented; many try but try halfheartedly. But very few people try to live. The number of people who try to live life is much less than those who try to commit suicide or actually commit suicide.The man who lives life becomes a buddha. How many buddhas do you have? They can be counted on your fingers. Only once in a while is there a man like Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu. Centuries pass; millions of people come and go before there is a man who really lives, authentically lives, lives to the utmost, lives fearlessly. Then what are the others doing? Their life is not life; on the contrary, it is a constant avoidance of life. They are simply protecting themselves from life. They are hiding in their black holes in the name of security, safety, comfort. They are simply trying to evade life.You can watch yourself – have you really lived? You can watch others around you – are they really living? People only become aware that they were alive when they die. When death knocks on your door, suddenly you become aware: “My God, I was alive! And now death has come.” But when death comes, millions of people feel relieved; relieved of the burden, of the anxiety, of the constant fear of life.Death has no fear in it. When you are no more, what fear can there be? Death cannot hurt you; life can hurt you. Life hurts because one needs to be very intelligent, alert, to live. If you live unconsciously, life is bound to be a painful experience, an agony. Life can be ecstatic too, but only when you are alert, aware. Life is an opportunity, but it demands; it is a challenge, it is an adventure, a moment-to-moment adventure into the uncharted.You cannot be imitators if you really want to live. You cannot be Christians or Hindus or Mohammedans. If you really want to live you have to be yourself, simply yourself. You cannot be anybody else; that is a way of avoiding true life.Existence never repeats. It creates each and every individual unique, absolutely unique. You are not manufactured like cars on an assembly line. Hence Jesus will never be again, Krishna will never be again, howsoever beautiful they were. Existence does not make carbon copies; it always creates individuals, and no creator would like to repeat.But that’s what you have been told to do, and you are doing it. Somebody is trying to be like Krishna or like Confucius or like Mohammed; these have become your ideals. Then you go on missing that which you are, and that is the only way you can be. You become pseudo. Yes, to be pseudo seems to be a little more comfortable than to be original, because you can adjust to a pseudo society more easily, more comfortably. When everybody is false like you, you can easily become part of the crowd. When you are true and authentic, living your life on your own, in your own light, with no blueprints given by others to you – by the parents, by the priests, by the politicians… When you are moving every day into the unknown with no idea of what is going to happen, with great creativity, sensitivity, awareness, but with no fixed ideology; when you are exploring newer pastures, new peaks of being, then certainly you are no longer a part of the crowd.The crowd hates individuals for the simple reason that they are so different. It hates them because they are rebels. It hates them because they cannot be enslaved easily; in fact, it is impossible to enslave them. It hates them for their intelligence, it hates them for their joy, it hates them for their creativity. It wants to destroy them.That’s why people are afraid of life: life has many dangers. The path of life is full of hazards. One never knows what is going to happen the next moment; everything is possible. You cannot live with expectations because life has no obligation to fulfill your desires. You can live with an open heart, but you cannot live with expectations. The more expectations you have, the more frustrated you will be.You can go astray. In death, nobody can go astray; in life you can go astray. In life you can commit errors, mistakes. In fact, if you really want to live you will have to commit many errors and many mistakes. Remember, never be afraid of committing errors and mistakes; otherwise you will be paralyzed because of the fear. Go on committing mistakes and errors. Remember only one thing: don’t commit the same mistake again. Once is enough. Invent new mistakes, discover new errors. Don’t go on falling in the same ditch, find new ditches. By committing mistakes, by going astray, you grow. That’s the only way to grow.Life is dangerous; death is very cozy, very comfortable. Lying down in your grave, what danger is there? There is no problem, no anxiety. You can’t go bankrupt, your wife cannot leave you, you cannot die anymore. You are so safe in death. Life is not safe, anything is possible. Life is full of accidents. Some madman may cut off your head!I have heard…A great psychoanalyst was reading, sitting in his garden underneath a tree, and his only daughter, just eight, nine years old was playing with one of her friends on the lawn. Suddenly she hit her friend on the head with a stick so hard that blood started coming out of her head. The psychoanalyst rushed over, but before he could say anything his daughter turned toward him and demanded, “Daddy, tell me why I did this!”She must have been hearing again and again that her father finds reasons for every act, unconscious reasons and this and that, so now she asks, “Now tell me why I have done this.”Life can do anything and you cannot even ask why: you have to accept it. There is nobody to answer; hence the fear. You say, “I am more afraid of living than of dying.”Everybody is more afraid of living; that’s why people are dead. People die about the age of thirty. Of course, they are not put into their graves at that time; they go to their graves about seventy, eighty. The fifty years between their death and their entry into the grave are just a drag. It is a miracle to see dead people walking, talking, doing all kinds of things. It certainly is a miracle.Love life. That’s why to me life is the only religion, the only God. Live life in its totality. The beauty is that if you live life in its totality there is no death. The body is bound to die one day, but you are not the body. If you have lived your life totally, if you have loved your life totally, you will have come across the eternal in you. That is the meeting with God. That is the encounter with truth that transcends time. And to know it is to know bliss; to know it is to know all that is worth knowing.The third question:Osho,Do you call this place a pub? A pub! I have been hanging around this pub for two years and I still can't get the right beer!Perce walked in to where the Last Supper was being held, sat down at the table and said to the waiter, “Give me a scotch and soda!”“I am sorry, sir,” said the waiter, “all we are serving is wine.”“Okay, give me a nice steak with a baked potato and salad.”“Sorry, but all we are serving is bread.”“Holy mackerel! Only bread and wine! The guy who is giving this party ought to be crucified!”Niranjan, please don’t crucify me. This is not the Last Supper. And if you cannot find the right beer, the reason is because you are not the right person. You are so full of beer already, how can you find the right beer? How can you manage to know what is right and what is wrong? I don’t think that in Niranjan’s veins there is blood, but just beer. Go to the Medical Center and be examined. You can’t have blood in your veins: you are really full of beer.If some cannibals ever find you they will dance with joy. They will have found the right beer. And they are not going to kill you or cook you, they will sip you.Michael picked up a blonde at a bar and after quite a few drinks they went to a hotel room and made love. In the middle of the night Michael woke up to go to the bathroom and noticed that the woman had taken off a wooden leg and laid it by the bed.As the girl slept Michael began fiddling with its springs and braces and finally found he had taken the wooden leg apart and could not put it back together again.He went out into the hall and stopped a man perfumed with booze, saying, “Can you help me? I’ve got a woman in my room with one leg apart and I can’t seem to get it back together.”“Hell!” said the drunk, “I got a woman in my room with both legs apart and I can’t even find the goddamn room!”The fourth question:Osho,Does the seeker have to suffer inevitably on the way?It all depends. Growth in itself has no suffering in it; suffering comes from your resistance toward growth. Suffering is created by you because you resist continuously, you don’t allow it to happen. You are afraid to go totally with it. You go only halfheartedly; hence the suffering, because you become divided, you become split. A part of you cooperates and a part of you is against it, resists it. This conflict inside you creates suffering.So drop the idea that you have to suffer if you are to grow. Many people have that idea, and it is sheer nonsense. If you cooperate totally there is no suffering at all. If you are in a let-go, instead of suffering you will rejoice. Every moment of it will be a moment of bliss and benediction.So don’t throw the responsibility on growth. Our mind is very tricky and cunning: it always throws the responsibility on somebody, on something; it never takes the responsibility on itself. You are the cause of your suffering.Remember these three things: the first is to drop the past if you want to grow, because it is from the past that resistance arises. You are always judging from the past. The past is no more, it is absolutely irrelevant, but it goes on interfering. You go on judging according to it; you go on saying, “This is right and that is wrong.” And all those ideas of right and wrong, all those judgments are coming from something which is dead. Your dead past remains so heavy on you that it does not allow you to move.Drop the past completely and you will be surprised: much of the suffering has disappeared.The second thing to remember is: don’t create expectations for the future. If you are expecting, then again you will create suffering because things are not going to happen according to you; things are going to happen according to the whole. The wave, the small wave in the ocean, cannot be the deciding factor. The ocean decides; the wave has to be in a state of let-go. If the wave wants to go to the east, then there is going to be trouble, then there is going to be pain. If the winds are not going to the east, if the ocean is not willing, then what is the wave going to do? It will suffer. It will call it fate, it will call it circumstances, social conditions, the economic structure, the capitalist society, the bourgeois culture, the Freudian unconscious, and now you will call it growing pains. But you are simply shifting the responsibility.The real thing is that you are suffering from your expectations. When they are not fulfilled, frustration arises, failure arises, and you feel neglected, as if existence does not care for you – and they are never going to be fulfilled.Drop expectations for the future. Remain open, remain available to whatsoever happens, but don’t plan ahead. Don’t make any psychological, fixed ideas about the future – “Things should be like this” – and much more suffering will disappear. These two are the root causes of suffering.And the third is: the Human Potential Movement lacks something essential. It tries to help you to grow, but it has not yet been able to create a meditative space in you. So there is constant struggle, effort, will, but no relaxation, no rest. Hence the third thing to be remembered – and all suffering will disappear – is to create meditative energy, create a meditative space within you. Western methods lack that something which is very essential.That’s why here in my commune the effort is to use all the Western methods side by side with all the Eastern methods. This may be the only place in the whole world today where East and West are really meeting, and not meeting in a diplomatic way as they meet in the UN. Here they are really merging, not politically, not diplomatically, because a diplomatic meeting is not a meeting, it is only a facade, it is pseudo. It is a love meeting that is happening here. For the first time East and West are in a love affair.A few very important methods have grown out of the West: gestalt, encounter, primal, bio-energetics and many more. The East has also grown many methods: zazen, vipassana, Sufi whirling, Yoga, Tantra. Their approaches are different, so different that each is only half of one whole; hence each lacks something. The Eastern methods can create a meditative space, but they make you so introverted that you start escaping from life; all Eastern methods have proved escapist in the past. You want to go to a monastery, you want to go to the Himalayas, you want to go to a cave somewhere and live alone. They teach you how to be alone, joyously alone, but then something is missed.Life is also relationship, life is also togetherness, life is also communion. It is beautiful to be blissful when you are alone, but that is only half the story; you should be blissful also when you are together with someone. And when you are blissful with someone, the bliss reaches a higher peak. When you are alone you are like a solo flute player; when you are blissful together in relationship, the music is more like an orchestra.The West has created methods which give you more impetus to be extroverts. They allow you methods, skills to relate, and to enjoy relationships. They are love methods, but something is missing. You enjoy relationships, but whenever you are alone you are restless. And essentially you are alone. You are born alone and you will die alone, and at the deepest core of your being you are always alone. So on the surface you remain happy, but deep down a subtle current of misery continues. You cannot encounter yourself, you cannot face yourself, you cannot meet yourself.The West has failed because all that it has developed is extroversion; the East has failed because all that it has developed is introversion. And man is neither extrovert nor introvert.I would like it to be on record that Carl Gustav Jung’s typology is absolutely wrong. Man cannot be divided so easily into the categories of extrovert and introvert because man is a totality, a wholeness. He has an inside and he has an outside, and both have to be nourished and both have to be fulfilled.So if you are only following Western methods you will be going through much pain because you will not be able to create a meditative space through them. If you are following only Eastern methods you will be able to create a meditative space, but you will become absolutely useless in the world, and you will miss the enrichment that comes with communion with other human beings.My effort here is to create the first synthesis between extroversion and introversion and help man to become so capable of both, together, simultaneously, so easily able to move from extroversion to introversion and from introversion to extroversion, that there is no need to divide man into such categories. Man can become fluid.It is as simple as when you come out of your house: you don’t think that you are becoming extrovert coming out of your house. When you feel it is cold inside and outside there are no clouds and it is so sunny, you come out, but you don’t think at all. You don’t decide, “Now I want to be an extrovert.” Or when the sun becomes too hot and you start feeling the heat, you don’t make a deliberate decision, “I should go in. Now I want to be an introvert.” No, when the sun is too hot you simply move in. When it is cold inside you come out. Coming out of your house or going into the house is not a problem at all because you are free from the inner and the outer.My effort here is to help you to be free from the inner and the outer, because you are neither the inner nor the outer, you are something transcendental to both. The inner and the outer are just parts of your personality; it is the house in which you live which has an outside and an inside. But your awareness has no inside and no outside.So these three things are to be remembered: drop the past, drop future expectations, and third, create a synthesis between extroversion and introversion. Then all misery disappears.It is not inevitable for a spiritual seeker to suffer. You suffer because you are not aware of your own responsibility. It is not because of growth that you suffer. You suffer because you are unconscious of your resistance, of your past-orientation, of your future expectations, and you are unaware that you don’t have any meditative space within you.The fifth question:Osho,Is it possible to miss the perfect jewel? Is it possible?It depends how conscious you are. If you are conscious it is impossible to miss. If you really know the perfect jewel, if you recognize it, if it is your own vision, your own understanding, it is impossible to miss it. But it may not be so. You may have heard others say, “This is a perfect jewel”; it may be a borrowed understanding. Then it is not only possible to miss it, it is absolutely inevitable that you will miss it, it is impossible not to miss it.If you come across a buddha and you pay your respects just because others are paying their respects, because others are saying, “He is a buddha, he is enlightened, he is awakened,” you will miss. But if you have even a glimpse of your own into the being of the buddha, just a little taste of his milieu, just a small experience of his perfume, that’s enough; it is impossible to miss. Then no force in the world can distract you. But it has to be your own experience. And we are so unconscious that nothing seems to be our own experience.People say that Jesus is Christ, so you believe it. But the people who crucified him could not see anything in him; otherwise, do you think it would have been possible for them to crucify a man like Jesus? They crucified him so easily. No problem was felt; their conscience was not disturbed. They did it just as they used to kill criminals every year. The day they crucified Jesus, they also crucified two thieves. They treated all three persons in the same way; in fact, they treated the thieves in a far more human way because the thieves were more like them.Thousands of people had gathered to see. Nobody was crying, nobody was weeping, nobody had any pain in the heart. Even Jesus’ own disciples had escaped, fearing that they may be caught.When the people had gone – when the show was over – and Jesus was almost dead on the cross, three soldiers were there just playing cards. They were on duty so nobody could steal the dead body of Jesus. So just sitting underneath the cross they were playing cards.You ask, “Is it possible to miss the perfect jewel?” Those three soldiers were just people like you. Of course, now you will think, “Those soldiers must have been utterly stupid, great sinners, unconscious, not knowing what they were doing. We could not have done it.” – because now you have heard for two thousand years continuous propaganda that Jesus was Christ. But the Jews still don’t think that he was Christ; they still think that he was a charlatan, that he was a deceiver, that he was a false messiah. Two thousand years’ continuous propaganda has not helped at all; they have kept on clinging to their idea.Do you think you would have recognized Buddha? Now, of course – because now twenty-five centuries have passed and Buddha has become bigger and bigger, so huge; he looms large on the horizon like a beautiful sunrise – you cannot believe that people could have missed him. But they did miss him. Even his own father could not recognize that he was enlightened; even his own wife could not recognize that he was enlightened. There were only a few people who had the courage to recognize him – because to recognize a buddha means you have to change your life-style, to recognize him means you can’t remain the same anymore. To recognize a buddha as a buddha means you are waking up.The big cafeteria was crowded. A long line of people carrying trays was slowly moving along the counter when someone shouted, “Fire! McGinty’s house is on fire!”Came the crash of a tray of dishes as an Italian near the front of the line made a mad dash out of the restaurant, around the corner, and up the side street, bumping into people and knocking several of them down as he worked his way homeward.Then, just as suddenly, after he had narrowly escaped death several times, the man stopped short, clapped his hand to his head and moaned, “Hey, what am I doing? My name ain’t McGinty!”People are living in such unconsciousness. What to say about recognizing a buddha? – you don’t even know who you are!It is possible to miss the perfect jewel if you are not aware. But if you are aware then it is impossible. It all depends on your awareness.The sixth question:Osho,Did God really make the world, and in just six days?Looking at the world, one thing is certain: it has been made in a hurry. Whoever made it, it is in such a mess that it must have been made in six days. Whether God made it or not I cannot say, because looking at the world it seems more like a creation of the Devil than of God.Man is so destructive, so violent, so mad, that it is very improbable that God made this kind of mind. Either the Devil made it, or it was only the first time that God was making it so he made many mistakes. And he became so afraid of his own creation that he has not tried again. It seems he has escaped. Seeing what he has done he must have become frightened.The story is that he made trees and mountains and rivers and animals. On the sixth day he made man and since then he has not made anything. It seems man brought him to his senses: “What are you doing?” He simply stopped absolutely.But why do such questions bother you? It is none of your business. One thing is certain: you have not made it, so why should you be worried? You are not responsible, I am not responsible either – I have not made it. So why should we waste our time with it? There are many crazy people who have nothing else to do, so leave it for them to think about. These are great subjects; one can go on thinking about them for ever and ever, they are unending. That’s why philosophy begins but never ends, theology begins but never ends. They go in circles. Each answer brings more questions than it answers.If I say, “Yes, God made it,” then immediately many questions will arise: Why did he make it in the first place? Why did he not ask us whether we wanted to be made or not? This seems to be such a dictatorial act, not democratic at all, people are being made without even asking them. And why did he make this kind of world when he is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient? He must have seen what was going to happen, he must have seen the future. He must have seen that there would be Genghis Khan and Tamerlane and Adolf Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo; he must have seen all these people. He must have seen that man would fight thousands of wars. He must have seen that sooner or later man would discover atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs and death rays and whatnot. Then why did he create this world? Is he a sadist? Is he enjoying all this misery? Millions of people live in misery, and what does he do? Can’t he come and help?In the Shrimad Bhagavadgita, Krishna declares: “I will come whenever there is too much misery.” Is it not enough now, the misery that man is living in? When is he going to come? And what did he do when he really came? He didn’t help anybody. In fact, in his days the greatest war in India was fought. If we believe the scriptures, so many people died in that war, that the whole of India could not have contained so many people. Even now the whole world contains only three times as many. It must have been some war. Today it would have been one person out of three; in those days, five thousand years ago, the population was not so large. It could have been the end of the whole of humanity. What kind of help was that?And God comes as Jesus: he sends his “only begotten Son” to save humanity. Nobody seems to have been saved. Jesus could not even save himself from crucifixion. The savior was crucified by those for whom he had come; he had come to save them.Thousands of questions will arise. Leave these questions to mad people.Two inmates of a Michigan mental institution were chatting in the recreation room. The first loony said, “Don’t talk to me, I am Napoleon!”“What do you mean, you are Napoleon?” asked the second nut.“I told you not to speak to me. I am Napoleon.”“How do you know you are Napoleon?”“God told me I am Napoleon.”A little voice from the corner piped, “I did not!”Leave such theological problems to nuts!Some visitors to an insane asylum were being shown around by a guard.“You see that man over there?” said the guard. “He thinks he is the Lord.”One of the visitors approached the lunatic and asked, “Did you really make the earth in seven days?”The nut sneered at him, “I’m not in the mood to talk shop!”These are not really religious questions, although religious people have been talking about these questions for centuries because religion has been dominated by lunatics for centuries.The really religious questions are concerned with you, with your unconsciousness and how to transform your unconsciousness into consciousness. Real religion is not metaphysical; it is rooted in psychology, it is psychological, because real religion means a way to transcend the mind. Unless you understand the mind you cannot transcend it.The seventh question:Osho,“Hold your mouth,” you said.Difficult! Almost impossible for an Italian. My approach to the bodhisattvahood in these days is contained in this little story that has been haunting me for months:There is this little man (anyone) that I meet in a street (anywhere) and he looks very miserable, like all the little men everywhere. And seeing me after a long time, he says, “Hey, you look great!”“Hmm,” I reply, “I would like to say the same thing about you, but you look so sad!”“Well, you know how my life is. I feel so miserable. But what about you? How come you look so radiant?”“Well,” I say to him with a smile, “I have found a master.”“Ah!” he looks at me sadly, “and why didn't you tell me?”So please, you and the other guy, Buddha, don't tell me to hold my mouth. I can't bear this little man knocking even when I am dancing, and asking, “Why didn't you tell me?”Sarjano, now you have told him, what happened? The little man has not come to me yet. Just your telling him is not going to make any difference; he will simply think that you are crazy.The miserable people think that if you are looking blissful you are mad. They can’t believe that anybody can be blissful; that is beyond their grasp. Their whole life is such a misery, how can they believe there is any possibility of being blissful? You must be mad. If you tell them that you have found a master they may not say anything to your face, but behind your back they will laugh at you; they will think something has gone wrong. They are not going to believe you. How can one become blissful by finding a master? They can’t see any relatedness between their problems and finding a master. If their wives are nagging them to death, how is finding a master going to change it? Now the master will nag you more. If they are suffering from nightmares – and everybody is suffering from nightmares, day in, day out – how is finding a master going to help? They can’t make any sense out of the statement.I can understand your difficulty, Sarjano. It is very difficult to keep silent when you know the answer, but part of being a bodhisattva is to learn the art of being silent. Let them ask again and again. Let them feel that your bliss is not just something crazy, that your bliss is something real, authentic. Let them feel it of their own accord. Let them come and knock at your doors again and again.Only in a right moment, when you see that they can understand, when you feel that their hearts are open, when you see a real thirst, a longing in them, when a search has arisen in them, only then tell them; otherwise you will simply be wasting your breath. And if you go on telling everybody and nobody listens, sooner or later you will feel very tired of the whole thing.Buddha is right – that guy is almost always right. Of course, he was not talking to Italians! That was not his problem, that is my problem. But I know how to manage it.Truth insists that it should be spoken, although it cannot be spoken – that is the paradox – but it insists that it should be spoken.When you know and you see that others can be helped, it is impossible to resist the temptation to tell them, but that is part of being a bodhisattva.Somebody else has asked: “Osho, you say fifty percent of enlightened people become arhats and fifty percent become bodhisattvas. Still you say again and again that there are many mystics but very few masters. Isn’t there a contradiction in it?” There is no contradiction in it. Yes, apparently there is, but only apparently. Not all bodhisattvas are masters. The bodhisattva is one who tries to help others; the master is one who succeeds in helping others. Just trying does not mean that you will succeed. Many try, very few succeed. Whosoever attains truth is bound to have the temptation to tell it. If he is not by nature an arhat then he will try to tell it to each and everybody, and he will be thought just crazy. Communication is a difficult art, and communicating the ultimate truth is the most difficult phenomenon in the world. A master is one who waits for the right time.Many people have asked me why I kept silent although I became enlightened in 1953. For almost twenty years I never said anything about it to anybody, unless somebody suspected it himself, unless somebody said to me on his own, “We feel that something has happened to you. We don’t know what it is, but one thing is certain: that something has happened and you are no longer the same as we are, and you are hiding it.”In those twenty years not more than ten people asked me, and even then I avoided them as much as I could unless I felt that their desire was genuine. And I told them only when they had promised to keep it a secret. And they all fulfilled the promise. Now they are all sannyasins, but they all fulfilled it, they kept it a secret. I said, “Wait. Wait for the right moment. Only then will I declare it.”I have learned much from the past buddhas. If Jesus had kept a little quieter about being the son of God it would have been far more beneficial to humanity. I had made it a point that until I stopped traveling in the country I was not going to declare it; otherwise I would have been killed – you would not be here.Once I had finished with traveling, mixing with the masses, moving from one town to another… For twenty years continuously I was moving, and there was not a single bodyguard. Shiva and his samurai had not yet arrived, and I was in constant danger. Stones were being thrown at me, shoes were being thrown at me.I would reach a town after traveling for twenty-four hours in a train, and the crowd wouldn’t allow me to get down at the station; they would force me to go back. A fight would ensue between those who wanted me to get down from the train and those who did not want me to get down, in their town at least.If I had declared it I would have been killed very easily. There would have been no problem in it; it would have been so simple. But for twenty years I kept absolutely silent about it. I declared it only when I saw that now I had gathered enough people who could understand it. I had gathered enough people who were mine, who belonged to me. I declared it only when I knew that now I could create my own small world and I was no longer concerned with the crowds and the masses and the stupid mob.Sarjano, there is a difficulty. I can understand your difficulty. But please keep your big mouth shut – Italian or not Italian. Otherwise you will simply be thought crazy. And if you cannot keep your mouth shut, then I will declare, “He is crazy!” Then nobody will listen to you. Then you can go on saying to these little men, “I have found the master,” but they will say, “The master says you are crazy!”The last question:Osho,Why is everything topsy-turvy here?It must be because of the Italians! One has to find some reason…The Italian died and went to the Pearly Gates where he was greeted by Saint Peter and his impressive Golden Book. After staring intently at the new applicant’s sallow face, weak chin and shifty eyes, Saint Peter declared in thunderous tones, “I trust you are not Italian?”Saint Peter’s voice became stentorian, “Are you Italian?”The Italian’s reply was meek, “No, sir, I am Puerto Rican.”Saint Peter smiled. “Pass, friend,” he said, “Come in.”Even Saint Peter is afraid!And then there was one Italian chick who was so ugly that when she came into a room all the mice jumped up on the chairs.Can anyone doubt that New York is a great city?The Jews own it, the Irish run it, and the Italians after fifty years are still wondering what happened.How did Columbus happen to discover America?He was trying to get away from Italy.What did God say when he made the first Italian?“Shit! I fucked up again!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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You have no name and no form.Why miss what you do not have?The seeker is not sorry.Love and joyfullyfollow the way,the quiet way to the happy country.Seeker!Empty the boat,lighten the load,passion and desire and hatred.And sail swiftly.There are five at the doorto turn away, and five more,and there are five to welcome in.And when five have been leftstranded on the shore,the seeker is called oghatinnoti –“He who has crossed over.”A new inmate checked into a California asylum. He seemed quite happy; in fact, he was laughing uproariously. “Nearest kin?” asked the examining physician.“Twin brother,” responded the fellow. “We were identical twins. Couldn’t tell us apart. In school he would throw a spitball and the teacher would blame me. Once he was arrested for speeding and the judge fined me. I had a girl, he ran off with her.”“Then why are you laughing?”“Because I got even with him last week.”“What happened?”“I died and they buried him.”Man is mad. Madness is not a disease, it is the normal condition of mankind. Yes, people differ in degrees, but that is not much of a difference. Man as he exists on the earth is insane.The effort of all the buddhas is to bring sanity to you, to dispel your madness. But because everybody is mad, just like you, you remain oblivious of your madness your whole life. Unless you come across a buddha you will never be aware of the fact that you are mad. The buddha becomes a mirror: he reflects your reality, he shows you your face as it is in its utter distortion. It is not the way you are meant to be. Something has gone fundamentally wrong, something very basic is missing.Man is born in such a state of unconsciousness that whatsoever he does brings more and more misery to him and to others. He blames fate, he blames nature, he blames society, but he always blames others, he never accepts blame himself. The moment you gather courage enough to blame yourself, the moment you accept the responsibility of whatsoever you are, a ray of light enters into your being. You are on the path of inner transformation.These sutras are for the bodhisattvas. Now Buddha is talking to those disciples who are going to become helpers to mankind, who are ready to go into the world and to help people who are drowning in their own insanity. He says to his bodhisattvas, “These are the basic things you have to start your teaching with.”The first thing he says to tell the people:You have no name and no form.That is where millions are stuck. People live and die for name and fame. It seems their life purpose is to have a name known to the whole world, a name which is going to be written in golden letters in history, a name which will go on resounding down the corridors of time for ever and ever.The whole thing is so stupid, so ridiculous, because you don’t have any name in the first place. You are born nameless, you are nameless. All names are arbitrary. Don’t sacrifice your life for a name. Don’t sacrifice the real for something unreal. We are sacrificing something true for something which is untrue and cannot be made true.When a child is born, you know he does not bring a name with him; he is born nameless. But of course a name is needed; it has a certain utility but no reality. It is arbitrary. You can call him anything, any name will do – X, Y, Z will do. In a more scientific age there is every possibility that we will drop these old names. Somebody will be O-11, somebody will be X-13. Names are going to be more mathematical one day because they will be more precise. And there is no need for two people to have the same name; computers can decide. The computer can say that this is a new name, nobody else has it anywhere in the world. Right now so many people have the same name; it is bound to happen. It is not very scientific, but it works.Buddha wants his bodhisattvas to tell the people the first thing: “You are nameless.” So don’t be worried about your name or your fame. You are also formless: your innermost being has no form. Your body has a form, but your body goes on changing; every day it changes. Within seven years your body is completely new, entirely new. Not even a single cell of the old exists in it, everything goes on changing.If you come across the first sperm of your father that started your life, will you be able to recognize it as yourself? Impossible. Will you be able to recognize your mother’s egg as yourself? Impossible. That was your form one day, but you were not it. And then in nine months’ time in the mother’s womb you passed through many forms.The scientists say that each child passes quickly, very speedily, through the whole evolution of humanity. From the fish to the monkey to the man, he passes through all the phases – of course in very quick succession because he has to fulfill the whole evolution in nine months. That’s why a premature child is a little retarded, because he has not yet completely evolved; he has not been able to complete the whole cycle of evolution. Every child begins as a fish in the mother’s womb. Will you be able to recognize that fish as you? But once that was your form. Will you be able to recognize your face the day you were born? If a picture is shown to you it will be impossible for anybody to recognize, “This is me.” Right now you have a certain form; that form will also go down the drain in the same way. Every moment it is changing.But there is something eternal in you: your consciousness, your being, your awareness. You can call it your soul, whatsoever you want to call it; names don’t matter. But one thing is certain: that you don’t have any particular form; you pass through many forms. You can pass through many forms only because you don’t have any form, so don’t become attached to any form. Don’t become attached to any name and don’t become attached to any form.This is the beginning of sannyas. This is the beginning of initiation into the path.In fact, you don’t have any father, you don’t have any mother; you can’t have. The father fathered your body and the mother mothered your body; they both contributed to your body, to your form, but not to your essential core. Your body is accidental. You have been in many bodies before, thousands of bodies. You have passed through, you have lived in many, many houses, and when you were living in a certain house you became identified with it.Hence the pain of death. It is not because of death, remember; it is just because of your identification with the body, with the form. If you understand the message of Buddha, there is no pain in death. If you are not identified with any name or form there is nobody who is born and there is nobody who is dying.In fact, that should be the real meaning of Jesus’ virgin birth. Everybody is born in the same way. It is not only that you don’t have a father, you don’t have a mother either. The day you discover your original being you will know that you pass through the mother and the father, you come through them, but you are not created by them.A snoopy social worker investigating conditions in an old tenement stopped a ragged, neglected-looking youngster and asked him where his mother lived.“Ain’t got no mother,” replied the child.“What about your father, then?”“Ain’t got none, lady.”“What, both your father and your mother dead!” exclaimed the social worker.“Nope, never had any.”“Good grief, but that’s impossible, my boy!”“If you’ve gotta know, lady,” said the urchin contemptuously, “some damned racketeer played a dirty trick on my aunt.”In fact, nobody has a father or a mother – and no dirty racketeer has played any trick on your aunt either. You are eternal beings: you are never born and you never die. Death and birth are episodes in the long journey, in the eternal journey of your life. Life does not begin with birth and does not end with death.But this is possible to know only if you become a little detached from the form with which you have become so much attached. You are not man and you are not woman either; your body is male or your body is female. You are not man, you are not animal, you are not vegetable. These are all forms, accidental forms, just circumferences, not the centers of your being. The centers of your being are totally different from the circumferences, and we have become so attached to the circumferences that we have completely forgotten the centers.This is the basic and fundamental cause of our insanity. A man who does not know his center is insane.Buddha says tell the people:You have no name and no form.Why miss what you do not have?How much people suffer if they are not famous, if they are not well-known. To be anonymous feels so humiliating. If nobody knows you, you feel as if you are no longer alive. The more people know you, the more alive you feel. If the whole world knows you, your ego is puffed up to the extreme, it is bursting.That’s why people are so interested in politics, because that is the easiest way to become world-famous. You don’t need to be very intelligent to be a politician; in fact, if you are very intelligent you cannot be a politician. You need a certain stupidity, in good quantity, to be a politician. You need to be stubborn, you need to be violent, you need to be so utterly mediocre that you can’t see what you are doing, you can’t see how you are wasting your life, and you go on and on wasting it. You have to be utterly blind, you have to be very gross. Politics has great appeal because it can give you both a great name and great fame; it can make you a world figure.I have heard…A pope and a politician both showed up in heaven one day. Saint Peter greeted them and led the pope to the quarters where he would be spending eternity. Upon opening the door, the pope found a small, plainly furnished room with but one window. When he looked out he noticed the politician being shown to the luxury apartments across the way which were equipped with hot tubs, saunas, swimming pools, tennis courts and the like.Filled with righteous indignation, he turned to Saint Peter and protested vehemently, “I am a pope! Why is this politician being treated like this while I get almost nothing?”“Well,” replied Saint Peter, “we have over two hundred popes up here, but this is the first time we’ve seen a politician!”But here on the earth the politicians make much fuss. Politics has become the center of life; your newspapers are full of it, your radio programs are full of it. Everything seems to be colored by politics for the simple reason that these people have something which you are all hankering for – they have name and fame.But Buddha says: Why miss what you do not have? And, in fact, why miss that which you do not have and can never have? To believe that you are famous is to live in a fool’s paradise. To believe that your name is going to be written in history, and even if your name is going to be written in history… You can make so much nuisance that they will have to write it down in history. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong, of course their names will remain in history, but not in golden letters. History is not written in golden letters at all, and their names will be only in some footnotes. And even if they are there, what does it matter? Your whole history is bunk. It is less history and more hysteria. Of course, if you are very hysterical you will become historical. But what is the point of it all? You would have missed a great opportunity.The real man does not care about name and fame. The authentic man lives his life irrespective of name and fame; he does not care a bit whether anybody knows him or not.The seeker is not sorry.Buddha says: “Teach people that the search for truth should not be a sad search.” This is one of the things which has been very misunderstood. Somehow the sad people have dominated the whole religious scene down the ages. Only once in a while do you find a Buddha or a Jesus or a Zarathustra who talks about joy, who talks about living in bliss. Only once in a while do you find a Krishna, who not only teaches dance but dances himself, who not only teaches singing but sings himself. Otherwise the scene is dominated by pathological people, either by masochists or by sadists.Ninety-nine percent of so-called religious people are ill, seriously ill people. They have gone into religion because they have failed in life, they have gone into religion because they could not cope with life. It is an escape, and the escapist can never be happy.Christians say that Jesus never laughed. Now, there cannot be a greater lie than that. Jesus, and never laughed? Then who will be able to laugh? Then nobody will be able to laugh at all. The whole life of Jesus proves that he must have been a man of very joyous nature. He must have been really spiritual – in the sense the French use the word spirituel. In French this word spirituel means both “spiritual” and “humorous.” There seems to be a great insight in it, the same word meaning both. He must have laughed with his companions. It is well known that he used to enjoy eating and drinking, and when a man enjoys eating and drinking it is difficult to think of him never laughing. People who enjoy eating and drinking, people who enjoy parties, also enjoy dancing and singing and joking. He must have laughed, he must have joked. One cannot believe that twenty-four hours a day he was delivering only gospels; he must have gossiped.But the people who are sad would like him also to be sad. All the figures, statues, paintings of Jesus seem to be false. And they have been changing down the ages. In the earliest pictures he was shown without a beard and mustache. After two centuries, suddenly the beard and the mustache appeared, because without a beard and a mustache he did not look like a prophet; he looked too young, not mature enough. A face without a beard and without a mustache looks a little boyish so suddenly the beard appeared.In the East just the opposite has been the case. Buddha is never painted with a beard, neither is Krishna or Mahavira, neither is Rama or Patanjali, nobody. Why? – because the Eastern idea is that these people were so young, spiritually young, that it is better to let them appear young from the outside too. The outside should represent the inside.Buddha became very old, he died when he was eighty-two, but still he is never depicted as having a beard. Jesus died when he was only thirty-three, but the beard appeared after two centuries. Still his face was not sad. After two centuries even that face changed. He became more and more sad, as if he were carrying the whole burden of the earth. Now they have changed him into the savior; he is carrying the cross. He has come to deliver you from your sufferings, he is taking your sufferings on himself. They have falsified this beautiful man who used to enjoy the company of very ordinary people – carpenters, laborers, gardeners, fishermen, gamblers, prostitutes, drunkards, tax collectors, every kind of people – even tax collectors. They are making him more and more abstract; he is losing his earthliness. He is becoming more and more a concept rather than a real human being; he is losing his humanity. He is no longer the son of man, he is becoming only the son of God.These are the sad people who are projecting their sadness on him. They say he never laughed – I can’t believe it. I can believe a far more impossible thing…The followers of Zarathustra say that he laughed the very moment he was born. I can believe that, that he was born laughing. It looks absolutely impossible – no child is ever born laughing – but it has something beautiful about it. Zarathustra getting out of the womb, laughing, appeals to me more. Such a joyous spirit. That’s why Zarathustra could not become a world religion. The followers of Zarathustra are confined just to Mumbai. And they are good people, not religious in the ordinary sense, not at all.Nobody thinks that Parsis are religious; in India nobody thinks them religious. They enjoy eating, they enjoy beautiful clothes, they enjoy the beautiful things of life, they enjoy beautiful houses, they enjoy everything. And we have the idea of religion as renunciation.I can believe Zarathustra coming into the world laughing, but I cannot believe Jesus never laughing because to me sadness can never become the source for the search – although millions of people go in search of God just because they are sad. You remember God only when you are unhappy, miserable; when you are in deep anguish then you remember God, otherwise who cares?But let me tell you: if you remember God only when you are miserable, your remembrance is not worth anything. It is almost a complaint; it is not a prayer, it cannot be. You cannot be grateful for being miserable, and prayer needs to be essentially gratitude.Buddha says: The seeker is not sorry. He is telling his bodhisattvas: “Go to the people and tell them that if you don’t drop being sorry you can never become a real seeker.” Seek God out of happiness, seek God out of joy, seek God because this call of the cuckoo is so beautiful, because the songs of the birds are so joyous, because the flowers are so ecstatic, because life is such a blessing. Look at the blessing that life is and then go for the source of it. From where are all these songs and all these flowers and all these stars born? What is the cause of it all, of this mysterious existence?Don’t go in search because you are sad, miserable, a failure. If you go with failure in your heart you will be simply repressing your sadness. You may start smiling, but that smile will be only a painted smile. You can see the priests smiling, but that smile is not true, it can’t be true. They have never loved life enough for their smile to be true, they have never lived life enough for their smile to be true. They are escapists, they are afraid of life, and the people who are afraid of life will have a wrong search from the very beginning. But this misunderstanding has happened and this misunderstanding has to be dispelled.A policeman patrolling lovers’ lane late at night shines his flashlight in the window of a car and sees a couple making love. He taps on the window and says, “I am next!” In ten minutes he comes by again and the couple is still making love, so he taps on the window again and says, “I am next!”In twenty minutes he comes by again and the couple is still making love. Again he taps on the window and says, “I am next. What’s taking you so long anyway?”The man looks up and says, “Man, I’m really nervous. I’ve never screwed a cop before!”Misunderstandings and misunderstandings…Buddhas have been misunderstood so much that whatsoever you think about Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, be very cautious – ninety-nine percent of it is going to be a misunderstanding. If you ask me, “Who are Christians?” I say “The people who have misunderstood Christ.” If you ask me, “Who are Buddhists?” I will say, “The people who have misunderstood Buddha.”Misunderstanding is so easy because if you want to understand a buddha you will have to rise a little higher to see what he is showing. But if you want to misunderstand you need not move anywhere; wherever you are, remain there and you can misunderstand. To misunderstand is so comfortable, so cozy. You can misunderstand without any effort; it requires no change on your part. But it will show in your life.People go to the temples, but there is no dance in their eyes. Going to the temple and no dance in your feet and no dance in your eyes – then why are you going? What is the point? Why are you wasting your time? People are praying, but there is no joy, there is no light on their faces. Then why are you wasting your time and God’s time? But one thing is good: that God is utterly deaf to all languages. He listens only to silence, he is available only to silence. So you can go on praying, nobody is listening. It is a monologue.Martin Buber says that prayer is a dialogue. I say no, unless a prayer is absolutely silent it is not a dialogue. Martin Buber says a prayer means an I–thou dialogue. If there is I, then there can be no thou; these two things can’t exist together. If there is I and thou, then the thou is only a projection and there is no dialogue at all; it is a monologue. You can believe that somebody is listening, but nobody is listening. You are simply wasting your time, your breath. Do something else, anything will be better. Even playing cards will be far better, drinking Coca-Cola will be far better.Your prayers are meaningless. You cannot hide the fact. If you move toward God or truth in sadness, in misery, in some way or other, your life will show it. Truth cannot be repressed.The Gladwells had a baby born without ears. They brought it home and their neighbors, the Petersons, were preparing to visit it. “Now, please be careful,” said Mrs. Peterson to her husband. “Don’t say anything about the baby not having any ears.”“Don’t worry,” said Peterson. “I won’t do anything to hurt their feelings.”So they went next door, up into the nursery and stood over the new baby’s crib with the Gladwells. “He’s so cute,” said Mrs. Peterson to the baby’s mother.“Yeah,” agreed Mr. Peterson. “What strong arms and legs the kid has – he’s gonna grow up to be a bruiser.”“Thanks,” said the baby’s father.“How’s the kid’s eyes?”“They’re perfect!” said Gladwell.“They’d better be – he won’t ever be able to wear glasses!”Somehow or other it is going to come up. How can you avoid it? The more you avoid, the greater is the possibility you will stumble upon it. In fact, the very effort to avoid it makes you focused on it; then you can’t see anything else.A very holy man went into an optician’s one day to order a new pair of spectacles. Behind the counter was an extremely pretty girl, which reduced the customer to total confusion.“Can I help you, sir?” she asked with a ravishing smile.“Er – yes – er… I want a pair of rim-speckt hornicles… I mean I want a pair of heck-rimmed spornicles… I mean…”At which point the optician himself came to the rescue.“It’s all right, Miss Jones. What the holy man wants is a pair of rim-sporned hectacles.”Hence Buddha says the seeker has to start his journey not out of misery but out of joy. Rejoice in life. He says:Love and joyfullyfollow the way,the quiet way to the happy country.When one first comes across these words one feels a little surprised. Buddha, and saying: Love and joyfully follow the way, the quiet way to the happy country…? Yes, one is a little shocked because the Buddhist priests have been avoiding these beautiful sayings, they have been bypassing them. They have been emphasizing those words of Buddha which emphasize pessimism, and he was not a pessimist at all, he could not be. One who knows, how can he be a pessimist? It is impossible. He is not even an optimist, remember, because the optimist is connected with the pessimist; he is the other extreme.Buddha is beyond both; he is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. He simply wants you to see that which is, and that is enough to make you love life. It is enough, more than enough, to make you dance with joy, with gratitude.The way is silent, very quiet; hence Buddha has not taught any prayer, he only teaches meditation. When prayer is silent it is meditation; when meditation becomes eloquent it is prayerfulness. But first you have to learn meditation; otherwise you will move in a wrong direction. Without knowing meditation all your prayers are going to be false. You will be pouring your rubbish on God – holy rubbish, but it is all holy cow dung!First learn to be silent. And yes, out of silence some songs are born, out of silence some flowers bloom. Then offer those songs, those flowers to existence. But they will be of joy, of tremendous joy.Seeker!Empty the boat,lighten the load,passion and desire and hatred.Let me remind you again and again: Buddha is talking to his bodhisattvas, to his messengers, to his apostles, who are going to the masses. He is helping them with what to say, from where to begin. He is saying that the first thing a seeker has to fulfill, the first requirement of a true seeker, is that he should not have any belief system, that he should not have any philosophy, any ideology. If you already believe, then there is no question of seeking, inquiring. Inquiry means you start with a state of not-knowing. Hence: Seeker! Empty the boat… Empty your mind of all the baggage that you have been carrying all along. Become utterly empty. Then the same mind that has been causing you so much insanity, so much turmoil, so much anguish when empty becomes the boat for the other shore, for the further shore. Empty, it becomes a vehicle. Burdened with all kinds of thoughts, with all kinds of beliefs, scriptures, which each generation goes on handing over to the next generation… We are so much burdened that we are carrying almost Himalayas of weight on our heads; it is not possible to move with such a load. You need unlearning. You already have too much knowledge; all this knowledge has to be dropped.Empty the boat, lighten the load… When you are utterly empty, when you say, “I know nothing,” then the inquiry starts. It is fresh, it is young, it is authentic, because there is a fundamental law of life that if you are in a state of not-knowing, a great urge will arise in you to know. Just as nature abhors a vacuum and rushes to fill it, exactly in the same way if your mind is totally empty, truth rushes in and fills it.But right now there is no space. Your mind is so full, even you cannot go in. You have to live somewhere on the outside. People are living on their porches; their houses are so full of junk that they are afraid to go in. They may get lost, and there is no space either.Buddha mentions particularly three things which are making you loaded, much too loaded. The first he calls passion, the second, desire and the third, hatred.Passion means animal lust, biological, unconscious lust. Every animal has it, there is nothing special about it. If man has it he simply remains part of the animal kingdom; it is an animal heritage. You don’t really become human unless you go beyond lust. You think that it is love and you have great, romantic words to describe it and you use great poetry, but that is all rubbish. If you look deep down it is biology, it is chemistry, it is hormones and nothing else. If your hormones are changed you will not be interested in any woman anymore, or if you are a woman and your hormones are changed you will not be interested in any man anymore, and all poetry and all romance will disappear. The Don Juan simply needs a small operation and he will disappear.Buddha says the first thing that keeps your mind full of junk is lust. And it is, in a way, natural because for millions of years we have been in animal bodies; we are still carrying those imprints, we are full of animal heritage. We are ninety-nine percent animals; only one percent perhaps – that too is a perhaps – are we human beings. Just a little part of us has risen a little above.A fiery-tongued Italian priest was laying down some heavy stuff about sex and morality. Stabbing his bony finger at his Little Italy congregation, the guinea padre bellowed, “Sex is-a dirty! I want-a see only good-a girls tonight. I want-a every virgin in-a church to-a stand up.”Furious at the lack of his parishioners’ response, he repeated the exhortation.After a long pause, a sexy-looking chick with an infant in her arms got to her feet.“Virgins is what I want-a!” the outraged preacher said.“Hey, Father,” the lady asked, “you expect a two-month-old baby to stand by herself?”It is said that’s why Jesus chose to be born two thousand years before us, because now where can you find a virgin? And, moreover, where will you find three wise men? Even if you find a virgin – a two-month-old baby, okay – but three wise men? The conditions cannot be fulfilled now.People tell me again and again, “Jesus has promised he will come again.” I say to you, forget all about it, he cannot come. The conditions cannot be fulfilled. If he drops his conditions, then it is okay. But then he won’t be a Jesus, remember, he will be just another hippie, maybe a Jesus freak but not Jesus.Remember, Buddha does not want you to repress your lust, he wants you to understand, he wants you to meditate over it. He wants you to not repress it because repression has never helped. It is repression that has made this sad situation in which humanity is living. It is repression that has driven humanity mad.Buddha wants you to transform sex energy, not to repress it, because it is the only energy you have. It can be refined, it can be uplifted, it can be channeled in new directions; it can be moved toward higher planes of being. And it all happens through a simple process of meditation.The process of meditation is not complicated at all. If your mind can drop its load and if it can become absolutely empty, immediately your sex energy starts rising upward to fill the gap, as if the emptiness pulls it upward. A new law starts functioning: the law of levitation. Ordinarily we live under the law of gravitation: everything goes downward. You are so top-heavy that nothing can go toward the top; the top is already full, everything goes downward. Make the top light.In Japan they make a Daruma doll. Daruma is the Japanese name of Bodhidharma, one of Buddha’s greatest disciples, who founded Zen in China; he is the first patriarch of Zen. Bodhidharma was his Indian name, Daruma is his Japanese name. They have made a doll in his name, in his memory; for centuries the doll has been made. It is one of the most beautiful dolls; it has a great message. You throw the doll any way, it always sits back in a Buddha posture; you cannot put it upside-down. You can throw it, you can tilt it, you can do anything with it, but you cannot shake or make Daruma fall. He always sits back again in the lotus posture, as Buddha used to sit.The secret is: his top is not heavy, his bottom is heavy. He has a hollow head, an empty head; there is nothing inside. The head is so empty and the bottom is so heavy that naturally he settles back again into the Buddha posture. It is a beautiful doll. It was invented by the Zen monks for children to play with, and the children are bound to ask, “What is the secret?” And the secret is that the head is totally empty; the secret is meditation.The second thing is desire. Desire is psychological; just as lust is biological, desire is psychological. Desire means more and more, always more. Nothing satisfies, nothing fulfills; you go on running for more and more. And you know it, because many times you have achieved your target but your discontent remains the same. Again the desire arises for more, and you start running without giving it a second thought.Buddha says: “Wait, contemplate.” Where is it going to end? You are chasing an illusion. The desire for more can never be fulfilled. You can have ten thousand rupees and your mind asks for one hundred thousand; you can have one hundred thousand, the mind starts asking for more, and so on and so forth. Whatsoever you have, the distance between what you have and what the mind asks for remains the same. It is unfulfillable. It is driving people crazy. Seeing it, seeing the point of it, one drops it. Or, it would be better to say that the moment you see the futility of it, it drops of its own accord.The third thing is hatred. Hatred arises because of these first two, passion and desire. Whosoever comes in the way of your passion or in the way of your desire, whosoever becomes a hindrance, whosoever becomes a competitor, becomes your enemy. Whosoever tries to grab something that you wanted creates hatred in you. If the first two disappear, the third disappears on its own.The first two are like fire and the third is just smoke. If you are still feeling hatred for something, for somebody, then remember somewhere there is fire still. Wherever there is smoke there is fire. Hatred and anger simply show that you are still living through lust and desire, consciously or unconsciously. But your smoke shows that the fire has not been put out. Go back deep into your being and put out the fire. And it can be put out not by repressing but by understanding.Understanding is the most fundamental message of Gautama the Buddha. If it happens, you can:…sail swiftly.There are five at the doorto turn away, and five more,and there are five to welcome in.And when five have been leftstranded on the shore,the seeker is called oghatinnoti –“He who has crossed over.”These fives have to be understood. There are five at the door…The first five: Buddha says the first is selfishness, the second is doubt, the third is pseudo spirituality, the fourth is passion and the fifth is hatred. They are always standing at the door. You have to be very conscious; otherwise they will jump upon you.Even the people who think they are doing selfless service are not doing selfless service. Their service is selfish. They are hoping to gain some reward in the other world, in paradise; hence they are serving. Their service is not just out of love, their service is a bargain. It is a search for some great reward: heaven, paradise and the heavenly joys. Beware of selfishness.The second is doubt. Even people who believe are full of doubt; in fact, if you are not full of doubt there is no need to believe. Belief simply means you have covered up a doubt. You have a wound, you cover it up with a beautiful flower, but the wound remains.Third is pseudo spirituality. When people want to be spiritual it is easier to be pseudo-spiritual because it costs nothing. You can be a Christian, you can be a Hindu, you can be a Mohammedan; it is so easy, it is so formal. You go and do certain rituals in a temple and you are a Hindu, or you go to church every Sunday and you are a Christian, and it is very easy.But real spirituality is going through fire. Real spirituality is rebellion against all that is rotten, against all that is past, against all that is being forced on you by others, against all conditionings. Real spirituality is the greatest rebellion there is. It is risky, it is adventurous, it is dangerous.So beware of pseudo spirituality which is always there, available, easily available at the door.And passion… You can drop passion here, you can repress it here, but then you are asking for it somewhere else. In heaven, all the religions have provided for your passion: beautiful women are available there. Of course, because these stories have been written by men they talk only about beautiful women. Now I think some liberated woman is going to write a few scriptures; then they will manage some beautiful men, very beautiful men who always remain young, never become old, and are always nice.Your so-called mahatmas and saints have all been hoping that beautiful women are waiting; it is only a question of a few days. Just torture yourself a little more and you will get an even better woman. Just go into the scriptures of your religions and look and you will be able to see the projections, they are so clearly there.In the Hindu heaven the girls never grow older than sixteen, because in India that is thought to be the best age. So thousands of years have passed, but in heaven the same beautiful women are still hanging around at sixteen. They don’t perspire; in heaven you don’t need deodorants, you need not use perfumes, etcetera. Their bodies are made of gold. I think if right now you write the scriptures again you will not make the bodies of gold because they will be too heavy. Carrying a golden woman will give you a heart attack. A plastic one with washable, exchangeable parts will be far better. There will be just a few buttons: you push one button and the woman smiles, and you push another button and the woman goes into an orgasm, and you push another button, and so. It will just be far more scientific now. In the old days those old fools could not think of anything better than gold bodies. And if it is solid gold it is going to be really difficult.But you can see their desires. So Buddha says: “Beware! You can repress here, but you will be desiring somewhere else.” Passion is not going to leave you so easily.The last is hatred: all your saints are full of hatred – hatred for the sinners. That’s why they have created hell: heaven for themselves and hell for the sinners; heaven for themselves and hell for people who don’t follow their religion. According to Catholic priests, if you are a Catholic you will go to heaven. The Hindu has no hope. First he has to become a Catholic, then he can hope; otherwise he is bound to go to hell. Then ask the Hindus: they laugh at the whole idea. Their scriptures are far more ancient, they have a longer tradition, and a longer propaganda. They think that except for the Hindus nobody is going to heaven; and not even all the Hindus. The sudras, the untouchables, have no place in their heaven.This is hatred. This is still the same mind, the same ugly mind playing new games, but nothing has changed.There are five at the door to turn away… These are the five. Buddha says: “Turn them away.” Be watchful so they don’t catch hold of you.…and five more… These five are very visible, and there are five more which are not so visible, but they are also there hiding behind these five. Those five are: first, lust for life. It is easy to drop the lust for a woman or the lust for a man, but it is very difficult to drop the lust for life itself. Everybody wants to live and to live as long as possible.You can see that in India. Yogis are trying hard to live as long as possible. Now what is that? Why should they be so concerned about living long? And what is going to happen even if you live long?Before Bernard Shaw died he left a message to be engraved as an epitaph on his grave. The message was, “I knew all along that if I lived long enough, something like this was going to happen.”So whether you live ninety years or a hundred years or two hundred years, what is the point of it? Death is going to happen. But lust for life… Buddha says that ordinary people lust for money, power, prestige, and your so-called saints lust for life, long life. And the yogis go on pretending that they are more aged than they are.I have heard…A yogi was telling people that his age was seven hundred years, and all the Indians were nodding their heads. One Westerner was also there, a tourist, who could not believe this. The man looked to be no older than seventy, and he was saying he was seven hundred years? Impossible! He wanted to find out so he remained there.He saw a man who used to serve the old man; he bribed the young man. And it is very easy in India to bribe almost anybody. In fact, nobody feels offended by it; it is absolutely accepted. It is a way of life in India, no problem in it.And the young man was happy. He said, “What do you want?”The Westerner said, “I want to know only one thing. Is your master really seven hundred years old? – because only you can tell me; you have been with him.”He said, “Yes, I can tell you only one thing, more than that I don’t know. I have been with him for only three hundred years.”And the man was not more than thirty years old.There are books which are now being translated into all the languages of the world, saying that if you practice Yoga you will prolong your life. And if you eat this and if you eat that, and if you do this asana, this posture, your life will be prolonged, if you breathe in this way or that way, and all kinds of things.Buddha is saying this is the same lust. So the first subtle thing is lust for life.Second: longing for birth in higher realms. Even if you drop it from here – “Okay, I don’t want to live long here” – then you have a deep desire to be born on some subtle planes, some higher planes, bodiless planes. You would like to be angels. Beware of all these games.The third is vanity. The people who are virtuous are very vain, they are not humble. In fact they may have practiced humbleness for years, but their practicing of humbleness has given them only a new kind of vanity, a new kind of ego.Fourth: restlessness. These people are restless, they are not at ease herenow, they can’t be. All their hopes are somewhere else, beyond death, in heaven, in paradise. How can they be at ease herenow?A really spiritual man is absolutely at ease herenow. He has no other time; his only time is now, and his only place is here. And he is utterly at ease, at home. He does not hanker for anything.The fifth is self-ignorance. These people go on practicing Yoga, and a thousand and one methods are available. You can distort your body this way and that – you can become a good performer in a circus – but that will not help you to know who you are. And unless you know “Who am I?” all your knowledge and all your cultivated virtues and practices are simply futile, exercises in utter futility.…and there are five to welcome in. And what are those five? Faith, and remember, by faith Buddha does not mean belief; by faith he means trust, a loving trust, a trust in existence. He does not mean a trust in theories, in scriptures, in dogmas or creeds, but in existence itself, trust because this is our home, we are part of it. If we live in doubt, we live disconnected from the whole; if we live in trust, a bridge is slowly, slowly made between the part and the whole. Only with trust can one know what one is and what the whole is; and they are not different. The dewdrop contains the whole ocean; in exactly the same way, every man contains the whole of existence.Second: vigilance. One has to be very alert. Alertness is Buddha’s method; the only Yoga that he has taught is that of being alert. We are living almost mechanically, robotlike. Bring alertness to your actions, to your thoughts, to your feelings.The third is energy. We go on dissipating energy in stupid things – quarreling, arguing, for no reason at all. Preserve your energy because unless you have an overflowing energy you will not be able to take the ultimate jump. The ultimate jump means the river entering into the ocean, the river disappearing into the ocean and becoming the ocean. If you are not full of energy you will not be able to reach the ocean; you will be lost somewhere in a desert.The fourth is meditation. By “meditation” he means remaining more and more silent so slowly, slowly a shift happens from mind to no-mind, so slowly, slowly the gestalt changes from noise to silence.And the fifth: wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge. Knowledge is borrowed, wisdom is yours. Knowledge can be gathered from a library; you can contain the whole library in your mind. Still you will remain as ignorant as before; in fact, you will be far more ignorant than before because now the load is bigger. Wisdom comes from your own heart; it is the voice of our own inner being. It happens in meditation: when you are silent you start hearing the still, small voice within. That is wisdom.And when five have been left stranded on the shore… What are those five? Greed, anger, delusion, ego, false teachings. The seeker is called oghatinnoti – “He who has crossed over.”This is Buddha’s message for the seekers. He is telling his bodhisattvas to go and give it to the people who are ready, to the people who are prepared, to the people who are willing to listen, to understand, to follow the path.Meditate over these sutras – they are for you. Everything that Buddha says is very significant. It is no ordinary religion, it is pure religiousness.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,There is something that even you cannot do. You can't put an Italian in an Irish joke. It is against the dharma.It is true, I goofed again. Go on reminding me. These goddamned jokes are dangerous. And I love the Italians so much that wherever I can find a place for them I try to manage. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but you caught me.To put the record right, the joke is:Two gentlemen are sitting in a garden, one British, one Irish.The British gentleman asked the Irish, “If you were not Irish, what would you be?”The Irish says, “Of course I would be British.”And then he asks the British, “If you were not British, what would you be?”And the British said, “I would be ashamed.”But I got mixed up. That’s why I have all my jokes typed for me. That one was not typed for me. About God and about truth and about religion there is no trouble – I know them from my personal experience. But these jokes!Yes, it is against the dharma. And I hope it is not going to happen again.The second question:Osho,Why can't I see my own faults while I am immensely capable of seeing others', even their smallest ones?It is very normal. It is not something exceptional. Our eyes are focused on others; we are other-oriented. We only see the others – it is not only a question of faults – we never see ourselves. Even if we want to see ourselves we have to look in a mirror, we have to create the image. When the image is there the other has appeared. The mirror helps us to see ourselves because it creates the other. Otherwise we are absolute extroverts; we have forgotten the language of how to look in. As a consequence, you cannot see your own faults; nobody can.The moment you start seeing your faults they start dropping like dry leaves. Then nothing else has to be done; to see them is enough. Just to be aware of your faults is all that is needed. In that awareness they start disappearing, they evaporate. One can go on committing a certain error only if one remains unconscious of it. Unconsciousness is a must to go on committing the same errors. Even if you try to change, you will commit the same error in some other form, in some other shape, and they come in all sizes and all shapes. You will exchange, you will substitute, but you cannot drop it because deep down you don’t see that it is a fault. Others may be telling you because they can see.That’s why everybody thinks himself so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous, so saintly, and nobody agrees with him. The reason is simple: you look at others, you see their reality, and about yourself you carry fictions, beautiful fictions. About yourself you are very fictitious. All that you know about yourself is more or less a myth; it has nothing to do with reality.The moment one sees one’s faults, a radical change sets in. Hence all the buddhas down the ages have been teaching only one thing: awareness. They don’t teach you character. Character is taught by priests, politicians, but not by the buddhas. Buddhas teach you consciousness, not conscience. Conscience is a trick played upon you by others. Others are telling you what is right and what is wrong; they are forcing their ideas upon you. They have forced them from your very childhood, when you were so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate, that there was a possibility of making any impression on you, any imprint on you. They have conditioned you from the very beginning. That conditioning is called conscience and that conscience dominates your whole life. Conscience is a strategy of society to enslave you.Buddhas teach consciousness. Consciousness means you are not to learn from others what is right and what is wrong; there is no need to learn from anybody. You have simply to go in; just the inward journey is enough. The deeper you go, the more consciousness is released. When you reach the center you are so full of light that darkness disappears. When you bring light into your room you don’t have to push the darkness out of the room. The presence of the light is enough because darkness is only an absence of light, as is all your insanity, and madness.But everybody can see others’ faults, so don’t be worried about it. This is the situation in which everybody is living.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 will ever need and every conceivable luxury you can imagine.”“Then what seems to be your problem?” asked the doctor.“It’s my wife,” said the man. “She thinks she’s Mrs. Weaver.”Don’t laugh at the poor man. It is nobody else but you.A man went into a tailor’s shop and saw a man hanging by one arm from the center of the ceiling.“What is he doing there?” he asked the tailor.“Oh, pay no attention,” said the tailor, “he thinks he’s a light bulb.”“Well, why don’t you tell him he’s not?” asked the startled customer.“What?” replied the tailor. “And work in the dark?”The moment you know you are mad, you are no longer mad. That’s the only criterion of sanity. The moment you know you are ignorant, you have become wise.The Oracle at Delphi declared that Socrates was the wisest man on the earth. A few people rushed to Socrates and they told him, “Be pleased, rejoice: the Oracle at Delphi has declared you the wisest man in the world.”Socrates said, “That is all nonsense. I know only one thing: that I know nothing.”The people were puzzled and confused. They went back to the temple, told the Oracle, “You say that Socrates is the wisest man in the world, but he himself denies it. On the contrary, he says he is utterly ignorant. He says he knows only one thing: that he knows nothing.”The Oracle laughed and said, “That’s why I have declared him the wisest man in the world, the most wise man in the world. That’s why – precisely because he knows that he is ignorant.”Ignorant people believe they are wise. Insane people believe they are the sanest.Yes, it happens; it is part of human nature that we go on looking to the outside. We watch everybody except ourselves. Hence we know more about others than about ourselves; we know nothing about ourselves. We are not witnesses to our own functioning of the mind, we are not watchful inside.You need a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn – that’s what meditation is all about. You have to close your eyes and start watching. In the beginning you will find only darkness and nothing else. And many people become frightened and rush out because outside there is light. Yes, there is light outside but that light is not going to enlighten you, that light is not going to help you at all. You need inner light, a light which has its source in your very being, a light which cannot be extinguished even by death, a light which is eternal. And you have it, the potential is there. You are born with it, but you are keeping it behind you; you never look at it.For centuries, for many lives, you have looked outside. It has become a mechanical habit. Even when you are asleep you are looking at dreams. Dreams mean reflections of the outside. When you close your eyes you again start daydreaming or thinking; that means again you become interested in others. This has become such a chronic habit that there are not even small intervals, small windows into your own being from where you can have a glimpse of who you are.In the beginning it is a hard struggle, it is arduous, it is difficult, but not impossible. If you are decisive, if you are committed to inner exploration, then sooner or later it happens. You just have to go on digging, you have to go on struggling with the darkness. Soon you will pass the darkness and you will enter into the realm of light. And that light is true light, far truer than the light of the sun or the moon because all the lights that are outside are temporal; they are only for the time being.Even the sun is going to die one day. Not only do small lamps exhaust their resources and die in the morning, even the sun with such an immense resource is dying every day. Sooner or later it will become a black hole; it will die and no light will come from it. Howsoever long it lives it is not eternal. The inner light is eternal; it has no beginning, no end. It is synonymous with God.I am not interested in telling you to drop your faults, to make yourself good, to improve your character – no, not at all. I am not interested in your character at all; I am interested only in your consciousness.Become more alert, more conscious. Just go deeper and deeper into yourself till you find the center of your being. You are living on the periphery, and on the periphery there is always turmoil. The deeper you go, the deeper the silence that prevails. And in those experiences of silence, light, joy, your life starts moving into a different dimension. The errors, the mistakes start disappearing.So don’t be worried about the errors and the mistakes and the faults. Be concerned about one single thing, one single phenomenon; put your total energy into one goal, and that is how to be more conscious, how to be more awakened. If you put your total energy into it, it is going to happen, it is inevitable. It is your birthright.The third question:Osho,What do you mean by calling Sarjano a bigmouth?Exactly that: a big mouth!I will tell you a fictitious story:I was going to the Himalayas; Radha was accompanying me. The train was stopped in the middle of the night in the jungle and the whole train was robbed. The robbers came to our compartment also.I told them, “Don’t disturb us. Take whatsoever you want.”So they carried away the two suitcases. I was worried about Radha, that she might get very frightened, might become concerned about her things, but I was surprised. When they left she started laughing, “Ha, ha! Ha, ha!”I said, “What is the matter, Radha? What’s-a matta?”She said, “I befooled them! I have saved your fifty-thousand-dollar diamond watch, I have saved my Rolex, I have saved my earrings, I have saved my gold and diamond ring, and all the valuables.”I said, “How did you manage?”She said, “I kept all of them in my mouth.”I said, “That makes me feel very sad.”She said, “Why?”I said, “If we had brought Sarjano with us, he would have saved the two suitcases! Next time we come to the Himalayas never forget: Sarjano has to accompany us!”The fourth question:Osho,Does it mean the same to wear a mala or a cross?It does not mean the same; they are polar opposites. The people who have become interested in the cross are pathological. They are not interested in Christ, they are interested in the cross. If they were really interested in Christ they would have also been interested in Buddha, in Lao Tzu, in Krishna, in Kabir. But they are not interested in Christ, they are interested in the cross.Hence I don’t call Christianity “Christianity,” I call it “Crossianity.” If Jesus had not been crucified, there would have been no such thing as you find all over the world in the name of Christianity. These people became interested in death; this interest is morbid. They became interested in worshipping death. Jesus is secondary, the cross became primary. Because he was crucified, because he suffered, he caught their attention. There are people who are always interested in suffering, in misery, in death.My interest is not death, my interest is life. I love life unconditionally. I celebrate death too, just because it is part of life – not as death but as part of life, as the finishing touch, as the crescendo, as the ultimate flowering of life. If you have lived rightly, your death is a beautiful phenomenon. But my interest basically, intrinsically, is life.The mala represents life, the cross represents death. The mala represents a certain art of making life a garland. The beads are the moments. Each bead has to be perfect; each moment has to be lived in its perfection. And there is a thread running through them which is invisible, passing through each bead; that thread is of eternity. Each moment is threaded with eternity.Unless your life knows what eternity is, your life will be just a heap of beads or a heap of flowers, but it will not be a garland, it will not be a mala. It will not have any inner harmony; the beads will remain unrelated. It will be a chaos, it will not be a cosmos – there will be no order, no discipline. But the discipline should be invisible like the thread.How does one come to know eternity? The only way to know the thread is to go inside the bead. There, at the very center of the bead, you will find the thread passing. Going deep into each moment, going totally into it, you will find eternity. Each moment is part of an eternal procession, of an eternal celebration.The mala represents time as beads, the visible, and the thread as eternity, the invisible. There are 108 beads in the mala. 108 beads represent 108 methods of meditation; all the methods of meditation can be reduced to 108. 108 methods are the fundamental methods of meditation. Then they can have thousands with little differences, little changes, joining two methods or three methods or a few parts of one method and a few parts of another method. One can make as many methods as possible, but the fundamental methods are 108.The mala has 108 beads and a locket with a picture of somebody. Nobody knows who he is: somebody anonymous, somebody who is more a nobody than a somebody, a man who has died long ago as a separate entity, who does not exist anymore as an “I” but is only an open space. That is where you have to reach, that is where you have to arrive. That is your ultimate home.The mala is not a cross. Christianity worships death and that is where it has gone wrong. It has lost the joy of life, the laughter, the humor. It has lost contact with Jesus. It goes on worshipping the crucified Jesus, but it is not capable of worshipping the alive Jesus.My effort here is to help you to worship life, to live so joyously, with such humor, that your life becomes a dance. I don’t want you to become sad and serious, sincere of course, but serious, never. I would like you to go deeper into existence. Dance with the flowers, have dialogues with the stars. Look into people’s eyes and love and don’t hold back. The only unspiritual people are those who are holding back, who are living in a miserly way, who are living only partially, fragmentarily, who are not integrated.Don’t live an accidental life; let there be a thread running through it. The Sanskrit word for thread is sutra. That’s why these great sayings of Buddha, Patanjali, Krishna, Mahavira are called sutras: they are threads. If you understand them your life will not remain just a heap, an accidental heap. You will not be just driftwood at the mercy of unconscious forces. Your life will become a conscious movement, your life will become an art. It will have a sense of direction, and each act will be connected with every other act of your life. You will not be accidental. If you are accidental you will be only a noise; if you are not accidental you can become music.The mala represents music, it represents harmony. It shows that you have found the sutra, the thread that makes your life one whole, one piece. Life is beautiful when it is one piece; life is ugly when it is fragmentary – when you are just a crowd and when the crowd is always fighting within you, when there is always a civil war.Of course, the cross has influenced humanity very much. Millions of people find meaning in the cross because it fits with their lives. Their lives are almost on the cross: they are living in agony, they have never tasted what ecstasy is.It is not an accident that Krishna’s message has not reached millions. Just the other day I was telling you that Zarathustra has not reached millions for the simple reason that he loved life. Jesus has reached millions not because of himself but because of an accident in his life. It is because of the Jews and the Romans: if they had not crucified him, if they had tolerated him, he would have died by himself and then nobody would have heard anything about him. All these churches and thousands of monks and nuns would never have been seen at all. They gathered around the cross, and the cross became significant because it synchronizes with something in their life. Their life is of suffering and the cross represents it. They are also on the cross. Their whole life is agony, their whole life is hell.What I am saying is not going to appeal to many people. It is going to appeal to only a few intelligent ones, courageous ones, to only a few who are really healthy and whole. This is unfortunate, but this has been true up to now.Whenever somebody comes here to teach you life he seems far away; there seems to be no dialogue happening between him and you. He talks about dance and you don’t even know how to walk. He talks about ecstasy and you don’t know what that word means.One of my sannyasins has just come from Greece. She has informed me that the Greek word ekstasis means bus stop. That seems to be more meaningful. And in a sense it is a bus stop, in fact the terminus, the last stop. Beyond that there is no way to go; it is the last bus stop. You hear the word ecstasy, the sound comes to you, but the meaning is missed. But when you hear the word suffering it is not only the sound that comes to you, you know the meaning too. When you know what the cross is, you perfectly agree; your life agrees with it.But your life is wrong. Your life is not yet life, you are not yet born. That’s why Jesus goes on saying again and again: “Unless you are born again…”My whole effort here is to give you a rebirth. The mala is not a cross.The fifth question:Osho,Why are the journalists always writing against you?Feel happy that they are always writing; don’t be worried about what they write. It they are writing that means something is happening here. They can only write against it because when you write something in favor you have to experience what is happening here; without experiencing it you cannot write a favorable report about it. You have to be here for a few months.They come only for one day, they look around, they see the meditators – but by seeing the meditators you can’t see meditation. They see that something is happening and something so new for them that it does not fit with their idea of an ashram, of a monastery. Hence, naturally they turn against me, they become antagonistic.If they are Hindus they are bound to be absolutely against me for the simple reason that this is not a Hindu ashram; it does not fit with their idea of an ashram. The Hindu ashram has to be very dull and dead. And here there is so much dancing and so much singing and so much joy and so much love, they are shocked. And things are so intense here.For centuries a certain ideal has been created of the Hindu ashram. People should not be active there; inaction is worshipped. People should renounce life, and here we rejoice life. How can they write favorably? To them it appears that I am destroying their whole ideal. To them it seems for centuries they have worshipped a certain ideal and I am sabotaging it. And in a way they are right.I want to sabotage that stupid idea of an ashram – that it should be dead, people should be inactive, people should be dull, uncreative, against life, against love, against everything that smells of joy, they should be walking corpses.The Hindu idea of sannyas is that one should become a sannyasin only after seventy-five years. That means in India, nobody can become a sannyasin. The average age is thirty-six, so as far as the average man is concerned there seems to be no possibility of anybody ever becoming a sannyasin. Seventy-five years, then sannyas: the fourth stage of life, when death starts knocking on your doors, when one foot is already in the grave, then you should become a sannyasin.Here they see young people, so young they cannot believe their eyes. Why have these people become sannyasins? This is not the time for sannyas.I am trying to create a totally new concept of sannyas. Because they are against life, of course, seventy-five years seems to be the right time. Because life has already left you, now you can renounce – at least you can enjoy the idea that you are renouncing life. Life has already left you, what is the point of renunciation now? What are you renouncing? The whole idea is stupid. Then why not take sannyas when you are dead? Just wait a few days more, maybe one week. Why be in such a hurry? Just a little more.In India when a man dies, they cover him with orange clothes. I don’t know whom they are deceiving; the dead body is covered with the clothes of a sannyasin. And they chant the name of God when they are taking the dead body to cremate it. Now I don’t know who is hearing their chanting as that poor fellow is no longer there. They are simply deceiving themselves.Hindus are bound to be against me. Jainas come here, they are bound to be against me as this is not a Jaina ashram. In fact, Jainas have always been against ashrams; there is no such thing as a Jaina ashram. They want their sannyasins to be wanderers. They are very much afraid that if a person stays in one place he may become attached to the place, to the house, to the people surrounding him. They are so afraid of life that it is better to keep moving. The Jaina monk has to stay no longer than three days in one place; the fourth day he has to leave. So no attachments, no friendships, no love affairs are possible; at the most he becomes acquainted. In three days you cannot have intimacies with people. One day you come, only one day you remain in the village, and the third day you are preparing to leave. This is fear of life, and to me, a sannyasin should be fearless.So when a Jaina comes here, seeing so many people living together with so much joy, with such love, in deep involvements with each other, in great intimacies, friendships, love affairs… Much more love is happening in these six acres than may be happening all over the world. In fact, sometimes I wonder how much love six acres can contain. It seems the capacity to contain love is infinite.If a Christian comes he can’t find any idea of a monastery. There are Christian monasteries where women are not allowed; for one thousand years no woman has ever entered. Not even a small female baby, a two-month-old baby is allowed. What kind of people are living inside such a place, monks or monsters? They are afraid of a two-month-old baby. What can a poor, two-month-old baby do to them? They are afraid of themselves; afraid they may do something. They are boiling inside. And they are committing all kinds of perversions, they become perverted. If people are not allowed to be natural their energies become perverted.All sexual perversions came out of the monasteries, remember. Perversions all have religious origins, they are very, very spiritual and holy. All sexual perversions have their sources somewhere in religion. Now, when only monks are living in a monastery how long do you think they can avoid homosexuality? When only nuns are living in a nunnery; how long can they avoid lesbianism? It is impossible to avoid; it is natural, something is bound to happen.So when these people come here they are somebodies. It is very difficult to find a journalist who has no prejudices of his own; he comes with his prejudices. This place is totally new, so naturally they are offended, outraged. And my statements are outrageous – they are meant to be. They are electric shocks to these people. They get very disturbed and they take revenge.Remember one thing: if you report something good it never becomes news. Nobody is interested in good things; people are interested in something bad, something sensational. So they are in search of sensation, and you can find sensational things here, more than you can find anywhere else. You need not invent them, we provide them.Father Murphy was a priest in a very poor parish. He asked for suggestions how he could raise money for his church, and was told that horse-owners always had money.He went to a horse auction, but he made a very poor buy as the horse turned out to be a donkey.However, he thought he might enter the donkey in a race. The donkey came in third, and the next morning the headlines in the paper read, “Father Murphy’s Ass Shows.”The archbishop saw the paper and was very angry.The next day the donkey came in first and the headlines read, “Father Murphy’s Ass Out Front.”The archbishop was up in arms and figured something had to be done.Father Murphy entered the donkey for a third time and it came in second. Now the newspaper read, “Father Murphy’s Ass Back In Place.” The archbishop thought this was too much so he forbade the priest to enter the donkey the next day, which inspired the editor to write the headline, “Archbishop Scratches Father Murphy’s Ass.”Finally, the archbishop heard this and ordered Father Murphy to get rid of the donkey. But he was unable to sell it, so he gave it to Sister Agatha for a pet. When the archbishop heard this he ordered Sister Agatha to dispose of the animal at once. She sold it for ten dollars.Next day the headlines read, “Sister Agatha Peddles Her Ass For Ten Dollars.”Don’t be worried about the journalists. Enjoy whatsoever they write and help them to find things so they can go on writing. I am much more concerned right now that they go on writing, because whether they write for or against they bring more and more people to me. And once a person comes here it is very difficult to escape. So I am just absolutely grateful to the journalists, whatsoever they are doing. They are doing such humanitarian work, such a great service to me.So when they come here don’t feel antagonistic toward them. Help them in every possible way.The sixth question:Osho,I am sitting silently doing nothing, and the weeds are growing all around me.Weeds are divine. Don’t call them weeds. They are as spiritual as the buddhas. They partake of godliness as much as roses. If you remove men from the earth, will there be any difference between weeds and roses? All these distinctions are made up by the mind.You are not really sitting silently; otherwise, who is telling you weeds are growing? Your mind is still functioning, whispering things to you. It is your mind. If you are really silent there is no mind. Then whether weeds grow or roses grow it is all the same to you. What difference is there? Can’t you enjoy weeds? They are beautiful people; see them swaying, dancing in the wind, in the sun. What do you think is lacking in them which roses have? Nothing is lacking. This is just an idea, and ideas change. It is possible that one day roses may go out of fashion, weeds may become an “in” thing.A hundred years ago nobody had ever thought that cactuses would be loved by people, but now the cactus is “in” and the rose is “out.” To talk about the rose looks old-fashioned, looks orthodox, conventional; to talk about cactuses is avant-garde, it shows that you are modern, contemporary. People are keeping cactuses in their bedrooms, even dangerous cactuses, poisonous cactuses, which can kill. But they have come into fashion, and once something comes into fashion there are many fools who start appreciating it.People simply go on following whatsoever is made fashionable by a few clever and cunning people. Just a hundred years ago nobody would have liked Picasso’s paintings, and now Picasso is considered one of the greatest artists not only of this century but of the whole history. What has happened? Just the fashion has changed. People get tired of one thing; they go on moving to the opposite extreme.There is nothing wrong in weeds; there is nothing wrong in anything. The idea of right and wrong means the mind is there. You are not sitting silently and you are not sitting doing nothing. You are discriminating, and that is action. You are labeling, and that is thinking. And you are judging.Drop all judgment, all labeling, all discrimination, and just watch the weeds grow. Let them grow! When you don’t have a mind at all, you are also a weed; so weeds growing around you is not something strange, just weeds surrounding a weed. Enjoy!A king asked a Zen master, who was a great painter, to paint a picture of a bamboo.The master said, “It will take time.”“How long?” asked the king.The master said, “That is difficult to say, but at least two or three years.”The king said, “Are you mad or something? You are one of the greatest painters. I was thinking you could just draw it right now!”He said, “That is not the problem, drawing a bamboo is not the problem, but first I have to be a bamboo; otherwise how do I know what a bamboo is? I want to know the bamboo from the inside, so I will have to go and live in a bamboo grove. Now, one never knows how long it will take. Unless I know the bamboo from within I cannot paint it. That has been my practice my whole life: I paint only that which I have known from its deepest core.”The king said, “Okay, I will wait.”One year passed. He sent a few people to see what was happening, whether the man was alive or dead. They came back and said, “The man is alive, but we don’t think that he is a man anymore. He is a bamboo, swaying with the bamboos in the wind. We passed by his side; he didn’t take any notice. We said, ‘Hello!’ He didn’t hear. We wanted to talk to him. We looked at his eyes – they were so empty that we became frightened; either he has gone mad or something has happened. And he can do anything, so we escaped. He may kill, or who knows what he will do. He may jump upon us. He is no longer the same man.”The king himself went to see, and the master was swaying in the wind, in the sun. And the king asked, “Sir, what about my painting?” He didn’t answer.After three years he appeared at the court and he said, “Now bring the canvas and the paints. I am ready. And why were you people disturbing me again and again? If you had not disturbed me I would have come a little earlier. These fools from your court were saying things to me. They were saying, ‘Hello!’ Do you say hello to a bamboo? They disturbed the whole thing. It took months for me to again settle into being a bamboo and to forget that I am a man. And then you came and you said, ‘Sir.’ Is that the way to address a bamboo? ‘When are you going to paint?’ Has anybody ever heard that bamboos paint? You are a fool, you are surrounded by fools! I had told you that I would come whenever I was ready.”The canvas was brought, the brushes and the color, and within seconds he drew the bamboo. And it is said that the king wept for joy. He had never seen such a painting: it was so alive. It was no ordinary painting. It was not from the outside; it was from the bamboo, as if a bamboo had sprouted on the canvas, not been painted.Sit silently doing nothing, and let things happen – whatsoever is happening. If weeds are growing, let them grow. They have the right to grow as much as you have the right to grow. And if you allow everything without any judgment, if you are nonjudgmental, you will grow to such pinnacles of joy and benediction that you cannot imagine right now.The seventh question:Osho,It is terrible what you say about Italians. True, of course, but terrible.I know it is terrible, but what can I do? I love the Italians and I want to talk about them as much as I can. They are beautiful people. I hit only when I love. You should be worried about those whom I am not hitting. For example, I have not yet hit the Dutch. I am waiting, and when I have gathered enough love for them I am going to hit them too. It is my way of showing love and showering love.Why don’t Italians believe in reincarnation?Well, look at it this way: who would want to come back to life as an Italian?A woman with a baby in her arms was sitting in the waiting room at a railway station in Italy, sobbing bitterly. Up came a porter and asked her what the trouble was.“Oh, dear me,” she cried, “some people were in here and they were so rude to me about my son. I’m all upset – they said he was so ugly!”“There, there now, luv,” said the porter soothingly. “Don’t worry about it. I tell you what, how about a nice cup of tea?”“You are very kind,” she said, wiping her eyes. “That would be very nice.”“And while I’m at it,” he said, “how about a banana for your monkey?”An Italian with a one-foot-high man sitting on his shoulder walked into a bar and ordered a scotch and soda. The barman was stunned but delivered the drink as ordered. Just as the fellow was about to drink it, the little man knocked it out of his hand. He ordered another one, and again the little man knocked the drink onto the floor. This scene was repeated three times.Finally, the bartender could stand it no longer. “What’s going on here?” he asked.“It is a long story,” the Italian said, “but many years ago I was in Egypt and found a magic lamp. I rubbed it and a genie offered me three wishes. First I wished for ten million dollars. Then I wished for everlasting life.”“Sounds great,” said the bartender. “What was your third wish?”“I wished for a prick twelve inches long.”Get it? Remember if you come across a genie some time, never ask for the third wish. Look in the dictionary to find out the real meaning of prick.The last question:Osho,I feel shocked when you use the word fuck. What to do?It is one of the most beautiful words. The English language should be proud of it. I don’t think any other language has such a beautiful word.A Tom from California has done some great research on it. I think he must be the famous Tom of Tom, Dick and Harry fame.He says:One of the most interesting words in the English language today is the word fuck. It is one 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:Fraud: I got fucked at the used car lot.Ignorance: Fucked if I know.Trouble: I guess I am fucked now!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 am 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 too. If every morning you do it as a transcendental meditation: when you get up, the first thing, repeat the mantra “Fuck you!” five times, and it clears the throat. That’s how I keep my throat clear.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Seeker!Do not be reckless.Meditate constantlyor you will swallow fireand cry out: “No more!”If you are not wise,how can you steady the mind?If you cannot quieten yourself,what will you ever learn?How will you become free?With a quiet mindcome into that empty house, your heart,and feel the joy of the waybeyond the world.Look within –the rising and the falling.What happiness!How sweet to be free!It is the beginning of life,of mastery and patience,of good friends along the way,of a pure and active life.So live in love.Do your work.Make an end of your sorrows.For see how the jasminereleases and lets fallits withered flowers.Let fall willfulness and hatred.Are you quiet?Quieten your body.Quieten your mind.You want nothing.Your words are still.You are still.By your own effortswaken yourself, watch yourself,and live joyfully.You are the master,you are the refuge.As a merchant breaks in a fine horse,master yourself.How gladly you followthe words of the awakened.How quietly, how surelyyou approach the happy country,the heart of stillness.However young,the seeker who sets out upon the wayshines bright over the world.Like the moon,come out from behind the clouds!Shine.The Scots angler died, made his way to heaven, and was stopped at the gate by Saint Peter who said, “You have told too many lies to get in here!”“Have a heart,” replied the angler. “Remember you were a fisherman once yourself!”Gautama the Buddha is reminding his bodhisattvas that they may have completely forgotten the path they followed at the very beginning. Who remembers the dreams in the morning when he is awake? Within seconds those dreams are forgotten.The same happens when you become enlightened: all the misery, all the nightmares, all the sorrows that you had suffered so much simply become so insignificant, so irrelevant that they disappear from your consciousness. They are no longer part of your life story, as if they had happened to somebody else and not to you. Hence Buddha is reminding his bodhisattvas how the journey starts from the very beginning; only then can these people be of help to others.The first thing he says: “Remember only to talk to seekers.” There are many who are inquirers but who are not seekers; many are curious but not seekers. The curious person is a little childish. Every child is curious – curious about each and everything, curious about one thousand and one things, but not really interested in knowing. He asks one question, and by the time you answer him he has started asking about something else. He is not listening to your answer at all, he is not interested in it anymore; it was a momentary phenomenon. He had just become attracted to something: he saw a flower and he asked about it, and then he heard the noise of an airplane and he started asking about airplanes, and then something else caught his eye, and he forgot all about airplanes.A seeker means one for whom the inquiry is not only curiosity, not a childish phenomenon, but a mature inquiry, for whom it has become a question of life and death. Unless truth becomes a question of life and death you are not a seeker.Buddha is saying to his bodhisattvas, his apostles: “Talk only to seekers, address yourself only to seekers.” Don’t waste your time with childish people who are curious about each and everything. Their questions may look very great, but their hearts are not in their questions. They have asked just to ask; they are not interested in finding the answer and they are not ready to risk anything. If they can get the answer free, maybe they are ready to listen; but they are not ready to pay. And life’s real questions are not to be solved in such a cheap way. You have to pay and you have to pay with your whole being. You have to get involved; it needs commitment.Anybody can ask about God, but very few people are ready to risk anything, to go into the unknown, to go into the adventure – and the adventure for God is the greatest adventure there is. And it is very demanding; it demands your total commitment. It won’t allow you any other involvement. It can’t be just one involvement among many other involvements; it has to be the one and only involvement. Only then is there a hope that some day you may find the answer which liberates you. Hence he says:Seeker!Do not be reckless.The first thing to be taught to these people who are seekers is not to be reckless. People are living very recklessly, people are living very accidentally. Their lives have no sense of direction. They don’t know where they are going, from where they are coming, why they are doing a certain thing. Maybe they are imitating what others are doing, but imitators are not seekers. Maybe others are going to the church or to the temple so they are also going. They are not really men but sheep.A seeker has to be a lion. He has to learn to be free from the crowd psychology, from the mob mind. He has to learn ways of individuality, of independence. He has to think of what he is doing and why. He should not be just a victim of natural life forces; he should have a certain sense of direction. Only then is there a possibility of achieving, of coming back home, of reaching somewhere, of attaining contentment, fulfillment, flowering, fruitfulness. Otherwise life remains meaningless; it is just a jumble of unrelated events.Do not be reckless. First thing: do not be just curious. Second thing: do not be reckless.New York City was jammed for the convention. Every hotel and rooming house was full. Phillips was tired, and simply had to find a place to sleep that night.“Anything will do,” he said to the hotel clerk.“I can let you have a cot in the ballroom,” replied the clerk, “But there’s a woman in the opposite corner. If you don’t make any noise she’ll be none the wiser.”“Fine,” said Phillips. He went to the ballroom but five minutes later came running out to the clerk.“Say,” he cried, “that woman there is dead!”“I know,” was the answer, “but how did you find out?”Everybody is curious for no reason at all – it was none of his business. Even he cannot answer why, some unconscious instinct, maybe biology, maybe chemistry, but not his consciousness.Who or what is deciding your life? Your biology, your chemistry, your psychology, your hormones? Who is deciding your life? Are you – as a conscious being?A drunk walked into a bar in Glasgow and asked, “Was I in here last night?”“Yes, you were,” replied the barmaid.“Did I spend much money?”“About thirty pounds.”“Thank God – I thought I’d lost it!”Angus was staggering home after a night with his fishing pals when he came upon a scarecrow, arms outstretched.“Hey, Jimmy,” he said, “I refuse to believe you. There never was a trout that size.”A number of Scottish soldiers were court-martialed for wrecking a public house, and one of them was asked to explain to the court how the trouble had started.“Well, sir,” he said, “Private McSporran called Private McDougall a liar, and Private Paterson hit him over the head with a chair. Private Fraser pulled out his dirk and cut a slice out of Private McDougall’s leg. Two or three of Private McDougall’s mates piled onto Private Fraser, and a couple of others started throwing glasses and tables around. One thing led to another and then the fighting started.”Buddha says:Seeker!Do not be reckless.Meditate constantlyor you will swallow fireand cry out: “No more!”Meditate constantly. The person who is a seeker will not really be interested in getting only philosophical answers from others; he will be interested in knowing on his own. He will not be interested in philosophy, he will be interested in religion. That is the difference between philosophy and religion. Philosophy is juggling with words, the art of hairsplitting, arguing endlessly about abstract ideas, arriving nowhere. Religion is more like science: it experiments, it emphasizes experience. Science is the religion of the objective world, and religion is the science of the subjective world.Philosophy is going to die one day; it is already on its deathbed. You can go to the universities and see: every year fewer and fewer people are turning to the departments of philosophy. Many philosophy departments are empty, deserted. People are going to science or to religion. Those who are interested in knowing the truth about the world are going to scientific inquiries, to physics, to chemistry, to mathematics, to biology. Or, people who are interested in their own interiority, in their own subjectivity, in their own consciousness, are moving toward religion, more and more toward religion.Religion is the science of the inner. Philosophy is neither: it is neither the science of the outer nor the science of the inner; it is just in between. It only thinks; it thinks about science and about religion, but it only thinks. And just by thinking, nothing ever happens. You can make very clever answers, but they are not going to solve your real problems; the problems are real and the answers are just abstract. Real problems can be solved only by real answers.Hence Buddha says: “The seeker can be persuaded to meditate.” Only the seeker can be persuaded to meditate. Meditation means you start changing your inner world. You start removing dust from the inner world, you start removing all that is unnecessary in the inner world. You remove all the clutter, all the rubbish you are full of. Meditation means emptying yourself of all that the society has put inside you so that you can have a clean, clear vision, so that you can have a mirror-like quality. When a mirror is without any dust it reflects reality; so is the case with meditation.Meditation means making your consciousness a mirror. Thoughts are like dust, they have to be removed. And thoughts contain everything belonging to the mind: desires, ambitions, memories, fantasies, dreams. All mind stuff is different forms of thoughts, different kinds, different layers of dust. And the dust is so thick that the mirror is not functioning at all; hence you have to ask others. Once the dust is removed you need not ask anyone, you yourself can see. Existence has given you the magic mirror, it is within you.I have heard a beautiful parable; it must be a parable, it cannot be an historical phenomenon…When Alexander the Great came to India he collected many valuable treasures. And when he was leaving he came across a fakir, a naked fakir. He asked him, “Do you see my treasures? Have you ever seen anybody with so many treasures?”The fakir said, “All your treasures are nothing, but I can give you one thing that will really make you rich!”Alexander could not imagine what this naked fakir could give him. In his begging bowl he had a small mirror. He gave the mirror to Alexander.Alexander said, “This mirror will make me the richest man in the world? You must be mad!”The fakir said, “First look in the mirror.”And Alexander looked into the mirror: it did not show his face – it showed his inner being, it showed his interiority, it showed his subjectivity. His being was reflected in the mirror.He touched the feet of the fakir and said, “You are right – all my treasures are nothing before this mirror.”And it is said he kept that mirror continuously with him.The parable is beautiful. That mirror represents meditation. The fakir must have given him some meditation because only meditation can make you aware of who you are.But Buddha says meditation has to become something constant. Buddha brings a totally new vision of meditation to the world. Before Buddha, meditation was something that you had to do once or twice a day, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening, and that was all. Buddha gives a totally new interpretation to the whole process of meditation. He says that this kind of meditation which you do one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening, or you may do five times or four times a day, is not of much value. Meditation cannot be something that you can do apart from life just for one hour or fifteen minutes. Meditation has to become something synonymous with your life; it has to be like breathing. You cannot breathe one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening, otherwise the evening will never come. It has to be something like breathing: even while you are asleep the breathing continues. You may fall into a coma, but the breathing continues.Buddha says meditation should become such a constant phenomenon; only then can it transform you. And he evolved a new technique of meditation.His greatest contribution to the world is vipassana; no other teacher has given such a great gift to the world. Jesus is beautiful, Mahavira is beautiful, Lao Tzu is beautiful, Zarathustra is beautiful, but their contribution, compared to Buddha’s, is nothing. Even if they are all put together, then too Buddha’s contribution is greater because he gave such a scientific method, simple, yet so penetrating that once you are in tune with it, it becomes a constant factor in your life.Then you need not do it; you have to do it only in the beginning. Once you have learned the knack of it, it remains with you; you need not do it. Then whatsoever you are doing, it is there. It becomes a backdrop to your life, a background to your life. You are walking, but you walk meditatively. You are eating, but you eat meditatively. You are sleeping, but you sleep meditatively. Remember, even the quality of sleep of a meditator is totally different from the quality of the sleep of a non-meditator. Everything becomes different because a new factor has entered which changes the whole gestalt.Vipassana simply means watching your breath, looking at your breath. It is not like yoga pranayam: it is not changing your breath to a certain rhythm – deep breathing, fast breathing. No, it does not change your breathing at all; it has nothing to do with the breathing. Breathing has only to be used as a device to watch because it is a constant phenomenon in you. You can simply watch it, and it is the most subtle phenomenon. If you can watch your breath then it will be easy for you to watch your thoughts.One thing immensely great that Buddha contributed was the discovery of the relationship between breath and thought. He was the first man in the whole history of humanity who made it absolutely clear that breathing and thinking are deeply related. Breathing is the bodily part of thinking and thinking is the psychological part of breathing. They are not separate, they are two aspects of the same coin. He is the first man who talks of bodymind as one unity. He talks for the first time about man as a psychosomatic phenomenon. He does not talk about body and mind, he talks about bodymind. They are not two, hence no “and” is needed to join them. They are already one – bodymind – not even a hyphen is needed; bodymind is one phenomenon. And each body process has its counterpart in your psychology and vice versa.You can watch it, you can try an experiment. Just stop your breathing for a moment and you will be surprised: the moment you stop your breathing, your thinking stops. Or you can watch another thing: whenever your thinking is going too fast your breathing changes. For example, if you are full of sexual lust and your thinking is getting too hot, your breathing will be different: it will not be rhythmic, it will lose its rhythm. It will be more chaotic, it will be unrhythmic.When you are angry your breathing changes because your thinking has changed. When you are loving your breathing changes because your thinking has changed. When you are peaceful, at ease, at home, relaxed, your breathing is different. When you are restless, worried, in turmoil, in anguish, your breathing is different. Just by watching your breath you can know what kind of state is happening in your mind.Meditators come across a point when the mind really completely ceases, breathing also ceases. And then great fear arises. Don’t be afraid. Many meditators have reported to me, “We became very afraid, very frightened, because suddenly we became aware that the breathing has stopped.” Naturally, one thinks that when breathing stops death is close by. It is only a question of moments – you are dying. Breathing stops in death; breathing also stops in deep meditation. Hence deep meditation and death have one thing similar: in both the breathing stops. Therefore, if a man knows meditation he has also known death. That’s why the meditator becomes free of the fear of death: he knows breathing can stop and still he is.Breathing is not life; life is a far bigger phenomenon. Breathing is only a connection with the body. The connection can be cut; that does not mean that life has ended. Life is still there; life does not end just by the disappearance of breathing.Buddha says: “Watch your breathing; let it be normal, as it is.” Sitting silently, watch your breath. The sitting posture will also be helpful; the Buddha posture, the lotus posture, is very helpful. When your spine is erect and you are sitting in a lotus posture, your legs crossed, your spine is aligned with the gravitational forces, and the body is at its most relaxed state. Let the spine be erect and the body be loose, hanging on the spine – not tense. The body should be loose, relaxed, the spine erect, so gravitation has the least pull on you.Have you watched it? If you want to go to sleep you have to lie down, for the simple reason that when you are lying down flat on the ground you are in touch with the gravitational forces at the maximum, because all over the body the gravitational pull works, it pulls you. You immediately start falling asleep. It is difficult to fall asleep standing. The most difficult posture to fall asleep in is the lotus posture. The body is so relaxed there is no need to fall asleep, and the gravitational forces are at the minimum; hence they cannot pull you downward, cannot make you heavy and dull and lethargic. You are bright, you are full of life. You are more intelligent in the lotus posture than you can ever be in any other posture. The body affects your mind.Scientists now agree that it is only because a few monkeys somehow stood erect that man evolved. They have not been able to find the reason why and how it happened, and monkeys are monkeys – it may have just happened out of curiosity. A few monkeys tried to stand on two legs and these are the monkeys who became the original men; they were the originators. That was the greatest innovation; nothing else has been greater than that. A few monkeys standing erect on their two legs created a great revolution; the revolution happened in the growth of the mind. The erect posture helped the mind to come out of sleep. It became more intelligent, it became more alert, it became more conscious.Other animals who move on four legs have not been able to develop intelligence, although many of them have a mind of almost the same capacity as man. For example, the elephant has a mind of almost the same capacity as man, but has not been able to develop it and I don’t think it is ever going to happen. In circuses they try hard to teach the elephant to sit in a chair or to stand even for a few seconds on two feet, but the body is so heavy the elephant cannot manage to be on two feet. Hence the brain remains clouded; the gravitational pull keeps it unconscious.Hence this lotus posture is something valuable. It is not just a body phenomenon; it affects the mind, it changes the mind. Sit in a lotus posture – the whole point is that your spine should be erect and should make a ninety-degree angle with the earth. That is the point where you are capable of being the most intelligent, the most alert, the least sleepy.Then watch your breath, the natural breath. You need not breathe deeply, you don’t change your breathing; you simply watch it as it is. But you will be surprised by one thing: the moment you start watching, it changes, because even the fact of watching is a change and the breathing is no longer the same.Slight changes in your consciousness immediately affect your breathing. You will be able to see it; whenever you watch you will see your breathing has become a little deeper. If it becomes so of its own accord it is okay, but you are not to do it by your will. Watching your breath, slowly, slowly you will be surprised that as your breath becomes calm and quiet your mind also becomes calm and quiet. And watching the breath will make you capable of watching the mind.That is just the beginning, the first part of meditation, the physical part. The second part is the psychological part. Then you can watch more subtle things in your mind: thoughts, desires, memories.As you go deeper into watchfulness, a miracle starts happening: as you become watchful, less and less traffic happens in the mind, more and more quiet, silence; more and more silent spaces, more and more gaps and intervals. Moments pass and you don’t come across a single thought. Slowly, slowly minutes pass, hours pass…There is a certain arithmetic in it: if you can remain absolutely empty for forty-eight minutes, that very day you will become enlightened, that very moment you will become enlightened. But it is not a question of your effort; don’t go on looking at the watch because each time you look, a thought has come. You have to again count from the very beginning; you are back to zero. There is no need for you to watch the time.But this has been the experience in the East of all great meditators: forty-eight minutes seems to be the ultimate point. If this much of a gap is possible, if for this much of a gap thinking stops and you remain alert, with no thought crossing your mind, you are capable of receiving God inside. You have become the host and the guest immediately comes.If you are not wise,how can you steady the mind?You have to be very intelligent; only then can you steady the mind. And what does he mean by intelligence? Ordinarily we behave in a very unintelligent way. We behave according to beliefs; beliefs keep us unintelligent. We behave according to borrowed knowledge, and that keeps us unintelligent.Try to accept the challenges of life directly; don’t act out of belief or knowledge. Don’t follow the scriptures and the traditions. They are the root cause of making you stupid, because unless you face life directly, unless those challenges are encountered, your intelligence will not arise. There will be no opportunity for it to arise. Give it the opportunity. Life gives many opportunities but you go on missing the opportunities because you live on borrowed answers.Face life and its questions and its realities on your own, even if your own responses are not so great. They cannot be, of course you cannot respond like a buddha, but by borrowing some answer from a buddha you will never be intelligent enough to become a buddha yourself. Yes, you will commit many errors, many mistakes. Yes, you will go astray many times, but go, don’t be worried. Life is meant for that, so that you can try. It is through trials, many errors, many mistakes that one learns. When you learn by your own efforts you become intelligent, and only an intelligent person can see the beauty of meditation, can understand the significance of meditation.If you cannot quieten yourself,what will you ever learn?All learning happens through meditation; it does not happen through study. That is accumulation of information, it is not learning. Always be alert about borrowed knowledge: howsoever precious it appears it is all false, pseudo – for you. It is not pseudo for the man who has lived it. It is true for Buddha, true for Jesus, true for Krishna, but not for you. You will have to live…Buddha also had the scriptures available. He could have read Krishna; the Gita was available. He was well-educated, the son of a king. All the scriptures must have been available to him and great scholars and great teachers were available to him. He could have recited the Gita every day; he could have learned the Gita so absolutely that he would have been able to repeat it just from memory, but then he would have missed buddhahood.In Krishna’s time also the Vedas were available, but Krishna did not borrow knowledge from the Vedas. In Jesus’ time the Old Testament was available, but Jesus tried to find out the truth for himself. This is something very essential to understand: truth has to be found by oneself. Only then is it liberating; otherwise it becomes a bondage, a beautiful bondage, but a bondage all the same.And if you cannot learn…How will you become free?It is only by experiencing truth on your own that freedom happens. Freedom is the fragrance of the experience of truth.With a quiet mindcome into that empty house, your heart,and feel the joy of the waybeyond the world.Buddha says: With a quiet mind come into that empty house, your heart… Your heart is your real home; it is utterly empty. Your head is full of rubbish, your heart is totally empty. Move from the head to the heart! The whole process of meditation is a movement from the head to the heart, from the mind to no-mind.…come into that empty house, your heart, and feel the joy of the way – and you will be full of joy – beyond the world. A joy that is not of this world, a fragrance that comes from the beyond.Look within –the rising and the falling.The rising and falling of your breath: that is the way of looking within. Many have said to look within. Socrates has said to look within, to know thyself, but nobody has given the exact method. Buddha gives you the exact method: the rising and the falling of the breath. It is through the breath that you are bridged. Breath is the bridge between your soul and your body. If you can watch your breath rising and falling, slowly, slowly you will be able to see the body as separate from yourself and also the breath as separate from yourself, because the watcher cannot be the watched, the observer cannot be the observed. Suddenly one day you will realize that you are the witness of it all. And the witness is certainly transcendental to all that it witnesses. In that very moment freedom has happened to you. Then:What happiness!How sweet to be free!It is the beginning of life…Birth is not the beginning of life. This is the beginning of life, when you experience your witnessing soul. It is the beginning of life……of mastery and patience,of good friends along the way,of a pure and active life.Meditate over these words. Buddhists have not understood these words at all. How can this man, Gautama the Buddha, be an escapist? He says: It is the beginning of life, of mastery and patience, of good friends along the way…He is giving you a new world, a new way to love, a new way to be friendly; he is giving you new friends. In fact, only meditators can be friendly toward each other because they are not competitors. Nobody else can be friendly, they only pretend. How can competitors be friendly? Deep down they are enemies because everybody is coveting the same things. You are greedy for money, your friend is also greedy for money. How can you be friendly? Impossible. All friendship is bogus, phony.You want to be the prime minister and your friend also wants to be the prime minister. Who does not want to be the prime minister? How can you be friendly? Hence they say in politics there is no friendship at all. A few are enemies openly, a few are enemies in a hidden way. That’s why in politics every day changes happen: somebody who was a friend yesterday, today is an enemy; somebody who was an enemy yesterday, today is a friend. It is a strange world, the world of politics.Machiavelli, in The Prince, suggests to the politicians, “Never say anything to your friends that you would not like to be known by your enemies, because any friend can become your enemy any day.” He also says, “Never say anything against your enemies that you would not like to say against your friends because any enemy can become a friend any day.” And then there will be difficulty, then you will have to swallow something and it will be humiliating.Politicians go on doing that: they go on spitting and swallowing it back again and again. They say one thing today, another thing tomorrow; they have to. In politics no friends are possible.Friends are possible only on the way, on the way toward godliness, because it is not a competition. You can have godliness, I can have godliness; there is no question that by your having godliness I will no longer be able to have it. Millions of people can have godliness and there is no problem because godliness is infinite, truth is infinite. My having the truth does not mean that now you cannot have it. In fact, on the contrary, my having the truth means that you can also have it! If I can have it, why not you? Hence, on the way, there is a totally new kind of friendship.…of a pure and active life. How can Buddha be called an escapist? He says: …of a pure and active life. He means creativity, a creativity that comes out of meditative innocence, of meditative purity. And a real creator is possible only through meditation. Ninety-nine percent of your so-called painters are not real painters. Your so-called poets are not poets, your so-called musicians are not musicians. They may be technicians, they know how to play, they know how to compose, they know how to paint, but just knowing how to paint does not make you a creator.A creator is a totally different phenomenon. The creator brings something of godliness into the world, something of the creator into the world. But how can you bring something into the world if you have not known it yourself?A Buddha is a creator, a Jesus is a creator. Their words, their acts are the only proof that God exists. Their very presence is proof that God exists. Their presence is creative: in their very presence thousands of people are transformed. Buddha is not an escapist; he cannot be. No awakened person can be an escapist. Cowards escape, courageous people are creative.So live in love – these are Buddha’s words, mind you:So live in love.Do your work.Make an end of your sorrows.He is not against love, he is not against creativity, he is not against work either. Do your work – unless you do the work that is close to your heart you will remain unfulfilled. The meditator immediately finds what his work is. The meditator finds intrinsically that this is his work; he does not have to think about it. It is so clear and so loud that he knows that he has to be a musician or he has to be a poet or he has to be this or that. It comes so clear that there is no question of doubt. Then he starts working, and that work is his meditation.There are many people here who are afraid of work. They don’t know that the work that is happening here is totally different from the work that you have come across in your life. That was something totally different. When I give you some work it is to help your growth. Until you become capable of finding your own work I will go on giving it to you – only up to the moment when you are capable of finding it yourself. And any work that is being given here is nothing but a meditation for you. If it is not a meditation for you then you have not understood my message at all.For see how the jasminereleases and lets fallits withered flowers.Let fall willfulness and hatred.Buddha says: Let fall willfulness and hatred… just as the jasmine flowers fall when they have withered away or leaves fall from the trees when they die, dead leaves, just like that. The first thing he says that has to be dropped – easily, without effort, just like a withered jasmine flower falling of its own accord – is willfulness, your will, your ego.So sometimes I have to put you in a certain work where you have to drop your ego and you think it is a kind of punishment. It is not a kind of punishment; it is a challenge, it is a situation where you will have to drop the ego sooner or later because it will be creating misery again and again for you. It will make you clearly aware that your ego is causing your misery.Just the other day, Anshumali wrote saying, “Osho, working in Vrindavan under Deeksha seems to be a punishment.” It is not, Anshumali. It is a reward, not a punishment. It is a punishment if you want to cling to your ego; if you let the ego fall, it is a reward. And then you will be able to see the beauty of the work, and you will be able to see the beauty of Deeksha too. She is a beautiful Italian mama! She loves her workers, she loves her people; she is utterly devoted. Of course, she loves so much that she shouts also, she screams also. Her love is such that she trusts that you will understand her screaming too. But she is a good device; she has been of immense help to many people.There are one hundred therapy groups here, but Deeksha’s is the best. Although it is not known as a therapy group, it is a secret therapy group.If you drop your willfulness, your ego, then hatred also drops because hatred is nothing but the shadow of your ego. If there is no ego there is no hatred; if there is ego, there is always hatred following it. Whosoever comes in the way will bring hatred, and everybody will come in the way because egos cannot adjust to each other, egos are always in conflict, egos are always quarreling, they are quarrelsome.Drop the ego and see the beauty of egolessness. Then there is no hatred, no anger. You become so silent, your energy becomes so calm and quiet, that suddenly you start seeing the world in a different light, in a different perspective. Then this ordinary world is no longer ordinary, it becomes sacred.Are you quiet?Quieten your body.Quieten your mind.Buddha says: “First start with the body and then move to the mind. Quieten your body by watching your breath, quieten your mind by watching your thoughts.”You want nothing.Your words are still.You are still.Then you will come to see that there is no desire. How can desire exist in a silent mind? Desire is a state of turmoil, desire is a state of unconsciousness, desire is mad. When you are silent, madness disappears.Three times Jessie brought Sandy to the manse, hoping to be made man and wife, but each time the minister refused because of the groom-to-be’s intoxication.“Why do you persist in bringing him to me in such a state?” asked the minister.“Please, Reverend,” explained Jessie, “he won’t come when he’s sober!”The moment you are sober, silent, you will not do many things that you are doing and you will start doing things that you have never thought of before. Your life will no longer be a wastage; it will become creativity, tremendous creativity. Your life will not grow thorns, it will grow flowers. It is the same energy.But the mind keeps you occupied in such stupid things, in such stupid details about stupid things. Just see what your mind goes on doing, and you will not need anyone to tell you that you are mad.A little man walks into “The Perfect Stationers” – an exclusive New York shop specializing in paper products. He is approached by an elegant salesman in a Brooks Brothers suit. “Can I help you, sir?” the salesman intones in a cultured voice.“Yes, I would like some writing paper, please.”“Would you prefer lined or unlined paper, sir?”“Oh, anything is fine. It doesn’t matter.”“Then will you be writing with a fountain pen or a ballpoint?”“I really don’t know. Whatever comes to hand…”“Would you like to have a thick paper or onion-skin paper, sir?”“Look, anything is fine. Just give me any old packet!”“Perhaps you would prefer one of the perfumed varieties?”“If you like. But I have a bus to catch, just give me some paper, please!”“It will just take a moment now, sir. Would you like a hand-made paper in a special presentation box or a simple commercial brand?”The little man’s voice rises an octave. “Look, for the tenth time, any paper will do! Make it fast, would you?”“Then perhaps you have a favorite color – red, blue, yellow?”Just at that moment another man bursts into the shop. His eyes have dark circles underneath and his cheeks are wet with tears.“Look,” he sobs, “this tile is the color of my bathroom and this is the size of my toilet. I showed you my asshole yesterday. Now, could I please have some toilet paper?”Just look at your mind. Stupid things and stupid details ad infinitum! You go on and on – when are you going to stop? That’s what Buddha is saying.Feinberg, the funeral director, was lunching with his friend, Weinstein.“I got a good bargain for you in a coffin,” he said.“I don’t like to think about things like that. How much?”“It’s made of mahogany with silver handles and a lock. For you, only two thousand dollars.”“I’ll think about it.”On his way home from work, Weinstein stopped at the Minkis Mortuary to compare prices.“I can give you something nice,” said the director. “I’ve got a mahogany coffin with silver handles and I’ll even throw in a lock. The price is one thousand dollars.”Weinstein rushed over to Feinberg’s and began screaming. “Some friend you are! I just saw the same coffin you wanted to sell me and it was a thousand dollars cheaper.”“Was it mahogany with silver handles and a lock?”“Yes!” replied Weinstein.“Did it have a silk lining?”“I didn’t look. I don’t think so.”“You see!” said Feinberg. “In six months you’ll need a new lining.”Not only about life but even about the afterlife – the mind goes on preparing even for that. People decide about their wills, they decide about their epitaphs, they decide how their tombs have to be made, in what kind of marble. Man seems to be so utterly unintelligent and he goes on wasting his life on such things which don’t make any sense at all. But you have to look into your own mind.You want nothing. Your words are still. You are still. Buddha says this is how one should be – no desire, because all desires are futile. They are about the future; life is in the present. All desires distract you from the present, all desires distract you from life, all desires are destructive of life, all desires are postponements of life. Life is now and desire takes you away, farther and farther away from now. And when we see that our life is misery we go on throwing the responsibility on others, and nobody is responsible except us.“My good man,” said the visitor to the prisoner, “how did you happen to come to this sad place?”“Well, sir,” replied the convicted man, “you see in me the unhappy victim of the unlucky number thirteen.”“Indeed!” said the visitor. “How was that?”“Twelve jurymen and one judge, sir.”Nobody wants to take the blame on himself. Anything will do – unlucky number, palmistry, fate, astrology, stars, poor stars are creating misery for Anshumali. Even if they search for Anshumali it will be difficult for them to find him; they cannot even find the earth, it is so tiny. Our sun is twelve thousand times bigger than the earth and our sun is a very mediocre star. There are stars millions of times bigger than the sun; compared to those stars this earth is just a particle of dust, unnoticeable, negligible. It can be neglected, ignored. And there are millions of stars that science has counted and millions more must be beyond because our reach is limited, our instruments are limited. And these stars are deciding the fates of a clerk in the collector’s office, of a peon in the railway station?Man is so stupid, unbelievably stupid. He goes on throwing the responsibility on somebody else. Unless you stop this you will never become religious. A religious person is one who takes the responsibility upon himself.The first thing that is making you miserable is your desiring, constant desiring for this and that. Stop that. And when there is no desire there are no thoughts either. The function of the thoughts is to help you desire; they are instrumental. If you don’t have desires, thoughts are bound to disappear of their own accord. And when there are no desires, no thoughts: You are still. You are calm, collected, centered, rooted.It was an early morning fire, and the young Italian reporter was lucky enough on arriving at the scene to get an account of it from one of the residents of the apartment house who had escaped.“It was terrible,” narrated the man. “Imagine walls crumbling about you, the flames of the fire practically licking your cheek in whatever direction you turned and the very iron of the banisters smoking under your hands. But in the midst of it all, I want you to know, I kept quite cool and balanced.”“It’s a shame, since you were so calm and cool,” replied the reporter, “that you didn’t think of putting your pants on.”The people who think they are quiet and calm are not quiet and calm, they just believe that; they are just hoping that they are quiet and calm. Only very rarely is a person quiet and calm. It happens only at the ultimate peak of meditation, not before it. So don’t deceive yourself.By your own effortswaken yourself, watch yourself,and live joyfully.Accept the responsibility and that gives you great insight. If you are responsible for all your misery, if you are responsible for all your nightmares, then the other thing is also possible: you can wake up. If you are responsible for your sleep, you can wake up; if you are not responsible, some stars are responsible, then what can you do? You are just a victim and you have to suffer. Unless the stars change their mind, if they have any mind, you are helpless.By your own efforts waken yourself, watch yourself, and live joyfully. And people say Buddha is a pessimist? He says: …and live joyfully.Buddha says: “Don’t believe in a savior because that is the old mind, the same mind that wants to throw the responsibility on somebody else.” Now Christians think Jesus saves. Hindus think that whenever the need arises, Krishna will come back; he will take another incarnation to save humanity. When are you going to feel your responsibility? And people don’t think that this is just ugly, insulting, humiliating; it is falling below human dignity.A Christian and a Jew were out walking. They came across a church and in front of it there was a big board with the words, “Jesus saves!”The Jew said, “That’s nothing – Moses invests!”Nobody can save you; don’t wait for any savior. You can save yourself, that is true.This is also one of Buddha’s great insights into human misery, into human reality, that he says: “Don’t believe that somebody will save you. You are the cause of your misery, you can be the cause of your bliss.”You are the master,you are the refuge.As a merchant breaks in a fine horse,master yourself.How gladly you followthe words of the awakened.And if you meditate, if you become a little silent, a little alert, you will love these words because they have the taste of truth, but only for those who are meditating.How gladly you follow the words of the awakened. Then all the awakened ones suddenly become your contemporaries. Only then can you understand Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mahavira, Lao Tzu. Only then, when you meditate, suddenly mysteries open up, closed doors open and things which were never clear to you suddenly become clear. But it happens through meditation and there is no other way. Not by studying, not by gathering more and more knowledge, not by arguing, not by philosophizing, but only by becoming more and more silent. In utter silence, existence speaks to you through all the awakened ones.How quietly, how surelyyou approach the happy country,the heart of stillness.Then your steps have a confidence because all the buddhas are witnesses to you. As you start tasting the joys of meditation, as you start becoming alert to the beauties of meditation, as flowers start blossoming inside you, all the buddhas become witnesses to you. You know you are on the right track; great confidence arises in you.How quietly, how surelyyou approach the happy country,the heart of stillness.However young,the seeker who sets out upon the wayshines bright over the world.It is not a question of age. Buddha was the first to initiate young people into sannyas. Otherwise, in India the tradition was that only very, very old people, older than seventy-five, were allowed to take sannyas. Sannyas was for the old people. Buddha created a revolution: he initiated young people.My own experience is that the younger you are, the better, because as you become older you gather more and more rust, more and more dust. As you become older you become more and more burdened with experience, knowledge and all kinds of stupid things. As you become older you start losing the vigor, the energy, the courage to experiment with the unknown, to explore the unknown. As you become older you become so afraid of death that out of fear you go to God, and those who go out of fear to God never reach God. Fear is not a bridge, it is a wall. Those who go toward God inquiring for truth out of love for truth, only they are bridged. It needs a certain youth, a certain courage, a certain capacity to take risks. It needs energy, freshness; because religion basically is rebellion.Buddha says: However young… Don’t be worried about that. Maturity has nothing to do with age; growing old is not necessarily growing up. One can be young and grown-up and one can be very old and very childish. Age and maturity have no necessary link. Maturity comes through meditation. Aging is an ordinary process; everybody ages. Animals age, trees age, people age; that has nothing to do with transformation.However young,the seeker who sets out upon the wayshines bright over the world.Like the moon,come out from behind the clouds!Shine.Buddha says to his bodhisattvas, go and tell the seekers: Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.The same I say to you: Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,I have fallen in love with a woman I divorced two years ago. Is it possible?Man is almost a machine, he is not yet man, he functions unconsciously. He lives in sleep; hence everything is possible. In fact, you always fall in love with the same woman, even though apparently you fall in love with somebody else. The type is the same because your liking is the same, your mind is the same, your choice is the same.Just watch people, watch their love affairs, and you will be surprised. It is always the same man or the same woman – yes, with a different face or with a different mask, different clothes, different shape and size. But these differences are not real differences.Unless you are new, how can you fall in love with somebody new? Who is going to choose? How is one going to choose? The same mind will like the same type of face, the same eyes, the same color, the same shape, the form, the way the woman walks, the way she talks. Again within a few days you will be tired, just as you were tired before. Again you will find you are trapped, imprisoned, and the woman will also find the same thing. But man lives in such an unconscious state that you cannot expect more than that.If man is conscious, then many things become impossible. In the first place, falling in love itself becomes impossible. You start rising in love, not falling in love; the very quality of your love becomes totally different. It is no longer a relationship, it is more a state of your being. You are full of love, you share your love, but there is no demand on your part. It is no longer a business, it is no longer conditional. It asks nothing. It is simply thankful that somebody accepted it, that somebody did not reject your love. You feel grateful. It is not a bondage, it does not enslave the other. It is not possessive; it is absolutely nonpossessive, unconditional, undemanding. It gives freedom. And when love gives freedom, lovers start soaring high, they start moving toward the divine. Love becomes a door to the divine.Right now love simply drags you downward. “Falling in love” is a meaningful phrase – you certainly fall, you gravitate downward. In the beginning you feel great, but only in the beginning. That is just infatuation, because you are hoping something new is going to happen. In the beginning you are excited, it seems a great adventure, but soon you find it is the same old, rotten thing, nothing special, nothing new. Just the partners have changed, but the game is the same, played with the same violence, with the same ugliness.It is not only you who have fallen in love with the same woman; everybody is doing this. In the ordinary, unconscious state of humanity more than that cannot be hoped for. You were fortunate that you got divorced, but it is difficult to live alone unless you know the beauty of being alone.The moment you are alone you start suffering from loneliness, you start hankering for the company of the other. And then anybody will do, even the same woman that you had divorced; it is better than being lonely. Even if it is miserable, people prefer misery for company rather than loneliness.Unless you know the joys of meditation you cannot avoid falling in love. Once you start enjoying your own being, the joy, the space, the absolute freedom, the unhindered consciousness, nobody occupying your attention, nobody trying to catch your attention, nobody impinging on your freedom, interfering with your freedom… When you start enjoying your aloneness you have become a meditator. Yes, love will also be possible after that, but a totally different kind of love.You must have been suffering from loneliness and, finding the same woman again, you may have thought it is better to be with her than to be lonely. You must have forgotten all the miseries – people’s memories are very short.This has to be understood: the mind tends to forget the miserable part, it tends to remember the pleasurable part. That is one of the strategies of the mind to remain in control, to remain your master. It always tends to forget the misery; it magnifies, enhances, decorates the pleasurable part. Reality is totally different, but the mind lives in imagination.Your memories are not reliable at all because your memories are fictitious. You just think how beautiful it was, you have forgotten all the misery; you have chosen only a few moments that may have been beautiful. There must have been a few moments which were beautiful, but only a few moments, few and far between. And they cannot be as beautiful as you were thinking; otherwise what was the need of divorcing the woman? The misery must have been much more, the pain must have been too much, unbearable. You must have suffered too much, the woman must have suffered too much. It is not a question of the woman being at fault or your being at fault; it is simply that two unconscious people being together are bound to create misery for each other.If you cannot be happy alone, how can you create happiness for anybody else? You yourself are not happy, how can you give happiness to the other? You can give only that which you have. You are miserable – you can pretend that you are not miserable, but for how long? The honeymoon cannot last forever. Within a week, or at the most two weeks, it is finished, and then you know that both are miserable people. When two miserable people live together, misery is not only doubled, remember, it is multiplied.But you forget all that. Later on you efface those parts which were miserable, you preserve the beautiful moments, and not only do you preserve them, you go on decorating them, painting them, again and again. Slowly, slowly they have no relationship with the reality. Your past is fictitious, your future is fictitious. Only your present is real, and you don’t live in the present at all; either you live in the past or you live in the future.Why has this question arisen? Misery must have started again. That’s why you are asking, “Is it possible?” You have done it, and you are asking me, “Is it possible?” You yourself cannot believe what you have done.When people are together they want to be alone; when they are alone they want to be together. People are impossible!Middle-aged Rizzoli sat on his front steps weeping bitterly.“What’s-a matta for you?” asked his neighbor, Pasquale.“Bonnaocchi’s wife-a just-a die,” said Rizzoli, wiping his tears.“So what?” said his neighbor, “She was-a no blood-a relative of yours.”“I know that,” said Rizzoli. “It is-a just-a that everybody seems-a to have-a good luck but-a me!”When you are with someone, immediately a thousand and one problems arise which were not there before. When you are alone those problems disappear, but a new problem arises: the loneliness seems to be so empty. You feel at a loss, you don’t know what to do. Soon you start forgetting all the misery that was coming out of your relationship; you start hankering for another relationship. You think, “Maybe this time it is going to be different.” Maybe she has changed, maybe you have changed. Maybe both of you have learned from the experience.Harry and his girl, Francesca, were on the couch watching an old Roy Rogers movie on TV. As Roy rode through a pass, Harry said, “I will bet you a screw his horse steps in a gopher hole and falls.”“Okay,” said Francesca, “you’re on!”Sure enough, the horse stumbled.After the bet was paid in full Harry said, “I oughta tell you I saw the movie before. That’s how I knew.”“So did I,” said the Italian girl, “but I didn’t think-a a horse-a be dumb-a enough to fall-a in the same hole twice-a!”But man is even dumber.Now make the best out of it. When you have fallen in the hole, try to make a home there. You are an American, and the only religion the American believes in is: try and try and try again.The second question:Osho,I cannot understand you; I have tried hard but failed. What should I do now?Is there a need to understand me? What is understanding? It is an intellectual effort. What I am trying to communicate to you has nothing to do with the intellect. You can feel it, but you cannot understand it. You can live it, and only by living it will you be able to understand it.But people try just the opposite – first they want to understand. The idea is: unless we understand a thing, how can we try it, how can we live it? It is logical that first one should understand and only then should one try to live.But life is not logical; life is far deeper than logic, and many times life is absolutely illogical. If you try to cling to logic you will miss many things, and those many things are the most precious. You will miss love, you will miss meditation, you will miss joy, you will miss freedom. You will miss all that makes life significant, that gives life beauty, splendor. You will miss the presence of godliness that surrounds you. Logic is a barrier, not a bridge.You say, “I cannot understand you.” You must be trying from the head. It is a heart-to-heart communion. If you want to misunderstand me then the head is the right instrument; then you can go on misunderstanding me forever and forever. But if you want to understand me, then you have to forget all about your old patterns of understanding things. It is not mathematics that I am teaching here, it is not philosophy that I am teaching here.I am teaching something absolutely existential. You have to live it, you have to take the quantum leap. You have been told again and again that before you take the jump, think twice. And what I am saying to you is to take the jump first and then think as many times as you want, because then thinking cannot do anything, it cannot do any harm. But let the jump happen first.Meditation has to be experienced. If you try to figure out what it is, you will miss the point because it is not a question of mind at all. Meditation means a state of no-mind. I am constantly pulling you toward the state of no-mind, in every possible way.What I am doing here is absurd, it is not logical. You will have to put logic aside; otherwise I will say one thing and you will understand something else.The judge asked the philosopher who was produced in court, “Now tell me, sir, why did you park your car where you did?”The professor said, “There was a sign saying, Fine for Parking.”Put your intellect aside. And remember, I am not telling you to put your intelligence aside. On the contrary, if you can put the intellect aside you will be far more intelligent because intelligence and intellectuality are not synonymous, they are antagonistic. Intelligence is clarity; intellectuality is nothing but a clouded state. Intellectuality means you are too knowledgeable; your knowledge goes on interfering. Your mind is continuously interpreting, your mind is judging.Listen to me without any judgment. I am not saying agree with me – there is no question of agreement or disagreement – just listen.When you go to the mountains and you listen to the sound of a waterfall, do you agree with it or disagree with it? You simply listen. When you listen to beautiful music, do you agree or do you disagree? There is no question of agreement or disagreement; listening is nonjudgmental.Hence the critics miss many things. If a critic goes to listen to music, his listening is not total; he is constantly comparing, judging, interpreting. You have to be very noncritical. You have to be just open, vulnerable, receptive, silent, so that whatsoever is happening can penetrate to the deepest core of your being.If you are full of your own mind you are going to misunderstand me; that is bound to happen.Miss Zockwoski, an attractive redhead, got on a crowded bus and stood near a young fellow.The lad, thinking of giving his seat to her, looked up and said, “How far?”“You got your nerve!” snapped the Polish girl. “Would I ask you how long?”If you are carrying something in your mind, if you are preoccupied, then whatsoever you hear is not what is being said, it is what you are capable of hearing.Quizmaster: “Lady, for fifty dollars, tell me who was the first man on earth?”Lady: “Adam.”Quizmaster: “Right. Now for two hundred dollars tell me Eve’s first words when she met Adam.”Lady (stuck for an answer, turns to the quizmaster and says): “Gee, that’s a hard one, isn’t it?”Quizmaster: “Give this lady two hundred dollars!”Don’t remain preoccupied with your own thoughts. You must have come with great knowledge, you must have come with conceptions of your own and you are listening through a jungle of your own ideas.What I am saying is very simple, utterly simple. My statements are absolutely ordinary. I am not a holy man, I am not a saint. I am far more ordinary than you are. I have nothing special about me. I don’t exist at all, how can I be special? So my statements are so simple a child can understand them. But you can go on missing.On a Third Avenue bus in Manhattan, a very prim spinster was shocked overhearing Scarpetti, the immigrant, saying to his friend, “Emma come-a first, I come-a next, two assa come-a together, I come-a again, two assa come-a together again, I come-a once-a more, pee-pee twice, then I come-a for the last-a time.”When Scarpetti was finished, the crimson-faced old maid turned to a policeman sitting nearby. “Aren’t you going to arrest that terrible old man?” she whispered.“Why?” asked the policeman. “For spelling ‘Mississippi’?”Let me repeat: “Emma come-a first, I come-a next, two assa come-a together, I come-a again, two assa come-a together again, I come-a once-a more, pee-pee twice, then I come-a for the last-a time.”You ask me, “What should I do? I have tried hard but failed.” Now please don’t try hard. In fact, stop trying, drop trying. Just listen for the sheer joy of listening. The wind passing through the pine trees… Listen. The sound of running water… Listen. The birds singing in the morning… Listen. Don’t try to understand. Just by listening something will start reaching your heart. A song, a dance will start happening. Your heart will start opening up like a flower and great fragrance will be released, and that will be real understanding.You have been unnecessarily trying hard. Relax with me, don’t try hard. If you try hard you will be tense, and there is no possibility of understanding me through tension. Relax, rest. I am here to teach you relaxation and total rest.Understanding is going to happen but not through the head, it is going to happen through the heart, not through logic but through love.The third question:Osho,Why is creativity so painful?Creativity is the highest peak of your consciousness; hence it is painful, it is arduous. You are going uphill. To be uncreative is very comfortable; it is a downward journey. You need not do anything, nothing is needed on your part; just the gravitational pull is enough. When you are coming down from the hill toward the plains you can just turn your car engine off, no gas is needed; the car will go on rolling down. But if you are going uphill then effort is needed, great effort is needed.Creativity needs the greatest effort because many things have to be dropped when you are moving upward; unnecessary weights have to be dropped. And you are carrying so much luggage; it is all unnecessary, it is useless. But people go on collecting, people are great collectors. They will collect any kind of rubbish, hoping that maybe some day it will prove of some use. They are greedy and they feel empty so they go on stuffing themselves with every kind of thing. You are so full of ego and ego is a great weight. You cannot move upward. You will have to put the ego aside, and that is the greatest pain.To be a creator means you drop the very idea “I am separate from existence.” Creation happens only when you are one with the existence. Creation happens only when you are so in tune with the creator that there is no disturbance from your side. And the greatest disturbance comes from the ego. It nourishes itself on disturbance, it lives on disturbance. Ego means the idea “I am separate.” If you think you are separate, you are living in a lie, and creativity flows out of the experience of truth.You have to know the truth, that you are not separate. No man is an island, we are all part of one vast continent. The whole existence is one, it is one organic unity; hence all that is great has come out only in those moments when the creator was dissolved into the whole. Great paintings, great poems, great music, great dance, all happen only when you are dissolved, when you are no more. If you are, suddenly you become the block, you stop the flow. Then existence cannot use you as a flute, cannot sing through you. The flute has to be just a hollow bamboo, just an open space, just a vehicle. The great poets, the great musicians, the great dancers, are all vehicles. They don’t dance, they are being danced. They don’t sing, some unknown energy sings through them.That’s why creativity is painful, because nobody wants to melt and merge and dissolve. We cling to our identities. In fact, we want to be creative so that we can hang a few more awards around our egos, so the ego can become more famous, so that you can say, “I am somebody special. I am a great poet or a great composer or a great author” – or something. And that’s the greatest problem to be faced by any creator: that he has to drop his ego.In the beginning it is for the ego that you want to be creative. It is a very paradoxical process: you have to drop the very ego that was the impetus in the beginning, that wanted to be famous, that wanted to leave its name resounding down the corridors of time, that wanted to make history. That very same ego becomes the cause of stopping the flow of unknown energies in you. Otherwise existence is always pouring; you have just to be open, available. You are not to be separate.It hurts in the beginning; it hurts more if you are resisting. If you are not resisting much it hurts less; if you are not resisting at all it doesn’t hurt at all. Then dropping the ego can be one of the most joyous acts.That’s what sannyas is all about. The whole message is based on this single phenomenon: dropping the ego joyously. It is not a question of surrendering your ego to me. Ego is not something that you can surrender; it is just a fiction, it is not a reality. So when the master says, “Surrender your ego to me,” he is simply giving you a device, because you live with the idea that ego is very substantial. He knows it is nothing, so he says, “Surrender it to me, give it to me, and be free of it.” Not that you are giving anything – there is nothing to give; not that he is receiving anything – there is nothing to receive. But to help you to get rid of a false notion, a device is created. Once you have dropped the idea, suddenly you see the whole thing: nothing has been given, nothing has been taken. You are the same, only the old wrong notion has disappeared. People are very reluctant to surrender.Just the other day a sannyasin wrote to me saying, “I can do everything you are saying, but I cannot surrender.” Then how can you do everything that I am saying? That is the first thing that I am saying. And he says, “I can do everything you are saying, but I cannot surrender.” And he is thinking he is making a very clear statement. That is the only thing that I am saying: surrender the ego. And it is not a question of surrendering it to me. Surrender it to a tree, but surrender. Surrender it to the river, go and drown it in the river. Burn it, bury it, cremate it, do whatsoever you want to do, but be finished with it.I am not interested in collecting your egos. What will I do with so many egos? If you are suffering so much with one, I will be in the seventh hell with so many egos. I am not an ego collector. It is just a device, a simple device. You say, “Where can I put my ego?” I say, “Okay, give it to me,” because I know that there is nothing to give, but you will be happy in giving it. At least you will feel great that you have surrendered; at least you have given your ego into the right hands.But this sannyasin says, “I cannot surrender.” And people coming from the West, particularly, find it very difficult. This is something which has to be understood: the Western education, the Western psychology, all emphasize ego; they all emphasize, “Enhance the ego, strengthen the ego.” In different names the ego is strengthened. Willpower is nothing but another name for ego. The whole idea is that man has to have an ego of steel, unbendable, strong, rocklike, hard, because life is a constant struggle for survival. You have to fight, you have to conquer.Even a man like Bertrand Russell writes about science and “the conquest of nature.” The whole idea, the Western idea, is how to conquer; even nature has to be conquered. And who are you? – a part of nature. A part is trying to conquer the whole. It is like your left hand trying to conquer your whole body. Is it possible? It is ridiculous. Science has not conquered nature, but in the very effort to conquer it, it has destroyed much.In the East we have a totally different idea: nature has to be understood. The law – what Buddha calls dhamma, the fundamental law of life – has to be understood so that you can be in tune with it. It is not a question of conquering but of being in step with it, being in harmony with it. To be harmonious with nature is to be blissful.If the West has lost all bliss, all peace, nothing is responsible except this stupid idea of conquering nature. Nature has not to be conquered, but the same idea persists in many ways. Scientists, and even so-called religious people go on talking about willpower. Hundreds of books have been written on willpower. It is a sheer wastage, and not only a wastage but it is poisoning people’s minds. People like Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill go on poisoning: How to Win Friends and Influence People. Deep down the idea is the same: how to win, how to influence. Napoleon Hill has written a book: Think and Grow Rich. And what is the secret of growing rich? When you look, you will find it is willpower; the whole secret, the magic secret is willpower. But willpower is only another name for ego power, and ego is impotent, there is no power in it. So people go on struggling unnecessarily, fighting with each other, competing with each other, and the end result is that everybody is miserable. Hence for the Western mind it seems very difficult to surrender.The situation is not better in the East either. In the East for thousands of years it has been taught that surrender is the key, so people are very easily ready to surrender, so easily ready that it has become a simple formality; it has no significance. The Eastern man can touch the feet of the master with no intention of surrender. He touches the feet of each and everybody; that is just formal. It is like shaking hands, it does not mean anything; it is like saying hello. It has no meaning in it, it is formal. It is a kind of greeting to elderly people, to anybody who is respected by others, to anybody who is known as religious, holy, saintly. People touch the feet of their fathers, their mothers, their elderly relatives; it is just a conditioning.So the Eastern person is in a different difficulty. His difficulty is that he does not know what surrender is; he has not enough ego to surrender. And the Western man has too much ego; hence he feels resistant. But on the whole the Western man is in a better position, because if he understands the point and he consciously surrenders the ego, his surrender goes far deeper than the Eastern man’s surrender.That is my experience of thousands of sannyasins from the East and from the West. The Western sannyasin’s surrender is far more total. Of course it is difficult for him, it takes longer for him, but whenever it happens, it really happens. The Eastern man’s surrender takes no time; he is always willing, he is ready, even before you have asked, but it does not change him. He has been touching so many people’s feet; in fact, he has started feeling a new, subtle kind of ego, “I am so humble that I am ready to surrender. I am so surrendered.” But that “I” persists now in a far more subtle way.You ask me, “Why is creativity so painful?” It is because of the ego. And then there are other problems also. If you are too knowledgeable it will be difficult for you to be creative.In Zen they have an ancient tradition. They say if you want to become a painter, for twelve years learn as perfectly as possible the technique of how to paint, and then for twelve years forget all about the technique and painting; do something else. Turn your back on painting completely; forget all about it, as if you have nothing to do with it. And then one day start painting again.This is something significant. For twelve years you have to learn the technique, because without the technique your painting will be childish; but if it is just the technique, then technically it will be perfect but it will not have any life, it will not be creative. So you have to learn the technique, let it soak in and then forget all about it so it becomes part of your blood, of your bones, of your marrow. Then after twelve years, one day suddenly start painting again. Now you don’t know the technique. In a way you know, existentially it has become part of you; it is no longer knowledge. So your painting will not be just technical and it will not be childish either.First learn the technique and then unlearn the technique. Only then one day does creativity explode. First learn the technique of how to dance, then forget all about technique and become spontaneous. Then only…There are two types of people – one who will think that there is no need to learn the technique: “I want to be a creative person, not a technician.” Then their painting, their music, their dance, will remain just a childish effort, amateurish; cannot be of much value. And then there are the opposite people who will learn the technique as much as they can and then they are caught in the technique. They paint perfectly but something is missing: the soul is missing, the spirit is missing; it is a dead corpse. So you have to drop all knowledgeability. You have to unlearn so again you can become fresh, innocent.And third: if you are trying to be creative with a certain hidden motive you will never find the right direction for your energies, because if painters are famous then there will be many painters. For example, in France there are many painters. In India you will not find so many painters, but many saints; just whatsoever is the fashion. In France painting is fashionable; the people who are thought to be intelligent should be painters. In India they should be saints, the same fools. If they were born in France they would be painting; in India the same fools have become saints.In each country the fashion is different, and at different times. For example, in India no saint will ever think of painting, but in Japan all the saints try to paint. They learn calligraphy and painting, just because it is the fashion.When you are living according to a certain prevalent fashion, that simply means you want to be famous, you want to be accepted by the tradition and by the people. You are not inquiring about your real potential; you are far more interested in other people’s opinions. You have to drop that too. Don’t be worried about other people’s opinions; simply find out what feels good for you. Nobody may ever appreciate it, so what? You may not become famous, so what? Don’t be worried about it. The reward is not in being famous; the reward is in being involved, totally involved in creativity. The reward is in the act itself; it is not beyond the act, it is not after the act. It is not when you have painted the painting and people have appreciated it and it is being exhibited all over the world. No, the reward is when you are painting it, when you are utterly absorbed in it. That silence, that joy, that energy, that moment when you are not and godliness is: that is the reward.The fourth question:Osho,What happens? I am an Italian and yet not enlightened.It is enough to be an Italian; enlightenment is no longer needed. Enlightenment is for others who are not Italians. You have the first prize, enlightenment is the second prize. You should not be greedy for that. To be an Italian is such a great phenomenon; that’s why no Italian has ever become enlightened. And I don’t think it is ever going to happen, for the simple reason that Italians are born enlightened. Drop this greed. What will you do with enlightenment? Spaghetti is enough! Enjoy it to your heart’s content. Leave enlightenment to poor Indians; they don’t have anything else. That’s why in India so many enlightened people have happened: when you don’t have anything else at least you can have enlightenment.Enlightenment needs a few things which are basically missing in Italians. It needs intelligence. Where are you going to get it? It is not a commodity; you cannot find it in the marketplace, you cannot purchase it. It is not available in the outside world. And Italians are utterly extrovert, and enlightenment happens somewhere inside. It needs great understanding, and Italians are very skillful in misunderstanding.One summer in New York a gorilla escaped from a traveling circus. As Bronzini was walking down Broadway the ape suddenly appeared and sidled up beside the Italian.An astonished police officer directing traffic rushed over to the unusual sight of Bronzini and the gorilla.“Hey,” said the cop, “what are you doing with that ape?”“I don’t know,” said Bronzini, “He just-a come up and-a take-a walk-a with me!”“You better take that ape to the zoo!”“Okay, boss,” said the Italian.The next day the same policeman spotted Bronzini and the gorilla walking hand in hand along Park Avenue. The cop was livid. “Just a minute,” he shouted to Bronzini, “I told you yesterday to take that ape to the zoo!”“I did,” said the Italian, “and he like-a it so much, today I’m-a take-a him to the moving picture show!”Italians are so earthy, they are pure Zorbas. Except for me, nobody is going to accept them as sannyasins. But I love to do absurd things. I want to do this miracle: to make a few Italians enlightened. There is not much hope – I am hoping against hope – but there is nothing to lose. They need a good try.They are very bodily people, utterly body-oriented. The Romans have always been the most physical people on the earth. That has a beauty of its own, because the people who think they are spiritual become in many ways eccentric, crazy, insane, very egoistic, of course, in a very pious way. They are always thinking they are “holier-than-thou.” And they are wishy-washy. They talk about great things, but their life becomes ugly.That has happened to the East: they talk about God – and the bread and butter is missing. And without bread and butter there is no God, no possibility of God.So nothing is wrong in being body-oriented; one should be rooted in the body. One should be a Zorba, but one should not remain stuck there. One should go a little higher. Zorba should also become a Buddha. Then there is fulfillment; both are fulfilled, the body and the soul. Italians are too body-oriented and they are stuck there.Granaldi’s wife had just died and he was making an awful scene at the graveside. Over and over he kept tearing at his hair and yelling, “What-a am I gonna do? What I am-a gonna do? What-a am I gonna do?”The parish priest gently took Granaldi’s arm and tried to console him. “My son, I know you have suffered a terrible loss, but you will get over it in time,” he said, leading Granaldi away from the cemetery.“Oh, what-a am I gonna do?” wailed Granaldi. “What I am-a gonna do?”“Try to control yourself,” said the priest. “Months will pass, you will get over your grief, and then in a year or two you will meet some fine young woman and marry her and everything will be fine.”“Yeah, Father, I know all that!” said the Italian. “But what-a am I gonna do tonight?”The Italians have to be freed from their excessive body-orientation. Enlightenment is the ultimate flowering of consciousness. It can happen only when you are rooted in the body, but it cannot happen only with the body. You have to move inward, you have to transcend the body too. Your roots should be in the body and your wings should be in the soul.Don’t be worried. It has not happened yet, but it can happen. There are so many Italians here; their surrender is deeper than anybody else’s. Their commitment is also deeper than anybody else’s. For the first time so many Italians are trying to move deeper into meditation; something is bound to happen out of it. But they find something in me that they cannot find anywhere else. They can find a connection with me because I am not against the body. I am not against anything. I don’t think there is any problem if you love spaghetti – you can still be spiritual. There is no antagonism.For me, even sex and samadhi are related, together. For me, gossiping and gospels are not different, somewhere deep down they are aspects of the same coin. Hence Italians find a deep affinity with me. They cannot be interested in any other spiritual man, but I am not a spiritual man in the ordinary sense. I am a whole man, I am not holy.Locatelli, Swenson and O’Hara were sitting in the corner saloon. “There’s no doubt about it,” said Swenson, “Italian broads are the greatest!”“Yeah,” agreed O’Hara, “I would like to spend a nice long weekend with Gina Lollobrigida.”“Me,” said Swenson, “I will take Sophia Loren.”“That’s-a very nice,” said Locatelli, “but I wanna Virginia Pipe-a Line-a!”“Never heard of her!” said Swenson.“Who is she?” asked O’Hara.“Why, she is-a just-a the greatest Italian girl of them all. She even make-a the headlines in-a newspaper,” said Locatelli. “See, here it is on-a page-a one.” And there was a headline: “Five Die Laying Virginia Pipeline.”Don’t be worried, I am here to help you. This time maybe you cannot escape. So many Italians are caught in the net, a few of them are bound to become buddhas. Don’t be worried, enlightenment is going to happen to many people, Italians included.And the last question:Osho,And what about the Polacks?My God, are you a Polack? I was aware that one of my sannyasins, Anando, was a Polack, but I was not talking about Polacks because one Polack cannot do much. But two Polacks are too much; then there is danger! Polacks are great people, even greater than the Italians. Italians are nothing compared to the Polacks. You see, they were searching for a pope, they could not find one in Italy, so they had to choose a Polack. If you are searching for a fool you have to go to Poland.Swami Anando has contributed this authentic letter from his Polish mother:Dear Son,Just a few lines to let you know that I be still alive. I writing this letter slowly because I know you not able to read fast.You won’t know the house when you get home. We moved.There be a washing machine in the house when we move in, but it not working too good. Last week I put fourteen shirts into it, pull the chain, and I not see the shirts since.Your sister Hanna had baby this morning. I not find out yet whether it be boy or girl, so I not know whether you be an aunt or an uncle.Your uncle Leopold drown last week in a vat of whisky. Some of the men dived in to save him, but he fight them off hard. We cremated his body, but it took three days to put out the fire.Your father not have much to drink at Christmas. I put a bottle of Castor oil in his pint of beer. It keep him going until New Year’s Day.It only rain twice last week. First for three day and then for four day.Try to learn write me soon.Your loving mother,XXXP.S. I be going to send you ten dollars, but I already seal the envelope.Polacks are great people – more Polacks are needed here. But it is difficult for poor Polacks to come because their country is dominated by the Communists.Just a few days ago I received a letter saying they would like to start a center somewhere in Poland. They would like the center to remain hidden; I don’t think they will be able to manage it. They even want to become sannyasins but they will be caught.In Russia there are a few sannyasins. They cannot wear orange, they cannot wear the mala, but they have been managing well. They have their malas, they have made arrangements for the malas to reach them. Now, this letter from Poland: they want malas and they want books – but they have not given their address.Johnson went to the zoo to see Samson and Lionel, billed as the two most vicious lions in the world. There was no doubt about Samson, the smaller one, for if even a feather came within his reach he would pounce on it and rip it to shreds. But Lionel, the other, larger lion, did nothing but lie against some rocks licking between his hind legs.Johnson asked the zookeeper how come Lionel was advertised as being so savage.“Even though he is just lying there licking his sensitive areas,” explained the zookeeper, “Lionel is more ferocious than the other one. In fact, not twenty minutes ago he ate a Polack that fell into the cage.”“Then why is he licking himself like that?”“Oh,” said the zookeeper, “he is trying to get the taste out of his mouth!”Meet Anando. Try to find out if there may be a few other Polacks also trying to hide themselves, because they know once they are known I will be after them. Now you can declare whosoever is a Polack because I will be after them anyhow. So you can declare whoever is a Polack. You can make a small society of the Polacks.In the new commune it will be good to have small communities, separate communities, of Italians, Polacks, of Germans. There will be a few difficulties.Gayan wrote to me this morning saying, “Osho, you may not be aware, but now I have to tell you that I am half Italian – the fault was my father’s, he was Italian – and half German; that fault is my mother’s, she was German.”There will be some difficulty for people like Gayan, but we can make arrangements: they can live on the boundary line, half in the Italian commune and half in the German commune. And I don’t think there will be people who are German and Italian and Polack, all three; that will be difficult, very difficult.Miss Zabriski walked into a physician’s office and said, “I would like to get a vassilation.”“Miss,” said the MD, “I think what you are talking about is a vaccination.”“Yeah,” said the Polish girl, “and I don’t want you to give it to me on my arm because I wear a sleepless nightgown.”“You mean sleeveless nightgown?”“And I don’t want it on my thigh because I have a zucchini bathing suit.”“You mean bikini?”“And I don’t want you to vaccinate me on my Virginia.”“You mean vagina?”“Alright,” shouted the girl. “Virginia, vagina, just as long as I don’t get small cox!”Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

https://oshoworld.com/the-dhammapada-vol-11-07/

Wanting nothingwith all your heartstop the stream.When the world dissolveseverything becomes clear.Go beyondthis way or that way,to the farther shorewhere the world dissolvesand everything becomes clear.Beyond this shoreand the farther shore,beyond the beyond,where there is no beginning,no end.Without fear, go.Meditate.Live purely.Be quiet.Do your work, with mastery.By day the sun shines,and the warrior in his armor shines.By night the moon shines,and the master shines in meditation.But day and nightthe man who is awakeshines in the radiance of the spirit.“Look, Captain Columbus, land! We’ve discovered land!”“Wonderful! Cable Queen Isabella immediately.”“But, Captain, the cable hasn’t been invented yet.”“Mamma mia! Do I have-a to do everything myself-a?”Science is a tradition, it does not depend on one man’s discovery. It is a continuum; many people have contributed, still many will go on contributing. Then too it is never going to be complete; something will always remain to be discovered. It is a social phenomenon. Without Newton there is no possibility of Albert Einstein; without Albert Einstein there will be no possibility of anybody else to find something beyond the concept of relativity. Science is interdependent; it is not one man’s work. Much has to be accepted from others, much has to be borrowed; it is inheritance. Hence science depends on the past, it is rooted in the past.Religion is totally different: every individual has to discover on his own. Religion is not a tradition and can never be a tradition. You cannot borrow insights from somebody else; the insight has to be authentically yours. Only then is it significant. You can see only through your own eyes, you can understand only through your own meditation, you can experience only through the flowering of your own heart.There is no question of dependence. If there had been no Buddha you could still be awakened, if there had been no Christ you could still be enlightened. Your enlightenment is absolutely your own, it is individual. That’s the beauty of religion; that’s why religion cannot be taught. Science can be taught; religion has to be discovered again and again by each and every individual, by each and every seeker. The path of science is like walking on the earth; you leave your footprints. Buddha has said: “The path of religion is like birds flying into the sky, leaving no footprints.”Nobody can follow Buddha. You can love Buddha, but you cannot follow him. You can love Christ, but you cannot follow him. Yes, your love will help you, will help you to understand, will give you courage to inquire, will strengthen your spirit to go into the unknown. It will be a tremendous help because the journey is without any maps and you are going into the ocean. The other shore, the farther shore is not visible; there is no guarantee that you will ever reach it. By loving a Buddha, a Christ, a Zarathustra, a Krishna, a Lao Tzu, a deep trust arises in you about the farther shore – that it exists: “If I search with my total being there is a possibility I may discover it.” But the risk is great and everything has to be done by you. You have to go alone. You have to be totally alone; nobody can accompany you on the way.The master can show you the path, but he cannot go with you. He can push you, he can encourage you, he can help in many ways, but still you have to go alone. You have to discover everything, each detail of the truth, again.In science it is totally different: once a truth is discovered it is discovered for the whole of humanity. Once electricity is discovered there is no need for everybody to discover it again and again. That will be stupid, utterly stupid. Once discovered it becomes part of the whole humanity’s heritage.But it is not true about the inner, subjective truth. Thousands of times it has been discovered, but when it comes as a question, as an inquiry for you to discover it, you have to go again from ABC. It is as if you are the first, as if nobody has preceded you. You have to break the ice, you have to move in the virgin land.This is a great challenge. Cowards shrink from it, but courageous people feel tremendously attracted. Courageous people find it almost like a magnetic force pulling them. Hence Buddha always talks about fearlessness. He says: Without fear, go.Other religions, particularly the organized religions, are rooted in fear. If Buddha had written the ancient parable of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from heaven, he would have written it in a totally different way. He would have appreciated Adam and Eve. He would not have called it the original sin, he would have called it the original virtue – that they rebelled, that they were not afraid of God and the punishment, that they were fearless people.He would not have condemned them, that much is certain; he would have praised them immensely. It was a challenge to their spirit, to their very soul, to have been told, “Don’t eat from this tree, the Tree of Knowledge, because if you eat from this tree you will be punished, tremendously punished – not only you but your progeny also will be punished for ever and ever.”And the punishment was going to be great. God had said to Adam and Eve, “If you eat from the Tree of Knowledge, if you eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, you will become mortal. Right now you are immortal.” Death was going to be the punishment. What more punishment can there be? Death is the ultimate in punishment.Buddha would have appreciated them. If Adam and Eve had not rebelled, had not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, there would have been no humanity, and there would have been no Christ, no Buddha, no Zarathustra, no Lao Tzu. Adam and Eve would be still roaming naked like animals in the Garden of Eden. There would have been nothing like humanity. This consciousness, this awareness, this inquiry – nothing would have been there. The whole credit goes to Adam and Eve.The serpent would not have been the Devil. In Buddha’s story, the serpent must have been an ancient buddha provoking Adam and Eve, “Go without fear and eat the fruit. Don’t be afraid, don’t be cowards!” In the East the serpent has always represented wisdom. Jesus also says: “Be ye as wise as serpents.” The serpent in the East represents the inherent power, the seed power of your ultimate flowering; it is your potential. Hence kundalini is called serpent power.Kundalini means the serpent lying there fast asleep; it has to be awakened. Once it wakes up it starts rising upward. When it reaches to the ultimate center of your being – sahasrar – the last center, the last rung of the ladder, you have arrived home. The serpent is not a representative, a disguised form, of the Devil. Buddha would have written the whole story in a totally different way.But Christianity, Judaism, both are fear-oriented; so is Islam, so is Hinduism. Only two religions in the world, Buddhism and Jainism, are not; otherwise all other religions are fear-oriented. Only these two religions are rooted in fearlessness, and I cannot see how a religion can be fear-oriented. In all the languages of the world we have words like God-fearing for religious people; that is utter nonsense. A religious person is not God-fearing, he is God-loving – and love and fear don’t exist together. If you love somebody you are not afraid; if you are afraid you cannot love.Love does not exist in the world for the simple reason that we have been trying to create love through fear. The father, the mother, the priest, the politician, are all trying to create fear in you. The mother says, “Listen to me, otherwise you will suffer!” The father says, “I am powerful.” In a thousand and one ways he proves his power over the helpless child and then says to the child, “Love me, I am your father!” Of course the child has to pretend because he is dependent, he is helpless. He loves the mother out of fear; his love is pseudo. He loves the father out of fear; it is only a pretension, it is hypocrisy. He loves God out of fear, the fear of hell, the fear of being punished, the fear of being tortured.Do you know that Christianity believes that if you commit sins you will suffer in hell forever? That seems such an absurd concept. How many sins can a man commit in one small life? And Christianity believes in only one life. If Hindus were thinking that you will suffer for a long time in hell, one could understand the arithmetic because they believe in millions of lives, so you can commit as many sins as you like. Of course, the suffering will be in the same proportion, the punishment will be in the same proportion. But Christianity proposes an eternal hell. Now what sins can you commit? You can smoke cigarettes and then in hell you will be thrown in fire and you will smoke forever and forever. Or you can be an alcoholic, but how much can you drink in one small life? Out of seventy years one third goes into sleep; you can’t commit any sin in your sleep unless your dreams are also counted. Another one third goes into the offices, into the factories, into the fields, into the shops. How much time is left to commit sins? Just count all the days – you will not find much time. And your sins will be just trivia. Yes, you can fall in love with your neighbor’s wife, but for that you will be suffering for ever and ever? It is utterly unjust, unfair. Maybe three or four years’ imprisonment in hell will do, but eternity? Can you conceive of eternity? It will never end, the suffering will be unending.This is just to create fear. And people worship God out of this fear, they pray out of this fear.Buddha is against fear; fear is the original sin according to him. He believes in fearlessness – he believes, and he believes rightly; it is his experience. It is my experience too, that true love happens only when fear disappears completely.A true religion has not happened in the world because we have been trying to create a cheap religion based on fear. True love has not happened in the world. The wife is afraid of the husband, hence she pretends to love; the husband is afraid of the wife, hence he goes on saying, “Darling, I love you!” as many times as possible.That’s what Dale Carnegie suggests to all husbands: “Whether you love her or not is not the point. Repeat it as many times in the day as possible, as many opportunities as there are. Once or twice from the office phone your wife just to say ‘I love you.’” This is all out of fear.Because of fear the world is missing the roses of love. Love can happen – every man is born with infinite capacity for love – but fear cripples everybody, paralyzes everybody.Buddha says to his bodhisattvas: “Go and teach people these few fundamental things.” The first thing he says:Wanting nothingwith all your heartstop the stream.These sayings are his code words; you will have to understand his code words. In those old days things had to be remembered, so only very small sutras, very condensed sutras were given. Each sutra is expressed in a code language; you have to decode it. You have to translate it into contemporary language; otherwise you will miss the significance of it.Wanting nothing… How is it possible to want nothing? That is the most fundamental truth in Buddha’s teachings. He is not saying don’t want anything, remember. That will be a misunderstanding. He is saying: Wanting nothing with all your heart stop the stream.By “the stream” he means the mind. He always calls the mind the stream because it goes on flowing; whether you are awake or asleep it goes on flowing. It is the stream of thoughts.In the modern world, William James, one of the great psychologists, used for the first time a Buddhist expression for the mind; he called it “stream of consciousness.” Buddha says it is like a river constantly flowing. How can you stop it? The old methods are to repress, to control, but they have failed, utterly failed; they had failed even in Buddha’s time.In a sense Buddha is the first psychologist of the world, not Sigmund Freud. And Buddha’s insight into the mind is far deeper than all your psychologists put together. There is no way to get rid of the constant overpowering flood of mind energy, of mindstuff, just by controlling it or by repressing it. Repression is absolutely destructive. If you repress something it will come up again and again and you will have to repress it again and again. Your whole life will become a kind of Civil War; you will be constantly fighting with yourself. And the fight is going to be unending because you cannot destroy the mind in this way; this is not the way to get rid of the mind. In fact, you are giving mind great energy by fighting with it.Mind can be given energy in two ways: either by fighting with it or by indulging in it. One leads to repression, the other leads to identification, and both nourish the mind. The stream becomes bigger and bigger.You can repress – repression is easy – and the whole of humanity has learned to repress because you always fall for the easy. Repression is not a difficult thing. Anger arises: you can sit on it, you can go on smiling a false smile, and sooner or later you will forget about it. But it is there boiling within you, and you are accumulating every day more and more anger. Anger has a beauty of its own if it is spontaneous, but you are accumulating anger which will become irrelevant, it will not be spontaneous.Something may have happened ten years ago; now it has no reference to reality, no context – and suddenly you explode. You look insane. That’s how people go insane. If they had been angry ten years earlier when the right context was there, nobody would have called them insane, but for ten years they were sitting on it; then it became too much. For ten years continuously they were accumulating more and more anger. Every day they were repressing, they were sitting on a volcano; sooner or later it was going to erupt.Either you repress, or you have to become so dead and dull, so unalive that nothing can erupt. You have to withdraw yourself so totally from life, into a monastery, you have to become so insensitive to life that people can go on insulting you, and you gather such a thick skin that nothing penetrates you.Giovanni was sentenced to jail for having made love with his wife’s body a few hours after her death. “Do you have anything to say in your own defense?” asked the judge.“Honest, Mista Your Honor,” replied the Italian, “I didn’t know she was-a dead. She has-a been like-a that for the last-a twenty years!”There are millions of people who are not really alive. They are afraid of being alive because if they are alive then their anger, their lust, their greed, all become alive. To keep them repressed they have to remain at the minimum; they never live at the maximum. And not to live at the maximum is to miss God, is to miss all the beauties and the benedictions of life.You should live at the maximum; only then do you come to know the tremendous beauty of existence. Only from that height do you become aware of the immense splendor, of the constant celebration that goes on and on. But you cannot live to the maximum; you are afraid because if you live so totally then all that you have repressed will come up.Millions of people have decided for a dead life – before they really die they are dead. They live only for the minimum, to earn a livelihood; not to live but just to vegetate. They are so afraid; the priests have made them so afraid.Buddha is against repression. If you repress something it will start finding some other way to come up, some perverted way. That’s why I say that all sexual perversions have religious origins, for the simple reason that all religions have been against sexuality.Sex has to be transformed, not repressed. It is pure energy, it is fire. But you need not burn your house with the fire. You can heat your house when it is too cold, you can make your house full of light when it is dark. It is the same fire which becomes light, which becomes heat, but it can also burn your house. You have to be very alert, careful, cautious.Your life energies are neutral: they can harm you, they can help you; it all depends on you. Don’t condemn them. You, and only you, are responsible.But people go on condemning sex as if sex has something to do with you. Sex has nothing to do with you; sex is pure energy. But if you repress it, it will become a perversion; then it will find ways. If you close the natural way, then it comes through some unnatural way. And you are the same stupid person, you have not changed at all; your understanding has not grown up.Mulla Nasruddin came from his village to the big city, and a rich friend invited him to his box at the opera.Said the friend, “We will be sitting close to other people, so be sure to change your socks before you come!”A short time after they entered their opera seats, the neighbors started turning their noses up at the bad smell.“I told you to change your socks,” said the friend to Mulla.“I most certainly did,” said Nasruddin. “And furthermore I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I brought the old socks right here in my pocket to prove it!”If you are the same old stupid guy it does not matter what you do with your sex, with your greed, with your jealousy. They will be coming back in some other form, by some other route; they will become even more subtle.Buddha says what is needed is more awareness, more understanding – neither repression nor control. If you can become aware of your desires, if you can watch your desires, then a miracle happens, the greatest miracle of all. The moment you become aware of your desires you can easily see that no desire can ever be fulfilled; its very nature is unfulfillable. Every desire is just a hankering for something which cannot be, every desire means more and more and more. Now, how can you fulfill this constant hankering for more? You can have all the wealth of the world, still the desire will be there.I have heard that when Diogenes said to Alexander the Great, “Have you ever thought about one thing? – although it is a very remote possibility, have you thought about it? You may really conquer the whole world, then what? There is no other world to conquer, there is only one world. If you really succeed – have you ever pondered over the matter? – then what will you do?”It is said that Alexander became very sad. Diogenes laughed and he said, “Look! You have not yet conquered it, but the very idea of what you are going to do next if you conquer the whole world… There is no other world. You will be quite at a loss because the mind will ask for more. It is not going to be satisfied with this world only, it is not going to be satisfied.”Mind means discontent; it is its very nature. Desires are only manifestations of this discontent. When you watch your desires you slowly, slowly become aware of the futility of desiring, you become aware of the absurd nature of desiring. You become aware that by their very nature desires are unfulfillable. Seeing this, a transformation happens, a miracle happens, a radical change sets in; but by seeing this, not by repression, not by control but by understanding.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 gathering to hear him play. Birds, lions, hippos, elephants – all stood round entranced by his beautiful music.Just then a crocodile crept out of the nearby river and into the clearing and – snap! – gobbled up the violinist.The other animals were extremely irate. “What on earth did you do that for?” they demanded. “We were enjoying that.”“Eh?” said the crocodile, cupping its hand to its ear.The mind is absolutely deaf; it goes on and on doing the same stupid things, never seeing, never listening to the message. Every desire brings you to a point where a radical change can happen, but the mind can neither see nor hear. It is blind, it is deaf. As one desire fails it simply jumps on another desire. If one desire fails, the mind thinks, “If this desire has failed that does not mean that all other desires are going to fail.” It goes on hoping that there must be some desires which can be fulfilled, maybe not this time but next time; if not today then tomorrow; if not in this life then in the life after death, in heaven. But the mind goes on and on thinking in the same old rut.At the scene of a bank raid the police sergeant came running up to his inspector and said, “He got away, sir!”The inspector was furious. “But I told you to put a man on all the exits!” he roared. “How could he have gotten away?”“He left by one of the entrances, sir.”The mind always finds a way to convince you again of the same stupid game. Buddha says to watch it. It is only through watchfulness that wanting nothing happens.Your watchfulness has to be with all your heart; it should not be partial, otherwise it is not going to work. If you only watch partially then the part that has not been involved will go on doing the old tricks, the old strategies. Your whole heart has to be watchful so that no dark spot is left in you, so your whole being becomes aware of the absurdity of desiring.Jimmy Carter was visiting one of the largest institutions for the mentally unbalanced. He finished inspecting the main building and wanted to see the Farm Section. His chauffeur was not around so the president boarded the regular bus.In a few minutes the keeper brought on some inmates. When they were seated he began counting, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5…” He got to the president and asked, “Who are you?”Mr. Carter said, “I’m President of the United States.”The keeper said, “6, 7, 8…”It does not matter who you are, where you are. If you are still desiring you are mad: “6, 7, 8…” You are insane. In fact, unless you are insane enough, how can you try so hard to be the president of a country? For years people try to become the president of a country; almost their whole life is devoted to a single goal, to be the president of a country. And what is attained? With the same energy they could have become buddhas, with the same effort they could have become awakened. But we put our energies to such wrong goals – money, power, prestige – and they all lead to insanity.Desiring is insane. Enjoy life, but don’t be too much bothered about tomorrows. Don’t sacrifice your today for tomorrows; otherwise you will always go on missing all the opportunities which open up for your inner growth.Wanting nothingwith all your heartstop the stream.Watch. Try to understand the very nature of desiring, and in that very understanding there comes a stop of its own accord. The stream simply disappears, evaporates, as if it has never been there. And the moment you are free of the mind you are free of all misery, of all discontent.When the world dissolveseverything becomes clear.With the dissolution of the mind, the whole world that the mind has created around itself also dissolves, obviously – it depended on the mind, it was the mind’s projection. Not that the trees will disappear and the roses will disappear, no, the roses will be far rosier and the trees will be far greener. People will be far more beautiful; even pebbles on the seashore will be like diamonds. Everything will become precious.This world, the real world, is not going to disappear with your mind, but you are living in a totally different private world: the world of your desires. You don’t see the real world, you only see your own private world projected on the real world. The real world is simply being used as a screen on which you go on projecting your desires. You never see that which is; you only go on seeing that which you desire.It is said that the shoemaker never looks at people’s faces, he always looks at their shoes. Of course he is not concerned with their faces, he has nothing to do with their faces; he is concerned with their shoes. And by seeing the shoes he knows about the person. The shoe contains all the messages for him: whether the person is rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful. The shoe will say everything: the shape of the shoe, the newness, the oldness, the tiredness of the shoe. Everything will say what kind of man this is. The shoe, analyzed by a shoemaker, will give you a perfect analysis of the man. There is no need to go to a psychoanalyst, you can go to the shoemaker, leave the shoe with him and he can make a chart about you: what kind of man you are, what is happening in your life.The tailors never see you, they only see your clothes. They decide about you from your clothes. People see only that which they desire and they project their desire. If somebody is full of lust even an ugly woman may look beautiful.Mulla Nasruddin goes to a hill station once in a while; he has a bungalow there. Sometimes he says, “I am going for three weeks,” and comes back after only ten days. It happened many times so I asked him, “You never follow your decision. You say, ‘I am going for three weeks,’ then you are back within a week. Sometimes you say, ‘I am going for five weeks,’ and you are back in ten days. What is the matter?”He laughed and said, “I have a criterion and I cannot decide from here. You know that I have got a bungalow in the hill station – well, I have kept a woman there to look after the bungalow. She is the ugliest woman you can conceive of, and how long I am going to stay is determined by that woman.”I said, “I don’t understand.”He said, “Let me explain. She is so repulsive, so disgusting, but when I go there, after two or three days she is not so repulsive, so disgusting. After four or five days I even start seeing something beautiful in her. By the seventh or eighth day she starts looking really beautiful. The moment I see that a desire for her is arising in me, I escape. That’s how I decide. That means now it is time for me to leave. I know that she is ugly, but now my eyes are deceiving me, now they are projecting. Now my unfulfilled sexual lust is being projected on her; she is not what she is appearing to me.Then I start escaping, I am going insane. Then I immediately rush back home; it is time to go home, otherwise there is danger. And I don’t want to make love to that disgusting woman. I know perfectly well she is disgusting, but there comes a time, somewhere between seven and ten days, when she starts looking as beautiful as if she is a Sophia Loren.”You experience this again and again, but you don’t understand. When for the first time you fall in love with a woman or a man, the other looks almost like a god or a goddess; that is your projection. Soon you will be disillusioned. The fault lies with you, not with the other. It is not that the other has cheated you; the other has not done anything. You were starving, you were hankering, you were living with a repressed desire and that desire created an illusion for you. You fell in love, you saw something which was not there. Lovers go on seeing things which are not there, nobody else sees them; that’s why lovers are thought mad by everybody else. They themselves will think they were mad after two or three weeks, but when they are in love for the first time they think they have discovered the woman they are made for, that they are made for each other.Here, I receive many letters. One woman sannyasin finds somebody almost every month and she writes to me and she forgets all about the fact that she has been writing it for at least three years: “Osho, it seems we are made for each other.” She has no idea that she has written this at least fifty times. But when she is infatuated with somebody she forgets everything else.I reminded her. She said, “The other times I may have been wrong, but this time, believe me, we are made for each other.” And within two or three weeks these people who are made for each other are finished.In fact, nobody is made for anybody else; everybody is made for himself or herself. Nobody is made for anybody, God never makes you in pairs, he only makes individuals. Drop that whole nonsense.In the East we have stories – they must be stories, they cannot be history. In Jaina scriptures it is said that in the beginning when the world started, God used to make men and women together. Each mother used to give birth to twins, one girl, one boy; they were going to be husband and wife. They were not sister and brother, they were made for each other. That must be a wish fulfillment. Man has always been thinking, “There must be someone with whom I am going to fit absolutely. Somewhere someone must exist who is just for me and I am for her.” There is nobody just for you, or you for anybody. God creates only individuals, God believes in individuality – he is an individualist.In fact, marriage is a human invention, God does not believe in marriage. He himself is alone without a wife; you can see – the point is so clear. Otherwise he would at least have married the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can be turned into a woman or a man – a ghost is a ghost! He does not have any body; he could have given it a body. If he can create the whole world, can’t he create a woman for himself? He was so generous with man – he first gave man a woman, Lilith. And Lilith was really a beautiful woman, but the first night there was a pillow fight – the first liberated woman. The Women’s Liberation movement started with Lilith. And the fight was because God had given them only a single bed and both wanted to sleep on it and it was not big enough for two persons. Lilith simply rejected the idea that she should sleep on the floor. She said, “If you want to sleep on the floor you can!”Adam felt very insulted – a man, and sleeping on the floor, and the woman sleeping in the bed? In the middle of the night they knocked on God’s door and said, “You have to settle it.”God also seems to be very strange – it was such a simple thing. He could have called Asheesh: “Make a double bed!” That’s what I would have done. Why make so much fuss about it? Or if Asheesh was going to take a long time – as he usually does – he could have removed the bed: “Both of you can sleep on the floor, be equal!” He could have sent Deeksha to remove it; she would have removed everything, even the floor. But God’s ways are strange.He dissolved Lilith. He said, “You disappear. You will not be able to work it out.” Then he made Eve, taking a rib out of Adam so that she would be a part of Adam. That is an ugly act, it is very antifeminist. And since then God has been a male chauvinist pig.Nobody is made for anybody else; hence no two persons can fit absolutely. All your ideas about fitting with the other are illusions, and they are shattered sooner or later. Either you have to compromise or you have to separate. But nobody is made for another.Those who understand start accepting the uniqueness of the other, they start respecting the uniqueness of the other. They know they are different, yet they have decided to be together. And it is beautiful that they are different because that variety gives richness to life.But you go on creating a world around yourself, an illusory world. Buddha is talking about that world when he says: When the world dissolves – he means when the mind dissolves with all its projections – everything becomes clear.When all your projections are gone you have a clarity, an immense clarity, no clouds in your consciousness. You can see through and through. That seeing is freedom, that seeing is salvation, that seeing is nirvana, that seeing is coming home.Go beyond…Go to that seeing. Go beyond the mind, go beyond the known, because the mind consists of the known. And go beyond the knowable because whatsoever is knowable will sooner or later become known, and will again create the mind. So go beyond the known – the known means that which has already become your mind; and beyond the knowable – that which is potentially going to become your mind sooner or later. Go beyond the known and the knowable so that you can enter into the unknowable, into the mysterious. The beyond represents the mysterious.…this way or that way…Buddha is not a fanatic; he says it doesn’t matter which way you follow. Remember, you have to go beyond the mind. Follow any way. This is his beauty, it is very rare. You will not find this quality in religious fanatics; he is not a fanatic at all. He says it is immaterial what way you follow: whether you swim to the other shore, or you go by a boat, or a steamship. How you manage is up to you. Go to the other shore; that is the point. Every path is valid if it leads to the other shore, every path is valid if it leads you beyond the mind.There are only two paths. One is awareness, meditation – Buddha’s path. And the other is love, devotion – the path of the Sufis. There are basically only two paths, but Buddha is very clear. He says: …this way or that way…By “this way” he means his path; by “that way” he means the path of love, of devotion. That is not his path, but he does not prohibit you. He does not say that you cannot reach by the other path. He does not say, “My path is the only path.” He does not say, he does not claim, “Only those who come with me will reach and everyone else will fall into hell.” No! He says, “You can follow other paths too. Just keep one thing in your consciousness: that you have to go beyond.”…to the farther shorewhere the world dissolvesand everything becomes clear.Beyond this shoreand the farther shore,beyond the beyond,where there is no beginning,no end.“Beyond the beyond” is Buddha’s expression for God; he never uses the word God. But “beyond the beyond” is exactly what the word God represents. Why does he say “beyond the beyond”? Is it not enough to call it “the beyond”? It is not, because when you say “the beyond” it seems you have comprehended it; it means your mind has comprehended. When you say “the other shore” it means that it is the other shore, but it is something like this shore. At least it is also a shore so it must be something like this, maybe a little bit different, more beautiful, with more trees, with more greenery, with more beautiful flowers and fragrance, but a shore is a shore.“This shore” and “that shore” your mind can comprehend. Hence he says: “Anything that is comprehensible to the mind has to be left behind.” The beyond is comprehensible.Beyond this shore and the farther shore – you have to go beyond both the shores – beyond the beyond, where there is no beginning, no end.When a man who had been practicing meditation for years came to Buddha, he said, “You have told me, ‘Attain to nothing,’ and I have attained it. Now what else do I have to do?”Buddha said, “Now throw it away! Go out and throw it away.”He was puzzled. He said, “I have spent years in attaining it.”Buddha said, “The only purpose in attaining it is to throw it away; only then will you be really in a state of nothing. Otherwise, this nothing has become something, you have attained it. It is not real nothing. How can you attain real nothing? Real nothing is not attainable, it is not graspable. It is beyond grasp, it is beyond comprehension. So go out and throw it away.”A king came to Buddha with many diamonds in one hand, very precious, very rare, and with a lotus flower in the other hand, out of season. He wanted to offer the diamonds. Buddha said, “Drop it!” So he dropped the diamonds – reluctantly, because it was such a great treasure – thinking, “This man does not understand what he is saying.”But ten thousand monks are there and now not to drop them will look miserly and people will laugh and they will say, “If you have come to offer him something and he orders, ‘Drop it!’ then drop it! You have offered them to him, now it is his business what to do with them.” So he dropped them, but very reluctantly.Then he offered the lotus flower. Buddha said, “Drop it!” He dropped that flower too. Now he was standing with empty hands and Buddha said, “Drop it!” Now the king was at a loss.He said, “Sir, I don’t have anything to drop; my hands are utterly empty.”Buddha said, “Then drop it.”Now the king thought, “This man is crazy! I am saying my hands are empty, still he says ‘Drop it!’”One of Buddha’s bodhisattvas, Manjushree, laughed and he said, “Sir, you don’t understand my master. He is saying, ‘Don’t carry this idea of emptiness, drop that too because the idea of emptiness is enough to fill yourself. The idea of emptiness is enough to create a mind.’ Buddha is saying, ‘Drop all unconditionally. And when you have dropped all, don’t carry this idea that now nothing is left. Drop that too so you have nothing to claim.’”That is the meaning of going beyond the beyond. That is the ultimate state of nirvana – when the ego, the mind, the personality, all cease to exist and you disappear into the mysterious, into the miraculous, into the universal.Without fear, go.Meditate.This is what meditation is all about: watching your desires, understanding their nature, and letting them fall like dry leaves from the trees in the autumn.Live purely.When meditation has happened and desire has disappeared, then live out of that innocence. Right now you are living out of desires. You desire this, you desire that, and sometimes you desire even God, sometimes you desire nirvana, sometimes you desire even meditation, but you live out of desires.There is another kind of life – the real life – which is lived through innocence, without desiring. So whatsoever comes on the way you enjoy, you rejoice, but you don’t desire.Live purely. Buddha calls a life which is not lived out of desires, a pure life.Be quiet.Naturally you will be quiet, when there is no desire left there is no turmoil left.Do your work, with mastery.Then whatsoever you are doing, whatsoever you enjoy doing, do it with mastery and skill. He loved skill very much, he loved excellence, he loved perfection. He was not a perfectionist, remember, because he was not a neurotic person, but he loved perfection. Do everything with your totality. Whatsoever you are doing, do it with such love, with such commitment and involvement that for the moment that is your whole life.Once Vincent van Gogh was asked by somebody, “Which is your best painting?”He was doing a painting. He said, “This one – this is the best.”After a few months the man asked again – he was painting something else – he asked, “Which is your best painting?”He said, “This one.”The man said, “But this is not right. Just a few months ago you said about some other painting that that was your best.”Vincent van Gogh said, “Whatsoever I am doing at the moment is the best. It is always this, it is never that. It is always now, it is never then.”This is the way of perfection, the way of excellence, the way of skill, mastery. Whatsoever you are doing, do it as if it is a question of life and death. Put your total energy into it, and it will give you tremendous bliss. Don’t be halfhearted. Only then does creativity bloom, only then do you become a participant in God the creator.By day the sun shines,and the warrior in his armor shines.By night the moon shines,and the master shines in meditation.These are code words. The sun represents the warrior. The sun is hot energy; the sun is violent energy. The moon represents the meditator, the mystic; it is cool energy. It is the same energy, remember; it is the same energy, it is not a different energy. But passing through the moon the sunrays become cool; that is the miracle of the moon, the alchemical change that happens through the moon. The moon simply reflects sunrays; it is a mirror. But just by passing through the moon a radical change happens: the rays which are hot, violent, become silent, cool, peaceful.The sun represents the warrior, the fighter, the soldier. The moon represents the sannyasin, the meditator, the mystic.Buddha says: By day the sun shines, and the warrior in his armor shines. The day belongs to the warrior, the sun belongs to the warrior. The warrior means one who is trying to conquer others, who is trying to become a master of others. That is a stupid effort, but it is cheaper. It is easy to enslave somebody else, it is always easy to find somebody who is weaker than you, it is easy to impose yourself upon somebody.But the mystic, the meditator is moving in a totally different direction; he is moving in his interiority. He is trying to be a master of himself, not of others but of himself, and that is true mastery. The first effort is stupid.The world has been dominated by the soldiers for centuries, that’s why the world is in such a mess. The world needs more and more sannyasins because each sannyasin becomes a moon: he transforms the violent energy of the world into a cool pool of energy. The world needs to be full of sannyasins, only then can we have a world which forgets the ways of war and learns the language of peace and love. The world needs many sannyasins as transformers of energy.That’s exactly what is meant by a buddhafield: where many sannyasins are together and create such a great transforming force that all kinds of energies passing through the buddhafield become cool, become feminine, become more like flowers and less like rocks. They lose their hardness, they become delicate like rose petals.By night the moon shines… The night is the time of the mystic, the day is the time of the warrior. The night represents a change in the whole atmosphere. It is easier to meditate in the night than in the day. Meditation is far closer to sleep than to any other activity, with only one difference: in sleep you fall unconscious, in meditation you remain conscious, but with the same relaxation. In the day it is difficult to sleep; if you want to sleep in the day you have to close the doors and the windows and pull all the curtains so it becomes dark. If sunrays are coming they won’t allow you to sleep; sunrays activate your energies. Night helps you to rest and relax. It is the time of the mystic.Sannyasins should use the time of night more and more for meditation. You can go deeper, and easily, because the winds are blowing that way; you can move with the winds with less effort. In the day you are moving against the winds. In the day active meditations are good; dynamic meditation is good in the day, dancing meditation is good in the day. But in the night vipassana, silent meditation is good: just sitting and doing nothing, just relaxing because the whole atmosphere is relaxing. The sun has gone down, the trees have fallen asleep; it is a totally different quality of energy that surrounds you in the night. It is easy to meditate.Buddha says: The master shines in meditation in the night. By “the master” he means one who is trying to be a master of himself; by “warrior” he means one who is trying to be a master of others. But once you have attained, once you have become enlightened, then there is no question of day and night, no question of sun and moon.But day and nightthe man who is awakeshines in the radiance of the spirit.The buddha, the awakened, the enlightened one shines both in the night and in the day; there is no difference for him. Once you have become awakened, then nothing makes any difference. But till that happens, use the night atmosphere more and more for meditation.When the moon is there in the night it is far easier to meditate. The full-moon night is the best for meditation. Many people who have become buddhas have attained their enlightenment on the full-moon night, even Buddha himself. It may have been a coincidence, but it is significant to remember: he was born on the full-moon night, he became enlightened on the full-moon night and he died on the full-moon night. Something in the full moon seemed to be synchronizing with his energy.Use it. Be alert and use every possibility to help you go in. Once you are awakened, then there is no problem. Then you can be at ease, at rest, at peace, anywhere.Somebody asked Buddha, “When you die will you go to heaven?”Buddha said, “Don’t ask nonsense questions. Wherever a buddha is there is heaven. Buddhas don’t go to heaven; wherever a buddha goes, heaven goes there.”This is much closer to the truth, far more beautiful; the very statement is significant. There is no question of enlightened ones going to paradise – enlightened ones live in paradise wherever they are. You can send them to hell – if there is a hell – and the hell will be transformed. By their very presence hell will become a buddhafield. By their very presence the energies of hell will go through a transformation.Once it happened…A Christian priest was delivering a sermon one Sunday and he said, “Those who don’t believe in God and live immoral lives will go to hell; those who believe in God and live moral lives will go to heaven.”A man stood up and asked, “A question has arisen in me. The question is: Those who don’t believe in God and live a moral life, where will they go? Those who believe in God and live immoral lives, where will they go?”The priest was at a loss; he had not thought about it. The question was tricky. He said, “Please give me time to ponder over it. After seven days I will answer, next Sunday.”Those seven days were real hell for him. He tried to figure it out, but it was impossible to figure it out. If he says, “Those who don’t believe in God and are moral still go to heaven,” then the man will say, “Why believe in God? Why bother about God at all? Just being moral is enough.”He thought, “And if I say the people who don’t believe in God and are moral have to go to hell, then morality loses all relevance. Then why be moral? Just believing in God is enough. Believe in God and live as immorally as possible. Why miss that opportunity?” He was driving himself crazy, he could not sleep. Continuously he was thinking and consulting books, but there was no answer coming.Sunday came; he went a little early to the church to pray to Jesus. “Help me!” he prayed to Jesus. The whole night he had not slept, so while he was praying he fell asleep, and he dreamed a beautiful dream, a very significant dream. He saw that he was in a train. He asked where the train was going and the other passengers said, “The train is going to heaven.”He said, “This is very good! That’s what I wanted to see with my own eyes. Socrates never believed in God, but he lived a moral life. Buddha never believed in God, but he lived one of the purest lives. Mahavira never believed in God, but who can surpass Mahavira in his moral life? If I can find these three people there, then the question is solved; if I don’t find them there, then too the question is solved.”The train reached heaven; he was very much surprised. Seeing heaven, he could not believe it – it looked more like hell. Of course the board said it was heaven, but it had not been painted, it seems, for centuries. So much dust had collected, everything was dirty. It looked like a desert: no greenery, no trees, no roses, no lotuses. He came across a few saints who looked almost dead, somehow dragging themselves. Dust had also gathered on them as if they had forgotten how to take a bath, as if nobody took baths in heaven.He asked, “Is Socrates here? Is Buddha here? Is Mahavira here?”Those saints said, “Never heard of those people.”He rushed to the inquiry office. He inquired, “Is there a train that goes to hell?”They said, “Yes, it is leaving immediately. You can catch it right now.”And he rushed in the train toward hell, and as hell came closer he was again in for a great surprise: so much fragrance, so much greenery, so many flowers, so many beautiful birds, and singing and dancing. He asked, “What is the matter?” And everybody looked so joyous, so radiant. He asked people on the station, “Is this really hell? Is this hell?”They said, “Yes, this is hell, and nobody can believe this is hell. Since these three people – Socrates, Buddha and Mahavira – arrived, everything changed. They have transformed the whole scene. Just the name is hell now, it is really heaven. And the other place is only heaven in name; it has become hell.”I agree absolutely with the dream. I can visualize that your so-called saints, wherever they are, will create hell. But if a man like Buddha or Socrates or Mahavira or Jesus or Lao Tzu or Zarathustra is in hell, then hell has to change. It is not a question of the place; the question is of who is there.But day and night the man who is awake shines in the radiance of the spirit. You can say hell or heaven …the man who is awake shines in the radiance of the spirit. Wherever he is, he creates a new world, he creates a totally new energy. He is an alchemical transformer.First, don’t be soldiers, be sannyasins because that is how one day you can become buddhas. Move toward self-mastery. Use all devices, methods, to become a master of your own self. And then one day, when the mind has disappeared with all its illusions and you have attained to clarity, when you can see that which is as it is, you are a buddha. Then wherever you are there is paradise.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Is it all a joke? But I don't get it.Vimalkirti, it certainly is a joke, but you cannot get it. You are German, and not only an ordinary German – you are the great-grandchild of the German emperor. Just think of the old man in his grave: he must be tossing and turning, seeing you in orange, cleaning floors in Pune. What do you think? – is it not a joke? Could your great-grandfather ever have imagined or dreamed that this was going to happen to his own children one day? Impossible that he would have ever dreamed about it, but it has happened.You have been told for centuries that life is a serious affair; it has become a deep conditioning. Otherwise life is really a joke. It is playfulness, it is leela. It all depends on how you take it. If you take it seriously it becomes serious, but then you suffer from your own idea. Life becomes heavy, it becomes a weight, a mountain on your chest; you are crushed underneath it. Life loses all joy, all laughter. You simply drag, you don’t live. How can one live without laughter?Man is the only animal on earth who knows how to laugh. Laughter is the only thing that is special to human beings – not reason but laughter. Animals can also reason – they reason in their own way – but they cannot joke, they cannot laugh, they cannot see the humorous side. That is impossible for them. All animals are serious people and all serious people are animals. The moment you get rid of your seriousness you get rid of your animality.That is why I have no respect for your saints. They are very serious, far more serious than the donkeys, far more serious than the buffaloes. They have fallen, they have not risen. Your saints are serious, your politicians are serious, your revolutionaries are serious, your scientists are serious. They are all taking life as if somehow one has to pass through it – not dance. The very concept of dance is far away from them. They cannot even walk, they drag. They don’t live, they only slowly die. They are all waiting for death to relieve them of the pain and the suffering of life.It is very rare to find a human being who has not contemplated once or twice of committing suicide. On average, four times in his life every human being thinks of committing suicide. He does not do it; that is another matter. Maybe he has no guts to do it, maybe he is afraid of what is going to happen after death. Who knows? It may be far worse than life itself. At least life is known, familiar; it is risky to move into the unknown.Very few Indians commit suicide because they believe that they will be sent back again, so what is the point? – millions of times you have to be born. All Indian religions seek and search not for God, remember, but for freedom from life, freedom from the circle of birth and death. How can these people rejoice and how can these people be thankful to God? They are complaining and their complaining is very loud. They are saying, “We don’t want to be born. We never wanted to be born. Why didn’t you ask us first? It is unfair. It is not a gift, it is unfair to send us into a life which we had never asked for. And it is unfair to go on sending us into a life which is nothing but misery.”But life is not misery. It is our approach, it is our way of looking at it that has made it ugly. Our vision is distorted, not life itself. Our mirror is distorted, not life itself. Because our mirror is distorted, life appears distorted.Vimalkirti, to me it is all a joke. And I am not joking – I am really serious about it! You say, “But I don’t get it.” I have heard that in Germany people are not allowed to tell jokes on Saturday evenings. Why? – because they might burst out laughing in church on Sunday morning. It takes time for them to understand. And as you are the great-grandchild of the German emperor it may take a little longer for you. But if you are here you are bound to get it. Don’t be worried. Life is so full of hilarious moments that it is almost impossible to miss them. It is a miracle that people go on missing them; otherwise you will come across jokes everywhere.When Winston Churchill was appointed prime minister for the first time he was tired from the election campaign, all the politics that had gone before and the struggle to reach the top. His wife thought it would be good to call a friend who knew many beautiful jokes, so he could tell a few jokes to Winston Churchill. “That will relax him, help him to laugh a little. He has been so serious for so many days and he looks so tired.”The friend was called; he came with all the latest jokes. He asked Winston Churchill, “Would you like to know the latest jokes?”Churchill looked at him and said, “Please, no more – I have appointed them all to my cabinet!”If you look around, if you are watchful enough, then you are bound to stumble again into something so beautiful and so ridiculous. The very idea of creating the world and creating you all is such a cosmic joke. God must have a sense of humor.An old rabbi was dying and his friends were afraid for him. He was not very religious, not very virtuous; in fact, he was just the opposite. They were worried. They asked him, “Are you ready to meet God?”He opened his eyes and said, “Yes, that’s what I am doing. I am just trying to remember a few beautiful jokes to tell him. He must be getting tired of all those long faces, sad saints. He will really enjoy a few jokes, a few gossips about the earth.”I absolutely agree with this old rabbi. If you meet God, don’t fall on your knees and start praying – he is tired of all that. Tell him a beautiful joke. That will be a deeper communion with him. Let him have a good laugh. In that laughter there will be a revelation.Vimalkirti, a few jokes for you:Karpuik was rushed to the emergency room of the city hospital. The doctor on duty was amazed to discover that Karpuik had scalded his scrotum. “How did it happen?” he asked.“I was making tea,” replied the Polack, “and the directions said, ‘Soak bag in hot water.’”Pilzudski took his wife to the doctor and complained that he could not have intercourse with her because she was too tight.“Alright,” said the doctor, “let’s test it!”The sawbones put the wife on the table, applied some Vaseline to his instrument and entered Pilzudski’s wife easily.“Hey,” said the Polack, as he watched the doctor pumping away, “if it not be for the medicine I think you be screwing my wife!”There once was a pious young priest,who lived almost fully on yeast;“For,” he said, “it is plainthat we’ll all rise again,and I want to get started at least!”My approach toward life is that of laughter. Laughter contains love, laughter contains joy, laughter contains gratitude, and laughter contains a tremendous thankfulness toward existence.When you are really in deep belly laughter, your ego disappears. It happens very rarely in any other activity, but in laughter it is bound to happen. If the laughter is total the ego cannot exist; nothing kills the ego like laughter. That’s why all egoists are serious. Ego can exist only in seriousness; ego lives, feeds on seriousness, and serious people are dangerous people.We have to destroy all kinds of seriousness in the world. Temples should be full of laughter and song and dance and celebration. That’s how trees are, stars are, rivers are, oceans are. The whole existence, except man, is in a nonserious state; only man seems to be very serious. No child is born serious, remember – but we destroy the innocence of the child. We destroy his qualities of wonder and awe, we destroy his laughter, we destroy everything that is beautiful and valuable, and instead we give him a load of knowledge, of theology, of philosophy to carry on his head. The more and more he becomes educated by us, the more and more he loses all sense of humor. He can’t see any humor in existence because he starts living through his knowledge; he knows everything. Because of his knowledgeability, all wonder is destroyed. Because of his knowledgeability, the greatest religious quality – awe – is killed.A young man at college, named Breeze,weighed down by BAs and MDs,collapsed from the strain;said his doctor, “It’s plainyou are killing yourself by degrees!”By the time you come back from the university you are almost dead. Your state is pathological. You are ill with knowledge, suffocated by knowledge. And you cannot laugh; that is only for children and madmen.My whole effort here, Vimalkirti, is to make you both simultaneously: to make you childlike and to make you utterly mad. If these two things happen, only then are you a sannyasin. My only commandment is laughter. Everything else will follow. If you can love and if you can laugh, totally, wholeheartedly, your life will become a bliss and a benediction, not only to yourself but to everyone else. You will be a blessing to the world.You have to drop all seriousness. You have to drop this seriousness because it has been forced upon you; this is not your nature. You did not come serious into the world, you came laughing. Each child is bubbling with joy and by the time he is four he starts dying. The age of four for the boys, and the age of three for the girls, is the time when death starts occurring. Girls are always ahead of boys in every way; even in this matter they are one year ahead.Once death settles in you, it kills you slowly, slowly. It is not that you die suddenly when you are seventy or eighty; that is only the completion of a process that started at the age of three or four. Have you ever noticed the fact that if you try to remember backward you cannot pass the barrier of the age of three? At the most you can remember when you were three years old; beyond that all is blank. Why? You were here, certainly, and those three years were not blank at all; in fact they were more full of experience than any other year of your life is ever going to be. Each moment was full of experiences. You were constantly exploring life, people, everything; you were constantly in inquiry.In a university they were doing an experiment. The experiment was to find out where the energy comes from in children, for they seem to be so active. Their bodies are so small and their bodies are so delicate – they are just like flowers, fragile – but they seem to be so energetic, so vital, so overflowing with energy. From where do they get so much energy?So they tried an experiment. They arranged that a very strong man would follow a child, and he would do exactly whatsoever the child was doing. And they were going to pay him; whatsoever he wanted they were going to pay him. He was a really big man, a wrestler, a famous wrestler, so he was not worried about following a child. What can a child do? But within four hours he was flat on the ground because once the child knew that the wrestler was imitating him, he jumped and he ran and he rolled on the floor and he laughed uproariously, and he did so many things that the wrestler, within four hours, was finished.He said, “Never in my life have I been so tired. I have been fighting my whole life, I have fought great fights, I have been always a winner. This is my first defeat.”And that small child was not tired at all; he was still ready, he was still challenging the man. He said, “Come on! Let us have a little more fun. Are you finished? Why are you lying down on the ground?”Every child is born with such great energy, but we destroy it. We paralyze every child, we cripple every child. Our churches and our temples and our priests have done the greatest wrong to humanity. They are the greatest criminals in the world, they are the real sinners. They have sinned against humanity; they have paralyzed every human being. You don’t know who you would have been if you had been allowed total freedom from the very beginning: if your laughter had been free, your love had been free, your joy had been free; and you had not been hindered, interfered with, distorted, manipulated, forced, channeled in certain directions.No child is interested in money because no child is foolish. No child is interested in being the president of a country or the prime minister because no child is so stupid. His interests are far more natural. He is interested in the flowers, he is interested in the butterflies, he is interested in the pebbles on the seashore. He is interested in dancing under the stars, in dancing in the sun, in dancing in the wind. He is interested in climbing the tree or in climbing the mountain. He is interested in swimming the river or in going into the ocean.His interests are totally different, but we divert all his energies. We say, “No need to climb the tree, no need to climb the mountain. Climb the ladder of success!” – which is an absolutely mediocre process, which is an absolutely unintelligent process. “Climb the ladder of success. Be richer than others. Be competitive. Be jealous. Be possessive. Fight!” – fight for things which are meaningless. Then you lose your joy, then you lose your laughter. Then life seems more like a nightmare than like a beautiful joke.Vimalkirti, it is a cosmic joke. And my vision is that the future religiousness is bound to be rooted more in life than in death, more in laughter than in sadness, more in dance than in dragging your life.The second question:Osho,Why, despite appearances, is the void more tangible than the form, consciousness more than thought, silence more than the word?The void is the source of all forms. The void is eternal, forms are temporary. Forms are like ripples in the lake, the void is the lake itself. Forms come and go, the void remains. Forms are only appearances, the void is the reality.Hence Buddha calls reality shunya. Shunya means the ultimate void. Yes, it is far more tangible than your so-called real things, because these real things come from the void and will go back down to the void. The void is the source and the goal. Everything comes out of nothingness and disappears back into nothingness.Hence, remember, nothingness does not mean that it is nothing; nothingness simply means that it is all. Nothingness means “no-thingness.” Things are forms; nothingness is a formless energy. It can manifest in millions of forms, and it can only manifest in millions of forms because it has no form of its own. It is fluid, it is available for any form, it has no resistance to any form. It can express itself in millions of ways because it has no obsession, it has no fixation. It can bloom as a rose, it can bloom as a lotus. It can be a song, it can be a dance, it can be silence. All is possible because nothingness simply means that no form has yet been taken. Once a form is taken, things become limited, alternatives become limited. Once a form is taken you are not totally free; your form becomes your bondage. Hence, meditation is an entry into nothingness.The Western religions have missed the point completely. Even their God has a form; God cannot have a form. To give God a form is anthropocentric, it is projecting our own form onto God.If horses were philosophers – and who knows, a few horses may be – then God would be a horse, a beautiful horse, with all the great qualities of a horse. Horses cannot think of God as a man, impossible. Man has not been good to the horses at all. They can think of the Devil as man, but not of God as man. Man thinks of God as man.The Bible says God created man in his own image. The truth is just the contrary: man creates God in his own image. Hence the Negro God will have a Negro form, the Hindu God will have a Hindu form, the Chinese God will have a Chinese form. The Chinese God cannot have a Hindu form; it is impossible. The Chinese cannot think that God can have a form other than the Chinese – of course, the most beautiful Chinese form, but it is going to be Chinese. These are our ideas projected onto God.God is not a form, God is formlessness. God is absolute nothingness, God is total void. Out of that voidness everything arises – trees, people, mountains, earths, stars, creations. They come, for the time being they are there, and then they again disappear into the ultimate void. That is the beginning and the end; it is before the beginning and after the end. Buddha calls it the beyond, the ultimate beyond, beyond the beyond.You ask me, “Why, despite appearances, is the void more tangible than the form, consciousness more than thought, silence more than the word?” Consciousness is God because consciousness is nothingness. Thought is a world; hence Buddha calls mind “the world.” The moment a thought arises, a wave has arisen in the lake of consciousness, a form has arisen, and the form is only temporal, momentary. Soon it will disappear; it is not going to abide, it is not eternal. Don’t cling to it. Watch it come in and watch it go out. Watch it arising and watch it disappearing, but don’t cling to it. Remember consciousness, in which it arises and into which it dissolves again. That is your reality, that is your truth. The thought can be good, the thought can be bad, but good or bad makes no difference. A thought is a thought; it is not eternal, and that is the only criterion of reality.That’s how the mystics have always judged reality: whatsoever is eternal is real and whatsoever is momentary is only a dream phenomenon. There is no difference between the dream that you see in the night and the dream that you see in the day, the dream that you see with closed eyes and the dream that you see with open eyes. Yes, there is a little difference: one dream is absolutely private. In the night with closed eyes you see a private dream; in the day with open eyes you see a collective dream, an objective dream. There are many participants in it; hence it gives you the feeling that it is real. It is not so. What happens when you fall asleep? You forget all about the day.It is said about Chuang Tzu that one morning he woke up and started laughing. His disciples gathered together and asked, “What is the matter?”Chuang Tzu said, “I have come across a problem that I cannot solve. Help me to solve it.”That was the first time that he was asking the help of the disciples to solve a problem. Otherwise he was always solving their problems.The disciples said, “It must be a really great, complicated problem. Tell us.”He said, “The problem is simple, but in a way very complicated, and I don’t think it can be solved. It seems insoluble. That’s why I am laughing. I have looked at it from every side; it seems absolutely insoluble. The problem is, in the night I dreamed that I had become a butterfly.”The disciples said, “That’s nothing. We all dream all kinds of things – dreams are dreams. Now you are awake the dream is finished. Why make so much fuss about a dream?”He said, “I am not making much fuss about a dream. The problem is: if Chuang Tzu can dream that he is a butterfly – now the problem arises – the butterfly may have fallen asleep and is dreaming that she is Chuang Tzu. Now what is what? Am I Chuang Tzu who dreamed about the butterfly, or am I the butterfly who is dreaming of being Chuang Tzu?”In fact there is no difference. The butterfly is a form and Chuang Tzu is also a form. One form arose when you were asleep, another form arose when you were awake, but both are forms. Chuang Tzu is neither – he is neither the butterfly nor Chuang Tzu. He is the consciousness, he is the awareness: the awareness of the dream, the awareness of the butterfly and Chuang Tzu. He is that awareness – and that awareness is far more real, the only reality in fact. No thought is real.The same is true about silence. Words arise in the lake of silence, beautiful words, but they are just forms. Hence the insistence of all the mystics: move from words to wordlessness, move from sound to silence, move from form to formlessness, move from thought to consciousness. Don’t get entangled with the forms, thoughts, words. That’s what meditation is all about.Don’t get identified with all that arises in you and disappears. Remain centered in that which never appears and never disappears, which is always there. Remain centered in the abiding reality of your being, and you will know the greatest bliss possible, and you will know the truth that liberates. You will know freedom from all forms – because all forms create bondage. You will know you are neither a man nor a woman, neither white nor black, neither this nor that – neti, neti. You will know that you are only the pure awareness which has no name, no form.That’s what Buddha says: “You don’t have any form and you don’t have any name.” Don’t hanker for that which you are not, because hankering for that which you are not is creating misery for yourself, is creating unnecessary pain for yourself. Just be that which you are and have always been and will always be. Don’t try to become – be! And that you already are. It is not a question of becoming, it is not a question of desiring, it is not a question of reaching somewhere. You are already there, you have always been there. Just wake up. Wake up from the dreams, all the dreams – night dreams, daydreams. Wake up from all the forms and abide in the formless.All the awakened ones say the same thing: Knowing that formlessness, knowing that eternity, your life is fulfilled. You will attain to tremendous contentment and bliss and benediction.The third question:Osho,I am Greek and I love garlic. My girlfriend can't stand it, she is British. She calls me primitive. What is wrong with me?Nothing is wrong with you, nothing is wrong with garlic either, but garlic is going to create a few problems for you. The problem that you have come across is not really a great problem; soon you will have to face greater problems. The British lady at the most may leave you. That is not a problem; that will be getting out of the problem.Find some woman – be free of ladies! A woman is beautiful, a lady is a problem. And it is very difficult to find a British woman – I have not come across one yet. They are all ladies. The men may not all be lords, but the women are all ladies.An Englishman and his wife were strolling around their West Indian estate when they came across a black girl and boy making love in the bushes.“My gracious!” exclaimed the British lady to her husband. “They do it just like human beings!”If she thinks you are primitive that is nothing, at least she thinks you are a human being. Or maybe she does not think that you are a human being, but she cannot say it. It is so unmannerly to say to you that you are not a human being, so she says you are primitive. That is not a great danger, at the most the lady will leave you. You continue eating garlic. If there is going to be a choice between a British lady and garlic, prefer garlic; it is far healthier. But the real problem will come later on. Once the British lady has left you, then you will be in trouble.Did you hear about the Gypsy girl who had to give up wearing garlic around her neck?It kept the vampires away alright, but it attracted too many Italians.So if you want to drop garlic, drop it when the British lady has left you; meanwhile she will protect you from the Italians. Every man needs a woman as a protection; otherwise he is so helpless. Once the other women see that one woman is protecting you they don’t bother you. The moment they see you are unprotected they all jump upon you.So first use garlic to get rid of the British lady, then immediately stop garlic; otherwise Italians will start coming. It is easy to get rid of a British lady; it is next to impossible to get rid of Italian women because they are not ladies. They are true women and they will create much trouble for you. They help only in one thing: they make you so much aware of the trouble that love brings, or that comes in the wake of love, that you start thinking of religion, God, meditation. All these great things would not have been possible without women. The people who started thinking about all these great things were people who were tortured by women. These were their escapes, escape routes, so they could tolerate whatsoever was happening around them. They could hope for a paradise somewhere after death. They lost all hope in life because they knew wherever they went some woman was going to create trouble for them.It seems God sent man alone first. He made Adam, but if man had been alone here he would never have thought of God. He made woman, and she is a constant reminder. She never leaves you at ease, she forces you to believe in hell, and once you believe in hell you have to believe in heaven too.Nothing is wrong with you, but if you want to live with garlic you have to renounce life. The British lady may be right in a sense: you have to be primitive, you have to go to the caves, as far away from humanity as possible. Garlic is simply dangerous for any communion, for any communication. It is very medicinal; it will keep you healthy and it will keep you alive longer than you would have lived without it. Or maybe because you will have to live alone, your life will look longer.If you want more advice about garlic you can ask Maitreya – he is the expert about garlic and all its great qualities. I have never tasted it, so whatsoever I am saying is not very reliable. And I have never allowed any primitive to be close to me. You know my sniffers; no people who eat garlic will ever be able to come close to me. Garlic is good but a little inhuman: it is good for you, but bad for everybody else.The fourth question:Osho,Can innocence in an adult happen without awareness?It is impossible for innocence to happen to an adult without awareness. Awareness is the only method that can help you to destroy all the conditionings that society has imposed on you. Society has hypnotized you, but the hypnosis is done in such a subtle way, for such a long time, starting when you are very small, that you never become aware of it. You are hypnotized with the milk of your mother, you are given all kinds of conditionings, and those conditionings destroy your innocence.Unless you become aware, you will not be able to see that you are a conditioned human being, that you are living with borrowed ideas – ideas which have been imposed by others on you against your will, that you are almost a prisoner. Not that you live in a prison, but you live in an ideology which is a subtle prison. You are a Hindu – how can you be innocent? You are a Christian – how can you be innocent? The ideology keeps you away from innocence; it makes you knowledgeable, and knowledgeability is the only thing that destroys innocence. It takes all wonder away from you.There are millions of people who don’t feel any wonder in life. They will see a roseflower and yet they will not see anything – no beauty, no awe. They will not even stop for a single moment. The rose seems to have no message for them, as if they have not seen it at all.Every day you pass by beautiful trees, birds singing in the early morning sun, flowers releasing their fragrance, but you are a robot. You go on chattering inside your mind, yakkety-yakkety-yak, you go on and on. And what you are chattering inside has been put inside you. Your mind has been used like a computer: just as they feed a computer they have fed you.In Communist Russia they will feed you with Communism. They will also teach you the holy trinity, their own holy trinity. They will teach you their own Bible, they will teach you their own religion. Communism is a religion, a substitute for other religions. Marx, Engels, Lenin, that is their trinity. Das Kapital is their Bible. They believe in all these things as fanatically as any Catholic, any Hindu, any Mohammedan. The Mohammedan believes in Kaaba and the Communist believes in the Kremlin. The objects differ, but the belief is there. Both are knowledgeable, both have lost their purity, their innocence, their childlike quality.Once you are full of knowledge you think you know all the answers. You don’t know anything because unless you know yourself, nothing is known. And the beauty of self-knowledge is that it deepens the mystery of life, it does not demystify it. It makes it more mysterious, more miraculous. The person of wisdom, one who has dug deep into his own consciousness, becomes more and more full of wonder and awe. But the ordinarily knowledgeable person goes on living in absolute unawareness; nothing makes him wonder. He knows all the answers.A dog walked into a restaurant and ordered a steak.“How would you like it cooked?” asked the waiter.“I like it well done, with crushed cherries on top. Then put some marinated tomatoes on it and soak it in pepper.”The waiter brought the food.“Did you enjoy your dinner?” the waiter asked when he was finished.“Very much,” answered the dog. “By the way, don’t you think this is all very odd?”“No,” answered the waiter, “I like my steak the same way.”The waiter knows too much about the steak, he is not looking at the dog at all.It was two o’clock in the morning and Gedalia the thief was trying to break into a house. He tried all the doors and windows but he could not pry any of them open. Cautiously he climbed up to the second-floor balcony. Peering through a locked window, he saw a baby in its crib. By this time he was quite desperate so he decided to enlist the aid of the infant.“Hoo-hoo, bay-bee,” he called softly. “Itsy-bitsy boo-boo, is oo gonna open window for nice mansi-wansie, hmm?”“Open the window?” yelled the baby. “Why, ya dumb schnook, I can’t even walk yet!”The baby cannot walk, but he has become knowledgeable, he can talk.You have all become knowledgeable. You know nothing and yet you are full of knowledge. Your knowledge simply covers your ignorance, it does not make you wise. It simply makes your foolishness a little decorated, a little polished.A troubled young man went to see a doctor. The doctor told him to take off his clothes for an examination, then said, “Ah, you have orange candle wax in your navel? – I know about this problem. Just the other day a girl came to see me; she also had wax in her navel – because her boyfriend likes to eat by candle-light. Does your girlfriend like to eat by candlelight too?”“No,” said the man, “she needs the candle to find it.”Just look at things, don’t bring your knowledge in, and you may be always in for a surprise.You ask me, “Can innocence in an adult happen without awareness?” It is impossible. The beginning of innocence in an adult is to be aware that you are conditioned. Millions of people are not aware that they are conditioned. If you don’t know that you are in a prison, why should you try to get out of it in the first place?Just the other day I came across a newspaper. The editor must have been here, he must have listened to one of my discourses. He comments that whatsoever I said was against Indian culture – as if that is enough to criticize me, that it was against Indian culture. He takes it for granted that anything that is against Indian culture is bound to be wrong. But who has said that I am not against Indian culture? I am against all rotten things – Indian, non-Indian, it makes no difference. I am against the very idea of Indian culture and Chinese culture and Japanese culture. I am against the very idea of dividing humanity and I am against the past. I am not here supporting Indian culture. So that is not a criticism of me, in fact, that is a compliment.I am against all that is dead. One should not carry dead bodies for ever and ever, they should be buried or burned. I don’t believe in any culture and I don’t believe in any country. I don’t believe in any race and I don’t believe in any religion.I believe in religiousness, I believe in culturedness, I believe in humanity. But humanity is not Indian, religiousness is not Christian or Hindu or Mohammedan, culturedness has nothing to do with any country. It is a grace that comes through meditation, through awareness. It is a beauty that happens to you when you become rooted in your consciousness, when you are settled in your consciousness, when nothing can distract you from your consciousness.Yes, every person has to become a child again, but how is he going to become a child again? Except through becoming aware there is no other way. First, become aware of your conditionings – and there are a thousand and one layers of conditionings. When you are aware, then slowly, slowly disentangle yourself from all the conditioning. Drop those conditionings, become dehypnotized, so no layer of dust remains on the mirror of your being. When there is no layer of dust on the mirror of your being, you will be able to reflect that which is. And that is godliness and that is truth and that is nirvana.But you are asking the question so that you can avoid awareness. You would like to find some shortcut to innocence. There is no shortcut; awareness cannot be avoided. Awareness is the only method – let me repeat, the only method – which can cut from the very roots all the conditionings, and can make you free from the prison in which you are living. It is only a question of becoming more and more aware; nothing else can help you. I cannot do it for you, nobody else can do it for you. If somebody else does it for you, you will be reconditioned again. Remember it, you have to be unconditioned, not reconditioned. That’s what happens: a Christian becomes a Hindu – of course he becomes unconditioned as a Christian, but he becomes reconditioned as a Hindu.My effort here is to uncondition you, to help you to be unconditioned, and not to recondition you again. My effort is to leave you in total freedom, then you have to decide what to do with your life. You are the master of your life. I can simply give you a few indications of how to get rid of all the nonsense that has been forced upon you. Once you are free from all that nonsense, I am not going to give you any positive instructions about what to do or what not to do, because that will be a reconditioning again.So awareness will help you in two ways: first it will help you to become unconditioned, and then it will help you to find ways and means to live your life. It will be the only way to uncondition, and the only way to find a new style of life, a new vision of life.The fifth question:Osho,I am leaving soon on a trip with Radha. Before hearing about your experience of traveling with her I felt confident and safe about our luggage, but now do you think I need Sarjano also to come along with us?No, categorically no! Sarjano may help to save your boxes and bags, but what about Radha? Radha will be in danger. It is better to risk the suitcases because you will not be able to save Radha from Sarjano. Avoid Sarjano, even if he wants to come. Certainly he will help you to save the suitcases, but Radha will be gone.So it is up to you. If you are too attached to your suitcases, then you can take Sarjano with you; otherwise, that incident is not going to happen every time. And it was a fictitious journey that I talked about, and you are going on a real journey. On a real journey things like that don’t happen.The sixth question:Osho,Do you really know Italian? Then please tell me what the Italian word is for refrigerator and also the Italian word for a pretty girl.I don’t know that much Italian, but I will try my best. The Italian word for refrigerator is ice-a box, and the Italian word for a pretty girl is nice-a box!The last question:Osho,Is there any hope for someone from America? What about one who comes from California, but is English and German; has a Scottish stepfather and a Jewish mother; looks Swedish and feels Italian?P.S. and lives with a New York Jewish-Russian Polack!You are in quite a mess. Enlightenment is absolutely sure.Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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A master gives up mischief.He is serene.He leaves everything behind him.He does not take offenseand he does not give it.He never returns evil for evil.Alas for the manwho raises his hand against another,and even more for himwho returns the blow.Resist the pleasures of lifeand the desire to hurt –till sorrows vanish.Never offendby what you think or say or do.Honor the man who is awakeand shows you the way.Honor the fire of his sacrifice.Matted hair or family or castedo not make a masterbut the truth and goodnesswith which he is blessed.Your hair is tangledand you sit on a deerskin.What folly!When inside you are ragged with lust.The master’s clothes are in tatters.His veins stand out,he is wasting away.Alone in the foresthe sits and meditates.Hank was riding the range, a-singing and a-humming. Suddenly his horse reared and stopped. In front of them was a huge snake. Hank drew his gun and was about to fire when the snake cried, “Don’t shoot! If you spare my life I have the power to grant you any three wishes you make!”“Okay,” said Hank, figuring he had nothing to lose. “My first wish is a handsome face like Paul Newman. Second I want a muscular body like Muhammad Ali. And my last wish is to be equipped like my horse here!”“Granted!” said the snake. “When you wake up tomorrow you will have all these things.”Next morning Hank awoke and rushed to the mirror. Sure enough, he had a face like Paul Newman and to his delight he saw a pair of massive shoulders and arms like Muhammad Ali. Then glancing down in great excitement he let out a blood-curdling howl, “My God, I clean forgot!” he babbled. “Yesterday I was riding Nellie!”Man lives almost in a kind of deep sleep. He is not aware who he is, what he is doing, what he is thinking, where he is going, why he is going. His whole life is the life of a somnambulist, a sleepwalker. He is utterly unconscious. Out of this unconsciousness arise a thousand and one mischiefs; not that he knowingly wants to do them, he cannot avoid them. It is not a question of his decision to stop being mischievous; it is a question of his awareness. If he is aware, mischief disappears as darkness disappears when you bring light in. If he is not aware he may think he is doing something good, he may believe with his whole heart that he is doing something good, but he will be doing something mischievous. The total outcome of his life is going to be more chaos in the world.You can watch the do-gooders: they all try to help, they all try to serve; they make it a point that their whole life should be one of service. So many public servants in the world, so many missionaries, so many social reformers, so many great revolutionaries, and look at the shape the world is in. Can it be more of a mess? This is the outcome of all your great efforts, of all your great saints. The tree is known by the fruit, and all your religions and all your saints and holy men can only be known by the world that they have helped to create. It is the ugliest world possible.Not that existence is responsible; existence has made a beautiful world. This world is immensely beautiful: the trees, the flowers, the rivers, the mountains, the stars. But the world that man has made, the social structures that man has created are all ugly, violent, utterly mischievous. But everything bad can be done in the name of good.Adolf Hitler was not consciously trying to do evil, remember. He was not knowingly destructive; he thought he was trying to help humanity. He thought he was trying to bring a better human being into the world – the superman. He believed deeply in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of the superman and he also believed that the Germans were the really superhuman beings, that they were entitled to rule the world.It was not that he was deceiving anybody; he was utterly convinced of the fact. It was not a fiction for him, it was a fact that the German race is the real Aryan race, that the Nordics are the purest people in the world. He could influence millions of very intelligent people for the simple reason that he was convinced of what he was saying and doing. His conviction was hypnotizing. He was not a man of great intelligence, he was utterly mediocre, but one thing was there: he was convinced that only through him could the world be made a better place to live. By murdering millions of Jews, he did not think that he was doing any violence; he thought he was serving humanity by getting rid of the enemies of humanity. It was not a question of his fooling anybody; he was so unconscious that he himself was fooled by his own convictions.Adolf Hitler did great mischief, as all politicians do. And they always do it behind beautiful slogans: socialism, democracy, freedom, equality and whatnot. They are all trying to improve upon the world, but the total result is more and more confusion and chaos. The world would be a far better place if we could be alert enough not to listen to these lunatics. But we are also asleep. What they say appeals to us; it has a great magnetic quality in it.In fact, a Buddha is bound to be misunderstood, not Adolf Hitler; a Jesus is bound to be misunderstood, but not Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini speak the language that you understand. They are just people like you; they live in the same kind of sleep. Hence there is a communication between you and them which is missing between you and a Buddha, between you and a Lao Tzu.Buddha stands on Everest and you live in the dark valleys far below. You don’t look up, you have forgotten how to look up. You crawl in the mud. Those who are crawling by your side can be understood more easily by you. They speak your language, they speak your idiom; they are perfectly in tune with you. They are not different people. But a Buddha, a Krishna, a Mohammed, these are different people. They speak a different language, from a different height, from a different vision, although they use the same words. But they give different meanings to your words, and you are going to miss those meanings.Meditate over this:“Why won’t you, honey?”“I’m too tired.”“Ah, come on…”“Leave me alone!”“I won’t be able to sleep!”“Well, I can’t sleep now.”“Please.”“Why – in the middle of the night?”“Because I’m hot.”“You get hot at the damnedest times!”“You don’t love me!”“Yes, I do…”“If you loved me you would do it.”“Well, damn it – alright.”“What’s the matter?”“I can’t find it.”“That feels better.”“It should be, it’s all the way up.”“That’s enough; thanks, dear.”“Next time, open the damned window yourself!”And all the time, what were you thinking?Buddha says:A master gives up mischief.A master gives up mind. Mind is mischief; there is no other mischief. Mind is the source of all mischief. A master is a master only because he has ceased to be dominated by the mind. A master is a master of himself; he is no longer unconscious. Whatsoever he does, he does it knowingly. Whatsoever he is, he is perfectly aware about it. His life is not accidental. His every act is rooted in consciousness, it is intentional.We live in the mind. The mind can even become a saint, can pretend to be holy, but it will not be. It is impossible; it is not in the very nature of the mind to be holy. Just look at the history of religions – they are full of bloodshed. In fact, more crimes have been committed in the name of religions than in the name of anything else. More people have been killed, butchered in the name of religion, God, truth, Christianity, Islam, than in the name of political ideologies. Religion tops the list. Religion has been far more mischievous; it has even defeated the politicians. It could defeat them for the simple reason that the politician cannot hide himself for very long; sooner or later he is exposed. But the religious person can hide himself for centuries and you will never know.The people who crucified Jesus have not even yet understood that they committed a sin. I have not come across a single Jew who accepts it consciously that it was a crime to crucify Jesus. And it is not that there are not good Jews, not that there are not saintly Jews, not that there are not learned rabbis. There are, they are very pious people. Even a man like Martin Buber could not gather the courage to say, “We have committed a crime in the past.” No, that seems impossible. The crime was on Jesus’ part because he tried to declare himself the Son of God. That is the crime: that he tried to project his image as the Messiah, as the messenger of God. That was the crime and he was rightly punished, Jews are absolutely convinced of that.Two thousand years have passed; I have not come across a single book written by a Jew who can accept “We committed a mistake.” It seems impossible. They can’t see it because the crime was committed in the name of religion.Thousands of Christians have been killed by Mohammedans, and vice versa. And these wars have been called jihads – holy wars. Now, no war is ever holy, no war is a jihad; all wars are unholy. What excuse you find, that is another matter; that is just an excuse to fight. You want to fight, you want to kill and destroy. You find good excuses, beautiful excuses – holy wars, and millions of people are destroyed.In these holy wars millions of women were raped; now, that rape is holy. If murder is holy, why not rape? That too is holy since it is done in the name of religion. Everything that is done in the name of religion is good.Your saints, who look so holy and pious, are the causes of all this nonsense, of all this nuisance in the world. When are we going to get rid of all this stupidity? Is man not yet mature enough? Has not the time come that we should get rid of all this foolishness that has remained overwhelmingly powerful down the ages? Is not the time ripe to disconnect ourselves from the past?But the only way to disconnect yourself from the past is to disconnect yourself from your mind because your mind is the past. Mind means the known, the past. Mind is history, mind is time. Mind is Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan. Mind is Indian, German, Chinese. And unless you get out of the hold of the mind, whatsoever you do is going to be mischievous. It may or may not appear mischievous to you – that is another matter – but it is going to be mischievous. Out of the mind nothing good can ever happen.Good is a by-product of meditation, and bad, a by-product of mind.A man said to Mulla Nasruddin, “How is your great friend, the lawyer?”Mulla said, “I’m afraid he is lying at death’s door.”“These lawyers! At death’s door and still lying?”That’s the state of the mind: it goes on lying even at death’s door. In fact, as death comes closer to you, you start lying more and more, you start deceiving yourself with many more fictions, you start creating myths around you of God, of heaven, of hell. You start creating dreams and you start living in dreams because your whole life is shattered. You have wasted the opportunity. You have not been creative, you have been destructive.And remember, nobody can be neutral. You either create something in life or you destroy; either you live in the mind or you live beyond the mind. If you live beyond the mind you become creative. To be in meditation is to be creative. Then whatsoever you do is beautiful; it brings more glory, more blessings to the world. Otherwise whatsoever you do is going to make the world uglier.The table and the chair were profoundly in love. They decided to get married and in due course they had a new arrival.“What shall we christen him?” asked the chair.“Chable,” was the other’s logical reply.Of course the child of a table and a chair should be called a chable. And that’s what people are doing: they go on producing chables. That seems to be their only productivity: all that they can do is produce more children.A woman was telling me, “I hate my husband! From my very guts,” she was saying, “I hate my husband! I am afraid some day I may kill him, may poison him.”I said, “If you hate him so much, then how come you have eighteen children?”She said, “I was trying to create such a crowd that he would get lost in it.”People hate and still they go on reproducing because their productivity knows no other way.Rena went into the city clerk’s office to report the birth of her sixth child.“But, miss, this is your sixth child by the same father,” said the clerk. “Why don’t you marry him?”“Are you jivin’?” replied Rena. “I don’t even like the sonofabitch!”But people have to do something; they can’t just sit. They have to find something to remain occupied with. That’s how all the mischief arises in the world.Buddha says: A master gives up mischief.He is serene.Serenity is the flavor of meditation, serenity is the fragrance of meditation. He is so serene, so silent that he can be absolutely empty, with no desire to do anything. When all desire to remain occupied disappears, only then can something good happen through you. Then godliness can happen through you – and good only happens through you when godliness happens through you. Good is nothing but godliness flowing through you.He is serene.He leaves everything behind him.He leaves the past, he leaves his mind, he leaves his memories, he leaves his tradition. He is not a conformist, he cannot be a conformist. No master has ever been a conformist; that would be a contradiction in terms. He is always a rebel. He is pure rebellion. He dies every moment to the past; he never collects the past. Hence he remains always fresh, as fresh as the dewdrops in the early morning sun, as fresh as the lotus leaf, as fresh as the petals of a rose. He is always fresh, he is always young; he never grows old. He grows up, but he never grows old. The body of course grows old, but his consciousness remains absolutely fresh; it never gathers any dust or rust. He is so serene that he can sit alone for eternity with nothing to do, and still he will be absolutely blissful. He will enjoy his serenity.This serenity cannot be cultivated from the outside; this serenity comes only when you have become a watcher of the mind, when you have become a witness of the mind and through witnessing you have transcended the mind. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a serenity explodes from all directions. It showers on you like flowers and it goes on showering. Your life then is a life of virtue. It is not a question of cultivating it, it is not a question of creating it, it is a consequence of meditation.This point should be remembered again and again; never forget it because it has been forgotten millions of times. Again and again a buddha comes to remind you but you go on forgetting it, for the simple reason that a cultivated serenity is cheap. You can look serene, you can make a serene face; you can act it, you can be a good actor, you can be very efficient, but that will be nothing but hypocrisy. Deep down you will be boiling; deep down inside you there will be hell. From the outside you have perfumed yourself and inside you are stinking. Inside you are clinging to all your misery, to your past, to all that is dead, to all that is rotten, to all that should be burned; you are clinging to it. And those who cling to dead corpses slowly, slowly become dead themselves; those who live with corpses become corpses themselves. On the surface you may smile, you may laugh; deep down there are only tears – tears of pain.But this strange fact about man has to be understood: that he clings to the past. Even if the past is ugly he clings to the past, even though he has only suffered. Why does he cling to the past? – because the past gives him a definition, the past gives him an identity, the past gives him an idea of who he is.After six weeks away on business the married executive entered a West Side brothel in Chicago. He walked up to the madam, handed her a hundred dollar bill and said, “I want the worst screw in the house!”“But sir,” answered the madam, “one hundred dollars will buy you our best.”“No,” demanded the businessman, “I want the worst available.”“I can’t let you do this,” the woman pleaded. “You’re entitled to the top of the line.”“Listen, lady,” said the man, “I’m not horny, just homesick!”Watch your mind, how you cling to the past. There is nothing to cling to – just dry bones, skeletons, but you are holding onto them as if they are your very life. And because you are holding them, your hands are not empty to hold anything else; because you are looking toward the past you cannot see the present and you cannot enjoy the beauty of it, the joy of it. You cannot enter into the present, and the present is the door to godliness. The past is no more.God is never past, God is always present. God is never future either, God is always present. You cannot say “God was,” you cannot say “God will be,” you can only say “God is.” In fact to say “God is” is a repetition because God means isness; isness and God are synonymous.Buddha says: He leaves everything behind him. The master cannot be a Hindu, cannot be a Buddhist, cannot be a Christian. The master is simply a master; these names are of the slaves. Somebody is a slave in the name of Christianity and somebody is a slave in the name of Hinduism. These are all slaves; they don’t know what freedom is. They are clinging to such utter nonsense, but they are clinging so hard that they can’t see anything else. Their eyes are full of the dust of the past. They are blind because of the past; they are blind for no other reason.You are not missing God because you are sinners; you are missing God because you are past-oriented. And God is available only now–here. God knows only one time, now, and only one place, here. And you are never now and you are never here; you are always somewhere else. Then and there are significant words for you; now and here are almost meaningless to you.The master lives now and lives here. He leaves everything behind him. He goes on destroying the bridges he has crossed.He does not take offenseand he does not give it.He never returns evil for evil.Obviously, if somebody insults him he does not take it. You cannot insult a master, that is impossible. How can you insult a man who does not take it? To insult a man two things are needed: somebody to insult him and his readiness to take it.Buddha was once insulted by a few people who abused him badly. He listened silently and then he said, “Have you anything more to say? – because I have to reach the other village in time. People must be waiting there. If you still have something else to say, when I come back I will be coming by the same route. I will inform you and I will keep a special time for you, so you can come and say whatsoever you like.”Those people were very puzzled. They said, “We are not saying something, we are insulting you.”Buddha laughed. He said, “For that you have come a little late. You should have come at least ten years ago. Now I am not so foolish. You can insult, that is your freedom, but whether to take it or not is my freedom. I am not taking it.”And he said to them, “In the other village which I just passed before yours, people came with sweets to offer me. I thanked them. I said, ‘I don’t need sweets and I don’t eat sweets.’ What do you think they must have done with the sweets?”Somebody from the crowd said, “They must have taken them back home.”Buddha said, “Now what will you do? You will have to take your insults back home. I don’t take your insults, so there is no other way, you have to take them back.”When you feel insulted you have participated with the person. But you are not conscious, so anybody can push your buttons. You function like a machine: push the button and you are on; push the button and you are off. Anybody can enrage you, anybody can make you smile and laugh, anybody can make you cry and weep. Anybody, any stupid fellow can do that. One just needs to know where the buttons are, and they are almost always in the same places. It is very rare to find a person whose buttons are in different places.A Polack was driving his Volkswagen, when suddenly it stopped for some reason. He went to look – maybe there was some trouble in the engine – but he could not find the engine. So he thought, “My God, my engine has been stolen!”Just then another Polack stopped by his side. He said, “Is there some trouble?”The first man said, “Yes, it seems my engine has been stolen.”The man said, “Don’t be worried. This morning I was looking at the back of my car – there is a spare engine. You can take it!”Now in a Volkswagen the engine is not in the usual place; it is at the back, not in the front. But God has not yet learned anything from the Volkswagen – he still makes the same engine with the same buttons, maybe a little bit different here and there, just a little change. Anybody can find buttons, just a little groping and you can find anybody else’s button. If you know your buttons you know everybody else’s buttons.You will be in a difficulty only with a buddha, because you can go on pushing his buttons and nothing will happen – because he is no longer identified with his mechanism. He will watch you pushing his buttons and he will enjoy the exercise that you are giving him, but that’s all.He does not take offense and he does not give it. He never returns evil for evil. He understands humanity so deeply. By understanding himself he has understood the miserable state of all human beings. He feels sorry for people; he is compassionate. He does not return evil for evil for the simple reason that he does not feel offended in the first place. Secondly, he feels sorry for you; he does not feel antagonistic toward you.Once it happened in Baroda…I was talking to a big crowd. Somebody sitting just in the front row became so disturbed by what I was saying that he went out of control, he lost his senses. He threw one of his shoes at me. At that moment I remembered that I used to play volleyball when I was a student, so I caught hold of his shoe in the middle and asked him for the other one. He was at a loss.I said, “Throw the other one too! What am I going to do with one? If you want to present something…” He waited. I said, “Why are you waiting? Throw the other one too, because this way neither will I be able to use the shoe nor will you be able to use it. And I am not going to return it because evil should not be returned for evil. So you please give the other one too.”He was shocked because he could not believe it. First, what he had done he could not believe – he was a very good man, a scholar, a well-known Sanskrit scholar, a pundit. He was not expected to behave like that, but it had happened. People are so unconscious. If I had acted the way he was unconsciously expecting, then everything would have been okay. But I asked for the other shoe, and that shocked him very much. He was dazed.I told somebody who was sitting by his side, “Pull off his other shoe. I am not letting him off, I want both shoes. In fact, I was thinking of purchasing some shoes, and this man seems to be so generous.” And the shoe was really new.The man came in the night, fell at my feet, and asked to be forgiven. I said, “Forget all about it, I was not angry, so why should I forgive you? To forgive, one first has to be angry. I was not angry, I enjoyed the scene. In fact, it was something so beautiful that many people who had fallen asleep were suddenly awakened. I was thinking on the way that it is a good idea, that I should plant a few of my followers, so once in a while they can throw a shoe so all the sleepers wake up. At least for a few moments they will remain alert because something is happening. I am thankful to you.”For years he went on writing to me, “Please forgive me. Unless you forgive me I will go on writing.”But I told him, “First I have to be angry. Forgiving you simply means that I accept that I was angry. How can I forgive you? You forgive me, because I am unable to be angry with you, unable to forgive you, you forgive me.”I don’t know whether he has forgiven me or not, but he has forgotten me. Now he writes no more.Alas for the manwho raises his hand against another,and even more for himwho returns the blow.Why, Alas for the man who raises his hand against another…? – because he is raising his hand against himself, because there is no one who is other. All existence is one. When you hit somebody you are hitting yourself. You are simply being childish. It is the same reality: I am one of its waves, you are another of its waves. One wave hitting another wave in the ocean, are both hitting themselves.Alas for the man who raises his hand against another, and even more for him who returns the blow. Why more for him? – because then he creates a vicious circle. And that’s how we are living, in many, many vicious circles. People go on fighting; once something starts then it seems there is no end to it. You do something in revenge and the other has to wait for his opportunity to do something against you, then you do something against him, and so on and so forth. It goes on from one life to another life, it continues.The wise person is one, the master is one, who stops all these vicious circles.Once a man was so angry he came and spat on Buddha’s face. Buddha asked him, “Is that all or do you want to do something more? Please do it and finish it.”The man asked, “What do you mean, ‘Please do it and finish it’?”Buddha said, “In a past life I had insulted you and now the time has come when the vicious circle can be closed. Now you insult me and I will not return anything; I will simply accept it and close the circle – it is just to close the accounts with you. I was waiting for you; in fact, the day I came into this town I was hoping that you would come and you would do something and the accounts could be closed. This is my last vicious circle; I have closed all others. Now I am out of all vicious circles. I am thankful to you; otherwise something was hanging in the air – only one thread, but something was hanging in the air, something incomplete.“Now the circle is complete and I don’t want to continue it anymore. Now it is up to me to continue or not to continue. Now I am the master; up to now you were the master. By spitting on my face your mastery is gone; now I am the master and I don’t want to continue this vicious circle anymore. This is my last life and I want to close all accounts with everyone – good accounts, bad accounts, all kinds of accounts have to be closed so that I can disappear into the ultimate with no strings attached to the world. I am immensely happy,” Buddha said to him.Resist the pleasures of lifeand the desire to hurt –till sorrows vanish.Pleasure is dependent on others, and whatsoever is dependent on others will make you a slave, will create bondage. And Buddha’s ultimate goal is freedom, nirvana – freedom from all bondage.Hence all the awakened ones have been saying: Search for bliss. Don’t waste your time in ordinary pleasures. In the first place they are momentary; in the second place every pleasure brings pain. Pain is the other side of the same coin. It brings pain in the same proportion; the greater the pleasure, the greater the pain. So when you are enjoying something, be aware: soon the pain will follow. It is inevitable. Just as the day follows the night and the night follows the day, pain and pleasure follow each other. They are not separate, they are inseparable.First, pleasures are momentary, they are just soap-bubbles. To waste your precious life for them is simply stupid, unintelligent. Second, every pleasure brings pain. But people are so foolish that they never look at the association. They think pain has come from some other source, they think pleasures can be forever. Again and again they are ditched by their pleasures into pain; again and again they go on thinking that there were some reasons why this pleasure was destroyed.Whether reasons were there or not is irrelevant; every pleasure is momentary, it is going to disappear, and in its wake will come the pain. You can rationalize it; that rationalization will only help you to continue in the same old rut. But see the fact. Seeing the truth is a great liberation; seeing that every pleasure is inevitably a bringer of pain, you will be freed from both.And third: it is the same energy that is involved in pleasure which has to move toward bliss. Pleasure is dependent on others; bliss is totally independent, it is your own. It arises within your being, it is your self-nature; hence you are not dependent on anybody. And because it is your self-nature it is forever. There is no contrary, there is no opposite to bliss.Happiness is just in between pleasure and bliss. In happiness something is independent and something is dependent; it is a mixture of both. Hence the man who lives in sheer pleasure is in a better condition in a way; he is healthy, as healthy as animals are. Animals live in sheer pleasure: when the pain comes they suffer, when the pleasure comes they enjoy. They go on rotating between pleasure and pain. The man who lives only in pleasures – a Don Juan – he is in a way healthy, normal, because he is part of the animal world; he is not yet human. In a way his life is clear, it has no complexity.But the man who lives in happiness or tries to find happiness, lives for happiness, is far more confused because he is nowhere. He is neither the animal nor yet the divine; he is in a limbo. He is riding on two horses; he will be in very great difficulty. And that’s where almost all human beings are. It is very rare to find a human being who lives purely in pleasure – it is rare to find a Zorba the Greek who lives purely in pleasure. He is clear, there is no confusion in him. He simply walks on the earth; he has no idea of flying in the sky. He has accepted the law of gravitation and he knows no other law.The man who lives for happiness, who knows the beauty of music, who knows the beauty of paintings, art, who knows something higher than the animals can know, is far more confused. He is in far more of a mess, because while you are listening to great music something is contributed by the music which is outside, and something is contributed by the music which is inside; it is a meeting of two polarities. You are hanging in the middle and both are pulling you in separate directions. You will find more anxiety in your life.That’s why poor people are less in anguish than rich people. Rich countries live in anguish because they have enough pleasure; they are fed up with it. Now they want something higher, and with the higher the problems arise.The animal part is well settled because it is your heritage of millions of years. It is in your chemistry, in your biology, in your physiology. Everything is settled, instinctive. You need not be aware, you need not do anything. But if you seek and search for happiness then you are going into a more shadowy world which is less substantial – higher but more shadowy.The third goal is bliss, which again is very clear, as clear as the first –in fact far clearer than the first because the first has a clarity, but the clarity is of a much lower kind. The third has a clarity of the highest quality. Only the awakened one knows the clarity of the third.Buddha says: Resist the pleasures of life… Become a little more mature. Don’t be childish, don’t remain animals. Put your energies toward the highest goal in life; let bliss be your goal.People who live in pleasures also have one thing more in their life, and that is the desire to hurt others, because pleasures create competition. If you want more money, of course you have to snatch it from somebody else. If you want power, then somebody else will lose power. If you want to be the president, then somebody else will not be the president. Hence it is a constant struggle. You have to hurt many to succeed. You have to be very destructive, inhumanly destructive. It is only the goal of bliss which can be nonviolent; otherwise pleasures are going to be violent.Buddha says: Resist the pleasures of life and the desire to hurt – till sorrows vanish. Be alert. He is not saying repress, he cannot say that. Be aware so that pleasures don’t pull you downward, so that slowly, slowly you are freed from your animal heritage, so that slowly, slowly you can transcend your biology.Avoid the desire to hurt others. There is a certain joy in hurting others. We go on hurting people; it gives you the feeling of power. It helps you to feel that you are powerful when you can hurt somebody. It is a very ugly desire, egoistic, but everybody does that. Watch yourself, in how many ways you hurt people. You may not be doing anything in particular to hurt them, but your gesture may be enough. People walk in such a way, talk in such a way, that others are hurt. And nobody can blame them because what they are doing is so subtle. They use words which can hurt, and they use them with such skill that you cannot blame them. They can always find a way to rationalize.A black gentleman was arrested for shooting a man. The next morning he was brought into court.“Why did you shoot that man?” asked the judge.“Because he called me a black sonofabitch!”“You didn’t have any business shooting a man for that!”“Well, Your Honor, what would you have done if he called you that?”“Oh, he wouldn’t have called me that.”“I know, Judge, but suppose he had called you the kind of a sonofabitch you are, then? Of course he cannot call you ‘a black sonofabitch’ – you are not black – but the kind of a sonofabitch you are, if he had called you that, what then?”People can go on finding ways skillfully… One has to remain aware until all sorrows vanish.Never offendby what you think or say or do.That does not mean, remember, that people will not be offended. They may still be offended, but it should not be an intention on your part. Buddha is not saying that nobody will be offended by the master, because thousands were offended by Buddha himself. Certainly many were offended by Jesus; otherwise why should he have been crucified?Buddha is saying: Never offend by what you think or say or do. It should not be your intention. Still, it is going to happen: whenever the master speaks it is almost inevitable that many will be offended because they will understand in their own way what he is saying. They will not hear what he is saying; they will hear only what they can hear. They are going to misunderstand him. That is absolutely inevitable, it cannot be avoided.It was late afternoon in a small town. Joe, the owner of the local beer parlor, was lazily polishing glassware when his friend, Mickey, came running in.“Joe,” he shouted, “get over to your house real quick. I just stopped off to see if you were home and I heard a stranger’s voice in your bedroom. So I looked in the window and, gosh, I hate to tell you this, but your wife is in bed with another man!”“Is that so?” said Joe, matter-of-factly. “What does this guy look like?”“Oh, he is tall and completely bald.”“And did he have a thick red mustache?” asked Joe.“Right! Right!” yelled Mickey.“Did you notice if he had a gold front tooth?”“Damn it, man, you’re right!”“Must be that jackass, Dick Roberts,” said Joe. “He’ll screw anything!”Now, when you are talking to a husband about his wife it is a totally different matter. He does not care, he is no longer interested, he is fed up, he is finished. You may be excited that something has to be done, but the husband will hear through his experience of being a husband to the woman; he cannot put that experience aside.I am saying something to you; you will hear it through your experiences, through your memories, through your ways of interpreting things. Nobody knows what you are going to gather out of it; that will be more your own than mine. I may have triggered the process, that’s all, but you will be the creator of the whole phenomenon.Hence, remember, the master never offends, still people are offended.Buddha says:Honor the man who is awake…That has been one of the most beautiful things in the East – that flower has bloomed in the East. The East can be proud of it: we have always honored the man who is awake. In other parts of the world, particularly in the West, the expert is honored, the technician is honored, the scientist is honored, the man who can do many things is honored. But the man who is conscious is not considered at all just for his consciousness.Gurdjieff was not honored at all. In the East he would have been a buddha; in the West he was not honored at all. He was insulted in every possible way, for the simple reason that the West has no idea how to honor the awakened man because he fulfills no utilitarian purpose. If your machine is broken he cannot be of any help; he cannot fix your car, he cannot help you in any way in the world. In fact, all that he can do is help you to get rid of the world. And nobody wants to get rid of the world; everybody wants to be in possession of the world. Hence the expert is honored in the West; in the East the expert has not been honored, never. The expert is okay, he is a servant, he serves, he is paid for it. But we have honored the buddha.To honor a buddha is to honor a roseflower, which has no utilitarian purpose. You cannot eat it. If it is a question of starvation, roses won’t help; wheat will be far better. If it is a question of choice between wheat and roses you are going to choose wheat. What are you going to do with roses? A buddha is like a rose: you can appreciate the beauty, you can dance around the rose, you can sing songs to it, you can look at the rose and praise the Lord, but what else? It cannot fill your hungry stomach, it cannot help you to succeed in the world, it cannot make you a great warrior. If you carry a roseflower you will not become Alexander the Great; a sword is needed, not a rose.But the expert is as much asleep as you are; there is no difference, no qualitative difference. Hence in the East the expert is paid but he commands no honor.A motion picture actor told his psychiatrist, “I’m attracted to men instead of women.”The shrink replied, “You’ve come to the right place, handsome!”Now the shrink cannot be honored in the East; in the West he has become one of the most honored people. He has even defeated the priests. Now priests are learning how to be shrinks; priests are going to the universities to learn psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, psychosynthesis and all kinds of nonsense, because now they know the profession of the priest is finished. They have to add something more to its glamour. And they see the shrink is getting higher and higher; he is the most highly paid person in the West. In the East nobody will think anything special about a shrink. Yes, he cannot be more than a motor mechanic, maybe he is a mind mechanic, he is also a plumber. You pay him, but honor is totally different.Honor is due only where payment won’t do. Where you cannot pay, where there is no possibility of paying back, then honor. Honor is the acceptance of the fact that it is impossible to pay back; the debt cannot be paid.Honor the man who is awakeand shows you the way.Honor the fire of his sacrifice.The buddhas show you the way. You have to walk, you have to go; buddhas only point. They don’t give you detailed directions because each individual is so unique and different that no detailed directions can be given. Only vague instructions, only indicators, pointers, hints at the most – not orders, not commandments…I have heard the story about the Ten Commandments. Of course God had asked the Indians first, “Would you like to have a few commandments?”They said, “No, not at all.”Then he asked the French and they said, “We want to live in freedom, we don’t want any hindrances.”And he went on asking and nobody was ready. Finally he asked Moses, “Would you like a few commandments?”He said, “How much?”And God said, “Free, absolutely free!”He said, “Then I will have ten!”Honor the man who is awake and shows you the way. He does not command you; he does not tell you, “Do this and don’t do that.” He simply gives you a few hints here and there, and keeps you free, allows you total freedom. He is not to be imitated or followed; he is only to be understood. You have to learn from the awakened person the beauty, the bliss of being awakened, that’s all, and then you have to search on your own. It is always an individual search, a private exploration. Truth cannot be transferred from one hand to another; it is nontransferable.Honor the fire of his sacrifice… And why should a buddha be honored? – because of the fire of his sacrifice. It is impossible for you to understand the sacrifice of a buddha because it is absolutely invisible to you. You will know it only when you become a buddha. What he has known cannot be put into words, still he tries; it is a constant sacrifice.What he has known is beyond the mind, yet he tries in every possible way to make you understand it, to help you understand it. He puts all his energy into making the incomprehensible comprehensible. His sacrifice is great. He takes so much trouble for no reason at all, because he is not going to gain anything out of it. His work is finished, his ship has arrived. He can leave the body any moment, any moment he decides, still he goes on living in the body – which is a confinement, which is a bondage. Still he goes on suffering in the body for the simple reason that he would like to convey the unconveyable. His compassion is infinite.Ramakrishna suffered from cancer. Many times his disciples said to him, “Paramahansadeva, if it is too much of a pain, we will be very sad, miserable, but you please leave your body.”He said, “It is all the same whether the body has cancer or does not have cancer. To be in the body now is a suffering; even if it is healthy it is a suffering because now I can be as vast as the sky. But for you I will cling to the body a little longer.”The master has to find ways and means to cling to the body because all the old associations are broken, all the old connections are broken. He has to forge new connections, which is really one of the most difficult things in existence.Ramakrishna was very interested in food, so much so that his wife was always feeling embarrassed. He would be talking to his disciples and suddenly in the middle of it he would rush to the kitchen and ask Sharda, “What are you cooking?”It is just like if suddenly, in the middle of the lecture, I rush to the kitchen and ask Vivek, “What are you cooking?” and then come back again, and you have to wait.Sharda said many times, “This is not right. What will the people think?”Ramakrishna always laughed and never answered. One day Sharda persisted: “You answer me! There is something strange about it.” Whenever she brought his food he would stand up; he was so eager to know. He would remove the cloth and look into the thali. People were always sitting there and they would start laughing and giggling: “What kind of God-realized man is this?”One day Sharda persisted, then Ramakrishna said, “If you want to know the truth I will tell you: this is the only way I am clinging to the body. I have created a false desire for food. And remember, the day I show no interest in food then that is the end. Only three days more will I live after that.”Sharda did not pay much attention to it, who pays much attention to such people? They go on talking about things, so many things; you listen and you don’t pay much attention.But one day Sharda came in with the thali. Ramakrishna did not stand up. Not only that: he was looking at the door, he turned his back toward Sharda and started looking out of the window in the other direction. Sharda suddenly remembered – the thali fell from her hands.Ramakrishna said, “So now you understand; that day you missed. Now only three days more…” And exactly on the third day he died.Only when you become enlightened, awakened, will you know how a man who has come home still goes on living in the caravanserai – dirty, ugly – and still goes on helping people who are insane. Honor the fire of his sacrifice. Hence, Buddha says, honor him.Matted hair or family or castedo not make a masterbut the truth and goodnesswith which he is blessed.Your hair is tangledand you sit on a deerskin.What folly!When inside you are ragged with lust.Character is not a decisive factor. You can cultivate a beautiful facade around yourself, but the really decisive factor is your inside.The master’s clothes are in tatters.His veins stand out,he is wasting away.Alone in the foresthe sits and meditates.For years Buddha was meditating in the forest, alone, not caring about his clothes, nor caring about his body, nor caring about anything except his meditation. Except for one thing all was dropped from his consciousness: how to reach the center. Once you have reached it then there is no problem, but before you can reach it, it has to be a single-pointed search. You have to be concentratedly concerned about only one thing, excluding everything else. Unless your search is so total, so whole, so wholehearted, you will not succeed in it.Alone in the forest he sits and meditates. Wherever you are, learn to be alone, sit alone. It is difficult, the most difficult thing in the world, because when you are alone the mind starts dying. It cannot exist in aloneness, it needs company. Hence whenever you are alone the mind says, “Do something, go somewhere. Turn on the TV or the radio.” The mind wants company, engagement, occupation.If you can be just alone, then sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. One day your inner being blooms into a one-thousand-petaled lotus. That day you have also become a buddha, and only then will you be able to understand the meaning of Jesus’ life, the meaning of Buddha’s sayings, the meaning of Lao Tzu, Zarathustra. Before that whatsoever you try to understand is just your mind interpreting, and that interpretation has been one of the greatest causes of mischief.Drop the mind – the only thing to be renounced in the world is the mind – and move toward the no-mind, the inner silence and serenity. Know yourself in your absolute aloneness and your life will be fulfilled, your life will be blessed: blessed with eternal bliss, blessed with truth, blessed with freedom.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 11 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 11 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,To become enlightened, do you need to be Jewish or does it just help?Religion has been missing one very fundamental quality: the sense of humor. It has been very unfortunate because it has made religion sick.The sense of humor is part, an essential part, of the wholeness of man. It keeps him healthy, it keeps him young, it keeps him fresh. For centuries the sad people have dominated religion. They have expelled laughter from the churches, from the mosques, from the temples. The day laughter re-enters the holy places they will be really holy, because they will be whole. Laughter is the only quality that distinguishes man from other animals. Only man can see the ridiculous, the absurd. Only he has the capacity and the consciousness to be aware of the cosmic joke that existence is. It is a cosmic joke; it is not a serious affair.Seriousness is a disease, but seriousness has been praised, respected, honored. It was absolutely essential to be serious to be a saint; hence only pathological people became interested in religion, people who were incapable of laughter. People who are incapable of laughter are subhuman, they are not human yet, what to say about their being divine? That is impossible – they have not yet become human. And to be human is the bridge between the animal and the divine. Hence I have tremendous respect for the sense of humor, for laughter.Laughter is far more sacred than prayer, because prayer can be done by any stupid person; it does not require much intelligence. Laughter requires intelligence, it requires presence of mind, a quickness of seeing into things. A joke cannot be explained: either you understand it or you miss it. If it is explained it loses the whole point; hence no joke can be explained. Either you get it immediately or you don’t get it at all. If you don’t get it immediately then you can try to find the meaning of it; you will find the meaning, but the joke will not be there. It was in the immediacy.Humor needs presence, utter presence. It is not a question of analysis, it is a question of insight.As far as humor is concerned, to be a little bit Jewish is very good, everybody should be a little bit Jewish. For enlightenment it will prepare the ground, it will make you more alive. Enlightenment is becoming totally alive. Laughter brings life to you.If you can laugh totally there are a few more things to be understood. In deep laughter the ego disappears, it is not found at all. You can’t have both laughter and the ego. If the ego is there it will keep you serious. All egoists are serious people, and all serious people are egoists.To be able to laugh, you need to be like a child – egoless. And when you laugh, suddenly laughter is there, you are not. You come back when the laughter is gone. When the laughter is disappearing far away, when it is subsiding, you come back, the ego comes back. But in the very moment of laughter you have a glimpse of egolessness.There are only two activities in which you can feel egolessness easily. One is laughter, another is dancing. Dancing is a physiological method, a bodily method to feel egolessness. When the dancer is lost in his dance he is no more – there is only dance. Laughter is a little more subtle than dance, it is a little more inner, but it has also the same fragrance. When you laugh it has to be a belly laughter. It should not be just superficial, it should not be just polite, it should not be just a mannerism.I have heard…A typist was leaving her job. This was her last day in the office, and the boss was telling the old jokes that he had always been telling. Everybody was laughing, except the typist. The boss asked, “What is the matter with you? Can’t you get the jokes?”She said, “I got them long ago. You’ve been repeating them a thousand and one times, but I need not laugh anymore. Tomorrow I am leaving. These fools are laughing because they have to laugh, because you are the boss. So whether the joke is worth laughing at or not doesn’t matter. They have to laugh, it is part of their duty. But I’m leaving, what can you do to me? I’m not laughing, you cannot make me laugh at all those rotten jokes.”If you laugh out of duty, or out of a sense of mannerism, out of politeness, then it is not a belly laughter, then it is just superficial, on the circumference; you are managing it. You will not understand what I am saying about laughter then.Laugh so that your whole body, your whole being becomes involved, and suddenly there will be a glimpse. For that moment the past disappears, the future disappears, the ego disappears, everything disappears – there is only laughter. And in that moment of laughter you will be able to see the whole existence laughing.Indians don’t have a sense of laughter. In India we don’t have any Indian jokes. All the jokes that are told in India are borrowed, there is no such thing as an Indian joke. Indians are serious people, very religious people, holy people. How can they descend to such low things as joking? They talk about God, they talk about moksha, they talk about nirvana, and these are not laughing matters, they cannot laugh. You cannot laugh about God. But if you can’t laugh about God you will never understand God.The Indian statues of Buddha are totally different from the Chinese or the Japanese statues of Buddha. You must have noted the difference; the difference is great. The Indian Buddha has a very athletic body. His belly is very small, almost nonexistent. He never had a belly laugh. If there is no belly how can you have a belly laugh? But the Chinese Buddha has a big belly, and not only a belly – even on the statue you can see ripples of laughter on the belly. Even in marble you can see he is laughing, the belly is laughing.No Indian will agree with the Chinese statue. He will say, “This is not right, Buddha was not like this, with a big belly.” The Chinese Buddha looks like a clown, but I have great respect for the Chinese Buddha. The Chinese Buddha has absorbed Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu. He is pregnant with Lao Tzu, that’s why that big belly. Inside his belly there is Lao Tzu. And you cannot keep Lao Tzu quiet. He must be laughing and kicking and doing things; hence the ripples on the belly.Lao Tzu has a sense of humor. Maybe because of that, Lao Tzu could not become the founder of a great religion. There exists no religion in his name. Yes, a few rare people have followed his path, but there is no organized church, for the simple reason that Lao Tzu seems so nonserious. He used to ride on a buffalo. Now, can’t you find a horse? Anybody could have afforded at least a donkey, but a buffalo? And that too, not in the right position, but sitting backward, the buffalo going one way and Lao Tzu looking the other way. He must have created laughter wherever he passed. People must have gathered to see the scene, what was happening.Chuang Tzu far surpassed his master. There has never been such a beautiful man as Chuang Tzu. All that he has said is utterly absurd, ridiculous! – but with profound meaning. First you will laugh and then slowly you will see the point that he is indicating, in a very joyful way, toward certain truths which can only be indicated in a joyful way. If you are serious you cannot make people understand the beauty of existence, the celebration of existence.Life is not a tragedy, it is a comedy. It is not tragic. But religious people have depended on the very idea of life being tragic: it is misery, utter misery, what is there to laugh at? Hence they attracted the people who are incapable of laughter, of living, of loving.My effort here is just the opposite. I want you to learn as much from Buddha, as much from Lao Tzu, as much from Krishna, as much from Chuang Tzu as possible. I would like you to absorb all the great experiences that have happened in the past, so that a higher synthesis becomes possible. In that higher synthesis laughter is going to be one of the most essential qualities. With truth, courage and virtue, laughter also has its own place.In that sense Jews are beautiful people. They have the greatest sense of laughter in the whole world. They are on one extreme; on the other extreme are the British. I have received so many angry letters: “Osho, you don’t understand the British.” Who cares to understand? And why should I understand the British, for what? Is nothing else left to understand?I have been telling so many jokes about the Italians, but not a single angry letter. They understand that jokes are jokes. If you understand too much you cannot joke. A little bit of misunderstanding is needed.Now, one of the most British of all the British sannyasins, Prembodhi, has written, “You don’t understand the British at all.” You simply prove my point.Somebody else has written, “This is not right. You say that no British woman is a woman; they are all ladies.” I was simply paying respect.I think it is a well-known fact that nothing should be said against the dead. For the dead you should always show respect. That’s what I was doing. Why are you angry about it?I repeat again: it is very difficult, almost impossible, to find a British woman – only ladies are there. All men may not be gentlemen; men after all are men, boys are boys. And old boys more so. But as far as women are concerned, they carry the culture, the religion, they are the foundation stones. The British woman has a certain face. No other woman has that kind of nose, they all need plastic surgery!The only problem with the Jews is when it comes to the question of price. Then they will go on haggling for centuries. Enlightenment will be just in front of them, but they will haggle for the price.So that is the problem; there you have to be aware.A Scot went into a tailor’s and asked to see a suit.The Jewish proprietor came back with a nice Harris tweed. “Look at this,” he said, “and it’s not fifty pounds, not even forty. Thirty pounds and it’s yours.”The Scot examined it carefully. “I wouldn’t give you twenty-five pounds for it, not even twenty. My price is eighteen pounds.”“Right,” said the Jew. “That’s the way I like to do business, no haggling.”Then there were the two Jews who bumped into each other after forty years, and rushed to the nearest pub to celebrate.“It will be magic to have a drink together after all these years,” said one.“Yeah,” said the other, “but don’t forget, it’s your round.”The rich widow needed a blood transfusion, so a Jewish donor saved her life. She was so grateful, she gave him a hundred pounds, but after a relapse she needed another one and this time gave the donor fifty pounds.The third time he saved her life she had so much Jewish blood in her that she just thanked him very much.The second question:Osho,I am utterly miserable. How can I get out of my misery?I have never come across a person who is utterly miserable. You are tolerating it, you are existing with it, you are living with it. If it is so bad one should stop breathing. Why should one go on living?It can’t be so bad. Maybe you love to exaggerate. There are people who always like superlatives, who magnify everything. Small miseries of course there are, but what big misery can you have? Where will you have it? I cannot conceive of any misery that can be so bad that you can call it absolute; otherwise one will simply die, immediately.So one thing, remember, stop exaggerating. That is also a way of the ego. The ego is so strange that it wants to exaggerate everything. Even if it is misery it will magnify it, it will make a big fuss about it. There may be nothing much in it: if you go to the roots you may find a mouse, but you are talking about elephants.I know you. I have never seen you utterly miserable. You look perfectly normal, unless all normal people are utterly miserable. It is just that the ego has the habit of magnifying.A boy came running home from school. He was breathing hard, puffing, perspiring. He told his mother, “Somehow God saved me. A tiger is following me, a very dangerous tiger, a very ferocious tiger.”The mother said, “Stop exaggerating! I have told you a million times not to exaggerate, and again you are doing it. Where is that tiger?”The boy showed her from the window. A very small dog, thin, lean, hungry, was standing outside. And the mother said, “This is the tiger? You go upstairs, pray to God and ask his forgiveness. And never exaggerate again. Enough is enough!”So the boy went upstairs. After five minutes he went back to the mother, and the mother said, “Did you pray?”He said, “Yes, I prayed, and do you know what God said? He said, ‘Don’t be worried. When for the first time I saw that dog, I myself thought that it was a ferocious tiger. So there is nothing to be worried about. I myself was deceived, so what about you? And I am so big, still I thought it is a very dangerous tiger. I was just getting ready to run away, then I had another look and found: oh no, it is just a dog. And you are a small child, so if you got frightened it is natural.’”Misery is not as big as you make out. So the first thing is to reduce it to the right proportions. Before you can get out of it, let the tiger disappear. Be very factual. If you really want to transform your life, be factual. You cannot get out of fictions. You can get out of facts; facts can be tackled, but fictions cannot be tackled.But this is the way of the mind, the way of the ego, to magnify everything. It makes everything look big, and then of course you start suffering in a big way. The cause is not so big, but the effect can be very big. It depends on you.Look again, consider again, reconsider the whole situation. What is it that you are calling “utterly miserable”? And then you will find ordinary facts of life. But we don’t want to be ordinary. The ego hankers to be extraordinary. Even if it is misery we would like to be extraordinary.Somebody asked George Bernard Shaw, “Where would you like to go when you die, to heaven or to hell?”He said, “Wherever it is, that does not matter. What matters is, I want to be the first. Even if it is hell, I want to be the first. I don’t want to be second to anybody. Hence I think hell will be better, because in heaven there will be Buddha and Jesus and Zarathustra, and so many competitors. And I will have to stand in a queue, and that I hate. I am ready to go to hell, I am ready to suffer in hell, but I want to be the first.”The ego is always hankering to be the first. It says, “My misery is bigger than anybody else’s. Whatsoever I am, I am bigger, I am special, I am extraordinary.”Once a high court judge came to me. His wife used to come to me. I was surprised that he came because the wife always used to say that he was very much against me, and he did not want her to listen to me or read my books or to go and see me. But whenever I visited that city she was always coming.So I was surprised. I said to him, “Your wife always says you are very much against me.”He said, “It is not that I am very much against you. I am simply afraid because my wife – who is already crazy – exaggerates everything, and if what you are saying gets into her mind, you will create more trouble for me.”I asked him, “Why have you come?”He said, “I have just come to say to you that if she says that she has cancer, reduce it to a headache. Don’t be bothered about her cancer. I have suffered my whole life. Then I have learned this lesson: she exaggerates.”And in fact that was the case. Every time she came, she would talk about cancer. She would tell me that she had cancer of the heart and this and that, and the husband said she had nothing. She was just a hypochondriac who exaggerated everything.A hypochondriac died. Before he was dying his wife asked, “Have you some last words?”He said, “Yes. On my gravestone write in big letters: ‘Now do you believe me?’”The first thing for you is to bring things down to the level of reality. It is difficult, particularly so for a woman. They live in fantasy. When you fall in love you think you have fallen in love with a Greek god, and by the time the honeymoon is finished you know he is nothing but a goddamned Greek! Within seven days the Greek god is nothing but a goddamned Greek.And again it will happen. Again you will fall in love, and again you will create a great fancy, you will create projections. And all your projections are going to be shattered sooner or later, because reality has no obligation to fulfill your projections.So first bring down your idea of misery to the fact, to the real, and then it is not difficult to get out of it. Then the second thing is to be aware of it. Just be aware of it, and you are out of it because you can be aware only if you are not it.That is the miracle of awareness. When you observe something one thing is certain, absolutely certain: that you are not it. The observer is never the observed. The observed is there as an object confronting you. You are the observer, you are the subject.So misery is there, pain is there or pleasure, or whatsoever experience is there – you are not it. You are out of it.Two ham actors were moaning about how tough things were in the motion picture business.“I haven’t had a part for over ten years,” one of the thespians sighed.“That’s nothing,” the other ham said. “I’ve not worked since sound pictures came in.”“That’s really tough.”“You bet it is. I wish to hell I could figure some way to get out of this business.”For forty years you are not in the business, and you are still figuring out how to get out of it!Just watch. There are two steps: first, bring your misery to the level of reality, and then watch it because only reality can be observed. Fictions cannot be observed, you become identified with them. Once the reality is there, it is objective; watch it, and suddenly a great realization happens. You are the watcher, you are out of it.You ask me, “How can I get out of it?” You are out of it. Right now you are out of it, it is only an illusion that you are in it. If you want to believe you can go on believing that you are in it. Otherwise you can snap out of it any moment. Try. Try to snap out of it. Snap your fingers and slap your face and wake up!The third question:Osho,Are you against garlic? I have been eating it since my childhood and I don't think that it stinks.Meditate over this story…Forster sat in the posh offices of Park Avenue’s most famous physician.“I’ve got this terrible problem,” he explained. “Everything I eat turns to gas. I just had steak and potatoes and it turned to gas.”“That could be serious,” countered the doctor.“But fortunately,” said Forster, “my gas is noiseless and odorless. Can you cure it?”“I’m sure that I’ll be able to help, but first I’m going to fit you with a hearing aid and then I’m going to fix your nose.”The fourth question:Osho,Recently you mentioned that the spiritual ego is more dangerous than the normal ego. Can you explain?All egos are dangerous, because the ego is a false entity. It does not exist, in fact. It is there because you are not aware of who you are.The ego is just like darkness. Darkness has no positive existence of its own; it is only the absence of light. Hence you cannot do anything directly with darkness. If you want to remove darkness you cannot remove it directly; you will have to bring light in. If you want to bring darkness in you cannot bring it directly either; you will have to put the light off. Whatsoever you want to do, you will have to do with the light because the light has existence. Darkness has no existence, and with the nonexistential nothing can be done.The ego is nonexistential, it is a nonentity. It is the absence of awareness, of alertness. You are not conscious; hence the ego prevails, hence the darkness remains.All egos are dangerous because you are living in something which is not. You are living for something which is not, you are sacrificing that which is, for something that is not. This is the danger. A real life is being sacrificed at the altar of the nonexistential ego.You are running after money, after power, after prestige, but in fact nobody is really interested in power, or money, or prestige. They are just ways of the ego to exist. If you have more money you can have more ego; if you have more power you can have more ego. The basic desire is to expand the ego, but the more your ego becomes strengthened, the more the darkness becomes dense, the less is the possibility of your becoming aware. And without becoming aware you are missing the whole opportunity of life, a golden opportunity, in which godliness can be realized, in which truth can be lived. A life which can be a constant celebration, an eternal joy, is sacrificed for something absolutely meaningless.Hence, remember, all egos are dangerous. But the spiritual ego is the most dangerous simply because all other egos are gross. You can see that the politician is after his ego, you can see that even the politician in some moments can see it. It is very gross, how can you avoid seeing it? You are bound to stumble on it, it is like a rock.But the spiritual ego is very subtle, it is like fragrance. You don’t stumble, it does not hit you like a rock. You cannot remove it as easily as you can remove a rock. It is a subtle fragrance. The more spiritual you become, the more subtle your ego becomes. Your ego becomes pious, and when the poison is pious, of course it is more dangerous because you think it is nectar. Now, the label is nectar; inside the bottle is the same poison.Hence your saints are more egoistic than your sinners. There is every hope for the sinners, they can reach to God far more easily than your so-called saints. Your saints are living with such egoistic attitudes, they are full of holy cow dung, rubbish.The man of the world claims that he has so much money and the religious man claims he has so much virtue. The worldly man claims he has so much power, so much prestige, and your so-called holy man claims he also has power – spiritual power. He tries to show his spiritual power.Once, such a so-called spiritual man came to see Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was sitting on the bank of the Ganges in Dakshineshwar, where he used to live. The spiritual man said to Ramakrishna, “I have heard that you are a great saint. If you really are, then come with me and walk on the water. If you can walk on the water then I can believe that you are spiritual.”Ramakrishna laughed. He said, “Can you walk on water?”The man said, “Yes, I can.”Ramakrishna asked him, “How long did it take you to learn to walk on the water?”The man said, “It took me eighteen years of tremendous effort, austerities, tapascharya, fasting, prayer. I lived in a cave in the Himalayas. I sacrificed everything. Then this spiritual power has been given to me.”Ramakrishna said, “I am not spiritual, I am a simple man, very ordinary. But one thing I would like to tell you. When I want to go to the other shore, the ferryman takes me for just one paisa. Your whole eighteen years’ effort is not worth much more than that. You wasted your eighteen years. You may be spiritual, but you are a fool, you are utterly stupid. I have never come across such an unintelligent person – wasting eighteen years just to walk on water. Then what is the point? Okay, you can walk on water, so what?”This is the spiritual ego, which will go sooner or later to exhibit its powers to prove “I am holier than you.” That man had come with that idea – to prove to Ramakrishna “I am holier than you, I am higher than you.”It is meaningless. Buddha is not reported to have done any miracle. Mahavira is not reported to have done any miracle. And my own understanding is that all the miracles that are talked of in the name of Jesus are inventions.[the sound fails…] You see? Some Christian got mad! The miracles are all inventions of the Christians.I have a totally different approach. When Christians say Jesus turned water into wine it is not a literally factual thing. It simply means that people like Jesus get drunk on simple water. I know it from my own experience. I never mix my soda with whisky; I mix my soda with soda, and I get drunk, so what is the point of mixing it with whisky? Just pure air is enough to get drunk; water is enough. It all carries the essence of existence, what more do you need to get drunk? This existence is more than is needed.But the spiritual man will try to prove in some way that he is spiritual. He will prove it through miracles, he will become an exhibitionist. That’s why the spiritual ego is more dangerous. He will not be able to see it, and others will not be able to see it either. I called it more dangerous because you cannot see it easily.Drop the very idea that you are separate from existence. And I am not telling you to fight with the ego. That is nonsense. I am telling you to create more awareness in yourself, become more full of light and consciousness and the ego will disappear on its own. And when it disappears on its own it has a beauty, it has a benediction. When there is no ego in you, no ego worldly or otherworldly – when there is no ego at all of any kind, you are one with existence. The barrier is removed, the last barrier has fallen.To experience existence is to experience life in its utter simplicity, in its utter beauty. To experience existence is to experience truth in its eternity. Then you are beyond death and beyond time.Ego is the only barrier. But don’t fight with it – spiritual or worldly, it is the same. Create more consciousness, be more meditative. Meditation is the only medicine. Both the words meditation and medicine come from the same root because meditation also is a medicine. It heals you, it cures you from the greatest disease, the disease of the ego.The fifth question:Osho,Will you one day go in the middle of the discourse to the kitchen to inquire what is being prepared for you?Sorry, I cannot do that – for many reasons. One is, I am not Ramakrishna; I am just myself, I am nobody else.Secondly, all my kitchen people are here: Vivek is here, Astha is here, Nirgun is here, Pragya is here – there is nobody to prepare anything.Thirdly, I eat the same food, morning, evening, year in, year out. In fact, all my kitchen people are bored with preparing it. Except me everybody is bored. This is a device to bore them. Just think: they have to prepare the same thing, morning, evening, every day. Unless they become enlightened they are going to go crazy. So there is nothing to ask, I already know. There is no change ever in my food.Thirdly, I don’t know where my kitchen is. So even if I want to, I cannot find it. I know only my room, and the way from the room to Buddha Hall and back. I will get lost in Lao Tzu House. And after many, many lives somehow I have found the way. Please don’t make me get lost again.The sixth question:Osho,What is the dirtiest four-letter word in the Indian language?Work!The seventh question:Osho,You did not finish the story of the priest and his Sunday sermon. Is it not so?That is true. Knowingly I did not finish it, but now that you have asked I have to finish it.When the priest saw the hell, so beautiful, with such ecstatic people, he certainly became infatuated. He knew all the ways to reach to heaven, he had no idea how to go to hell. And now, seeing hell, he wanted to go to hell, not to heaven.So he inquired of a few people. They said, “Better you ask Buddha, he is there sitting under the tree.”He went to Buddha and he asked, “Sir, can you show me the way to hell, because now I don’t want to see heaven again. Once is enough. I don’t want to go there at all. I have lived my whole life preparing for heaven. I know all the ways and all the methods and means how to reach there. I don’t know how to get to hell.”Buddha said, “Go back to the station and buy a ticket to Pune and take sannyas. That is the best and shortest way to go to hell.”The priest is here. Please don’t ask me his name because priests are a little shy, and he will feel embarrassed – and particularly a Catholic priest. But he is here. If you try a little harder you will find him.The last question:Osho,Okay, give it to me straight. Can God really exist in America? Leaving tomorrow, I get a little nervous realizing how serious the world tends to be, and well, you know, God too. So would you give me one of your fuddy-duddy jokes to share with him just in case we meet?You forget this word him. God is not a he, God is a she. If you go with this idea that he is a he, you will never find him. That’s how people go on missing him. They go on looking for him as if he is a man, and he has changed himself long ago.Colonel Stanford, a staunch segregationist, died and somehow made his way to heaven. A week later his friend, Colonel Beauregard, departed and was also allowed to get past the Pearly Gates. The two of them met.“Never had any doubt we would make it,” said Colonel Beauregard, “but now that we did, tell me, how are things up here?”“Not bad,” answered Colonel Stanford, “but I would advise you to watch your step. I saw God the other day and she is a Negress.”Not only that he is a she, she is a Negress – a black woman. So if you are really in search of God in America, remember this. Then you will have to learn a few things. If you meet a black woman you will have to learn some art, you will have to learn to be a little like a black man, otherwise there will be no communication, no communion.God has changed. He was tired of being male and white. Everybody gets tired of being the same. And people are still thinking that he is the old God. You are worshipping old photographs, you are carrying old albums. No wonder very few people find him.Now think of God as a woman. And God can only be a woman; the very idea of God being a man is the male chauvinist idea, it is the idea of man. The Christian trinity has not a single woman in it. Look at the nonsense: they have made even a place for the Holy Ghost. Now, who is this Holy Ghost? The trinity would not have missed much if there was no Holy Ghost, but the trinity looks a little ugly without a woman. The father is there, the son is there, and where is the mother? Do you think God is gay?This is man’s egoistic projection. Remember: the she contains he, but the he does not contain she. Man is born out of a woman, but no man can give birth to a woman. It is natural to think of God as woman – as mother, not as father. That is a fascist idea.It is not accidental that Germans call their country “fatherland.” Nobody calls their country “fatherland.” Everybody calls his country “motherland” – that seems to be right – except the Germans who call it “fatherland.”God is a mother, a motherly phenomenon. This whole existence is motherly. And God is far softer than man can ever be, far more vulnerable, far more open. God is the womb of existence. The whole existence comes out of the womb.So, drop this idea of “he” and “him”; think of “she” and “her.” And remember, he is tired of being white, he is no longer white. He is black now, and he is enjoying being black, because very few people are able to find him now. Even if you come across him, you think, “It is just a nigger.” Even if he knocks on your door you will not open the door.And if you meet him, you are asking me that you would like to tell him some joke. Tell him this joke:“What makes you black men such good lovers?” asked the white employer of Kinney, the chauffeur.“The trouble with you white folks is that you just go in there and rush, rush, rush, and before you know it, it is all over,” said Kinney. “Now the way us black folks do it, is get in there, take it easy, make long strokes, talk sweet a while, stop a while, take our time, then some more slow long strokes, nice and cool-like.”That night whitey climbed into bed with his wife and began making love to her exactly as Kinney had suggested.After twenty minutes of sheer delight she gasped, “My God, where did you learn to screw like a black man?”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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A man is not born to mastery.A master is never proud.He does not talk down to others.Owning nothing, he misses nothing.He is not afraid.He does not tremble.Nothing binds him.He is infinitely free.So cut throughthe strap and the thong and the rope.Loosen the fastenings.Unbolt the doors of sleepand awake.The master enduresinsults and ill treatmentwithout reacting.For his spirit is an army.He is never angry.He keeps his promises.He never strays, he is determined.This body is my last, he says!Like water on the leaf of a lotus floweror a mustard seed on the point of a needle,he does not cling.For he has reached the end of sorrowand has laid down his burden.Man is born only as a seed, not as a flower. Flowering has to be achieved; one should not take it for granted. Birth itself is only the opportunity for life, it is not life itself. Life can still be missed, and millions miss it for the simple reason that they think just being born is enough to be alive. It is not enough. It is necessary – without it there will be no life – but it is not synonymous with life. One must be twice-born.Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you shall not enter into my kingdom of God.”A kind of rebirth is needed. The ordinary birth is the birth of the bodymind mechanism, but your spirit is only a potential – it has to be actualized. Abraham Maslow has called this process “self-actualization.” Gautam Buddha would call the same process “no-self actualization.” Abraham Maslow has no idea of the ultimate; he is thinking about it, speculating about it. He has stumbled upon a certain truth, but he does not know how to express it. He has not experienced it himself; it is only an intellectual understanding, hence he calls it self-actualization.But in that ultimate flowering the first thing that disappears is the self. In fact, the self is the only barrier for that flowering. The self is the hindrance, not the help. The self surrounds you like a wall; it is not the bridge.When you are really born, born to life or to God – to me these words are synonymous – you are no longer as you understand yourself to be. A pure emptiness prevails, an utter void prevails, a silence which is soundless. A music is there certainly, but without any sound. The Zen people call it the sound of one hand clapping. That no-self is your original face. When you are not, you are, and you are for the first time.If Abraham Maslow had experienced the ultimate state of flowering he would never have called it self-actualization; he would have called it no-self actualization. You are born as a self, as an ego. This is the seed and the seed has to disappear before the sprout can start growing. The seed has to die in the soil; then, and only then, the life that is hidden inside the seed will start manifesting itself.It is a miracle, but you are blind, you can’t see. So many miracles are happening all around you. When a seed becomes a sprout, a great miracle is happening. If you cut the seed you will not find any leaves, you will not find any flowers, you will not find any tree, you will not find anything at all – just emptiness. Through analyzing the seed you will not reach any conclusion. But if you let the seed fall down into the right soil, if you allow the seed to die and disappear, out of that nothingness something immensely beautiful arises, something impossible happens. Leaves come, branches come, a big tree grows. Such a small seed contains such a big tree. Now people can sit under its shade, birds can make their nests, can come to rest every night in its shelter, and thousands of flowers will bloom.A single seed is capable of making the whole earth green. It has infinite potential, because out of a single seed millions of seeds will arise, and so on and so forth. If you have one single seed the whole earth can be a garden. Why just the whole earth? – the whole universe can be a garden. The potential is infinite; you have just to find the right opportunity for its expression, for its manifestation, for its realization.Buddha says:A man is not born to mastery.Every man is born as a slave. It hurts to know it; we would like to be told that we are born as masters. We believe that we are masters – nobody doubts it. The people who start suspecting their mastery are the only people who are capable of becoming, some day, masters. You doubt everything, but you never doubt your mastery over yourself, and that is the most doubtful thing, the most doubtable thing. What kind of mastery do you have? You are a slave, an utter slave of biological instincts, of sex, of anger, of greed, of ambition. You stink of all these things, you are full of all these things. Still you go on believing deep down somewhere that you are masters.And rather than making an effort to destroy this slavery you start proving your mastery over others. You try to become Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan or Tamerlane. That is an effort to deceive yourself. That is an effort to prove something which is not there at all. You are trying to gather proof about your mastery. Of course, if you become powerful enough over many people you can believe more easily that you are a master. It is easier for Alexander to believe that he is a master, but it is only a belief with no foundation to it. He is as much a slave as anybody else; maybe he is a far bigger slave than anybody else.When he was coming to India, Alexander met a rare man, Diogenes. Had Diogenes been born in India he would have been considered a buddha; he was one of the awakened ones. Even Alexander was immensely impressed by this man who lived utterly naked by the side of a river. It was early morning when Alexander went to see him; he was lying naked on the bank of the river taking a sunbath. Seeing the man, feeling his presence, Alexander for the first time felt a kind of inferiority arising in him. He had come across many kings, he had defeated many kings, but here was a real king – a master.When you come across a master it is impossible not to feel the presence – unless you are absolutely blind, absolutely deaf, utterly dead. Alexander must have been a little sensitive, a little alert, otherwise he would not have come to see this naked fakir. Just the fact that he went out of his way to see Diogenes shows that he had some deep feeling that all his possessions were not enough to make him contented. He must have thought that there must be some other way to be contented. Life cannot be only possessions and power; life must have some more secrets to it.He had heard many things about Diogenes: “He carries a lighted lamp in the day, in the full light of the day. He is naked, but he carries only one thing in his hands – a lamp, a lighted lamp. And people ask him, ‘Why do you carry this lamp?’ And he says, ‘I am seeking and searching for a real man; I have not come across one yet. I carry this lamp so that I don’t miss him.’”A real man? Is he so rare? Alexander must have brooded over it. He must have thought, “I am a real man. Let me go and see this Diogenes.” He had heard many stories about him: “He seems to be the most blissful person in the world. Nobody has ever seen him in anxiety, in anguish, in fear; he is utterly fearless.”Alexander had heard that once he had been caught, and eight people had been needed to catch this simple man. And Diogenes had told them, “Don’t make so much effort, you need not. What do you want? Simply tell me.”The men had said to him, “We want to sell you in the slave market.”Then he had answered them, “Then there is no need to strain yourselves so much. I hate to give trouble to anybody. I am coming with you.”And he went with them, ahead of them. They followed him as if they were his followers. And when they reached the market where men were sold and purchased, everybody was attracted toward this beautiful man. He stood there on a platform and shouted, “Listen, all you slaves who have gathered here: a master is being sold! Is there any slave interested in purchasing a master?”So many stories were in the air about Diogenes… Alexander slowly, slowly became so interested that he went to see him. The very interest shows that there was some deep feeling in him about the futility of his own endeavors to conquer the world. And seeing Diogenes, Alexander immediately felt himself a nonentity, while Diogenes was an authentic being. Still he tried to laugh it away.Diogenes said, “Stop laughing. Don’t try to befool yourself. You can see the fact that you are missing life.”Alexander said, “Yes, sir, I can feel it. For the first time I have seen a really alive person. What can I do for you? I have enough money, I can do anything. Just you say and it will be done.”Diogenes said, “I don’t need anything. You may have all the money in the world, but I don’t have any desire, so all your money is absolutely irrelevant. But one thing you can do is stand aside, because you are blocking the sun. That’s all that I can ask from you and you will be kind enough if you can stand aside.”He didn’t ask for anything. Alexander said to him, “If I have to come into the world another time, I will ask God to make me Diogenes instead of Alexander the Great.”Diogenes said, “Why wait for the next life? You can be Diogenes right now. Can’t you see the point?” he asked. “Nothing is needed to be a Diogenes. You are making so much effort to conquer the world and even if you succeed, what are you going to gain out of it? You will be as miserable as ever, in fact far more miserable, because right now your mind is occupied with the idea, with the ambition of conquering the world. Once you have conquered it you will be at a loss what to do. It is better that you stop now.”Alexander said, “I can understand – you are right – but I cannot stop in the middle of my journey. I have decided to conquer the world.”Diogenes said, “Then go, don’t stop. But death will stop you in the middle; it always stops everybody in the middle, and then you cannot do anything. Then you will remember me. And your victories won’t help you at all. When death knocks on the door, a slave, a poor man, a great king, a world conqueror, are all the same, all equal in the eyes of death. Death cannot knock at my door,” Diogenes said. “Listen, and look into my eyes. I have conquered death. That is a real victory because I have come to know my real being which is deathless. I have come to experience my consciousness which was before I was born and which will be there after I am gone. I am eternal.”The day Alexander died he remembered Diogenes with bitter tears, of course, because Diogenes was right: his whole life had been a sheer wastage. He had struggled and struggled for nothing.You have heard the proverb: Nothing succeeds like success. That is absolutely wrong. I suggest to you another proverb: Nothing fails like success. But because very few people succeed very few people come to know about it. Those who succeed always come to know the utter impotence of success.Buddha says: A man is not born to mastery. The first thing to be understood is that you are a slave of unconscious forces. This is the beginning; the first step toward mastery is to recognize your slavery. To see that you are unconscious is the beginning of consciousness. But you go on throwing the responsibility on others, you never look inward; not for any cause do you look inward.The judge looked sternly down at the defendant. “Young man, it is alcohol, and alcohol alone, that is responsible for your present sorry state.”“I’m glad to hear you say that, Your Honor,” the man replied with a sigh of relief. “Everybody else says it’s my fault.”Nobody wants to recognize that he is responsible for the sorry state he is in. You always try to find some excuse. Any excuse will do; if you cannot find one, you can always invent. But you never feel responsible.The beginning of a religious life is taking total responsibility for yourself. Whatsoever you are, you are responsible and nobody else. And your life is a mess.Have you heard about the Polack who tried to throw himself on the floor – and missed?Your whole life is a failure – whatsoever you do, even throwing yourself on the floor – because you are not conscious at all, not aware at all. You are living in such unconsciousness, you are almost a machine.Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, “You are not men, you are machines.” And people used to feel very offended; nobody likes the idea that he is a machine. “I, a machine? Me, a machine? Others maybe!” But Gurdjieff was saying something very essential: man is a machine. Everybody else can see it; everybody else can see it about you, except you. But that is not going to help unless you see it.There were three travelers – a Jew, a Hindu and an Italian – who needed a place to stay overnight. They knocked on a farmer’s door. The farmer said he only had room for two in the house, but one could sleep in the barn. The Jew said he would sleep in the barn.They all settled down for the night. A little while later there was a knock on the door. The farmer answered it; it was the Jew. He apologized, but said there was a pig in the barn and as pigs were not kosher he could not spend the night in the same place as them. The Hindu said he would sleep in the barn as pigs did not bother him.Again the farmer went back to bed. A little while later there was a knock at the door; it was the Hindu. He apologized and said he was sorry, but there was a cow in the barn and as cows were sacred animals it was not proper for him to sleep in the same place as them. So the Italian offered to sleep in the barn as he had no problem with cows or pigs.Again the farmer went to bed, but a little while later there was a knock at the door. The tired farmer got up and answered it. There stood the cow and the pig!Even cows can see, even pigs can feel that you are an Italian, but not you. You never look at yourself, you always look at others. You are focused on others. You are such an extrovert that you don’t know how to turn your eyes in. And a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn is needed. Unless you start seeing yourself there is no possibility of mastery in your life; you will remain a slave.When you fall in love you think you are a master. Are you, or is it just a biological, chemical phenomenon? If it is a biological and chemical phenomenon you are not the master. When somebody insults you and you become angry, are you angry or are you just a victim of some unconscious force that is being released in you? When you are angry, enraged, you are almost temporarily insane; you can do anything. You can destroy, you can kill, you can commit suicide. But whatsoever you do, if you survive the moment you will repent. You will say, “I cannot believe how it happened, how I could do such a thing? I did it in spite of myself.”That expression is significant. Whenever you say, “I did it in spite of myself,” you are recognizing, without knowing it, your slavery: that things happen in you which are happening without you, and you are just a victim.Nobody is born as a master, but everybody is born with a tremendous potential to be a master. Everybody can be a master, but very rarely do people attain to their potential. Very rarely do people attain to their maximum peak, to the crescendo of their being.The psychologists say that the ordinary person only uses seven to ten percent of his potential in his whole life; ninety percent or more remains unused. This is about the ordinary person, and the psychologists say that even the talented people, very talented people, use no more than twelve to thirteen percent. And the people we call geniuses use no more than fifteen percent of their potential.Just think, if the whole of humanity were using one hundred percent of its potential – which it is capable of – there would be no need to imagine a paradise, we could make it here. We will be in paradise if one hundred percent potential is being used by everyone. But if you don’t use it, it remains like a weight. Rather than being a help in your life it becomes such a weight, like a rock hanging around your neck. That which could have become a boat becomes the cause of your drowning.Religion is concerned basically with helping you to bring your potential into action; to make your potential actual, so it is not just there as a seed but becomes a flower and a great fragrance is released.That’s what happened to Gautama the Buddha, that’s what happened to Jesus Christ. These few people were just like you, made of the same stuff. There is nothing special about them, they are not special beings. Forget that idea. The priests have been preaching down the ages that they were special, that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God. It is all sheer nonsense. You are as much a son of God as Jesus was, no more or less; there is no difference between you and Jesus. As far as the potential is concerned you are absolutely alike. But Jesus actualized it and you have not even touched it, it is simply lying there. It is a treasure which has not been used, and anything which is not used for a long time dies, becomes stale. It goes rotten, it becomes a dead weight on you, it makes you heavy and ill.Buddha has nothing special in him. Of course, the Buddhist priests say that he is special. Why do these priests go on saying that Buddha is special, Mahavira is special, Jesus is special, Krishna is special? Why? – for a simple reason: it helps to protect our egos. They are special, what can we do? If they became enlightened they were bound to become enlightened, they came with a special capability. We are normal human beings, they were avatars. They were direct descendants of God, we are very, very faraway distant relatives, and the distance is so great that it is impossible to bridge it. They were coming directly from the above; they were messengers of God, messiahs, prophets, tirthankaras, and we are ordinary people. This is a way of defending our egos, a very logical way, a very rational way.Do you think you are paying respect by saying that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God? You are not paying respect, you are being very cunning; you are trying to protect yourself. You are saying, “You are special and we are ordinary, so we have to behave in an ordinary way. You can behave like an enlightened person. What can we do about it? We are made in this way. The responsibility is God’s, not ours. It is not our fate to be a Buddha or to be a Krishna or to be a Lao Tzu. It is not our destiny to be a Zarathustra. They were destined and we are not destined. So if something happened to them it was bound to happen, and if nothing is happening to us, nothing is happening to us because nothing is destined for us.”This is a trick, a strategy. Buddha wants you to be reminded that you are made of the same stuff, the same blood, the same bones, the same marrow, the same consciousness. The only difference is that you are not working on yourself, you are not using the opportunity, you are not transforming yourself. And you go on finding excuses: “How can we do it? We have children, a wife, a husband, parents, and we have to work in the world, we have to earn money and a livelihood.” You go on making excuses.That’s why my insistence is that none of my sannyasins are to leave the ordinary world. They have to become enlightened in the ordinary world so that this excuse, this traditional excuse, can be dropped forever.There have been people who have become enlightened living very ordinary lives. Kabir was a father and a husband, and he worked his whole life – he was a weaver – yet he became enlightened. He didn’t renounce the world, he didn’t escape. Or Raidas who was a shoemaker, continued his work, remained in the world, and became enlightened.There have been many, but you will be surprised to know that priests don’t talk much about these people because these people are dangerous. They talk about the renunciation of Buddha, that he renounced the world, went into the forest; they talk about Mahavira who renounced his kingdom. In the first place you have to have a kingdom to renounce. Where is the kingdom? And if you don’t have the kingdom, then in this life at least you can’t become enlightened. Even if you have the kingdom, then you have to renounce it.Jesus is presented in such a way that it becomes almost impossible to conceive of him as a human being. He is born out of a virgin mother – now, what nonsense! You are not born out of a virgin mother, so at least this life you have missed the train. Next life choose a virgin mother because everything starts from there. In the first place you have chosen a wrong train. But there are difficulties: if you choose a virgin mother you are a bastard. If Jesus chooses a virgin mother he is simply exceptional – it is God’s grace.The priests have been trying to create a distance between you and the enlightened ones so that you can feel at ease. And the effort of all the buddhas is not to let you feel at ease, to make you restless, to make you divinely discontented; to make you aware that you are capable of tremendous bliss and you are missing it; to make you alert that it is your birthright and yet you have not claimed it.A man is not born to mastery.A master is never proud.But Buddha immediately in the second sutra says something very significant, because there is every possibility that he will be misunderstood; hence the second statement. He says that mastery is an achievement, but not in the ordinary sense of the word, because whenever you achieve something you become proud. You think, “I have achieved this.” If mastery is an achievement – which certainly it is – it is in a totally different sense from ordinary achievements. It is not like becoming a president of a country or becoming the richest man in the world; it is not like becoming famous. It is totally different. The difference is that in the very achievement of it the achiever dies.Remember it, never forget about it, otherwise your spirituality can also become a new ego trip. Hence, immediately, Buddha adds: A master is never proud. He cannot be – because he is no more. This is a very strange achievement: in the very process of achieving it, the ego melts, disappears. In fact, it happens only when the ego is no longer found. It is a very paradoxical achievement: an achievement certainly, but there is no achiever. Just as a sugar cube dissolves into the tea, the achiever dissolves into the achievement itself. He is no longer found anywhere. He becomes one with the achievement. The achievement is not something that he can brag about, it is simply a natural flowering. He is not proud of it.Roses are not proud, lotuses are not proud, of course, however beautiful they are. The sunrise is not proud, the sunset is not proud, the night full of stars is not proud, the full moon is not proud. It is natural; there is nothing to say about it. It is how it should be. There is no question of being proud about it, no ego enhancement about it.Beware of the ego. If you start bragging about your spiritual attainment you have missed the whole point. It is no longer spiritual at all; it is again the same game played with new words. Only the words have changed, but nothing has really changed; there has been no transformation.People play the game of the ego in many ways. The Indian thinks that he is the holiest, the most spiritual person in the world; now that is the same game. The American thinks, for different reasons, that he is special, that he is higher than anybody else. And so is the case with everybody. You will not find a single race in the world, a single nation in the world which does not think that it is special. Now the game is played in the name of nation, race.Every religion thinks, “This is the only way, the true way: all other ways are false.” If you ask the Jaina he thinks all other ways are pseudo. If you ask the Christian he has the same idea: “Unless you are a Christian you are not going to be saved, you will suffer in hell.” Ask the Mohammedan… And you will be surprised to see that they belong to different religions, but do they really belong to different religions or do they all belong to the same religion – the religion of the ego? They all belong to the same religion: the religion of the ego.The white man thinks he is special, the black man thinks he is special…I have heard a story about Dr. Radhakrishnan. He was the president of India and he was talking to a few friends.One white man said, “We are the best – otherwise why did God make us white?”Radhakrishnan said to the white man, “You are half-cooked, that’s why you are white!”A black man was also present; he was very happy. He said, “That’s right. We are the best!”Radhakrishnan said, “You are cooked too much – you are almost burnt! We are the best, we are just in the middle, neither white nor black. Cooked just right.”People go on trying to defend their egos in every possible way.An Egyptian and an Indian archaeologist were vying with each other.“In our recent excavation we came across lengthy cables and have deduced that there was some kind of a telephone system then,” the Egyptian boasted.“We dug and dug and could find no cable. We have reached the conclusion that there was wireless during those times in India,” said his Indian counterpart.Beware! We are playing the same game in the name of religion, in the name of nation, in the name of race, in the name of color, but the game is the same. The name of the game is ego.The spiritual man is one who has stopped playing the game. He is the master.A master is never proud.He does not talk down to others.He has no holier-than-thou look. But look at your so-called saints – they are all looking at you with deep condemnation. They know you are sinners and they are saints. They are higher beings, superior beings; you are mundane, worldly, ordinary. What have you done? What virtue can you claim? They can claim that they have been fasting for years, that they are celibates, that they eat only once a day, that they sleep only three hours per night. And they have invented many kinds of torture for themselves. And of course torture has been thought for centuries to be the way toward spirituality. It is masochism, pure masochism: it has nothing to do with spirituality. But when a person tortures himself, of course he can feel his ego fulfilled. You cannot do it and he is doing it; you certainly start feeling inferior because it is difficult for you to do it.If you see a man lying down on a bed of thorns, you cannot do it. Certainly he is higher, has superior powers. And if he looks at you as the condemned, as the people who are going to hell, you have to accept it because he is earning rewards. What have you done? You have not done anything like that. You cannot sleep on such a bed; you are a very ordinary human being. His will is like steel, just look at his willpower.And it is nothing. He is simply more stupid than you are, he is more dull than you are, his body is less sensitive than yours. There are methods to make your body less and less sensitive. If you sit naked in the hot sun your body starts getting burnt; slowly, slowly all the sensitive parts which are very fragile become hard, they have to become hard. You become thick-skinned and the thicker the skin, the more easily you can lie down on a bed of thorns.Have you not watched? Women can use sleeveless clothes more easily than men for the simple reason that their arms are less sensitive – more beautiful but less sensitive. Even in cold countries they can move very easily with sleeveless clothes; man finds it difficult. Man’s body is more sensitive in that way and more fragile. In cold countries he needs a necktie to prevent any air going in. And look at the women – their clothes are almost disappearing.Their bodies are just less sensitive; they have to be less sensitive because they have to be mothers. Giving birth to a child and having a very sensitive body will be difficult, will be very painful, will be utterly painful. If the body is very sensitive then carrying the baby for nine months in your belly will be a great torture. Imagine yourself, a man, carrying a baby in your belly for nine months. You will commit suicide. It will be impossible. Nature makes the woman’s body less sensitive and compensates it with more beauty and more roundedness. Man’s body is not that beautiful, not that rounded, but more sensitive – sensitive to cold, sensitive to heat, sensitive to many things.That is one of the causes of the constant conflict between men and women: because the woman comes to orgasm very slowly; her sensitivity is much less. It takes a longer time for her to come to an orgasm. Man comes quickly; his body is very sensitive. The gap between the man’s body and the woman’s body creates a great problem. Unless the man is very alert and takes every care to move slowly with the woman’s body, the woman will never be satisfied.Her dissatisfaction will show in many ways: your tea will be cold, your vegetables will have too much salt. The whole day, from the kitchen, such noises of breaking things will come, as if you are living in an earthquake. Not that she is doing it consciously, that too is absolutely unconscious – nobody is a master, all are slaves – but she is taking revenge in her own way.So whenever you want to make love to a woman, immediately she has a headache, she is tired, she is no longer interested, for the simple reason that she never achieves an orgasm. Why should she participate in a game in which she is always the loser? It is only recently that man is becoming aware of the difference; that difference can be bridged, but skill is needed.Just ask your wife to prick your back with a needle on many places, and you will be surprised: there are a few places which are so insensitive that the prick will not be felt at all, and a few places where the prick will be felt. A few spots are blind. Those people who are lying on a bed of thorns have simply arranged the whole thing in such a way that the thorns are touching the blind spots. It is just a kind of skill; there is nothing in it, nothing holy in it.You can eat once a day. There are tribes, many aboriginal tribes in India, in South Africa, in the Himalayas, who eat only once a day. The body is so adjustable: you can eat once a day, then it eats too much. You can eat twice, you can eat thrice, then it divides. You can eat five times even, and in fact, to eat five times is far more scientific than to eat one time, because to eat one time means putting too much load on the system. It is better to divide the load. And if man has really come down from the monkeys, look at the monkeys – they are eating the whole day. Americans are doing exactly that, so whether Darwin is correct about anybody else or not, he is correct about the Americans.You can eat one time a day; the body will adjust to that. These things have nothing to do with spirituality, but these are the things that your so-called saints go on bragging about.A real master is not proud: He does not talk down to others. The real master is one who has recognized that everybody has the same potential. How can he talk down to others?Buddha has said that when he became enlightened, immediately he saw that the whole universe had become enlightened with him. This is true as far as he is concerned. Of course the whole universe has not become enlightened – you have not become enlightened yet – but as far as Buddha is concerned it is absolutely true. He saw the potential, he saw that everybody is the same. Just that a few people are awake and a few are asleep; that is the only difference, and that is not such a big difference. Don’t make such a fuss about it.Even if your saints don’t say directly, “We are holier than you,” in a thousand and one indirect ways they go on telling you.Every time the cowboy rode through the Indian village he would wave at the aged chief. In response the old man would give him the finger in the usual vertical manner, then he would turn his hand so that the third digit stuck out horizontally.After a few weeks the cowboy could stand it no longer. He stopped his horse and said to the redskin, “I know what it means to get the finger straight up, but what does it mean when you turn it sideways?”“I don’t like your horse either!” replied the chief.There are direct ways and indirect ways, gestures. The way your saints look at you – they may not say a single word – the way they behave, all points to one thing: that they are higher than you. And they keep you constantly afraid of hell. They are telling you, “Beware of hell. You are bound to go to hell.” So they are making you alert in advance.Preacher Pitts had undertaken that morning to describe the terrors of hell to his congregation.“Brothers and sisters,” he intones, “some of you have seen melted iron running out of a furnace, haven’t you? It’s white, sizzling and hissing. Well, in the place I’m talking about they use that stuff for ice cream!”Their whole effort is to make you as frightened as possible. Look at the great idea of ice cream! If you want to go to heaven you have to follow their advice, you have to follow in their footprints. You have to become imitators, and imitators are pseudo people. A real master is never an imitator.Hence I say to you, never become Christians, be a christ, and never become Buddhists, be a buddha. Your potential is of such infinite possibility that why should you settle for some small thing? Just being a Christian is a poor substitute, why not be a christ? Why not be a buddha yourself? Why be Buddhists?But your preachers are telling you: be Christians, be Buddhists, be Jainas, be Hindus. They are not telling you about your ultimate potential, they want you to be followers. And of course there is no Buddha, no Jesus available, so they are the representatives. They have created a strategy: follow Jesus. But where is Jesus? Of course you will have to follow the pope. The pope is the representative and the pope is infallible. Look at the foolishness of it all. Only a fool can say that he is infallible, not even God is infallible.Fallibility is part of the fun – God must be fallible; otherwise he would not have made you. God must be fallible; otherwise why and how did he manage to create man? And since then he has not created anything; he stopped. Seeing what he had done he stopped the whole process. Since then nothing has been heard about him, where he is, what he is doing.The Bible says that in six days he created the world – okay. The seventh day he rested. What about the next week? Did Monday come or not? Since then what has he been doing? Seeing that he has committed a mistake he must be escaping as far away as possible.Now the scientists say the world, the universe is expanding. The simple reason is that God is escaping, so with him of course the world goes on expanding; the boundary goes on expanding with tremendous speed. Do you know at what speed he is escaping from you? – 186,000 miles per second. That is the speed at which the universe is expanding; that must be the speed of his escape. And I don’t think we will be able to catch him. It seems impossible to make spaceships which can go at that speed, because that is the speed of light and anything moving at that speed will immediately become light. So if you are moving at that speed, the plane and the passengers and the pilot will all disappear; they will become simply pure light. With that speed everything will melt and become light. Unless we can find some way not to follow him but to try to find him from the other side…I think that is the way of the buddhas. They don’t try to reach God, they don’t run after him, they simply stand silently. That is the other way, the other way round, because how long can he escape? If the universe is also round, finally he will come back to where these people are standing – and there is the possibility of meeting.He does not talk down to others.Owning nothing, he misses nothing.The buddha simply uses, the master uses. He owns nothing, he is not an owner. Either he owns nothing or he owns the whole universe which is saying the same thing in two different ways. There is no need to own anything. He uses. You use the sun, you use the moon; you need not own them. So, if one day the sun is cloudy, you need not become anxious, you need not go mad, you need not get worried: “What is happening to my sun?” It has nothing to do with you. If one day the moon has an eclipse you are not worried at all because you don’t own it; if you own it, then trouble arises. If you own the garden and the roses are not blooming, then there is anxiety; if you don’t own it, then you just enjoy.The master enjoys existence but he owns nothing; because he owns nothing he misses nothing.He is not afraid.There is nothing to lose, why should he be afraid?He does not tremble.Søren Kierkegaard says that every man is trembling inside, there is a constant trembling. He is right; the fear of death keeps you constantly trembling. You may keep yourself occupied in a thousand and one things and you may forget about your inner trembling, but it is there.Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most important thinkers of the Western hemisphere. What he is saying he must be saying from his own personal experience; he was very much afraid of death. He was afraid only of two things: death and money. He never earned any money. His father had left a certain bank balance for him; he lived on it. On the first day of each month, he would go to the bank and withdraw a certain amount and live on it. He lived in a very, very economical way, but he was very afraid: sooner or later the money was going to be finished, and that was his constant worry. People had seen him in Copenhagen going to the bank and coming home always in a state of trembling.Then death… And death is certainly related to money. People who are very much afraid of death start accumulating money as a protection, as if money can protect. People who are not afraid of death don’t care much about money; they use money, but they don’t care about it.A strange thing happened to Søren Kierkegaard. He died on the road the day he withdrew the last amount of money from the bank. He was coming home from the bank; this was the last amount, the bank balance was finished. The manager had said, “Next month you need not come as all the money is gone.” Kierkegaard never reached home; he fell in the middle of the road and died then and there. If the money is finished, life is finished. He must have been a man of tremendous fear.When he was young he loved a woman, a very beautiful woman, Regina. For three years the love affair continued and finally, when they were going to get married, he refused. It was very strange because Regina was a beautiful woman and he was an ugly man. If Regina had refused it would have been logical, but why did Kierkegaard refuse? He refused out of the simple fear: “If we get married and some trouble arises, then? If some fighting arises or if she falls in love with somebody else? – she is such a beautiful woman…” Afraid of the possibilities of the future, he simply refused. He refused to live. He never left the city, he was so afraid of accidents. So when he says man is a trembling he is saying it from personal experience.Buddha says that the master does not tremble. All his trembling disappears because he knows there is no death. Knowing himself he has transcended death. He has no fear of the future because he lives in the present. He is not possessive; hence nothing can be taken away from him.Nothing binds him.He is infinitely free.Nothing binds him because he is nonpossessive. He is freedom, absolute freedom.So cut throughthe strap and the thong and the rope.Loosen the fastenings.Unbolt the doors of sleepand awake.Three things are our bondage: body, mind, self: …the strap, the thong and the rope. So cut through… Be aware you are neither the body nor the mind nor the self. Awareness is the sword with which to cut through.Loosen the fastenings: lust, greed, anger, hatred, ambition, jealousy, possessiveness.Unbolt the doors of sleep: awaken yourself, become conscious.On a crowded subway a well-built mulatto secretary felt behind her the presence of a sexually excited soul brother. She tried to move away, but her fidgeting only made things worse. Finally she turned around and snapped, “Mister, you are vulgar!”“I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, honey!” said the black man. “But I can understand why you’re a little peeved. I got paid tonight, the boss had nothing but small change, and it makes a lump in my pants pocket. Believe me, baby, that’s all there is to it.”“I suppose,” said the woman, “you also want me to believe that all the time we’re standing here your boss is giving you raises!”Just look at your sex, at your anger, at your greed. You are utterly in their power, helplessly in their power.Buddha is not a metaphysician; he is a superb psychologist. He is the first to create the psychology of the buddhas. He is saying: “Cut through all this slavery,” Unbolt the doors of sleep and awake.Mrs. Rafferty was sitting at home in Dublin with her children, all waiting for the man of the house to come home from his job in the local brewery. A knock came at the door. When Mrs. Rafferty opened it she saw Mick standing with downcast eyes and a sad look on his face. “Bad news,” he said. “Pat fell into a vat of whiskey and drowned this afternoon.”Mrs. Rafferty and the children burst into anguished tears, but she managed to stammer, “Oh Jesus, did he suffer? Was it a painful death?”Mick coughed reverently and took off his hat. “No, ma’am,” he said, “I don’t think so. He got out twice for a piss!”Be awake. Just see what you are doing, just see what your life consists of. Is there any awareness, or is it just an unconscious play of unconscious forces? Are you just a victim of forces you are not aware of – either from where they come, or what they are doing to you? Are you going to die in this way?The master enduresinsults and ill treatmentwithout reacting.The master cannot react. He responds, but he never reacts. Reactions come from the past, response is spontaneous; it is in the present. The slave reacts, the master responds. The unconscious mind reacts, the conscious man responds. He has no ready-made answers. He encounters the situation, he reflects the situation. He accepts the challenge of the situation and acts accordingly. His action is born out of the present.Remember one fundamental secret of life: if the action is born out of the present it is never binding. If it comes out of the past it is binding, it is karma. If the action comes out of your present awareness it is not karma, it is not binding. You do it and it is finished, you do it and you get out of it; it never accumulates in you. The master never accumulates the past; he dies every moment to the past. He is born anew every moment.The master enduresinsults and ill treatmentwithout reacting.For his spirit is an army.He need not react. Insults cannot insult him, ill treatment only brings his compassion because he knows his awareness is a citadel, is a shelter which cannot be broken. It is an ultimate protection; he is ultimately secure in his awareness.He is never angry.He keeps his promises.He never strays, he is determined.This body is my last, he says!Like water on the leaf of a lotus floweror a mustard seed on the point of a needle,he does not cling.He does not cling to anything – body, mind or self. He clings not, he is no longer there to cling. He is just pure emptiness. And out of that pure emptiness arises innocence, out of that pure emptiness arises godliness.For he has reached the end of sorrowand has laid down his burden.According to Buddha the only burden is the self, the ego. Put the burden aside and you are absolutely free. He does not talk about God; he only talks about the burden, the ego. Put it aside and you will know what God is. There is no need to talk about God; talking about God is utterly futile. He emphatically avoids talking about God; it is useless. He gives you the right way to experience godliness.You are gods. Just the seed has to die, the self has to die, and you will start growing. That growth is divine. Religion is the process of inner growth, the process of actualizing the potential, the process of being reborn. Unless you are born again you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,You say that enlightenment can happen any moment. To me it feels like a very slow process of learning and becoming aware of the unconscious parts of my being. Do you have something to say about this?Enlightenment is not a process of learning; on the contrary, it is a process of unlearning. Whatsoever you know has to be dropped. Knowledge, the knowledgeable mind, has to be renounced.If it were a process of learning, then certainly it would take time, it would be gradual. But if it is a question of dropping something then it is not gradual, it need not be gradual. You can simply drop it instantly.Once it happened:A man came to Sri Ramakrishna with ten thousand gold coins to offer him. Ramakrishna accepted his offering and then said, “Now these coins are mine. Go to the Ganges and throw them all into the river.” Ramakrishna lived in a temple just on the bank of the Ganges.The man was very shocked. “Ten thousand gold coins, solid gold coins, and this fool is saying ‘Throw them into the river’? I have always thought that this man had become enlightened, he is simply mad.” He hesitated.Ramakrishna said, “When you have offered them to me they no longer belong to you. Why are you hesitating? I can send somebody else to throw them away. Please go.”The man went, reluctantly of course, and he didn’t come back. One hour passed. Ramakrishna inquired, “What happened to that man? Has he escaped with the coins? Go and inquire.”Somebody was sent. There was a great crowd, he had gathered a great crowd, and he was throwing each single coin, one by one, and counting them.When Ramakrishna was told that this is what is happening, he went himself, hit the man on the head and said, “Are you mad or something? When you collect coins, of course you collect them one by one, it is a gradual process. But when you are throwing them away, why are you counting? Just throw the whole bag. Whether there are ten thousand or a few more or a few less, it doesn’t matter. The Ganges won’t take any note of it.”This is the situation. When you stop gathering knowledge you also unlearn slowly, not because unlearning has to be slow. It is only your clinging mind. It is the mind that does not want to renounce knowledge, hence it goes on postponing. It finds beautiful rationalizations.The idea of gradual enlightenment is one of the most beautiful rationalizations, and it appeals to the mind because all that mind knows is gradual. The whole language of the mind is the language of time. Whatsoever the mind can do has to be done in time, it needs time.But enlightenment does not happen in time. When I say it can happen in a moment, please don’t misunderstand me – the moment is not part of time at all. I am saying it can happen immediately; it needs no time at all, not even a single moment is needed. It can happen now, but you cling. You say, “How is it possible? I have to become slowly, slowly alert, aware, meditative. Chunk by chunk I have to transform my unconscious being. I have to drop greed, anger, lust, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, and there are a thousand and one things, and each thing is going to take time. I have to drop fear, I have to drop my identification with the body and the mind, I have to drop my attachments…” And the list is almost infinite. It will take eternity for you to become enlightened; in fact, you will never become enlightened. The very idea that it is going to be a gradual process is only a strategy of the mind to postpone it.Enlightenment is always sudden. It is a question of understanding, insight, illumination. It is like sudden lightning. It has always happened like that.Gautam Buddha was trying for his enlightenment for six years; it was a lengthy process. He was following many methods, many paths. He was doing whatsoever is humanly possible to do, but nothing was happening. He was moving in circles; he was where he had started, he was not going anywhere else. He was becoming tired, utterly tired. Finally one evening the sudden illumination happened to him that his whole effort was irrelevant.Enlightenment is not something like an achievement; one cannot achieve it. One has to disappear for it to happen. It is a happening that happens only in the absence of the ego, and whenever you are doing something the ego becomes more and more strengthened. The ego is a doer, and enlightenment happens in a state of nondoing. It is simply the realization of who you are. It is not a question of achievement. You are already it; just an awakening, just a turning in.Seeing the point, Buddha relaxed; he dropped all his methods. That is the only use of methods: you get tired of them, you feel utterly bored with them. One day out of sheer boredom you drop all the methods.That evening he dropped his whole spiritual search. He had dropped all worldly search six years before, but it is the same search whether you are seeking money or meditation, whether you are seeking power or enlightenment, whether you are running after prestige or God it is the same thing. The mind needs some object to run after. The mind wants something to desire. It wants an objective goal; whatsoever that objective goal is doesn’t matter – XYZ, anything will do.Seeing the point that: It is the same mind… “I have renounced the world, but I have not renounced the mind, and the mind is the real world. These six years I have only been changing the objects of my desire, but I have not dropped desiring. Instead of money, now I desire enlightenment. Instead of power, now I desire ultimate truth. But is there any difference? It is the same desiring mind, the same ambitious ego; in fact, it has become more subtle. It was gross before, now it is very subtle.” Seeing it, he laughed. These six years he had not laughed at all, he had been serious. He laughed at the whole ridiculousness of the effort.Spiritual effort is more ridiculous than worldly effort. The worldly effort has a certain relevance, but the spiritual effort has no relevance.He relaxed naturally, not that he made an effort to relax: relaxation came to him because there was nothing to achieve, nowhere to go. Relaxation simply came to him; from the beyond something descended. He fell into deep rest.That night he slept for the first time without dreams. When there are no desires there are no dreams; dreams are reflections of desires. That night there was no nightmare; for six years he had been suffering from many nightmares. A nightmare simply says that you are desiring impossible things; hence your night is disturbed, your sleep is disturbed. There is no rest; it is feverish, it is pathological, it is not healthy. For the first time in his life he relaxed and slept well, totally, like a small child newly born.Deeply rested, in the morning when he opened his eyes the last star was disappearing from the sky. Seeing the last star disappear, the last trace of the ego disappeared in him. He had found it, but he had found it without any effort. It had happened, but it had happened not as a goal, not as an achievement; it had happened out of deep relaxation.But remember, don’t start trying to relax; that is the most absurd thing in the world. And there are many stupid people writing books about relaxation. I have come across one book with the name You Must Relax! Now that very word must is enough to keep you tense. Relaxation cannot be a “must,” it cannot be an effort.Try one night to go to sleep, make an effort to go to sleep, and it will become more and more impossible for you. Every night you go to sleep very easily. If you want to suffer from insomnia this is a sure method to suffer from insomnia. Try, make an effort to go to sleep. Toss and turn and take long breaths and count sheep and jog in the room and take a bath and do some Transcendental Meditation. And then naturally sleep will become impossible, because all these things will be disturbances, distractions. How do you go to sleep? If somebody asks you, will you ever be able to explain? How do you manage? Every night when you fall asleep you are doing a miracle. You are moving from doing to nondoing, from action to no-action. How do you manage it? Is there any art? Have you learned it? What is the trick in it? Try to think about it, and then you will never be able to sleep.I have heard about one centipede – the centipede has one hundred legs. The centipede was taking a morning walk and a spider became very much intrigued. The spider must have been a mathematician or something like that. He said, “Uncle, can you satisfy my curiosity? How do you manage? One hundred legs! Which one to put first and which one to put next and then… A hundred legs! You don’t fall, you don’t get confused? Do you keep counting inside? If I had one hundred legs I am certain I would not be able to walk. My legs would become entangled with each other, I would fall immediately.”The centipede laughed. He said, “You mathematicians, you are always asking nonsense questions. You know that I am managing perfectly well – but I have never thought about it. Let me think it over.”So he tried to walk and think, and he fell down immediately. He was very angry at the spider and he said, “Listen! Never ask a centipede this question again – now for my whole life I will be in trouble! I had never thought about it, things were going perfectly well. I had never looked into the matter. Now that you have asked me, I will never be at ease until I have found the answer. Trying to figure it out… You see I am in a mess! Please never ask any centipede. You have crippled me for my whole life. Now I don’t think that I will ever be able to walk. One hundred legs! Of course you are right, and I don’t know how everything was being managed.”If somebody asks you how you go to sleep, don’t try to find the answer, otherwise you will suffer from insomnia from that very day. People who suffer from insomnia just need to forget about sleep; there is no need to worry about it. If you are not feeling sleepy, be happy, enjoy, read something, listen to music, sing, dance, go for a walk. You are more fortunate than the people who are fast asleep and snoring. But forget all about sleep. Watch the stars, enjoy the stars, feel yourself far more fortunate than the others, and you will fall asleep without any effort on your part. But don’t make any effort.Enlightenment is something like that. It is not a question of making an effort.You say, “To me it feels like a very slow process.” It is not a process at all – it is a jump, a quantum leap. And it has nothing to do with learning; it is unlearning. You are conditioned. Enlightenment means becoming unconditioned again, becoming a child again. You were a child once so you can be a child again. You have just to put aside all the rubbish that you have gathered around yourself. You have to jump out of it, that’s all. It is not a question of a slow process of learning, it is simply a question of seeing the point.But we are cunning, mind is very cunning. It can’t accept the simple fact that we still want to avoid enlightenment. We don’t want to be enlightened, we are afraid of the fact, but we are cunning and we cannot accept it. Hence we find ways to deceive ourselves that it is a slow process, a very slow process, that it takes not only one life but many lives to become enlightened. It does not take time at all, what to say about a life or many lives? It has nothing to do with time. It is immediate; it can happen now.See the point. Allow relaxation to happen, don’t try to relax. Simply relax, don’t make it a “must.” Rest, and if you rest you will start falling into the deep abyss of your own being, and sooner or later you will reach the rock bottom of yourself. To experience that rock bottom of yourself is to be enlightened, is to be a buddha, is to be a christ.That’s why I insist again and again it can happen any moment, just to remind you that your mind is very clever. It can deceive others, it can deceive you. Beware of the mind; it keeps you clouded, it never allows you to see things as they are.Enlightenment is your nature, hence there is no question of learning, no question of reaching somewhere. You are already there, it has already happened. It is your very being, your very ground. It is in your every breath and in every beat of your heart.The second question:Osho,Why don't I feel any surprises in my life? All seems so dull and drab.I have given you the name Gyano: Gyano means knowledge. You are too knowledgeable, you know too much, and when one knows too much, life loses the quality of being mysterious. Then you are never surprised by anything. Your knowledge goes on supplying you all kinds of answers; even before you have asked the question the answer is there, you seem to know everything. Knowing nothing you go on believing in borrowed knowledge, and slowly, slowly that borrowed knowledge hypnotizes you so much that you forget that you don’t know. You start believing in your own knowledge, and it is not your own, it is just borrowed. You may have read the Bible, the Gita, the Koran…Krishna knew what he was talking about, but when you read you don’t know. Jesus knew what he was talking about, but when you read the Sermon on the Mount you are simply collecting, gathering words which are not meaningful to you at all, which cannot have any meaning because meaning comes from experience.Jesus says: “If somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other one too.” You can read it, it is a simple statement. You can even try to follow it as thousands of Christians are trying to follow it.I have heard about a Christian saint who used to talk too often about this statement. A mischievous person came and hit the saint on one cheek. Of course, true to his teaching, the saint gave him his other cheek hoping that now he would understand: “He will see how great I am, how compassionate, how considerate, how full of love!”But the mischievous person was also a great devil; if the saint was great he was also great. He was not in any way inferior to the saint. He hit on the other cheek even harder.Now this was too much! The saint immediately jumped upon him and started hitting him. The mischievous person was surprised. He said, “What are you doing? What happened to your teaching? What happened to Jesus?”He said, “Jesus has said: If somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other. I have got only two cheeks, so his teaching is finished. Now I am free of the teaching, I will show you who I am. I have followed the teaching literally, exactly.”Once Buddha was asked by a man, “How many times do you say one should forgive?”Now, the very question is enough to show the quality of the person. He is asking, “How many times?” When you ask about how many times, you are not a man of compassion.Buddha said, “Seven times.”The man said, “Okay.”Because of the way he said, “Okay,” Buddha said, “Wait – seventy times!”The man felt a little reluctant about accepting seventy times, but still he said, “Okay.”Buddha said, “I withdraw my words. You have to forgive infinitely; even seventy times won’t do. The way you are accepting it, it seems that when seventy times are over you will take revenge. And you can do harm in a single blow, you can take revenge in a single blow. You are not a man of compassion. You don’t understand me, it is not a question of how many times.”You can read Buddha, read The Dhammapada, you can recite it every day; you will become knowledgeable. All questions will disappear because you will have all kinds of answers, but all those answers are borrowed. Hence they will destroy the beauty of life and they will destroy your sense of awe and wonder, which are the most essential religious qualities.If someone asks me what the most fundamental religious quality is, I will say wonder. And knowledge kills wonder. You start knowing about everything and the more you know, the more your life will be “dull and drab.” All that dust of knowledge that gathers around you makes your mirrorlike consciousness so clouded – there are so many layers of knowledge – that you lose the quality of childlike wonder. You can’t see the beauty of flowers, you can’t see the beauty of a sunset, you can’t see the miracle of existence. And existence is full of miracles, and surprises are everywhere, all around you.Just look, but look with open eyes. The knowledgeable person is blind; the most blind person in existence is the knowledgeable person.Gyano, I have given you the name just to remind you again and again that that is your problem, that is your main characteristic. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, “The first thing for the disciple is to know what his main characteristic is.” Your main characteristic is knowledgeability.Look around without carrying your burden of knowledge, and then you are stumbling continuously into new surprises and life again becomes worth living, worth rejoicing. Life again becomes a mystery to be loved and lived. It is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived.“Brothers,” said the colored preacher, “the subject of my sermon today is ‘liars.’ How many in this congregation have read the sixty-ninth chapter of Matthew?”Nearly every hand went up.“You are the very people I want to preach to,” the reverend said. “There is no such chapter!”But nobody wants to accept that he does not know. Sixty-ninth chapter of Matthew… Everybody wants to pretend. And I will not say that they were doing it very consciously, deliberately. Maybe they were thinking that they had read it, maybe they were believing that they had read it, and seeing so many hands going up they must become convinced that yes, there is such a chapter.In the old days down South, a minister had a Negro named Ezra in his household. Ezra was smart and ambitious, but he could not read or write.One Sunday the minister saw Ezra in the church, scribbling away industriously through the sermon. Afterward, the minister asked him, “Ezra, what were you doing in church?”“Taking notes, sir. I’s eager to learn.”“Let me see,” said the minister, and he glanced over Ezra’s notes, which looked more like Chinese than English.“Why, Ezra,” he chided, “this is all nonsense!”“I thought so,” said Ezra, “all the time you was preaching it!”Your preachers have poisoned you. Your knowledge has destroyed you; it has taken away the simple joy of not-knowing. Regain that joy of not-knowing. That’s the whole purpose of meditation: coming out of knowledge just as a snake slips out of its old skin.Slip out of your knowledge, Gyano, and then life is full of surprises. Every moment you will come across so many wonderful things. A seed becoming a sprout is a miracle. A bud opening in the morning is a miracle. A flower releasing its fragrance is a miracle. The night full of stars… What more miracles do you need? The whole existence is in a constant celebration.Still you say, “I feel dull and drab and dragging”? Then you must be at fault somewhere; nobody else is responsible for it. But we cling to our knowledge because it fulfills our ego.D. H. Lawrence was walking in a garden with a small child. And, as children are prone to, the child asked, “Why are the trees green?”D. H. Lawrence is one of the people I love and I respect. He is one of the people of this century who had tremendous insight into things. He stood there, thought for a moment, closed his eyes, meditated.The child said, “Is it such a difficult question for you? Don’t you know why the trees are green?”D. H. Lawrence said, “The trees are green because they are green.”The child said, “Right! That’s the right answer.”But you will not agree; no knowledgeable person will agree with D. H. Lawrence. He will say trees are green because of chlorophyll or some other nonsense. But his answer is tremendously beautiful: “Trees are green because they are green.”And the child was immensely happy. He said, “Right, that’s what I also feel. We agree about it!”Drop your knowledge, become more childlike, and regain your joy in life. To rejoice in life is sannyas. My sannyas is not renunciation: it is rejoicing, it is celebration.The third question:Osho,You have sussed me out. Now is the time to tell my dreaded secret! I am one of your Polacks. What to do?That’s the most beautiful thing about Polacks I love and like. You are not the first Polack who has declared it. Asha wrote a note saying that, “Osho, I am also a Polack.” Anupama wrote a note saying that her lover, Amitabh, is a Polack. And many others. This is beautiful!And see what the British are doing. One British lady, Prem Lisa, has written saying, “We are superior, so what can we do?”Veechi, it is beautiful to be a Polack. It is beautiful to be a little foolish, not so superior as the British.Why don’t they have ice-cubes in Poland?Because the woman with the recipe died.One Polack arrived in New York seeking his fame and fortune. As he strolled down the sidewalk he noticed a great long ladder propped against the side of a building, stretching upward as far as the eye could see. He started to pass on by, but a voice high in the clouds called down, “Climb up the ladder to success!”Somewhat nervously he began to ascend, rung by rung, all the way to the top of the fifty-story edifice. When he got there, a slender, blond, blue-eyed boy seated on the ledge of the building smiled sweetly at him.“Hi, there!” he said. “I am Cess!”The fourth question:Osho,If God is a she, why do you keep on calling her a he?And another question: you say the English are ladies and the Italians, women. Where would you put the German females?The German females are precisely that – females – neither ladies nor women. Female is more scientific and more German, more scholarly, neutral; it has no evaluation in it.And God, in fact, is neither he nor she.So if you say he is a he I will say he is a she; if you say he is a she I will say he is a he, simply to unhinge you from your convictions.Once it happened:Buddha entered a village. A man asked him as he was entering the village, “Does God exist?”He said, “No, absolutely no.”In the afternoon another man came and he asked, “Does God exist?”And he said, “Yes, absolutely yes.”In the evening a third man came and he asked, “Does God exist?”Buddha closed his eyes and remained utterly silent. The man also closed his eyes. Something transpired in that silence. After a few minutes the man touched Buddha’s feet, bowed down, paid his respects and said, “You are the first man who has answered my question.”Now, Buddha’s attendant, Ananda, was very much puzzled: “In the morning he said no, in the afternoon he said yes, in the evening he did not answer at all. What is the matter? What is really the truth?”So when Buddha was going to sleep, Ananda said, “First answer me; otherwise I will not be able to sleep. You have to be a little more compassionate toward me too. I have been with you the whole day. Those three people don’t know about the other answers, but I have heard all the three answers. What about me? I am troubled.”Buddha said, “I was not talking to you at all. You had not asked, I had not answered you. The first man who came was a theist, the second man who came was an atheist, the third man who came was an agnostic. My answer had nothing to do with God, my answer had something to do with the questioner. I was answering the questioner; it was absolutely unconcerned with God.“I will say no to the person who believes in God because I want him to drop his idea of God, I want him to be free of his idea of God, which is borrowed. He has not experienced. If he had experienced he would not have asked me; there would have been no need.“The person who believed in God was trying to find confirmation for his belief from me. I was not going to say yes to him, I am not going to confirm anybody’s belief. I had to say no, I had to deny, just to destroy his belief, because all beliefs are barriers to knowing the truth. Theist or atheist, all beliefs, Hindu or Christian or Mohammedan, all beliefs are barriers.“And the person with whom I remained silent was the right inquirer. He had no belief, hence there was no question of destroying anything. I kept silent. That was my message to him: Be silent and know. Don’t ask, there is no need to ask. It is not a question which can be answered. It is not an inquiry but a quest, a thirst. Be silent and know. I had answered him also. Through my silence I gave him the message and he immediately followed it – he also became silent. I closed my eyes, he closed his eyes; I looked in, he looked in, and then something transpired. That’s why he was so overwhelmed, why he felt so much gratitude, because I did not give him any intellectual answer. He had not come for any intellectual answer; intellectual answers are available very cheaply. He needed something existential; he needed a taste. I gave him a taste.”Remember this: God is neither man nor woman; he cannot be man or woman. Either he is both or he is neither. God is the ultimate synthesis of all opposites. Man is one extreme, woman the other. God is not an extreme, he is the whole existence. He is vast enough to contain the opposites; all opposites become complementaries in God.So don’t cling to my answers; they are not answers. I am not a teacher at all. I am not here teaching you a certain dogma, a certain creed. I am simply trying to help you to be unburdened of your knowledge so that you can be silent with me. And I am in a hurry because soon I want to go into silence, so you also have to be quick. Don’t linger too long. Don’t go on postponing because I will not be talking for ever and ever. Soon I want to be silent. You can sit in silence with me then, you can sing, you can play music, you can dance, but I want to stop all kinds of intellectual communication between you and me. I want to be existentially related to you. I am simply preparing the ground, I am pulling out weeds.So it depends: whatsoever your belief is I am going to destroy it. I am against all beliefs. That’s why you will find Christian priests against me, the Catholic pope against me, the Hindu shankaracharya against me, the Mohammedans against me, the Communists against me; for the simple reason that I am against all beliefs, Communism or Catholicism, Hinduism or Buddhism, it doesn’t matter – belief is belief.I want you to be in a state of no-belief, in a state of not-knowing. I want you to function from that state of not-knowing, from that innocence. Only in that innocence will you be able to know. So if you have Communist weeds in you, I will pull them out. If I need the help of Catholic instruments, I will use Catholic instruments to pull out Communist weeds. If you are a Catholic and Communist instruments are needed, I will use Communist instruments to pull out Catholic weeds.My function here is that of a surgeon. I am not much interested in what instruments are being used; surgery has to be done. Something has to be pulled out of you. Your soil has to be completely cleared of all stones, of all weeds. Only then will your nature start growing roses.So you will be puzzled, many times you will find my statements contradictory. They are contradictory, and I don’t want to hide the fact. They are contradictory, they are absurd because I will say one thing one moment and I will contradict it the next moment. I am not at all consistent, or I am only consistent in one thing: my inconsistencies are my only consistency. I am consistently inconsistent, that’s all. I am always contradictory, for the simple reason that you have come here from different backgrounds and I am trying to destroy all backgrounds, all conditionings. So it depends on you.God is neither a man nor a woman. In fact, God is not a person at all. The very idea of God being a person is anthropocentric. There is no God, in fact, but only godliness. Drop the idea of God as a person. You all have that childish idea of God as a superfather sitting somewhere on a golden throne in the sky, pulling everyone’s strings – a puppeteer or something, controlling, managing, a superboss, a great manager, engineer, architect. You have this idea of God.God is not a person at all; God is the ultimate harmony of existence. Remember the harmony, the accord, the music, the melody, the faraway, distant call of a cuckoo… And there is godliness in it. This bird calling… And there is godliness in it. This silence here in which you are all drowned… And there is godliness in it. Godliness certainly exists.I perfectly agree with H. G. Wells; he has made one of the most profound statements about Buddha ever made. He said that Buddha was the most godless yet the most godly person who ever walked on the earth. The most godless and yet the most godly?Yes, that’s how existence is. It is a godless existence but tremendously godly. Godliness has to be remembered, God has to be forgotten. If you remember God you will go to the church and to the temple and to the mosque, and you will do all kinds of stupid things which have been done down the centuries. If you remember godliness then it is not a question of going to Kaaba or Kashi; then it is a question of living it. Then live in a way which is godly. Live in harmony, live beautifully, live aesthetically, live sensitively, live lovingly. Let your life be a tremendous love affair.Then there is no need for prayer, because there is nobody to hear it. It is a question of meditation, not of prayer. Then don’t go on calling on God; you are wasting your time. Be silent, more and more silent, and live out of that silence, act out of that silence. Meet people and animals and the trees and the rocks with deep reverence because all is divine.Existence is nothing but God. Existence is synonymous with God.The fifth question:Osho,I am a tourist. I am here only for one day. Can I also receive your grace?Tom, so you have come. I was always waiting. Where are Dick and Harry? And you are from California, of course, you can’t be from anywhere else. California-land consists only of tourists.“Tourist” is a new species: they are not ordinary human beings. That is a new development, a breakthrough or a breakdown. A tourist is a strange kind of person: he is always rushing to nowhere, from one place to another place, and he does not know why. When he is in Kabul he thinks of Pune, when he is in Pune he thinks of Goa, when he is in Goa he thinks of Kathmandu. He is never where he is, he is somewhere else; he is all over the place except the place where he is. He is never at home. You will never find him in his own home; he has always gone somewhere else, he is always dreaming of other places.The tourist goes on missing everything; he is in such a rush that he can’t see anything. To see things you have to be a little more relaxed, a little more restful. But the tourist is always on the go. He will take his breakfast in New York, his lunch in London, and he will suffer indigestion in Pune.He carries a camera, inevitably, because he cannot see anything right now, so he goes on taking photographs. Later on he makes albums – he is a bum and makes albums! And then later on, when it is all over, he looks at the Himalayan peaks, at the Goa beach, and when he was there he was not there. The camera was doing his work. He need not be there; in fact, why does he bother at all? He can purchase these photographs anywhere, better photographs than he can take because he is amateurish; professionals are already taking photographs. He can get beautiful albums and, sitting at home, he can look at them. But now the problem is that he cannot sit down.It is one of the qualities that a few people are completely losing; they cannot sit. They have to do something, they have to go somewhere, and they have to go fast. They don’t want to lose any time, and they are losing their whole lives in not losing time. They will not appreciate anything because appreciation needs intimacy.If you want to appreciate a flower you have to sit by the side of the flower, you have to meditate, you have to allow the flower to have its say. You have to experience the joy, the dance of the flower in the sun, in the wind, in the rain. You have to see all the moods of the flower in the morning, in the afternoon, in the hot sun, in the evening, in the full moon. You have to see all the moods of the flower. You have to become the flower; you have to get into a dialogue, an existential dialogue acquainted, you have to create a friendship. You have to say “Hello” to. Only then can the flower reveal its secrets to you.But the tourist is pathological. Why is he rushing? – for the simple reason that he does not know what to do with himself if he is left alone, if he has nowhere to go, if he has to sit silently. He does not know what to do with himself. He feels awkward, embarrassed; he has to do something.Man has become a doer. He has lost the quality of being a witness, a watcher.The tourist cannot understand the Zen approach, the essential Buddhist approach of sitting silently doing nothing, spring comes and the grass grows by itself. Zen people sit for years doing nothing, just sitting, watching what is outside and what is inside, watching their breath.Now, the tourist will think this is absolutely ridiculous. Why watch your breath? What is the point of it all? Why not watch TV, some horror film? They are glued to their chairs only when the TV takes them into some torture story, into some murder, into some sexual orgy, into something so they can become participants. They are no longer spectators, they become identified with the characters, and they start becoming part of the story.Now new dramas are being developed in the West in which the spectators can participate, for the simple reason that spectators cannot sit for three hours, so they are allowed to come on the stage. At least they can come on the stage from this side and go from that side, and the play goes on. Or they can say something, they can have a little chitchat with the actors on the stage. Now they are even developing new techniques where the stage should be just in the middle and it’s okay if anybody wants to come in, sit on the stage, do something, do some yoga postures. Now in a Shakespearean drama somebody comes and stands on his head… That will help! The people who have fallen asleep will wake up – something is happening. Otherwise who wants to see Shakespearean drama?The universities have bored people to death with Shakespeare; people are finished with Shakespeare. Once they get out of the university they don’t want to even hear the name of Shakespeare. It feels like a dirty word. But the real reason is that people cannot sit there for three hours; they have to do something. They have to be allowed some action; then they can sit.A strange quality has happened to humanity, a very insane quality: that nobody can sit silently. And that is what meditation is all about.You ask me, “I am a tourist. I am here only for one day.” I am grateful that you are here for one day, Tom, because there are tourists who are not here even for one day.“Can I also receive your grace?” you ask. My grace is available, but are you available to my grace?An American tourist was gazing into the crater of a Greek volcano. “It looks like hell,” he said.“Ah, you Americans,” said his guide, “you’ve been everywhere!”Where are you going? And what is the hurry? Can’t you be here a little longer? You will be going to Goa; that is almost certain, it is predictable. What are you going to do in Goa? You can do all those stupid things here.We run almost one hundred therapy groups just for people who can’t sit silently, just to tire them. They are pushed and pulled and they are massaged and Rolfed. Do you know what the latest thing in hell is? – Rolfing! Learn it here because otherwise you will be in difficulty there. Ida Rolf has died and gone to hell; now she is training people there. But we have managed all kinds of groups here. If you pass through these one hundred groups and you can survive, then you need not be afraid of hell at all. In fact, the Devil and his disciples will be afraid of you. The moment they see the orange people coming they will close the doors. They will say, “Go to the other place!”We do all kinds of stupid things with expertise. In Goa you will be just amateurish. Here we have the best experts in the world, and package deals.Tom, just be here a little bit more.The sixth question:Osho,I can't make up my mind whether I want to be a psychiatrist or an author.Why not toss for it – heads or tales? Get it…?The seventh question:Osho,I thought I had found a nice-a box-a, but she turned into an ice-a box-a. What is this karma that this New York Jewish boy has to work out with German women?Every nice-a box-a turns into an ice-a box-a finally; it is nothing special about you. “Nice-a box-a” is only the label – “ice-a box-a” is the reality! But you are fools, you go on being befooled by the labels. Nobody else is responsible for it.Every ice-a box-a carries a beautiful facade written in big neon letters: Nice-a box-a. Once you are caught, then you know: every woman is a nun!Hattie and Aretha were standing on a street corner talking when two nuns passed.“Say,” asked Hattie, “why do they call them ladies nuns?”“Because,” replied Aretha, “they ain’t had none, they ain’t got none, and they ain’t never gonna get none.”“No wonder they wear mourning!”But every woman basically is a nun, and no man is a monk. That is the trouble. God loves troubles! He creates puzzles, jigsaw puzzles. There is no way to solve them; one simply learns to accept.You accept the ice-a box-a. It is summer and you will need an ice-a box-a! When winter comes, we will see. Who knows about tomorrow? By that time you may be befooled by another box-a.It has nothing to do with any karma; it is simply the sheer stupidity of the human mind. Women are always attractive when they are not available to you. They are seducers, they are all coquettish. That is natural, that comes just naturally, part of their femaleness. And man is constantly befooled, again and again. Once he is befooled he thinks for a few days, becomes very wise, but only for a few days. That wisdom does not last long; after a few days again he is deceived. He starts thinking, “Maybe all women are not the same.” But I tell you: all women are the same and all men are the same.Be more aware. Either accept things as they are… Then you are not miserable about it because you have no more expectations; you know this is how things are going to happen – a deep acceptance of things as they are. Or, don’t be deceived again, if you are fortunate to get out of this trap this time, which is not easy, which is very difficult. To get into the trap is always easy, and the beauty is that it is the man who tries in every possible way to get trapped.The woman knows there is no need to go after you, she simply waits. She believes perfectly in your stupidity, that you will come. The more aloof she remains, the more you are attracted. Once a woman starts running after you, you will escape, you will become afraid. That is like a mousetrap running after a mouse. The mousetrap simply sits there, knowing perfectly well that the mice are bound to come. Where else can they go? And they circle around… And the mousetrap has all the allurements – bread and butter and everything…spaghetti! And once the mouse is in, there is no way out, no exit.Jean-Paul Sartre has defined hell as “No Exit.” Once you get in, you are in forever, you cannot get out of it. That’s why it is called hell. And even if by some chance you get out of it you will feel very lonely. You have become so accustomed to the comforts of the mousetrap, to the security. There is some security; if you are inside a mousetrap, no cat can catch you. You see the security, the safety! Outside the mousetrap there is always danger. So sooner or later you will enter into another mousetrap of a different color. The hair will be different, the nose will be different, the body will be different, a few differences, but the inside is the same.Once this is understood – that every man and every woman carries on the same program – once this is understood, you can deprogram yourself, you can decondition yourself. Then you can remain with a woman; there is no problem about it. She has turned into an ice-a box-a because you still want her to be a nice-a box-a. If you don’t want her to be a nice-a box-a, then what does it matter what she is? Let her be a nice-a box-a or an ice-a box-a – it is perfectly okay. You become cool and calm.The same is the problem with the woman from the other side. Again and again she thinks, “This man will fit, this man is going to deliver the goods.” No man ever delivers the goods, no man can ever deliver, that is beyond their capacity. No man is responsible really, but your expectations are so high that nobody can meet them. They are impossible; hence everybody falls short. Every woman finds sooner or later just a henpecked husband and nothing else. And who loves a henpecked husband? No woman can love a henpecked husband.Just watch your life, whether you are man or woman, watch your program, your biological program. Be aware of it so it can be deprogrammed. Then, wherever you are, you will be free of it because you will be free of expectations.The last question:Osho,I am a Russian. Can you tell me a joke about the Russians?I am never miserly about jokes. If you ask me for one I will tell you two. The first:Brezhnev, the head of the Russian Communist Party, invites his aged mother to leave the village where she has always lived to come visit him in Moscow. When she arrives he proudly shows her his huge luxury flat inside the Kremlin, the priceless Persian carpets, the imported Swedish furniture, the antique silverware and crystal tableware, and the latest laborsaving machines from America.“It’s beautiful, son,” she says.“That’s not all, Mama,” he replies.So he takes her in his huge, chauffeur-driven limousine to his country villa outside Moscow and shows her his private forest, the swimming pool, the stables full of racehorses and the household staff of fifty servants.“So what do you think of all this?” he asks, sweeping his arm around the estate.His mother looks a bit worried and whispers, “But, Leonid, what will you do when the Communists come back?”And the second:Ivan, a small Russian boy, is having great difficulty grasping the basic principles of Russian Communism. After several hours of instruction, his father finally says to him, “Well, look at it this way. Imagine that I, your father, am the party, that your mother is the motherland, that your brothers and sisters are the unions and you are the people.”Ivan still cannot understand the relationship between these institutions, and in a fit of rage his father locks him inside a cupboard in the parental bedroom.Later that night, forgetting Ivan is still there, his father makes love to his mother. When he is finally released by an embarrassed father the next morning, Ivan exclaims:“Now I know what you meant, father. The party rapes the motherland while the unions sleep and the people stand by and suffer!”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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He looks deeply into thingsand sees their nature.He discriminatesand reaches the end of the way.He does not lingerwith those who have a homenor with those who stray.Wanting nothing,he travels on alone.He hurts nothing.He never kills.He moves with love among the unloving,with peace and detachmentamong the hungry and querulous.Like a mustard seed from the point of a needlehatred has fallen from him,and lust, hypocrisy and pride.He offends no one.Yet he speaks the truth.His words are clearbut never harsh.Whatever is not hishe refuses,good or bad, great or small.He wants nothing from this worldand nothing from the next.He is free.The master looks deeply into thingsand sees their nature.He discriminatesand reaches the end of the way.Only the master can look because only the master has eyes. Without meditation you are blind. You can see, but only the most superficial things, only the surface of things, only the circumference and never the center. You cannot penetrate into the nature of things, and truth remains hidden at the very core.Meditation gives the master an insight into himself and the same insight becomes his bridge to the whole of existence. He is no longer blind. Only a man of meditation is not blind. Unless you have attained meditation, think of yourself as blind. Yes, you can see, but you can see only outwardly, and the real nature is inside you; it is in your interiority, it is in your subjectivity.You live outside the house of your being. You have never entered into the innermost shrine. Not knowing yourself, you know nothing. And if you don’t know even yourself, what else can you know? All that you think you know is only inference, not authentic knowledge but only guesswork.All your knowledge depends on guessing. Sometimes it works only by coincidence, sometimes it does not work at all. When it works you think you are very intelligent, when it does not work you think fate is against you. But you never realize the fact that you have not yet eyes to see into things.Two men were riding on a train for the first time. One of them had a bunch of bananas. He offered one to his friend and began to peel one for himself. Just then, the train entered a tunnel.“Have you tasted your banana yet?” asked the first man, very alarmed.“No, I haven’t,” replied his friend.“Well, for heaven’s sake don’t!” said the first man. “I took one bite and went blind.”This is what your knowledge is – just inferences from coincidences.Just the other day I told you a joke about a Polack who had come to New York to earn name, fame, money, power, prestige…He heard a voice coming from far away in the sky, “Climb up to success!” A little hesitant, a little scared, he tried; he started climbing the ladder, a fifty-story-high ladder, rung by rung. He reached the very end and there he found a young man who said, “Hi there, my name is Cess!”And would you believe that last night the young man came to take sannyas! In my whole life this is the first time a man with the name of Cess has come to take sannyas. I must have given sannyas to more then one hundred thousand people; thousands of Johns and Peters have turned up, but Cess for the first time. And I think it may be the last time too.Life is full of coincidences; there is nothing esoteric about it. And he looked exactly like the description! But he was an intelligent man, he wanted to change his name.You go on inferring. Inference is not knowing, inference is just guesswork. Yes, sometimes it may work, but more often it fails. Knowing is totally different; it is never guesswork, it is a clear insight into things, into the very nature of things. To see into the very nature of things is the whole purpose of meditation.Meditation is not something occult, it is very scientific. It is a process of cleansing your eyes, of giving you clarity, of making you alert. Your minds are so full of prejudice that you can’t see. Your minds are so full of a priori conclusions that whatsoever you see is colored by your conclusions, by your conditionings. Your observation is not pure; it is polluted, it is poisoned. You don’t see what is the case. You go on seeing what you want to see, or what you are prepared to see, or what you are conditioned to see. This is not real seeing.Meditation means removing all your prejudices, putting all your conclusions aside. It is seeing without any hindrance, seeing without any curtains, seeing clearly without any mediation of any thought, seeing without Buddha standing between you and reality, or Krishna standing or Christ standing.That’s why Buddha is reported to have made one of the strangest statements; only a man of the caliber of Buddha could say it. He said to his disciples, “If you meet me on the way, kill me. Don’t allow me to stand between you and the truth. Immediately kill me, remove me; otherwise I will be the barrier.”The true master is one who helps the disciple finally to get rid of the master too, so that the disciple can encounter reality directly, immediately. The false master is one who creates more and more dependence in the disciple, makes him a slave, so much so that the disciple cannot even think of being without the master.That’s what is happening all over the world. So many so-called saints go on creating dependence in you; their whole effort is to enslave people. They condition you in such a way that their conclusions become your conclusions. They don’t give you eyes, they give you ideas.The real master gives you eyes, not ideas. He gives you insight into reality and then leaves you in total freedom to function out of that insight.Buddha says:He looks deeply into thingsand sees their nature.He discriminatesand reaches the end of the way.Discrimination is one of the very important words to be understood. Buddha has used the word again and again; his word is vivek. Vivek has far deeper meanings than the English equivalent discrimination. Vivek contains awareness, and discrimination through awareness. One can discriminate without being aware; then it will not be discrimination according to Buddha. You can be told what is right and what is wrong and you can discriminate, “This is right and this is wrong,” but because it is not your awareness it is not discrimination. Unless you see what is right and what is wrong it is not going to help much.The Ten Commandments are of no help to you unless they are handed over to you by God himself, not through Moses. They may have been of infinite value to Moses because he came to those insights himself, independent of the whole past, of the whole tradition. But you are simply repeating like parrots.From their very infancy we start teaching children what is right and what is wrong, what should be done and what should not be done. They become so conditioned that they forget completely that this is not their own voice. They start thinking this is their conscience; it is not. It is a strategy of the priests and the politicians, a conspiracy against man. They have created a conscience in you and because they have created a conscience in you they have prevented the growth of your own conscience. Your own conscience comes out of your own consciousness; it can’t come from the outside. Nobody can give it to you, it has to happen to you in your deep aloneness.Buddha says: “The master knows what is false and what is true.” He knows on his own authority, not on any other authority. He does not know according to the Koran and he does not know according to the Talmud, he does not know according to the Vedas; he knows himself. And only when you know yourself does your knowing have a validity, an authenticity that can transform you, that can give you a new birth.He …reaches the end of the way. The moment that authentic insight has arisen in you, your consciousness is born, you are born. This is a rebirth. You are born anew. You have reached the end of the way, there is nowhere else to go. You have arrived home.He does not lingerwith those who have a homenor with those who stray.Wanting nothing,he travels on alone.In India, people are divided into two categories; this is a traditional division. It was so in Buddha’s time too, it is a very ancient division. Buddha is trying to make a distinction: he is trying to make his disciples a third category. The old, ancient categories are two. The first is the worldly, the householder, those who have a home. They are called householders for the simple reason that they live in the fallacy of security, of a safety that they think comes through money, power, prestige, a security that they think comes out of relationships. The wife thinks she is safe with the husband, the husband thinks he is safe with the wife, the parents think they are safe with their children. The safety is fallacious because neither the family nor money nor anything else of this world can save you from death.When death comes it shatters everything; it shatters all your sandcastles. The householder lives in a kind of dream-world, a world of his own projections. It is not true, it does not correspond to reality; it is his own projection. The wife thinks the husband is her security and the husband thinks the wife is his security. Now, both are insecure. How can two insecure persons give security to each other? Two insecure persons together become doubly insecure, but the fallacy is created.This is the first category: the grihastha, the householder.The second category is of those who have renounced the first category, who have moved to the other extreme, those who don’t live in houses, who don’t live in families, who don’t earn money, who don’t even touch money, who have moved to exactly the opposite extreme. They are known as sannyasins. They used to wander around the country in small or big groups.Jaina monks are not allowed to move alone. In Buddha’s time there were thousands of Jaina monks because Jainism had existed for at least three thousand years before Buddha. Thousands of Jaina monks are not allowed to move alone, they have to move in a group of at least five, for the simple reason that a person moving alone cannot be trusted. He may fall into some error and, knowing that nobody is with him, nobody knows, he may drink wine somewhere or he may fall in love with a woman or he may go and visit a prostitute or he may do something… But moving with four others it is impossible; the other four are constantly watching.So that was a strategy to prevent anybody from getting any kind of freedom, any kind of license, a psychological strategy. Unless all the five decide to conspire together… And that is very difficult, that is almost impossible. Sinners are known to become friendly to each other, saints are not known to become friendly to each other. They don’t know what friendship is, they can’t conspire. They will watch, they will try to find every kind of fault in the other and they will report to the master. And Hindu monks used to move, and even now they do the same, in big groups of hundreds.Buddha says: “You have dropped a small family and now you have moved into a bigger crowd.” Now you have become another family, nothing has changed. First you were thinking that was your security, now you think this is your security, but the old idea of security still persists.He says that to be a sannyasin means to accept the natural insecurity of life. That very acceptance is sannyas – to accept, “I am born alone and I will die alone, and between these two alonenesses all ideas of being together with somebody are just fantasies. I am alone even while I am alive.” One is born alone, one lives alone, one dies alone.Buddha’s emphasis is very much on the fact of your aloneness; he wants you to be aware of it. Once you are aware of it you will be surprised at the beauty of it, at the joy of it. You will not be scared; you will rejoice in it because it has a freedom, it has an ecstasy in it, it has a purity and innocence in it. And why hanker for security?Life is insecure in its very nature, hence it is simple logic: those who want to be more alive have to live in insecurity. The greater the insecurity, the more will be your aliveness; the greater the fallacious, so-called security, the less will be your aliveness.That’s why you see so many dead people in the world, almost dead, for the simple reason that they have become attached to the idea of security. The more dead you are, the more secure you are. If you don’t do anything that can create any insecurity, if you remain confined to the familiar, don’t ever go beyond the limits, you will never know the ecstasy of going beyond the limits. You will never know the ecstasy of exploring the unknown and the unknowable.According to Buddha, both categories are the same people. Of course they are extremists and they appear opposite to each other, but don’t be deceived. They are not really opposite; they have found different kinds of security.A Jaina monk wrote to me that he would like to come here. He has been reading my books and he wants to become my sannyasin, but he is afraid he will lose all his security because now the Jaina community protects him, feeds him, takes every care of him, respects him. Once he leaves the monkhood, the Jaina community won’t be protecting him anymore.He asked me whether I am ready to take his life in my hands, whether I will be his security. Now he wants to change from one security to another security, he cannot take a jump into insecurity, and my sannyas is insecurity.Real sannyas is always insecurity because real life is insecurity. There is a great security in being insecure. In dropping the very idea of security you are secure with the whole, with God, with the total. And there is great excitement then, because each moment you don’t know what is going to happen.Buddha says that the master …does not linger with those who have a home. He does not linger with the first category, the people who are obsessed with money, power and prestige. He does not waste his time with these people, he does not linger with these insane people.And he says: …nor with those who stray. He does not stay with those who go on roaming around the country in groups because that is another kind of security, a subtler kind, but the mind is the same. One wants to belong, one can’t be alone.He says: Wanting nothing, he travels on alone. The real master has no desire, not even desire for life; hence he is not afraid of death. He has no desire in this world or in the other; hence he is not concerned with creating all kinds of safeties around himself. He is not concerned. He can be alone, utterly alone. He is not trying to be clever and cunning with existence; he trusts existence.People are trying to be very cunning with existence, although they call their cunningness their intelligence. They always give good names to ugly things. Just look at your life, how cunning you have been trying to be, even with existence. On the one hand you will go to the church and pray, and on the other hand you are trying to be very cunning in every possible way, seeking your ends, sacrificing everybody else for your ends, not caring about anybody, utterly uncaring, having no respect, no love, no reverence for life. And on the one hand you go on praying in the churches and the temples; that too is part of your cunningness. You know what you are doing in your life; to compensate you go to the church every Sunday, or you go to Kaaba.At least once in his life every Mohammedan is expected to go to Kaaba. For what? – to repent for all the sins that he has committed, so that he can be forgiven. Hindus go to the Ganges as many times in their lives as possible, just to take a dip in the Ganges because they think the Ganges cleanses you of all your sins. You commit sins and the Ganges has the responsibility of cleansing you of your sins. And what will happen to the Ganges, taking so many people’s sins? It must be the most polluted river in the whole world, the most impure. Each drop of the Ganges must be full of millions of sins. So many Hindus for so many thousands of years have been cleansing their sins there. Avoid the Ganges! Even if by chance you come near the Ganges, escape as fast as you can.A man who was going to the Ganges to take a holy dip, came to Ramakrishna. He asked Ramakrishna, “Bless me, Paramahansadeva – I am going for a holy dip. Do you think all my sins will be cleansed?”Ramakrishna was a very polite man. He said, “Of course, when you take a dip in the Ganges all sins fly away from you; you are freed.”The man said, “When you are saying it, I trust it. So it is worth going.”Ramakrishna said, “It is worth going, but remember one thing: when you dive in the Ganges, don’t come out.”The man said, “What are you saying? Have you gone mad? I will have to come out, I cannot survive under the water for more than a few seconds!”Ramakrishna said, “Then it is futile because whenever you come out… Have you seen the big trees standing on the banks of the Ganges?”He said, “Yes, I have seen.”“Do you know their purpose and their function?”He said, “That I don’t know. It is not mentioned in any scriptures.”Paramahansadeva said, “I will tell you the secret. When you take the dip, when you dive in, your sins have to leave you because of the purity of the Ganges, but they sit on the trees waiting for you. When you come back they jump upon you! And the danger is that some other sins may also jump upon you which were not yours in the first place. So be very alert – if you take a dive, then don’t come out!”People have found cunning ways to continue their lives as they are. All your so-called religions are your cunning ways of avoiding God, not of finding God.A young clerk in a telegraph office got married and, after a couple of years, was going to attain fatherhood. He was sure that the child would be a boy. However, he wanted to keep the whole thing secret from his co-workers so that he could surprise them with the news that he was the father of a male child.As the delivery was imminent, he sent his wife to her father’s place and asked her to send a telegram to him. The telegram, he told her, should contain only the following words: “Cycle arrived,” so that he would know that she had safely delivered.When the time was ripe she gave birth to a female child. As the telegram, “Cycle arrived,” was to be given only after the delivery of a male child, the wife was in a fix as to what to do. Luckily her brother was an intelligent person and he sent the telegram in this fashion: “Cycle arrived with front tire punctured.”Now these people are thought to be intelligent. All kinds of cunning people are thought to be intelligent people, and you have to watch your own cunningnesses. To be cunning is not to be intelligent; to be intellectual even is not to be intelligent. Intelligence has a totally different flavor from intellectuality. Intelligence is the fragrance of meditation, only a master is intelligent.Wanting nothing, he travels alone. He can see that the householders are living in a projection, in a projected world of their own; and the so-called monks and nuns are living in another projection, but again it is a projected world.…he travels alone. It has not only to be an outward act, it has to be an inward feeling also. To be alone is the most fundamental thing for a meditator – to experience aloneness, to sit silently and just be yourself, just be with yourself, not hankering for any company, not hankering for the other. Enjoy your being, enjoy your breathing, enjoy your heartbeat. Enjoy the inner accord, the harmony. Enjoy just that you are, and be utterly silent in that enjoyment.People find a thousand and one ways to avoid this aloneness; there are worldly ways and there are otherworldly ways. The worldly person will start listening to the radio or he will turn on his idiot box – his television. He can’t be alone. And the otherworldly person, the religious person, will start praying or reading the Bible. He is also doing the same.You have to be constantly aware that there are religious ways of avoiding yourself too. Irreligious ways, religious ways, all kinds of ways are available to avoid yourself. The religious person will start a dialogue with God. He will start praying in a formal way with the Christian prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, or the Jewish prayer or the Hindu prayer, and he will recite mantras, just like a gramophone record, meaning nothing. All that he wants is occupation. All that he wants is somehow not to feel alone. All that he wants is that God is there: “If nobody is there then at least God is there; I am not alone.”The whole idea of God as a person is the fiction created by the people who cannot be alone; hence they have created God. When nobody is there, at least God is always there; you need not be worried about that, he is everywhere. To have an idiot box you need some money and you cannot carry the idiot box everywhere, but God is always there following you like your own shadow. He is always with you. Even when you are in your bathroom he is not gentlemanly enough to leave you alone; he comes with you. You are lying down in your bath naked and he sits by your side. He is a kind of Peeping Tom, he goes on looking at you! You are making love to your wife and he is standing there; you don’t even allow him to be a little gentlemanly. No need for him to be British, but if he is a little gentlemanly, there is nothing wrong in it.This idea of God is created out of fear of aloneness. When you close your eyes you are alone, but God is there. Even in your inner being he persists, he insists on being there. This is violence. But there is no God; it is your idea.It is like when you are alone and moving on a dark lane in the night or you have lost your way in the forest and you start whistling, just to cheer yourself up. Now that is stupid. It is your whistling, there is nobody else, but even that helps. It is psychologically helpful. You start whistling, you start singing, humming in order to forget that you are alone, to forget that you are lost. All your prayers are nothing but whistling in the dark.Buddha is not in favor of prayers. And this difference has to be understood: he is absolutely in favor of meditation, but never in favor of any prayer. Prayer is again the old trick, the old game which does not allow you to be alone. Meditation is the art of being alone. He says: Wanting nothing, he travels on alone.Aloneness is not loneliness, remember it. Aloneness is not solitariness, remember it. Aloneness is solitude. It is tremendously beautiful; it is innocent because there is nothing to pollute it, there is nothing to disturb it, to distract it. It is pure stillness, it is silence. It has a music of its own.Once you have heard the music of your own aloneness you will not like any other music. Then all other music is only noise; howsoever beautifully arranged, it is noise.He hurts nothing.He never kills.It is impossible for him to hurt or to kill, because now he knows that he is not separate from existence, that there is nobody else. It is all one, it is one organic unity. We are all waves of the same ocean. Hurting another wave is hurting yourself. It is like hitting your hand, one hand with the other hand. It is childish, it is insane. Sometimes small children do that. If the table has hurt them they hit the table hard; they are hurt more, but they enjoy. They think they are punishing the table.Whenever you punish somebody you are punishing yourself. Whenever you torture somebody you are torturing yourself because there is nobody else. The master knows it. It is not only a belief for him, it is his experience. Reaching his own center he has reached the center of the whole existence.This fundamental has to be remembered: that as far as the circumference is concerned we are all different, but as far as the center is concerned we have only one center. That one center you can call God or truth or nirvana.He moves with love among the unloving,with peace and detachmentamong the hungry and querulous.He moves with love among the unloving… His work is difficult. He is talking to his bodhisattvas, making them aware of the arduousness of their work. It is not going to be easy, it is not going to be cheap, because the awakened one has to move among those who are fast asleep. The person who has eyes has to live with those who have no eyes. Communication becomes impossible. He says one thing, they understand something totally different. He tries to help them and they feel offended. He tries in every possible way to save them, but they think that he is trying to exploit them or something.Just a few days ago, a friend from Germany took sannyas. His name was Richard; I have called him Veet Richard. Richard means “hard”; German names are like that. Strange, that all German names I come across, either they mean “hard” or they mean “strong” or they mean “masculine” or mean “bear-strong” or they mean “the walk of the wolf” – Wolfgang. I told him, “Go beyond your hardness. Veet means going beyond. Become soft, become a little less German.”And just the other day he wrote a question, saying, “While you were giving me sannyas I was looking at your shoulders and I could not believe ‘This man is my master.’” Now, what do my shoulders have to do with my being a master or not? This is something new. I have come across thousands of definitions of what a master means, but neither Buddha nor Lao Tzu nor Zarathustra nor Jesus, nobody has said anything about the shoulders. He was looking at my shoulders, not looking into my eyes, and I had asked him to look into my eyes.But this is how things are. When you are moving with people who are fast asleep they have their own ideas. Then, Veet Richard, go to Muhammad Ali! Find some stupid wrestler for your master. And now I am wondering if whatsoever I was saying to him was worth saying to him. I was simply wasting my time and his time. There is no possibility of any communication. He was in his own world; maybe he was looking for Adolf Hitler or somebody. I am not Adolf Hitler and I am not Muhammad Ali either, but he must be carrying some idea…Everybody is carrying some idea – strange ideas people are carrying. I cannot fulfill your ideas. You are so unloving and I go on pouring my love on you and there seems to be no response.People write me such ugly letters that if you come to know about those letters you will be simply shocked. You will not be able to believe it. One woman wrote just the other day, “Either you are mad or you are a fool!” Madam, can’t I be both together? Is there any contradiction? Not all fools are mad, true, not all madmen are fools, true, but there are a few who are both together. I belong to that third category. Certainly I must be mad; otherwise why should I be working on you? And I should be a fool, I must be a fool. Otherwise I would not have initiated you, madam, into sannyas. You don’t belong here.But the problem is, everybody who comes is asleep, unloving, and they can’t see their sleep, they can’t see their unlovingness, they can’t see their prejudices.So many questions have come from British ladies and British gentlemen saying, “The British lady is just a myth and you should not be so interested in a myth. It is not a reality, the British lady exists nowhere.” But these same people believe that the Polack exists, the Italian exists, the Jew exists; they are not myths… When I am joking about Jews or Italians or Polacks, no British lady or gentleman writes to me that these are myths, these are realities.Now, no Jew, no Italian, no Polack is writing to me that the British lady is a myth. Why are only the British writing to me about it? Can’t you see the point? And if it is a myth – and I know it is a myth! – why not enjoy it? Why become so worried about it? Somewhere deep down you believe it is not a myth, otherwise why? Have a good laugh and it is finished.But your concern to make me aware of the fact that the British lady does not exist… I know it! I am surrounded by British ladies. I have more British ladies around me than I have Jews or Polacks or Italians. I know it is a myth, but a beautiful myth.And one thing is very good about British ladies: they never disappoint you because from the very beginning they are ice-a box-a. That must be said in their appreciation. The Italian lady begins with a nice-a box-a; ultimately, finally, you find out, but then it is too late, that she is not a nice-a box-a, she is an ice-a box-a. But the British lady from the very beginning is clear; she never disappoints anybody. She is truthful, sincere. If you want an ice-a box-a, it is your responsibility.Buddha says: He moves with love among the unloving… Yes, the master has to move among the Polacks and the Italians and the Jews, the British and the French, and he has to move with people who know nothing about love, although they all believe they love. The love of the master is so different that you cannot understand his love. His love is very cool; to you it appears it is cold because you know only two categories, cold or hot. You don’t know the third category: cool – neither cold nor hot.Coolness is not coldness, remember. The master is never cold, but certainly he is not hot either. You know a love which is hot, passionate, lusty, and you know a love which has gone dead, has become cold – ice-a box-a – everything has become frozen, it is a corpse. But you don’t know the third possibility: the coolness of love and the freshness of that coolness. And the coolness has a paradoxical quality in it. If you compare it with cold, then it is cool; if you compare it with hot, then it is warm. It is exactly in the middle where warmth and coolness are one. The master has a warmth which is cool and has a coolness which is warm, but that is very difficult for people who live in extremes to understand.He moves with love among the unloving, with peace and detachment… He loves but he is never attached, and you cannot understand a love which is not attached. To you, love and attachment are always associated; it is impossible for you to keep them separate. Love is always an attachment to you; the deeper the attachment, the more you think it is love. But the master’s love is utterly detached. He loves, yet he is not bound by it. He loves, but he is not binding on you. You know a love which creates excitement. The master’s love is utterly peaceful; there is no excitement. It is nothing to do with romance.He moves…among the hungry… The people who always desire more, Buddha calls hungry, constantly hungry. They go on stuffing themselves with every kind of thing and they are never satisfied. Their hunger is impossible, their thirst is unquenchable. The more you give, the more they want. They are never grateful.…and querulous. And, of course, when they are always hankering for more they are quarreling with each other. The master is never querulous, he is never hungry. He is fully contented, utterly contented, absolutely contented. He has arrived, he asks for nothing. Hence it becomes more and more difficult for you to understand him.Like a mustard seed from the point of a needlehatred has fallen from him,and lust, hypocrisy and pride.The most important thing to remember is that these things have fallen from him. He has not dropped them, they have fallen. If you drop them they will hang around you. He has not repressed them, he has transcended them, and the difference is great. If you repress them they will always be with you. If you repress lust it will spread deep down inside your being like cancer. If you repress hypocrisy you will be creating a deeper kind of hypocrisy, that’s all. If you repress pride you will become a pious egoist.Beware of it. Millions are befooled by this because repression is easy, anybody can do it. It needs no intelligence; it needs only a little stubborn stupidity and you can do it. You just have to be a little stubborn, you have to insist and you have to force something inside yourself. You have to put pressure on it, you have to sit upon it. But then you will be in trouble. It is always there boiling, ready to explode any moment.Three priests – an archbishop, a bishop and a rather young, newly ordained priest – stood in the lobby of an airport. The archbishop told the priest to get the tickets while they took care of the baggage.The priest approached the ticket counter, noting the shapely, seductively dressed young woman behind the counter. By the time she got around to him he was quite flustered by her and stammered, “I would like three pickets to Tittsburgh.”Embarrassed and ashamed, he ran from the counter back to his two companions. He told the archbishop, “Father, I am sorry, I cannot get the tickets. Furthermore, I have sinned: I was tempted by the flesh!”The archbishop said, “You are young, my son, and weak – we shall pray on your problem.”The archbishop then sent the bishop for the tickets. The bishop, though not easily swayed in his faith, was also quite taken with the young woman’s beauty. He said, to her, “I must apologize for my brother – he is young. Now, I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like the change in nipples and dimes.”Shocked by his slip and completely overwhelmed by embarrassment, he returned to the archbishop without the tickets.The archbishop was by now quite angry at both the priests and the young woman. He then went for the tickets himself. He said, “I would like three tickets to Pittsburgh and I would like my change in nickels and dimes.”As the young woman began processing the tickets, the archbishop said, “Look at you… You should be ashamed. How do you dare to leave the house that way? Why, your breasts are not covered and your skirt is entirely too short. Every man who approaches you is tempted. When you go to heaven,” he said, with his voice rising in pitch, “Saint Finger will surely shake his peter at you!”That is bound to happen. Hence Buddha says: Like a mustard seed from the point of a needle hatred has fallen from him… He has not dropped it or repressed it; it has fallen of its own accord. …and lust, hypocrisy and pride.How does this miracle happen that these things fall of their own accord? They fall of their own accord if you become more aware of them – not repression but awareness is needed. Repression makes them more unconscious and more dangerous. Become more conscious of them, watch them, meditate over them. As you become more and more capable of watching all kinds of thoughts in your mind, you will become more and more detached from them. You will come to know that the observer is separate from the observed, that they are there like the traffic on the road and you are just a spectator. They have nothing to do with you, they are not part of your being. Repress them and they become part of your being. Repress them and you become more and more controlled by them. You will remain afraid your whole life if you repress anything. Repression creates fear, because you know it is there – any opportunity and it can arise again.My approach is the same: don’t repress anything, just watch. Nothing has to be repressed, everything has to be watched. Just by being watchful things start dropping on their own. And then there is a beauty because a silence comes to you, a stillness comes to you which is not forced, not cultivated.He offends no one.Yet he speaks the truth.His words are clearbut never harsh.He offends no one. He cannot, because all violence has disappeared from him. Yet he speaks the truth. If truth offends you, then he is helpless. There is no intention to offend you, but if you are living in lies, then truth offends. About that the master cannot do anything, he has to say the truth. In fact, he says only the truth; otherwise he is not interested in saying anything to you.The little baby was very quiet. He never cried or chuckled or said “Mama” or “Dadda.”When he was three, the parents began to get rather worried, thinking he might never talk at all.At last, when the child was seven years old, he suddenly spoke. They were sitting having lunch when he said, “Not enough salt.”“Good gracious!” exclaimed his mother. Then she asked, “How is it that in seven years you have never said a word?”“Well,” said the child, “up to now everything has been all right!”The master speaks only if something is wrong; otherwise he keeps quiet, he remains silent. He speaks only if something is wrong. But that can hurt you, that can offend you. To show that something is wrong with you seems to be offensive to you. You love to be appreciated, not criticized. You love to be buttressed, not to be criticized. You love that your lies should be supported, not destroyed. But about that the master cannot do anything. He has to shatter your lies, he has to bring the truth to your notice. If truth hurts, then that is another matter; otherwise, the master has no intention of hurting anybody. His words are clear but never harsh.“How was Lady Hastings’ party?” Lord Peter was asked.With an absentminded, faraway glance in his eyes, he said, “Had the soup been as warm as the wine, had the wine been as old as the chicken, had the chicken been as tender as the maid, and had the maid been as willing as the Lady, it would have been a great party!”The master will not be that roundabout. He will simply say it clearly, although he is not harsh. He can appear harsh to you, but that is your problem. He is always sweet, and if sometimes he appears harsh to you, ponder over why he appeared harsh to you. Maybe something was inside you that started pinching, that started hurting. Maybe there was a wound inside you that you were hiding and the master hit the wound. He has to hit your wounds. He has to pull much pus out of your being, and it hurts. The master is a surgeon.Buddha himself has said again and again: “I am not a preacher but a physician.”Whatever is not hishe refuses,good or bad, great or small.That’s exactly the definition of meditation according to Buddha and according to all other buddhas too. Watch your mind, and whatever is not yours, whether it is good or bad, great or small, don’t get identified with it. Don’t accept it, go on refusing.In the East this method is called – even prior to Buddha it was called – neti, neti, neither this nor that. Go on saying, “I am not this, I am not this, I am not that either.” Go on rejecting inside your being whatsoever you can observe you are not.Slowly, slowly eliminating all that you are not, one day only that which you are is left. That day is a day of great rejoicing. Then the watcher turns over onto itself. Nothing else to watch, it starts watching itself. Nothing else to see, it starts seeing itself. That is the moment you become a seer. That is the moment your wisdom explodes. That is the moment when darkness disappears and there is just light and light, and nothing else.He wants nothing from this worldand nothing from the next.He is free.Once you know that all that the mind contains is not you, all that the mind craves is not you, all that the mind is hungry for is not you, you are becoming free. Slowly, slowly desires disappear. Seeing that all desires are basically futile, that all desires end in frustration – seeing this on your own, not because I say it or Buddha says it, but seeing it on your own – desiring evaporates. You are left without any desire and there is no smoke of desire. Your flame of awareness burns bright, and freedom is the fragrance of that flowering of awareness.Ordinarily we are living like robots. Ordinarily we are living mechanically. We are not conscious at all, although we believe that we are conscious. We are not conscious at all. And because we are not conscious, if we drop the desires of this world, then we start desiring something in the other world. It is absolutely ridiculous.See your so-called saints and mahatmas: the same things that they have dropped desiring in this world, they now desire in the other world. Mohammedans believe that in their paradise there are streams of wine. Now this seems to be very illogical. Here wine is a sin, and there it is the reward for all your virtues. And you don’t even have to go to a pub, streams are flowing everywhere. Here the woman is hell and the woman has to be renounced, and there…?In the Hindu paradise beautiful women are available, always young, stuck at the age of sixteen; they don’t grow beyond that. In fact, I always wonder how they reached sixteen. They must have been born sixteen years old from the mother’s womb, and since then they have not grown. They have bodies of gold – solid gold, it seems, and not American gold, mind you, pure gold, twenty-four-carat gold. And their eyes are made of emeralds, pure green emeralds. Their bodies don’t perspire of course, how can they perspire if their bodies are made of solid gold? It is impossible to perspire; they may melt in the heat, but they cannot perspire.Here women have to be renounced. The Hindu scriptures say the woman is the door to hell. And there the mahatmas are provided with beautiful apsaras, beautiful women. What kind of nonsense is this?The same is the case with all the religions. Because in Mohammed’s time, when the Koran was written, homosexuality was very prevalent in the Arabian countries, provision is made for gay people also. In the Mohammedan paradise not only are beautiful women available but beautiful boys too. They never grow their mustaches, they remain always young. Now here, in all the Mohammedan countries, homosexuality is one of the greatest crimes. The homosexuals have to be beheaded, death is the penalty. Can’t you see the absurdity? In paradise you will be provided with all kinds of beautiful boys. I am not against homosexuality, I am simply against this absurdity. It is perfectly good, generous, but then why are you against it here?It is the stupid, unconscious mind of man. He is ready to let go of something in this world, but then he moves to the other extreme. He lets it go here, he renounces it here, and he starts asking for the very same thing in the other world. The problem does not change. From one problem he moves to another problem, from one desire to another desire.A fat, round-bottomed Italian woman comes to the doctor’s office with her husband. “My husband no shit-a!” she exclaims.The doctor gives her a small bottle of cod-liver oil, saying, “Give him this tonight and he will be all right tomorrow.”But the next day the woman returns and says, “My husband no shit-a!”So the doctor gives her a bigger bottle with the same instructions.The following day the woman is back again: “My husband no shit-a!”The doctor finally gives her a huge bottle of cod-liver oil. The next day the woman comes back again.“Doctor, Doctor,” she exclaims, “no husband, only shit-a!”But the problem remains; now it is the other extreme.The seeker of truth has to be very watchful not to move from one prison into another, from one desire into another. He has to be very alert and aware. He has to de-automatize himself. He has to become a man, not continue as a machine. You are born as a machine, and unless you make a great effort, you will remain as a machine and you will die as a machine. Make every effort to become aware so that you are no longer a machine. Then the real man is born.A wild West cowboy purchases a horse from the local priest. “This horse is very special,” the priests explains. “When you shout, ‘Praise to the Lord’ this horse will start galloping like crazy and the only way to stop it is to call out, ‘Amen!’”At once the man jumps up on the horse’s back and shouts, “Praise to the Lord!”He shoots like an arrow across the desert. Suddenly he becomes aware of a steep canyon ahead of him. “Goddam! I forgot the other command,” he says. “What shall I do with no means to slow down this mad horse?”Cursing and sweating, he approaches the deep canyon, and at the last moment he remembers: “Amen!” And just above the gorge the horse comes to a standstill.Trembling and relieved, with tears in his eyes, the cowboy looks up to the sky and says, “Praise to the Lord!”Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Is it really as difficult for the awakened ones to work with us blind people as Gautama the Buddha says?Yes, it is even more difficult than Gautama the Buddha says, because man has become far blinder now than he has ever been before. He has become more knowledgeable, and that is his blindness. Now he lives under the illusion that he knows, and that is the greatest illusion of all. Once you start believing that you know, the work of an awakened one becomes almost impossible.The awakened one can work easily only when you are ready to accept the fact that you know nothing, that your knowledge is borrowed, that it is mere information; that it is not any inner flowering of your being, that it is not your own music, that it is not your own experience. Once a person accepts this, things become very simple. The very acceptance of ignorance is the beginning of disciplehood.But as time has passed, man has been accumulating more and more knowledge, his mind has become more and more capable of memorizing. He has become a walking encyclopedia. Today man knows more than ever, hence the difficulty is greater today than ever before.Your eyes are blind in proportion to the weight of knowledge that you carry. Children are not blind. The younger the child, the more clearly he sees, far more clearly. His perspective is totally different from the so-called grown-up.Just the other day there was a letter from a young boy from Germany. One month ago he also wrote – that he wants to become a sannyasin. He is only sixteen years old so I told him, “Inquire of your parents, ask their permission; otherwise they will create difficulties for you. If they allow, you are welcome.”His answer has come and what he says is tremendously beautiful. He says, “Osho, my parents will never understand you. We went to see the film about your ashram, and I was the only one in my family who understood it. My father and mother were absolutely unable to comprehend what it was all about. And I am afraid that if I become more grown-up like them I may miss the opportunity. Moreover,” he says, “I have dyed all my clothes orange so I am already half a sannyasin – just the mala is needed.”He says, “I understood the film completely but my parents were simply confused by it. I have been trying to explain it to them, but they seem incapable of understanding.” He also says, “I am afraid that if this is what happens when one becomes grown up, then I may miss the opportunity of becoming a sannyasin. So please, send the mala immediately before I become blind!”A child is not burdened with knowledge. You have to become a child again; then the work of a buddha is very simple. It is the simplest work in the world because a buddha is not going to make you achieve something, he is simply helping you to see what is already the case. What can be more simple?But grown-up people are really blind, utterly deaf. Their hearts are closed, they can’t feel, they are hung up in their heads, and to communicate with a buddha you need an open heart. People are encapsulated in their thoughts. So much so, that they live in their own world, continuously imprisoned in their ideologies, in their words. You can’t talk to them. You say one thing and they immediately understand something else.Just the other day I received a letter dated April 18, from the Ritz Hotel, Mysore:“Dear Sir,I am very upset since one of your devotees staying at this hotel, a friend of Swami Anand Hasyo, informs me that you make fun of our new president, the Reverend Canon Banana, in your daily Sufi dances. I am told that your devotees are taught to sing: ‘You are a banana to me.’ This is very disrespectful. How would you like it if in Zimbabwe we taught our people to sing, ‘You are not my Bugwan’? Trusting that you will deal with this matter without delay…”The song is this: “You can fall in love with a star, you can fall in love with a tree. I love you just the way that you are. You are a mystery to me.” Or, if your partner looks serious, say “banana” instead of “mystery to me.”This Sufi dance has been going on for years, and this fellow, Reverend Banana, became president only on the 7th of April this month, only one week ago. In fact, the nation of Zimbabwe is only one week old. On the 11th of April he became the president elect; on the 17th of April he actually became the president. We have been using the word banana for years; it has nothing to do with Reverend Banana.The letter writer has also sent a picture of Reverend Banana and he looks like a banana, so I can very well understand why he is upset.Now he should approach the UN to change the English language: bananas should not be called bananas anymore. And what will you do about the expression “He has gone bananas”? Now you will have to say, “He has gone Reverend Bananas.” That will be much more suitable. All the other bananas will be very happy.Now, these stupid people are all over the world…And would you believe what the name of this man is? His name is Israel Tomato!Now I am waiting for some letter from Michael Potato! I really got worried about the whole thing. I love bananas, I love tomatoes, I love potatoes. Now to eat them will mean you are a cannibal.I immediately went into the garden and asked a bunch of bananas, “What do you think? What should I do?” The bananas were so ashamed they didn’t speak a single word. I shook them and I said, “You have to say something!” They said, “We are sorry, but once in a while a banana falls… But this man has fallen too much! Please don’t include him in our family. No other banana has ever been a politician before. Yes, we have fallen and we have committed many sins before, but this is too much. We feel ashamed.”I asked the tomatoes, and they are such innocent people – they look so meditative, almost like Zen masters sitting silently, doing nothing. And they all laughed and they said, “Don’t be worried. Continue to eat us. That is the only way for us to become buddhas.”And he says, “How would you like it if in Zimbabwe we taught our people to sing, ‘You are not my Bugwan or Bhagwan’?” I would love it, please do it! If your people start remembering me that will be good. In fact, my sannyasin kids already call me Bugwan, and it sounds so beautiful. It is far smoother than Bhagwan; nothing is wrong with it.But this fellow has not given his address; otherwise I was thinking to send him my answer. And these people are all around the world…Now my South African sannyasins will be very, very happy because they were writing to me again and again, “Osho, you never say anything about the South Africans.” Veena, Vidya, Veetrag, were all worried because I am talking about the Italians and the Jews and the British, and nothing is being said about the South Africans. This Tomato has given me an opportunity to say something.The doctor advises an African to jog ten miles a day for two weeks.The guy reports that he feels fine. His only complaint is that he is one hundred and forty miles from home!An African applying for a post as footman in a country house is asked by her ladyship to raise his trouser leg so that she may ascertain whether his legs will be sufficiently shapely in plush knee-breeches. He does so. She then appears satisfied but asks to see his testimonials.“And that,” he says, recounting the event, “was where I made my big mistake and spoiled everything!”Get it?“Why are you so angry?” the doctor at the maternity ward asked the African father. “You should be proud that your lovely wife had twins.”“Oh yeah,” snarled the leaping African. “Just wait till I find the other guy!”The African sergeant gave an order for the whole company to raise the right leg. One confused draftee raised his left leg in error. The sergeant looked down the line and saw the upraised left leg of one soldier right next to the upraised right leg of the recruit beside him. “Who is the smart aleck in the middle of the line,” he bellowed, “who raised both legs?”And to Mr. Tomato I would like to say that I have no respect for politicians; whether they are African or American or Indian or European does not matter.A cannibal rushed into his village to spread the word that a hunting party had captured a politician.“Good,” said one of the cannibals. “I’ve always wanted to try a baloney sandwich.”Three surgeons were at the pub, chatting about their experiences.The first said, “One guy who came to me had been in a car accident and had lost both his legs. I fixed him up and today he’s a champion runner.”“Wow,” said the second. “I had a patient once who had been hit by a train and his body was completely smashed. We gave him surgery and today he’s a famous dancer.”“That’s nothing,” said the third. “One guy came to me – he was a bomb disposal expert. One day a bomb went off and all they found was an asshole and a pair of ears. Today he’s the president!”The second question:Osho,I am a musician and I have come across many music teachers over the years. But now it seems that I have not only found a master but also the ultimate music teacher. Is it perhaps the same thing? And could you please say something to us about music and meditation?Music comes closest to meditation. Music is a way toward meditation and the most beautiful way. Meditation is the art of hearing the soundless sound, the art of hearing the music of silence – what the Zen people call the sound of one hand clapping. When you are utterly silent, not a single thought passes your mind. There is not even a ripple of any feeling in your heart. Then you start, for the first time, hearing silence.Silence has a music of its own. It is not dead, it is very much alive, it is tremendously alive. In fact, nothing is more alive than silence.Music helps you from the outside to fall in tune with the inner. Music is a device; it was invented by the buddhas. All that is beautiful in the world, all that is valuable in the world has always been discovered by the buddhas. Only they can discover because they have traveled the inner country, the inner, immeasurable universe. Whatsoever they have found in the inner world, whatsoever they have experienced in the inner world, they have tried to make something similar on the outside for those who can only understand that which is objective; for those who are not yet able to enter the interiority of their own being, who are not yet even aware that there is an inner world. Devices can be created on the outside which can help.Listening to great music you suddenly become silent with no effort. Falling in tune with the music you lose your ego with no effort. You become relaxed, you fall into a deep rest. You are alert, awake, and yet in a subtle way drunk.Once it happened…A great musician came to the court of a king. The musician must have been an awakened master, must have been a buddha. He said to the king, “I will play on my instruments, but you will have to fulfill one of my conditions. Unless this condition is fulfilled I cannot play.”The king said, “Whatsoever the condition is, it will be fulfilled. Just say it.” He had never thought what the condition could be: “Maybe he will ask for much money – that can be given easily – or for some other favor which can be given easily.” The king had been waiting a long time for this man.But the condition was very eccentric. The condition was: “While I am playing nobody should move his head. If anybody moves his head, his head has to be cut off. The audience has to be informed beforehand, so that people should come knowing that they are playing with fire. If they start moving their heads in tune with the music, then they will lose their heads – make it clear to everyone who comes. And surrounding the audience let at least one thousand soldiers stand with naked swords so everybody remains aware and never forgets.”The king was so interested in hearing the musician – he had heard about him for years, and he was not ready to lose this opportunity even at this cost. Of course, whatsoever he was demanding was simply insane, but the king had to agree. He said, “Okay, your condition will be fulfilled.”The whole capital was informed. Thousands of people would have come, but now they had become afraid. Only one thousand people came to listen to the musician. Even seeing one thousand people come, the king was surprised: “So many lovers who are risking their lives!” And one thousand soldiers were standing with naked swords. Again it was declared, “You have to remember. Go on looking at the swords – they are standing for you. Nobody can escape.” And there were people standing who would take notes – whoever shook his head, moved his head, would not reach home alive.The musician started playing, and he was such a master! After only a few minutes, a few heads started moving in tune with the master’s music. The king was very much afraid. He saw heads moving, swaying – people were getting drunk. He himself was afraid for his own head. But a tremendous desire arose in him too, he could not resist it. He himself started moving his head, he forgot all about it. What to say about the audience? The people who were standing with naked swords, many of them started moving their heads and their swords were swaying.The queen was very worried. She saw that there were going to be hundreds of people unnecessarily murdered. But sooner or later almost everybody was drunk with his music.When he finished in the middle of the night, the people who had to report, reported that “Not a single soul has remained without swaying, and we are sorry to say that we are also on the list!”The king said, “Now, master, what do you want? – all these people butchered, murdered? I am also on the list, my wife is also on the list, my whole court is on the list.”The master laughed and he said, “I was waiting for these people. These are the right people for whom I can play. Forget all about the condition. It was just a strategy to prevent those who were not ready to risk their lives, it was to prevent the cowards. These are the people for whom I will play. And not only today, I am going to stay in this town for months together because these are my people. They have forgotten about their lives, or even if they had remembered they could not resist. The joy was so tremendous that they were ready to come, even with the risk; they were perfectly aware. These are the people for whom I exist because these are the people who can be turned inward. They were fully aware and yet drunk.”That is the whole secret of meditation. The paradox between drunkenness and awareness disappears. And its first experience can happen in music more easily than in any other place, than in anything else. Music, dance… All these are devices, discovered by great awakened masters. They have fallen into wrong hands.To be a teacher of music is one thing – he can teach the technique. I am not a teacher of music – I cannot teach you the technique – but I can help you to listen to the inner music, and that is real music.In China they have the saying: “When the musician becomes perfect he throws away his instruments” – because they are no longer needed. He can close his eyes, he can turn himself inward and he can listen to the music that is already there and always there. When the archer becomes perfect he throws away his bow and his arrows; there is no need for them.Whenever any art is perfect it ends in meditation – it has to end in meditation. If it is not leading you toward meditation, then something has gone wrong.That’s why much of modern art is not art, it is insanity. Much modern music is not music; it simply makes you sexually excited. It is just the opposite of real music. Real music helps you to transcend your biology, your physiology, your psychology. Real music takes you to the world of the beyond – what Buddha calls the farther shore, even beyond the beyond.Gurdjieff used to call real art “objective art.” Modern art is not, in that sense, objective art. In the past the awakened masters have used all kinds of devices: painting, sculpture, music, dance, drama. Every kind of device has been used to help you, because there are different types of people who can be helped in different ways: somebody through music, somebody through painting, somebody through poetry.That’s my function here: to create a buddhafield, a commune where all kinds of devices are used. The purpose is one, the purpose is single, one-pointed. All these paths are leading you to the same goal – to your own inner being.You have come to the right place. I am not a teacher of music because I don’t teach you the technique of music, but I am certainly the master of the inner music. I have heard it and I can help you to hear it; not only to hear it, but to be it.And to be it is to be for the first time. To be it is to be reborn. To be it is to know what bliss is and benediction is.The third question:Osho,Two years ago I was a Californian tourist. After all this time you still fill me with wonder and awe. I love you.I am not a consistent man. With a consistent man you are bound to get bored because the consistent man goes on repeating the same thing. I am so inconsistent, so unreliable, so unpredictable that you never know what I am going to say and what I am going to do. What is going to happen in this commune tomorrow nobody knows, not even I do. I will know only when I have done it, I will know only when I have said it.Hence you can be here your whole life and your wonder and awe will not disappear; in fact it will deepen, it will become more and more profound.I am not imparting information to you because it kills wonder. And wonder is such a valuable treasure; no information is of such value.I am not here to help you to learn about anything, on the contrary, my work is to help you unlearn. If you become knowledgeable, naturally whatsoever you know has no surprise for you in it anymore. Your awe and wonder disappear, it becomes old. You know it, how can you still feel wonder for it? You can feel wonder only if you remain in a state of not-knowing.That’s what I call meditation: the state of not-knowing. I cleanse you. I don’t allow any dust to gather on your mirrors. I want you to remain fresh and young. The moment you become knowledgeable you will lose wonder. The moment you become knowledgeable you have lost contact with me.This place is not for pundits and scholars. This place is for people who have the quality and the courage to remain ignorant before the immense mystery of existence.Winslow walked into the saloon and asked for a double bourbon. Suddenly he looked up and realized that tending the bar, apron and all, was a large dog.“What’s the matter?” asked the canine. “Haven’t you ever seen a dog tending a bar before?”“Oh, it’s not that,” replied Winslow. “What happened to the horse? Did he sell the joint to you?”This is how the knowledgeable person functions – nothing can surprise him.McCarthy walked into a saloon where there were only the bartender, a dog and a cat.As McCarthy ordered his drink, the dog stood up, yawned and said, “Well, so long, Joe,” then walked out.“Did you hear that?” said McCarthy to the bartender. “The dog talked!”“Don’t be a jackass,” said the barkeep, “a dog can’t talk.”“But I heard him.”“You think you heard him. Dogs can’t talk. It’s just that wise-guy cat over there – he’s a ventriloquist.”The moment you start feeling that you know something, remember, you are losing your contact with existence. Knowledge is the barrier, the only barrier that prevents you from communing with existence. Remain innocent, remain ignorant. Go on dying to the past and go on dying to all your experiences. Don’t collect them, don’t be a collector. Remember that every night before you go to sleep, be finished with that day, be totally finished. Go to sleep again as a child, and in the morning when you wake up again, wake up as a child; and you will never lose the eyes of wonder and the heart which can feel awe.This is what I call the fundamental quality of a religious person: not that you know the dogma, not that you know the creed, but that you know nothing, or that you know only one thing – that you know nothing. It is better to be a fool with the trees, with the rivers, with the mountains, than to be a scholar, because as the scholar reaches the trees, the trees simply stop any communication, they close their doors. As the scholar reaches close to the flower it is not the same flower; it stops sending its fragrance.If you reach as a fool and you can say “Hello!” to the tree and you can say “How are you?” the tree rejoices: “Here is a man who is worth talking to, with whom I can have a dialogue.” Sit with the tree, hug the tree, kiss the tree, feel the tree. Of course, people will think that you are mad. Let them, it doesn’t matter. What people think about you is absolutely immaterial; don’t pay any attention to it. But make friends with trees because they have deeper secrets to reveal. Make friends with rocks, feel their texture, their coolness, their weight, their age. Commune with nature and soon you will be surprised that if you are available to nature, nature starts becoming available to you. And it is not only that you say hello – the tree responds. It sends its messages to you clearly and loudly.Now even scientists are aware of the fact that the tree behaves differently with different people. When the woodcutter comes, the tree trembles in fear. Now there are machines like cardiographs which can detect the trembling; they make a graph of what is happening in the inner being of the tree. Seeing the woodcutter with his ax coming to cut the tree, the tree is trembling, the tree is afraid, the tree is angry, the tree is full of hate, the tree does not like this man. If the tree could run, it would run away from this man. If the tree could attack this man, it would attack him in sheer self-defense. But because the tree is rooted and she cannot do anything, at least she can become utterly dead.But when the gardener comes to water the tree, there is a different graph on the cardiogram. The tree is dancing and swaying, she is all open to the gardener as if she is ready to embrace him, to kiss him. If the tree could make love to the gardener the tree would do it. She is full of love. The fragrance of the flowers increases when the gardener is close by.Now these are scientific facts. There are mythological stories about Buddha that trees would become greener when he sat underneath them and meditated. It is possible, and now it can be said on scientific authority that it may be possible. Buddha sitting underneath the tree, what more happiness can a tree have? And the tree underneath which Buddha became enlightened must have felt tremendous joy.Now scientists say that the tree Buddha was sitting underneath when he became enlightened is the most intelligent of all the trees: the bo tree. It has the largest amount of the chemical which makes a man capable of having a mind; no other tree has as much of that particular chemical. Buddha must have chosen that tree. The tree has been preserved, it is still there. It has a different quality, but the quality can be felt only by those who are innocent.The same is true about the whole of existence: it is full of godliness – overfull, overflowing with godliness. All that you need is an innocent heart to receive it. You are not open, you are closed.My whole message to you is: function from a state of not-knowing and you will know the truth – not through knowledge but through innocence.I am happy that you say, “Two years ago I was a Californian tourist. After all this time you still fill me with wonder and awe. I love you.”It is really difficult for a Californian tourist because California is so gullible that all kinds of fools have gathered there – Muktananda in Santa Monica, and all kinds of stupid people from all over the world. They are being attracted toward California as if California has a magnetic force. Any fool can gather disciples there; all you have to know is some esoteric nonsense. You talk about seven chakras and seven planes and you talk about kundalini and the serpent power and you talk about siddhis, spiritual powers and astral travels, and you will find people coming to you – intelligent people, far more intelligent people than these Muktanandas. In fact, it is a miracle!I met Muktananda once. I was passing by his ashram and he invited me in, so just for a few minutes I went there. I have come across all kinds of stupid people, but he tops them all. In California he has a great following, and what is he doing there? – arranging Hindu marriages, as if the Hindu marriage is something spiritual. It is the most absurd thing in the world, but people are ready to do any kind of nonsense, anything outlandish.It is difficult for a Californian tourist, but you made it. That’s really creditable. I appreciate it because to be with me one needs guts. One needs to be ready to drop all bullshit, and Californians are carrying so much bullshit. They are going from one so-called guru to another guru and collecting it from everywhere. Tibetan lamas are there and Hindu monks are there and Japanese Zen gurus are there and the so-called Sufis are there, everybody is there.In fact, real masters never go anywhere. The disciple has to seek and search, the disciple has to come to the real master. The thirsty person has to come to the well; the well does not go running after the thirsty.If two years have not destroyed you and your innocence, then nothing will ever destroy it. Even if you are not here… You have tasted the beauty of being silent, you have tasted the beauty, the joy of being innocent. Wherever you go, you will never allow anybody to disturb your innocence, to destroy your beauty.Be alert. If you can simply live an ordinary life with joy, if you can relish the ordinary things of life, then nothing else is needed. Religion is not something exotic, it is not something supernatural. It is the very ordinary experience of being silent and innocent, of being full of wonder and awe.The fourth question:Osho,What is the meaning of maturity?Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured. Every child is born innocent, but every society corrupts him. Every society, up to now, has been a corruptive influence on every child. All cultures have depended on exploiting the innocence of the child, on exploiting the child, on making him a slave, on conditioning him for their own purposes, for their own ends – political, social, ideological. Their whole effort has been how to recruit the child as a slave for some purpose. Those purposes are decided by the vested interests; the priests and the politicians have been together in a deep conspiracy.The moment a child starts becoming part of your society he starts losing something immensely valuable; he starts losing contact with existence. He becomes more and more hung up in the head. He forgets all about the heart, and the heart is the bridge which leads to being; without the heart you cannot reach your own being, it is impossible. From the head there is no way directly to being; you have to go via the heart. And all societies are destructive to the heart; they are against love, they are against feelings. They condemn feelings as sentimentality. They condemned all lovers down the ages for the simple reason that love is not of the head, it is of the heart, and a man who is capable of love is sooner or later going to discover his being. Once a person discovers his being he is free from all structures, from all patterns. He is free from all bondage, he is pure freedom.Every child is born innocent, but every child is made knowledgeable by the society. Hence schools, colleges, universities exist; their function is to destroy you, to corrupt you.Maturity means gaining your lost innocence again, reclaiming your paradise, becoming a child again. Of course it has a difference, because the ordinary child is bound to be corrupted, but when you reclaim your childhood you become incorruptible. Nobody can corrupt you, you become intelligent enough. Now you know what the society has done to you. You are alert and aware, and you will not allow it to happen again.Maturity is a rebirth, a spiritual birth. You are born anew, you are a child again. You start looking at existence with fresh eyes. You approach life with love in the heart. You penetrate your own innermost core with silence and innocence. You are no longer just the head. Now you use the head, but it is your servant. First you become the heart, and then you transcend even the heart.Going beyond thoughts and feelings and becoming a pure isness is maturity. Maturity is the ultimate flowering of meditation.Jesus says: “Unless you are born again you will not enter into my kingdom of God.” He is right, you have to be born again. The whole process of sannyas is a process of rebirth.Once Jesus was standing in a marketplace and somebody asked, “Who is worthy of entering into your kingdom of God?”He looked around. There was a rabbi and the rabbi must have moved forward a little, thinking that he would be chosen, but he was not chosen. There was the most virtuous man of the town, the moralist, the puritan. He moved forward a little, hoping that he would be chosen, but he was not chosen.He looked around. Then he saw a small child who was not expecting to be chosen, who had not moved, not even an inch. There was no idea, there was no question that he would be chosen. He was just enjoying the whole scene – the crowd and Jesus and people talking, and he was listening.He called the child, he took the child up in his arms and he said to the crowd, “Those who are like this small child, they are the only ones worthy of entering into my kingdom of God.”But remember, he said, “Those who are like this small child…” He did not say, “Those who are small children.” There is a great difference between the two. He did not say, “This child will enter into my kingdom of God,” because every child is bound to be corrupted, he has to go astray. Every Adam and every Eve is bound to be expelled from the Garden of Eden, they have to go astray. That is the only way to regain real childhood: first you have to lose it. It is very strange, but that’s how life is. It is very paradoxical, but life is a paradox. To know the real beauty of your childhood, first you have to lose it; otherwise you will never know it.The fish never knows where the ocean is, unless you pull her out of the ocean and throw her on the sand in the burning sun; then she knows where the ocean is. Now she longs for the ocean, she makes every effort to go back to the ocean, she jumps into the ocean. It is the same fish and yet not the same fish. It is the same ocean, yet not the same ocean because the fish has learned a new lesson. Now she is aware, now she knows, “This is the ocean and this is my life. Without it I am no more, I am part of it.”Every child has to lose his innocence and regain it. Losing is only half of the process. Many have lost it, but very few have regained it. That is unfortunate, very unfortunate. Everybody loses it, but only once in a while does a Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Krishna, a Jesus regain it.Jesus is nobody else but Adam coming back home. Magdalene is nobody else but Eve coming back home. They have come out of the sea and they have seen the misery and they have seen the stupidity. They have seen that it is not blissful to be out of the ocean.The moment you become aware that to be a part of any society, any religion, any culture is to remain miserable, is to remain a prisoner, that very day you start dropping your chains. Maturity is coming. You are gaining your innocence again.But a child is not a saint. Of course every saint – real saint – is a child. The child has the same quality, but he is unaware of it. And what is the point of having something if you are not aware of it? You may have a great treasure and you are not aware of it; then it is as if you don’t have it. Having it or not having it makes no difference.A very rich man was puzzled because his whole life he tried to be rich, then richer and richer, and finally he succeeded in becoming the richest man in the world, but there was no bliss. He had always thought that once you become rich, bliss is attained. He was very frustrated. That is the fate of all successful people. He started going around asking for any wise person who could help him to attain bliss.Somebody suggested a Sufi master. He went to the Sufi master on his beautiful horse. He was carrying a big bag full of diamonds, maybe the most precious stones in the world, and he told the master, “I have all these diamonds, but not a drop of bliss. How can I gain bliss? Can you help me?”The master jumped – the rich man could not believe his eyes – the master snatched away the bag and ran away. The rich man followed him crying, shouting, “I have been robbed! I have been cheated! This man is not a master, this man is a thief, catch him!”But in that village the master was well acquainted with all the roads and all the lanes and all the streets, so he dodged the rich man. And the rich man had never run after anybody; it was difficult. A crowd started following. They knew the Sufi master, that his ways were very strange.Finally they came back to the same tree where the master had been sitting and the rich man had found him. The master was again sitting under the tree with the bag. The rich man came there, the master gave the bag to him, and the rich man held the bag close to his heart and said, “I am so blissful. I am so happy that I have found my lost treasure!”The master said, “Have you tasted a little bit of bliss? Unless you lose it you cannot taste it. I have made you taste it. This is the way to taste bliss – lose something.”If you can lose your ego you will gain your self – what Buddha calls no-self. He calls it no-self for the simple reason that it is not your old ego anymore. It has no shadow of the ego at all; hence he calls it no-self. Lose the ego and gain the self or no-self, and suddenly you are mature. Lose the mind and gain consciousness, and you are mature. Die to the past and be born to the present, and you are mature.Maturity is living in the present, fully alert and aware of all the beauty and the splendor of existence.The fifth question:Osho,What do you call the American females?They are also ladies, but not in the British sense. The English of the English has one meaning of ladies; the American English has another meaning. A lady is one who is a good lay – but that is the American meaning!The American hangman comes home.“It’s terrible, darling,” he says to his wife. “I’m going to change my profession.”“Why?” asks the wife.“I’m so fed up with seeing one hanging!”“Me too,” says his wife. “That’s why I’m going to divorce you.”The American is the most alive person on the earth today. He is the most alive person for the simple reason that “American” is not a race, it is a mixture of all races. It is a meeting-place of all the countries. America has become the richest country for the simple reason that crossbreeding brings out the best in every child. Other races are small ponds breeding among themselves; it is as if you are breeding in your own family. The smaller the race, the lower the standard of its intelligence becomes. That’s why it is prohibited for brothers to marry their sisters – for the simple reason that the child will be just dumb, he will not have any salt. He will not be really a man, he will be more a banana or a tomato. He will not have any intelligence.Intelligence comes through crossbreeding. America is the most fortunate country in that way, because its whole history is only of three hundred years and all the world has met there. It is the future of the world; that’s how the whole world is going to be. All other countries should learn something: crossbreeding should become the normal thing. Marry somebody as far away as possible from you. But people marry in just the opposite way. They find somebody in the neighborhood, somebody of the same religion, of the same race, of the same color. That is destroying humanity.Now, you can ask animal breeders – they have raised the quality of all kinds of animals. Ask the people who are working on raising the quality of fruits and vegetables; they have raised the quality of fruits and vegetables for the simple reason that they have used crossbreeding. But about man we are very unscientific and very superstitious.In America all these superstitions have broken down. They had to because it was a new country and the whole world converged there. People from every country, from Spain, from Portugal, from Italy, from France, from Holland, from Poland, from England… People gathered together there from everywhere. A totally new kind of human being has been born which is far more intelligent, far healthier, lives longer, has tremendous capacities for adventure, has courage. And it has created the richest country in the world.An Indian, an Englishman and an American were walking in a cemetery. “When you die, who would you like to be placed alongside of?” asked the American of his buddies.“Mahatma Gandhi,” said the Indian.“Winston Churchill,” said the Englishman.“Well,” said the American, “I would like to be next to Raquel Welch.“Wait a minute,” said the Indian, “she ain’t dead yet!”“I know,” said the American. “But neither am I!”Even small children in America are showing great insight, intelligence, far more than anywhere else.Jimmy decided it was time to lecture his young son who was something of a screwball.“Bob,” he said, “you’re getting to be a young man now and I think you ought to take life more seriously. Just think if I died suddenly, where would you be?”“I would be here,” replied the kid. “The question is, where would you be?”The last question:Osho,So this is not the nut-house I thought it was – it is a zoo! Today a spider, a centipede, a mouse, a cat – not to mention the monkeys on the roof. Yesterday a pig and a cow, and before that fishes, frogs, princesses… Are you Noah?You have stumbled upon a truth. I am Noah and this is Noah’s Ark!You say, “So this is not the nut-house I thought it was…” There you are wrong. It is a nut-house, but now you yourself have become one of the inmates. That’s why you can’t see that it is a nut-house. No nut will see it as a nut-house. Of course, it is a zoo too. It is many things.And you say, “Today a spider, a centipede, a mouse, a cat – not to mention the monkeys on the roof.” There too you are wrong. They were not monkeys; they were American tourists on the way to Goa!And you have mentioned a spider, a centipede, a mouse, a cat, monkeys, pig, cows, fishes, frogs, princesses… You have forgotten ducks; so I will tell you a joke about ducks, otherwise many orange ducks will be angry at you. Nobody here wants to be forgotten. I am being reminded every day. The Australians are writing every day, “Have you forgotten us?” Norwegians, Swedish, Swiss, they are all writing letters, “Osho, when is our turn coming?”When their father died, three brothers inherited one duck each. They decided to sell their ducks and see who could get the most money.The first brother sold his for five dollars.The second sold his for ten dollars.The third brother was walking along a country road when he met a pretty young girl.“Give you my duck if you’ll make love with me.”“Sure,” said the girl.When they finished, the girl was so pleased she said, “I’ll return your duck if you’ll make love with me again.”“Sure,” said the third brother.Walking along the road again, the duck got free from the brother’s arms and ran out into the path of an oncoming car. The car ran over the duck. The driver agreed to pay fifteen dollars for the dead duck.When all the brothers had gathered together again the first brother said, “I got five dollars for my duck.”The second brother said, “I got ten dollars for mine.”Then they both turned to the third brother and said, “What did you get for yours?”The third brother replied, “I got a fuck for a duck, a duck for a fuck, and fifteen dollars for a fucked-up duck.”Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Desiring nothing, doubting nothing,beyond judgment and sorrowand the pleasures of the senses,he has moved beyond time.He is pure and free.How clear he is.He is the moon.He is serene.He shines.For he has traveledlife after lifethe muddy and treacherous road of illusion.He does not trembleor grasp or hesitate.He has found peace.Calmlyhe lets go of life,of home and pleasure and desire.Nothing of men can hold him.Nothing of the gods can hold him.Nothing in all creation can hold him.Desire has left him,never to return.Sorrow has left him,never to return.Gautama the Buddha is describing the indescribable. He is describing the inner world of a master. He is defining what a master is, what the quality of his consciousness is, whether he exists in time or beyond time, in space or beyond space, has any limitations or boundaries, or has only a pure vastness, the vastness of the sky. The very phenomenon is so mysterious that it is beyond the words that we use, that we can use. But still a few indications have to be given. These are only hints – don’t cling to these hints. They are not scientific statements; think of them as pure poetry. Yes, fingers pointing to the moon, but forget the fingers and remember the moon.No word is adequate enough to define a master. All words do injustice to the master because words are meant to describe the ordinary and the master has transcended the ordinary. Words belong to the world; the master is in the world and yet he is no longer of it. He exists here and still he does not exist here. He is only a reflection in the lake. He is only a shadow lingering on this shore; the real one has already reached the other shore.If you can remember this, then even these words will be of great help; otherwise you are bound to misunderstand them. I have been telling you again and again that life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. Now Prem Mukta informs me, “Osho, this really happened: I overheard an Italian sannyasin enthusing after the lecture, ‘Osho really knows what life is like. It is so true what he says, that: life is not a problem to be solved but a misery to be lived.’”Words are dangerous; you can hear in them something which is not there. You can project into them something which is your own, and it is impossible to detect what you are doing. It is good that the sannyasin was saying it to somebody else, but if you don’t say it to anybody else – and there are a thousand and one things that you will never say to anybody else – then they simply remain part of your inner world. If you have utterly misunderstood them in the first place, then you can start making a foundation out of them for your life. Words can be dangerous.A true story:Two mothers were overheard talking about their sons.“My boy has taken up meditation,” said one.The other replied, “Well, I suppose it’s better than sitting around doing nothing.”But that’s exactly what meditation is: sitting around doing nothing – really nothing, not even inside, not even thinking, not even feeling. When action as such stops in toto, meditation begins. When doing ceases utterly, categorically, when there is no movement in your being, then for the first time there is the flowering of meditation.So listen to these words. These words are beautiful if understood rightly, which is very difficult because you are so unconscious, you are so blind. You are living in a state of stupor. You are almost drunk, although you never think of it that way. You may see the drunkenness of others, but you never think that you are also drunk – drunk with greed, lust, ambition, ego. And these are more alcoholic than any alcohol.One of the greatest problems with man is: he can see very easily that others are wrong but he cannot see that he himself is in the same boat.Two pink elephants walked into a pub.The barman looked up and said, “He’s not here yet!”Get it? He is thinking of some other drunkard who sees pink elephants. He is not drunk, it is some other guy who gets drunk and starts seeing pink elephants. Now he is seeing them, but he is telling the elephants, “Wait, he has not come yet. He must be coming sooner or later.”The moment you start seeing your own state, a great, radical change sets in.So listen to these sutras with great alertness, awareness, not in a kind of half-asleep, half-awake state. People are mostly in that state twenty-four hours a day: half asleep, half awake. Whatever they hear, something is always missed, and the trouble is that the most significant is always missed because that is beyond their capacity. Whatsoever is nonessential is immediately heard, is understood by them; that is within their capacity. But they go on forgetting the essential, if they even hear it.Just watch yourself. Understanding a Buddha, a Christ, a Krishna is one of the greatest exercises in awareness.Paul was riding his bicycle on a blistering hot summer day. But the heat and fatigue had finally gotten to him so much that he stopped and sat down beside the road. Minutes later, a small Mercedes pulled up.“Anything wrong?” asked the man behind the wheel.“No, sir, I’m on my way to town,” replied the black boy. “I’m just plumb tuckered out.”“As you can see I don’t have enough room for you and your bicycle,” said the occupant of the Mercedes. “But if you tie your bike to my rear bumper you can sit on it and I will tow you.”In a few moments the car, pulling the black boy on his bicycle, headed down the highway. At the first stoplight a Jaguar pulled alongside. “Hey,” said the man inside, “wanna race?”“You got it!” was the reply.They were soon racing at over one hundred and twenty miles an hour, the Mercedes driver having completely forgotten about the black boy behind him on the bike.Both cars were up to one hundred and forty when they passed a squad car. The bewildered police officer quickly picked up his radio mike. “Hey, Sarge, you ain’t gonna believe this!” he shouted. “A Jaguar’s racing a Mercedes all hell bent for leather, and there’s some white kid keeping up with them on a bicycle!”Listen to these beautiful sutras very consciously, meditatively, in tremendous reverence, in deep trust, because Buddha is revealing the greatest secrets of life.Desiring nothing, doubting nothing,beyond judgment and sorrowand the pleasures of the senses,he has moved beyond time.He is pure and free.Go slowly – each word is significant. Desiring nothing, doubting nothing… You have been told by the priests down the ages, “Don’t doubt, drop doubting.” But why in the first place do you doubt? You doubt because you desire. Buddha is bringing the very root of the problem to your consciousness. If a man desires nothing he has no need to doubt anything at all; it is desire that brings doubt in its wake.This is something very special, nobody has said it so clearly. In fact, nobody had said it before Buddha. If you desire you cannot get rid of doubt because desire brings belief and belief brings doubt. What your priests are doing is simply ridiculous. They insist that you should believe and you should not doubt. They are putting you in a difficult situation which is impossible to maintain. If you believe, you are bound to doubt; all believers are doubters. This is the great insight of Buddha: no believer can ever get rid of doubt.Belief means basically that there is doubt and you are covering it with belief. Doubt is there like a wound and you are covering it with beautiful flowers of belief. But by covering a wound with flowers you are not curing it, it is not being healed. In fact by covering it you will make it far more dangerous. It will be growing deep inside you, it will go on spreading; it will become a cancer finally. Why do you believe in the first place? If you don’t doubt, what is the need to believe?Buddha’s approach is always very fundamental; he goes to the very root of the problem. You believe because you doubt. And why do you doubt? He does not stop there. Why do you believe, why do you doubt? – because you desire.For example, you believe in an afterlife and you also doubt an afterlife. Both the belief and the doubt persist in you side by side. You believe in afterlife because you desire; there is a great lust for life, you don’t want to die. Because you don’t want to die, any priest can exploit you. He can tell you, “Don’t be worried, only the body dies; your soul will live forever. Your soul is immortal.” And you are immediately ready to believe. Why? Without inquiring into such an important matter, you believe some stupid priest who knows nothing about it, who has not experienced anything about it himself, who has not gone deeper into his own being. Maybe he knows the scriptures, he can quote the Bible and the Koran and the Gita, but so what? By knowing the Gita or the Koran or the Bible he does not know that the soul is immortal. How does he know? On what authority is he speaking? On the authority of Christ? – then it is borrowed. On the authority of Krishna? – then it is not his own. And unless it is his own there must be doubt in him.Unless some experience arises in your own being, doubt cannot be dispelled. You can go on believing in light sitting in a dark room, but that does not mean that the darkness will disappear by your believing. You can recite the Gita and you can talk about light, but darkness will remain. You can deceive yourself by believing in light, you can say there is no darkness, you can pretend that there is no darkness, but you know that there is darkness. Otherwise, why are you talking about darkness at all if there is no darkness? Why are you saying there is no darkness? If there is no darkness there is no darkness. Why waste your time?Why are the priests continuously teaching people that the soul is immortal? They know people are afraid of death and desire life. The fear of death and the desire for life are two sides of the same coin.Buddha says: “If you desire something then you have to believe.” Why do you believe in God? Have you seen God? Have you experienced God? You can say Jesus saw God, but he may have been a deluded man. Either he himself lived in an illusion or he was deceiving you. Who knows? How can you be certain that he knew? What grounds do you have that anybody has ever seen God?If you are suffering from a headache, nobody else can know except you yourself. Yes, if you say it, people can sympathize with you. They may not say so – they may agree with you, they may disagree with you – but how can they know that you are suffering from a headache? Only you know.A visiting psychiatrist, wandering through the wards of a state asylum, saw a patient huddled in a corner scratching himself incessantly.“Excuse me,” said the doctor, “why do you scratch yourself like that?”“Because,” replied the man, “I’m the only one who knows where I itch.”There are things which can only be trusted if they become your personal experience.But you are afraid of death, you believe in an afterlife, you desire an afterlife. You are afraid of being alone, you want protection. You want a God, a father figure. You are still childish. You can’t live on your own, you can’t stand on your own feet. Your real father may be dead, or if he is not dead now you know perfectly well that he is as limited as you are – he has his own fears, he has his own tremblings. Now you cannot believe in him in the same way as you used to believe when you were a small child; then your father was all-knowing, all-powerful.Every child brags about his father, saying that he is the greatest man in the world. But sooner or later, he finds he is just an ordinary man like everybody else. He knows, “He suffers from the same fears as I do.” Now he is no longer a protection to him.You cannot hide behind your mother anymore. You need a greater father, hence the projection of God. It is just your need, your desire for security, safety, for protection. You are not mature enough yet; hence you believe in God.Look at the qualities of God: omnipresent, obviously. If he is not everywhere, then what is the point of believing in him? You may fall in a ditch and he is not there, and you may go on shouting and he is not there, or he is engaged somewhere else. And there are millions of people on this planet and this is not the only planet. Scientists say there are at least fifty thousand planets like our earth which are populated with life, millions of stars. If he is not omnipresent – and you are so small and the universe is so big – how is he going to take care of you? Of course you believe he is omnipresent, he is everywhere, so wherever you need him he is immediately available, instantly available.So he may be omnipresent, but what if he is not omnipotent? He may not be capable enough to help you; he may have only two hands, and with two hands how much can he do? Hence there are people who believe that he has thousands of hands. But even thousands of hands won’t do much, so you have to believe that he is omnipotent, that his power is infinite, he can do anything.Not only that: you also have to believe that he is omniscient because he may be omnipotent and he may be omnipresent, but if he is not omniscient then he can only take care of the present. That means when you have fallen in the ditch, only then can he help you, but you have fallen and broken your leg and you have fractures. He is omniscient, he can see the future, he can see everything, so before you fall in the ditch he can prevent you from falling in the ditch.Just look at the qualities that you have given to your God. Those are not the qualities of God, those are your desires of how God should be. Then you can believe in him; if these qualities are missing then doubts will start arising. And God has to be infallible; if he is fallible, then there is danger. How can you believe in a fallible God? You cannot believe in a fallible God because he may mismanage, he may mess you up. Rather than helping you he may create more trouble. He has to be infallible. And when God is infallible, his son Jesus Christ has to be infallible, because if the father is infallible how can the son not be infallible? And then his representative, the pope of the Vatican, has to be infallible.Now, you see how your logic goes on in this way, all rooted in desire. You believe in such foolish things – that the pope is infallible. Even now, after two thousand years, you still believe that the pope is infallible. And the popes have done so many stupid things.Galileo said that the earth moves around the sun, not vice versa. The Bible says the sun moves around the earth; all the scriptures of the world say that the sun moves around the earth because it is apparently so. All the languages have these words: sunrise, sunset. We experience it every day; every day we see the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. We see the whole movement of the sun from the east to the west, and then in the night it disappears; it has gone to the other side of the earth, it is going round the earth. It is our experience, it is what we know, so before Galileo, all the scriptures of the world believed that the sun went round the earth.Galileo was the first man who said that the reality is just the opposite: the earth goes round the sun. Now this was against the Bible and to find any fault in the Bible is dangerous. If one thing can be faulty in the Bible, then what about other things? Maybe they are also faulty; they just need some other Galileo to find the faults. Then where will it end? And if prophets are faulty, what about the pope? And all the popes had believed…Galileo was called into the court of the pope. He was very old, seventy years old, in bed and so ill that he was going to die any day, but he was forced, dragged in chains to the court. And he didn’t live long after. He was forced to apologize. Galileo must have been a man of great insight. He said, “Of course, if the Bible says and if all the prophets agree and if all the popes, who are infallible, if they say that the sun moves around the earth, I apologize, I am sorry.”The pope was very happy, the court was very happy that they had brought a sinner back to his senses.Then Galileo said, “But one thing I must tell you: I can apologize, if you want me to I can say that the sun moves round the earth, but the sun won’t listen to me and the earth has no obligation to follow my orders. Still the earth will go on moving round the sun, my apologies apart. I apologize, but what can I do? If the earth moves around the sun I cannot stop it.”These popes have been preventing all scientific growth. Now in the twentieth century millions of Catholics still believe that the pope is infallible. But this is really a logical consequence: if you believe God is infallible, then of course his son is infallible, then his son’s representatives are infallible.But deep down, why do you believe in such nonsense? And this is not only so about Catholics; it is so about Hindus, about Mohammedans, about Jainas, even about Buddhists. They all go on believing in utter nonsense.Buddhists believe that Buddha was born while his mother was standing in the garden; she had gone for a walk. Not only that, he was also born in a standing posture himself. He came out of the womb, stood on the earth, walked seven steps and declared, “I am the awakened one!” Now for twenty-five centuries Buddhists have believed in this nonsense. No baby can do that, but if you suspect it then you suspect the scriptures. If you doubt the scriptures then great trembling arises in you because then you become afraid. Doubting is not good, doubting is irreligious; one should believe. And the more absurd the belief, the greater is the test for the believer.Buddha is saying: Desiring nothing, doubting nothing… The master desires nothing; he believes nothing hence he doubts nothing. A master lives without desire, without belief, without doubt. Then what is left in the inner being of the master is trust. Trust is not belief; it is absence of both doubt and belief. Buddha calls it shraddha. It can only be translated as trust in existence.Belief is rooted in desire and every belief carries its own counterpart, doubt, as a shadow. Trust is absence of desire, belief, doubt. It is purity of the heart, innocence of the heart. In that innocent heart there is a meeting and merging with the universe. That is trust; it has nothing to do with you. It is not that you trust; you are no longer there, only trust is.Desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow… The master goes beyond judgment; hence there is no question of belief or doubt. He never judges; he never says, “This is right and that is wrong.” He has dropped the mind which is a constant process of judgment. The mind continuously judges; its judgment has become an obsession.You see the roseflower and before you have even seen it, the mind has said, “It is beautiful.” You see a man passing by and before you have seen the man rightly, the mind says, “He is ugly.” The judgment is instantaneous, it seems to take no time. You are continuously judgmental.The master looks at the fact but has no judgments, because in fact beauty and ugliness all are our projections. When you say a rose is beautiful it is your idea, nothing else. The rose is a rose is a rose; it is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is simply itself. The ugly man is not ugly and the beautiful man is not beautiful; it is only a question of your idea of what beauty is. Hence with different people different things are thought to be beautiful.In China beauty has a different color, a different form; in India it has a different form and color, in Europe obviously it is going to be different. Each country has its own idea of beauty and those ideas go on changing, they come like fashions. One thing is beautiful today and tomorrow it becomes ugly; today it is ugly and tomorrow suddenly it becomes beautiful.Can you believe that Picasso’s paintings would have been thought beautiful just two hundred years ago? Impossible. Not even a single person would have been found in the whole world who would have said they were beautiful. And whosoever would have said they were beautiful would have been thought insane.Vincent van Gogh could not sell one of his paintings, not even one, for the simple reason that everybody thought they were just insane – not only ugly but insane too. Now only two hundred paintings are in existence and each painting has so much value that if those people come back and see that Vincent van Gogh’s paintings are being sold for millions of dollars they will not be able to believe their eyes, what has happened to man. “What kind of beauty have people started seeing suddenly in Vincent van Gogh’s paintings? Nobody thought them beautiful.” The idea of beauty has changed.Modern poetry is not beautiful in the same way as Shakespearian poetry is; it is not beautiful in the same way as Kalidas or Bhavabhuti, as Byron or Shelley. It is a totally different kind of beauty. Just our idea! If man disappears from the earth, there will be nothing beautiful and nothing ugly. Weeds will be as valuable as roses; there will be no difference, there will be simple equality.A master is one who has dropped all human ideas about things, hence he has no judgments. He lives in a nonjudgmental way. And can you see that when you live in a nonjudgmental way you attain to great serenity, naturally. Nothing disturbs you, nothing offends you, nothing attracts you, nothing infatuates you.Beyond judgment… and you are beyond sorrow. Buddha says: “If you really want to go beyond sorrow, go beyond judgment.” But going beyond judgment means going beyond mind. Mind is judgmental; if you live in the mind it will keep you tethered to all kinds of judgments. If you drop the mind then suddenly the whole existence becomes available to you. For the first time you are unclouded.“Come on, let’s screw,” the Italian told his new date five minutes after he called for her.“Oh, you’re so sophisticated, Pietro,” she said.“So sophisticated” – after five minutes only! But in Italy it may be sophisticated; after five minutes in India, it will be rape and the girl will shout for the police. It will take months for you to woo the woman, to persuade her, to bring her down to earth. It is a long, long process. But things in Italy seem to be quick: five minutes and she says, “You are so sophisticated, so cultured!” It all depends on your ideas.Desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow and the pleasures of the senses, he has moved beyond time. He is pure and free. These four things have to be understood. The first is the senses and their pleasures; that is the lowest kind of life. And remember, by calling it the “lowest” Buddha is not judging it, it is not an evaluation, it is simply stating a fact. Just as you say “the lowest rung of the ladder” – there is no judgment. It is not bad, it is no more special than the highest rung. It is simply a statement of fact. This has to be continuously remembered, otherwise you will forget; you will start thinking that Buddha himself is judging. Then is he a master or not? He is not judging, he is simply stating a fact.The senses are the lowest because they are on the circumference, they are part of your body. There are people who live only in the senses, they are still living like animals. Again remember, it is not a judgment: animals are not bad, animals are not immoral. There is no question of hierarchy. But animals live in the body, and the man who lives only in his senses is living an animal kind of life. He is living in the porch of his palace. Not that he is immoral, but certainly he is unintelligent. He could have lived in the palace and he is living in the porch, suffering the heat of the sun, suffering the rains and suffering the cold. He could have been in the safety and the comforts and the coziness of the palace. The palace belongs to him, but he lives in the porch believing that that’s all there is to life.The man who lives only in sensuality, lust, who is obsessed with food, who is obsessed with his body, continuously thinking of the body, is not yet a man. He is a good animal, but utterly blind to the potential that he is born to, utterly blind to what he can become, unconscious of the whole range of his being.The second circle, deeper than the body, is that of the mind. Mind has its own pleasures which are a little higher. Again, remember, it has nothing to do with judgment. They are a little deeper, they are a little closer to the innermost shrine. They actualize a little bit of your potential. The man who enjoys mathematics, science, philosophy certainly has a deeper sense of joy. Plato has a deeper sense of joy than Nero.It is said about Nero that he used to keep four physicians constantly with him even when he went to war. Those four physicians were to help him vomit because he liked to eat so many times in the day. Now you cannot eat so many times a day; there is a limitation. You can eat three times, four times, five times at the most; more than that will be impossible. The body will not contain it, you will burst. So after eating, the physicians would help him to vomit immediately so he could eat again. He used to eat at least twenty times per day. He must have been the greatest eater in the world. But what kind of life is this? – twenty times vomiting to eat twenty times, as if he lived only in the buds of the tongue, in the taste buds.Of course Plato is far deeper. He enjoys a contemplative life: he contemplates the stars, he contemplates the sunrise and the sunset, he contemplates the possibility of human progress. And he enjoys it so much that many times he forgets to eat, he forgets completely that he has missed a meal.It happened once…Albert Einstein was brought his breakfast and he was so deep in contemplation – it must have been some great mathematical puzzle he was involved in – that he was sitting with closed eyes. So the servant did not disturb him; he left the breakfast in front of him and went away.Meanwhile a friend came. He also saw him so deeply absorbed that he thought, “The breakfast is getting cold, it is better…” So he ate the breakfast and pushed the plates aside.At that moment Einstein opened his eyes, looked at the empty plates, looked at his friend and said, “Sorry, you came a little late. I have taken my breakfast.”Now, this is better than being a Nero. But there is a third layer still higher, still deeper: the layer of the heart – love, music, poetry, dance. People who enjoy art, people who can enjoy and appreciate harmony, color, people who can see some poetry in life and existence, who can feel some celebration going on all around, of course they are going still deeper. A Rabindranath… The poet goes deeper than the mathematician, the musician goes deeper than the philosopher. But these are still concentric circles around your center.The fourth – the mystics in India have called it simply “the fourth,” turiya – is the world of your being, the innermost core. There are those who enjoy meditation, neither food nor philosophy nor poetry, but who have gone beyond all these and entered into the world of utter silence, of absolute emptiness, who know how not to be. Yes, the question is, “To be or not to be?” Those who have chosen not to be, are the meditators. They have moved from the senses to samadhi, and that is the highest experience of life.Buddha says: Desiring nothing, doubting nothing, beyond judgment and sorrow and the pleasures of the senses, he has moved beyond time.The man who has moved into his being has moved beyond time. Time persists with the body, with the mind, with the heart, but with the being there is no time. You suddenly experience timelessness – or you can call it eternity. It is only in that state when you have transcended mind, transcended time, that you are pure and free. For the first time you know what purity is. It is not something to be cultivated; it is something like a fragrance of deep meditation. The joy, the song, the celebration that arises out of silence, the sound of soundless silence – that is purity, that is innocence; you have become a child again. And that is maturity too, that is growth. You have come of age. You are really born, you are born anew.How clear he is.Now the master has clarity because all the clouds created by the body have disappeared. The body creates the darkest clouds, the densest clouds, the thickest clouds. As you go further inward the clouds are less dark, less thick, less dense. When you have reached the fourth, turiya, all clouds have disappeared; there is pure clarity. You can see through and through. The whole existence becomes transparent. Nothing is hidden from you anymore.How clear he is.He is the moon.He is serene.He shines.At this point, suddenly there is an alchemical change in his energy. Ordinarily a man lives as a sun energy; the master lives as moon energy. These are just metaphors, but tremendously significant, very expressive indicators. Moon energy means cool energy, sun energy means hot energy. When you live in passion, lust, anger, greed, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, you live as fire. It is not only that others are burned through you, you are burning yourself. In fact, if you want to burn others you have to burn yourself first; only then can you burn others. You are constantly in a fever. The sun energy is feverish, it creates insanity, it drives you crazy. It keeps you running and rushing after illusions.Meditation is the miracle that transforms the sun energy into moon energy. The moon creates magic every night. The moon has no rays of its own, it simply reflects the sunrays. It absorbs the sunrays and reflects them back; the moon functions only as a mirror. Hence the moon represents two things: first it is a mirror. The master is a mirror, meditation makes you a mirror – without any dust, absolutely clean and pure, so everything is reflected in you as it is, with no judgment but simply as it is in its absolute facticity.And second, the moon, just by reflecting them, transforms the hot rays of the sun into cool energy. That’s what happens through a master. He absorbs the same energy that you absorb, he eats the same food as you eat, he drinks the same water as you drink, he breathes the same air as you breathe, but some alchemical change is constantly going on in him.Out of your food you become more and more sexual, out of your breathing you become more and more hot. The master breathes the same air, but some miracle happens within him that is not perceptible to you. The same air no longer creates the same results for him as it creates for you, the same food no longer creates for him the same problems as it creates for you. The master does not live in another world; he lives in your world and he lives in the same way as you live.Those who escape from the world are not real masters; they are afraid of the world. They are afraid to absorb this crazy energy. The world is full of it; hence they escape to the Himalayas. But they simply show by their escape that they are not yet masters. The real master lives here in the world. He absorbs the same crazy energy, but when it comes back, when it is reflected back through him, it is no longer crazy. It becomes a grace, it becomes cool. He showers a thousand and one blessings even on those who are not worthy, even on those who are not receptive, even on those who will never feel thankful, even on those who may do harm to him.Jesus even kissed Judas and washed his feet, and he knew the man had betrayed him. He knew perfectly well, because before he washed the feet of Judas he told his disciples, “Tonight I am going to be betrayed by one of you.” But he cannot do otherwise: he can only kiss, he can only wash the feet. He has no ego, he is utterly humble. In fact, he has no self; he is a non-self. Buddha’s word for it is anatta – no-self. And he is constantly radiating the cool energy of the moon.He is the moon. He is serene. He shines. He is as serene as the moon and he shines as beautifully as the moon.For he has traveledlife after lifethe muddy and treacherous road of illusion.He knows from bitter experience. He has every compassion for you. If you are deep in your mud he only has compassion for you. He makes every effort to pull you out of the mud because he has been in the same mud for lives. He has traveled the same path, he has gone astray thousands of times, he has suffered in the same way.That is one of the most beautiful things Buddha taught, because all other religions were trying to prove something else. Hindus were saying in India that Krishna, Rama and all their avatars, descend from heaven: they are parts of God, they are incarnations of God. That is the meaning of avatar: “descending from above.” They are not part of us, they came as messengers of God. They have not traveled on the same muddy path. How can they understand our misery? How can they understand our problems? They have never suffered the same problems.The same was the case with Judaism. Remember, these are the only two religions; all other religions are born out of these two. Judaism was also preaching the same idea: that God sends his messengers, messiahs, prophets. Those are special people, they are not ordinary like you.Buddha’s approach is tremendously human; he is the first humanitarian mystic. He says, “I have traveled on the same muddy path, I have suffered in the same way you are suffering, I have committed the same mistakes. Hence I can understand you, and I can understand why you are unable to understand me, because I have come across many buddhas in my other lives, many buddhas; I never understood them, I always misunderstood them. So if you are misunderstanding me there is nothing to make a fuss about. It is simple, it is natural, it is inevitable. So whatsoever you do to me,” Buddha says, “it is okay. Still I will go on showering my flowers on you because I have nothing else to shower.”Buddha is not an avatar. He has not come from the above, he has risen from the below. He is a lotus: he has grown out of the same mud in which you are struggling. I completely agree with him. The Hindu and the Jewish concept is utterly inhuman; that concept is not right. That cannot help humanity to be transformed.Buddha brings a totally new insight. His approach is not mythological, his approach is scientific. For he has traveled life after life the muddy and treacherous road of illusion. He knows and he understands you. You may not understand him, but he understands you.A little girl was being driven very erratically in a car by her grandma.“Don’t go round corners so fast, Gran,” she pleaded.“Do as I do, dear,” said the sweet old lady, “and close your eyes!”Blind people are leading other blind people and they have created all kinds of superstitions, mythologies, religions. Only a buddha is capable of seeing, only one who is awakened, only one who up to now had belonged to you. You are asleep and he is awake, that is the only difference; there is no other difference. He can help you to be awakened because he knows how he has become awake, how difficult it is, what problems have to be faced. He knows your state.The bandage-covered patient who lay in the hospital bed spoke dazedly to his visiting pal. “Wh-wh-what happened?”“You had one too many last night and then bet that you could jump out of the window and fly around the block.”“Why didn’t you stop me?” he screamed.“Stop you, hell! I had twenty-five dollars on you!”The receptionist of a five-star hotel picks up the phone: “May I help you?”“Yes,” is the reply, “can you please tell me when your bar opens?”“Yes, sir. The bar opens at five o’clock.”“Thank you.”An hour later the phone rings again and the same voice asks, “C-c-an you tell me, p-p-please, when the b-b-b-bar opens?”“At five o’clock, sir,” says the receptionist.“Th-th-thank you!”Another hour passes and the phone rings again. “Please, when doesh…doesh…doesh the bar – hic – o-open?”“I repeat, at five o’clock,” answers the annoyed receptionist.Still another hour later, the phone rings again. “Hic! Hic! Heelloo!”“You again!” exclaims the receptionist, “I told you we open our bar at five o’clock, but in your state of inebriation we cannot allow you into our bar!”“But…but…but – hic – I don’t want to get in!” cries the drunk. “I want to get out!”Only somebody who has been in knows the ins and the outs. Only one who has been drunk like you can help you. That’s why the organization called Alcoholics Anonymous is so helpful. It has helped thousands of drunkards for the simple reason that other drunkards are helping. They understand each other, they understand the problems. They are not standing high above the others looking with eyes of condemnation at them, looking at them with that stupid holy look, “holier-than-thou,” and preaching to them to be good. They have been in the same plight, they have suffered much; they understand each other’s language.Hence Buddha helped more people to become enlightened than anybody else in the whole history of humanity. I don’t think Krishna helped anybody to become enlightened; he was enlightened, but he could not help anybody else. I am afraid Jesus could not help anybody, not even among his own twelve apostles. They remained very ordinary to the very end; not one of them became enlightened.Buddha seems to be an exceptional master, in fact the first master whom we can really call a master, because through him thousands of people became enlightened. And the reason why Buddha’s appeal is so deep is that he is not a pretender. He is not a messiah, he has not come from above, he claims nothing. He is not the only begotten Son of God; he does not talk about God at all. He does not talk any nonsense. He is very sensible and very down-to-earth. He means business. And he can help immensely. For he has traveled life after life the muddy and treacherous road of illusion.When are you going to wake up? You go on postponing, you go on saying tomorrow. And you have been doing this for centuries, and tomorrow has not come yet. When is it going to come? Stop postponing. Postponing is a trick of the mind.After a smooth take-off the captain of the Boeing 707 welcomes his passengers: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. I, Captain Cook, and my crew wish you a pleasant flight. We land in Amsterdam in approximately five hours.”A few minutes later the same voice is heard through the speakers: “Shit, Johnny, I feel like a nice cool beer and a good screw…”As the stewardess runs toward the cockpit to inform the pilot that the speakers are on, a passenger grabs her by the arm and says, “Hey, lady, what’s the rush? We still got another five hours to go!”We are always thinking in terms of the future. Stop thinking in terms of the future – that is the way of the mind to live, to prolong, to get nourished. The future is the food of the mind. The moment you become decisive about the present, the mind has started dying. It is the beginning of the end, the end of the mind. The end of the mind is the beginning of your real existence, your real life.Can’t you see that life has been very treacherous, that it has been deceiving you again and again? Still you go on being deceived. How gullible you are. And you go on falling in the same ditches – they are not even different – the same traps.A Jew and a Polack are sitting together in a train compartment. The Jew is eating some apple seeds.After some time, the Polack becomes curious and asks the Jew, “Why are you eating apple seeds?”The Jew replies, “Apple seeds make you smart!”The Polack, even more curious, asks, “Are they for sale?”The Jew answers, “Yes, of course. You can have these five apple seeds for five dollars only.”The Polack agrees to the deal and starts eating the seeds. Suddenly the Polack turns to the Jew and says, “Hey, you, listen, for five dollars I could have bought five kilos of apples!”The Jew turns to him with a satisfied smile and answers, “Now you see – it has started working already!”You go on repeating the same mistakes. You go on being exploited by the treacherous life, by all kinds of traps which are all around you. And the emperors and the beggars are all in the same boat; there is no difference. The poor and the rich are in the same boat; there is no difference because all are full of desires. Wherever desire exists, ego exists; and wherever ego exists, illusion exists because ego is the greatest illusion there is. Even in a beggar who has nothing else you will find the same ego as you will find in Alexander the Great, because desiring is the same. Alexander the Great may have much money and much power, that does not matter; he is still desiring. The beggar may not have anything, but he is also desiring.The distance between you and your desire always remains the same. It is like the horizon: between you and the horizon the distance is always the same. You can go on moving toward the horizon your whole life; the distance is never shortened, it remains the same. You can renounce the world, you can start running away from the horizon, but then again you will be facing another horizon, and now arises the desire to reach the other horizon. If you were heading west, now you will be heading east, but it is the same horizon, or south or north, you can go in any direction, it is the same horizon. Escaping won’t help. You can renounce the world, it will not change you.There is one change, and one change only; only one revolution, and that is the revolution of dropping the illusion of the ego. It is the ego that keeps you on the muddy and treacherous road of illusion.Remember, don’t fool yourself: “Alexander the Great is an egoist. I am a poor man, a humble man. I go to the church every Sunday, how can I be an egoist?” You are in the same boat, in the same way. You have the same ego.As a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce stopped at some traffic lights, a tramp tapped on the window and held out his hand. The somewhat literary English gentleman in the back seat rolled down the window and said in a very cultured voice, “‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’ – William Shakespeare.” And the Rolls Royce drove on.The tramp, seeing that the Rolls had stopped at the next set of lights, raced down the road and tapped on the window again. The gentleman rolled down the window and the tramp said, “‘Fuck you’ – D. H. Lawrence.”He does not trembleor grasp or hesitate.He has found peace.He has no fear. Once desire has gone fear cannot exist. When desire is there you are always afraid whether you are going to make it this time or not. Or if you have achieved the goal of your desire, then you are afraid of whether you are capable of keeping it forever or not. If you want to become the president then comes the fear of how you are going to make it. Millions of people want to be the president. There are so many neurotic people, you are not the only one. The whole world is mad, you are not the only mad person. Are you going to make it? And you have to be really the maddest to make it because you will have to fight with other madmen. There is always trembling.If by chance – and it is always a chance – if by some coincidence you become the president, then a new fear arises: are you going to keep it? – because so many people are pulling you. Your legs are being pulled, people are pushing you from your chair. There are so many people around you and everybody is dangerous because everybody wants to sit in the same chair, but the chair can contain only one person. Now there is great fear, you cannot sleep. In fact now you are more afraid than you ever were; you know sooner or later they will topple you. They are so many and you are alone. They will gather together to topple you.But the master has no trembling because he has no desire. He does not cling to anything because he knows that there is nothing worth clinging to; he has that clarity of vision. All that is his is always his, nobody can take it away. He sees that now all that is not his, is going to be taken away whether he clings to it or not, so what is the point of clinging? Why waste time?His clarity is such that he never hesitates. For a master it is never a question of deciding between alternatives; he simply sees and acts. It is not a question of either–or. Never! He sees the door and goes out through it. It is not a question of deciding whether to go through the wall or through the door.For you, it is always a question to decide whether to go through the wall or through the door. In fact, the wall looks more appealing because millions of times you have tried through the wall and you are really angry at the wall and you want to prove that one day you are going to defeat this wall. This dumb wall has been defeating you again and again; you want to take revenge. In fact, you can’t see the door; you only see this wall and that wall. It is always a question of choosing which wall you want to go through.For the master it is never a question of choice. He lives choicelessly because he lives consciously. He is alert, he has eyes to see, and you are blind; hence you always hesitate. Because he has no fear, no clinging, no hesitation: He has found peace. Naturally, there is tremendous peace in his being.Calmlyhe lets go of life,of home and pleasure and desire.Calmly he lets go of life… He does not make any fuss about it, he does not brag about renunciation. Whatsoever he sees is futile, he drops. In fact, to say he drops it is not right – he lets it go, he allows it to be dropped. He does not resist, that’s all. He makes no effort to keep it, and very calmly, without any effort. His life is effortless.…of home… Home represents security – he drops the idea of security. What security can there be here when death is going to take everything away? In this life there can be no security, on this shore there is no security; hence he does not bother about security.…and pleasure… because he knows pleasure always brings pain. He has seen it clearly, that pleasure is only a facade; behind it comes hidden pain. He can see through and through; hence he lets it go. And desire he has lived for many, many lives and seen that it is unfulfillable. It is always after more: the more you have, the more you ask for. It is an absolutely absurd exercise in futility.Seen, all these things start disappearing from his life. Not that he renounces them, they disappear. That’s what my emphasis is: never renounce anything. If things are worthless they will fall of their own accord. When things fall of their own accord there is tremendous beauty in them, because they leave you peaceful, calm and quiet, collected and centered.Nothing of men can hold him.Nothing of the gods can hold him.Nothing in all creation can hold him.When there is no desire, what can hold him? What can make him a prisoner? Neither this world nor the other world, neither the earth nor paradise.All the religions of the world talk about heaven and hell. Buddha says there is something beyond heaven and hell and that is the true existence. He calls it nirvana. No other religion talks about nirvana; nirvana is a totally different vision. It means you are not hankering for heavenly desires, heavenly joys and pleasures, because it is the same stupidity again repeated on a bigger scale, on a higher plane, but the stupidity is the same.The master knows the futility of desire; hence he has no desire for heaven, he has no desire at all. Nothing binds him and nothing holds him.Desire has left him,never to return.He has seen that it is futile. If you drop it because I am saying it, then it will return again and again. If you drop it out of your own experience through meditation, then it has gone forever …never to return.Sorrow has left him,never to return.Sorrow is only a shadow of desire. Remember it always: everything has to happen to you through your own experience.Buddha’s last words to his disciples were: “Be a light unto yourself.” And how can you be a light unto yourself? Go beyond the body, the mind, the heart. Find the center of your being and suddenly there is light. It is already there, it is already burning bright. It is your very being; you just have to discover it.Discovering it, one discovers truth. Discovering it, one discovers peace. Discovering it, one discovers ultimate bliss, nirvana.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Ramakrishna stayed in his body by having an interest in food. Now tell me the truth – is it the jokes that keep you here?Yes, in a way it is true. Religion has for centuries lacked many things. One of the most important of them all is laughter; religion has been too serious. Seriousness is a kind of disease: it is the cancer of the soul. It is very destructive, it is suicidal. Hence, you don’t see religion flowering on the earth, despite there being three hundred religions, millions of churches, temples, and mosques. The earth still goes on missing religious consciousness for the simple reason that seriousness has killed religion.Seriousness tends to become sad. You cannot be serious without being sad; they are two sides of the same coin. And you can be serious and sad only if you have missed your roots in life and existence. Only the pathological people are serious. The healthy, the whole will never be serious, cannot be serious.It was one of the most unfortunate accidents in human history that religion became associated with seriousness. That association has to be destroyed, mercilessly destroyed. Religion has to be freed from the imprisonment of seriousness. Only then will it be healthy, only then will it be able to sing and dance and rejoice. The serious religion has always been rooted in the idea that there is something wrong in life, something basically wrong in life, as if life is a punishment.Life is a gift of existence, not a punishment. There is nothing wrong in life; if something is wrong it must be in you. You don’t know the art of living, you are incapable of moving into the depth and into the mystery of life. You must be a coward. Hence, you cling to the shore, to the known, to the familiar, and life always goes on moving into the unknown. Life is adventurous and you are a coward, hence you soon part company. Life goes on its way of adventure and you cling to your security. Clinging to your security you die, and when you die, life seems to be a drag, a dull affair. In fact, you have lost contact with life.It is as if you uproot a rosebush from the earth – soon it will start dying, it will lose its greenness, its roses will wither away. Nothing is wrong with the rosebush, nothing is wrong with the earth either, only you have disconnected them. The rosebush needs nourishment, then it can bloom in many flowers, it can have all the green of the world and all the red and all the gold. Man also is a rosebush. He needs his own soil, he needs roots into existence.When you are born you are born only with the potential to exist, to survive, not with the art of making life a joy, a bliss, a celebration. That art has to be learned. To me, religion is that very art, the supreme art: the art of transforming the lower into the higher. Religion to me is alchemy. It is the process of transforming the potential into the actual. Man has lived at the minimum; hence he looks so dull. Man can live at the maximum and then there will be great brilliance and great radiance and then there will be great flowering.Laughter is as precious as prayer – or even more precious than prayer because the man who cannot laugh cannot pray either. A prayer that does not come out of a joyous heart is already dead. It cannot reach God, it cannot leave the earth, it has no wings. It is like a rock: it will fall back to the earth, it cannot fly into the sky.Religion has lived without laughter, that’s why religion has been a corpse, and you are worshipping corpses in your churches and in your temples and in your mosques. You have become worshippers of death. Rather than worshipping life you have been worshipping death.My approach is totally different, I bring you a new vision. Religion is against laughter, is against love, is against rejoicing, is against celebration. The religious person, the so-called religious person, condemns everything of this world; he lives surrounded by a thousand and one condemnations. He lives in fear, in trembling. He does not live, he only vegetates.Your so-called saints and mahatmas are not real people, they don’t have the guts to be real, they are phony. But you have worshipped them for so long, you still go on worshipping them. The reason you worship them is because they are so dead, because they are so serious, because they are so ugly, because their whole approach toward life is so negative. They are anti-life, anti-love, anti-laughter – how can they be for God? It is only through love and laughter and a tremendous joy in life that you start feeling the presence of something that is beyond.When life becomes an adventure, a dance of ecstasy, only then do you move beyond the confinement of the body and the mind and soar high toward the infinite.Yes, Masta, you can say I live on your laughter. I rejoice seeing you dance, sing and laugh. I rejoice seeing you in deep love. I rejoice seeing you dropping the garbage of centuries, the rotten, stupid superstitions of centuries. I rejoice seeing you getting out of the old, being born anew.All the religions were born thousands of years ago; everything has changed. Those religions don’t fit anymore, they have no relevance, their context has disappeared. But they go on sitting on your head, heavy mountains, and they don’t allow you to move. In fact, the older the religion, the more precious you think it is. It is not so: the older the religion, the more irrelevant it is.Religion has to be as new as life itself. Religion has to be new every day, each moment. That’s how the religious person lives: he goes on dying to the past every moment, he is born anew every moment. He moves with life. He has no clinging to the Vedas and no clinging to the Bible and no clinging to the Koran. He can read them as beautiful literature, but he does not cling to them. Those who cling to them are being stupid because something may have been relevant two thousand years ago, but it has no meaning anymore. And you know it perfectly well, but you don’t have courage enough to get out of the old fold.All the vested interests are against you getting out of the old fold. All the vested interests want you to remain committed to the past because then you can be exploited more easily. If you are not committed to the past the priests will disappear because they represent the past. Who will pay any attention to the pope or to the shankaracharya? They will become laughingstocks. In fact they are ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. All their ideas are so out-of-date that you go on tolerating them only because it is risky to say that they are out-of-date. It is risky because you may lose something in your business, in your investment. You may start falling apart from the society. You are afraid of being individuals, you want to remain part of the crowd.Religion’s whole purpose is to make you individuals. Religion loses all meaning when it starts making you – forcing you, in fact – to be part of the crowd. Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Buddhist – these are crowds. You have not chosen to be a Christian; it is accidental that you are born a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu. How can religion be accidental? Is such an important phenomenon decided by the accident of birth? You have to be consciously alert to choose your path toward God. You have not chosen your path, you have not even chosen God. You have been forced to choose, and you have allowed all this to happen. It is a bondage; your being a Christian is a bondage.The people who had gathered around Christ were real Christians, the only Christians, because they had chosen. They were going against the crowd, they were risking their lives, they were moving into danger. They were born as Jews. They would have been more comfortable, they would have lived more conveniently if they had not followed Jesus. Following Jesus was dangerous. It proved dangerous to Jesus himself; he was crucified. His disciples were victimized in every possible way. Those were real people, authentic people. To be a Christian now means nothing.The people who were gathering around Gautama the Buddha were real Buddhists. They were religious people, because going against the whole crowd of the Hindus, against the whole pattern of the society and following a very rebellious man, being with him, was accepting a life of insecurity. They were genuine, authentic seekers. But the man who is born a Buddhist has not risked anything; it is just a coincidence that he is born a Buddhist.If you had been adopted by a Mohammedan when you were a small child you would have been a Mohammedan; if you had been adopted by a Jew you would have been a Jew. And you would have never known who you were by your birth, because nobody is born as a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hindu – everybody is born free. God gives you freedom to choose.But society does not want you to be free. Neither the state nor the church nor other vested interests want you to be free. They want to cripple you and paralyze you, they want to destroy your intelligence. They don’t want you to be very happy either because happy people can be dangerous. Miserable people are good, miserable people are always controllable, miserable people are always ready to become enslaved. They are so miserable, they are always seeking somebody who can give them support, who can make their lives a little easier. The happy person becomes independent; the happier he is, the more independent.Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius are the most blissful people the earth has known. They are utterly independent people. They don’t care a bit about what others say; they don’t bother about their opinions for the simple reason that they don’t depend on anybody else. Their bliss is inner.The society does not want you to be really blissful. It wants you to be sad and ill; it wants you to be pathological, neurotic. Only a neurotic society can be dominated by the priests and the politicians. Only people who have lost all intelligence can be led by idiots like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. People who have intelligence can’t be led by such people. These people are insane. In a better world, there won’t be any possibility of Adolf Hitlers. The moment there is somebody like that he will be put in a mental asylum: he has to be treated, he is mad. But right now these mad people have become very influential. Their very madness makes them powerful. They are so mad that the people who are not so mad start following them. They look like leaders.People are different only in degrees. Somebody is more mad than you and you are a little less mad than him; of course, one who is more mad than you is going to be your leader. He will be more stubborn, more dogmatic, he will appear more determined, he will appear to have more willpower, he will have a certain hypnotic influence, but that is possible only if you have lost all your intelligence.My effort here is to give you back that which is really yours. I don’t want you to become part of any religion. I simply want you to be religious – neither Christians nor Hindus, nor Mohammedans – just religious. That is enough; there is no need to choose a particular doctrine. Religion has nothing to do with doctrines, it is more existential.Unless you love life you will not be able to love God. If he is the creator you have to love his creation to love him. To hate his creation and to show love to the creator is absurd. To condemn the creation and to praise the creator is utterly stupid, illogical, unintelligent. If you love the music, only then do you love the musician, or vice versa. And this existence is so beautiful.Except in man you will not find any sadness anywhere. The trees are not sad and the animals are not sad and the stars are not sad, even rocks are not sad, only man – because only man has been manipulated, exploited, distracted from his center.Yes, Masta, when I see you laughing, loving, rejoicing, dancing, singing, I feel like lingering a little longer in the body for you.I have given you the name Anand Masta. Anand means bliss and Masta means mad – madly blissful, utterly drunk in blissfulness. Very few sannyasins are so deeply fulfilling their names as you are doing. I am absolutely happy with you, all my blessings are for you. Get more and more drunk.God is not far away. Just when you lose yourself in love he is as close as he can ever be. When you lose yourself in dance, when you abandon yourself in dance, when the ego disappears in your dance, he is just your partner in the dance, nobody else but him. Whoever the partner is, he is the partner. When your heart is throbbing with joy and ecstasy in singing, he is in your heart, at the very core of your being. And when you laugh, if the laugh is total, if every fiber of your being is laughing…That’s why I love jokes. Jokes are very religious, very spiritual. All jokes are spiritual because they suddenly trigger a process in you and you forget all your seriousness. For a moment you are again an innocent child, again full of wonder and awe, and the laughter overwhelms you, you are drowned in the laughter. The ego is not found when you are deep in laughter, and whenever ego disappears, God is.Remember it as one of the most fundamental laws: whenever the “I” is absent, God is present; they cannot be present together. The relationship between the ego and God is just like the relationship between darkness and light. If light is present, darkness cannot be there, because darkness is nothing but the absence of light. How can there be presence and absence together? If darkness is there then light cannot be there.There is an ancient parable:After many, many millions of years, Darkness approached God and told him, “This is too much! I have been patient enough, but for no reason at all your Sun goes on torturing me, chasing me every morning. I have not even taken enough rest and he is back and the chase begins. And I have to run and he goes on running after me. Now it is getting tiring. I have not done anything wrong to this Sun. Why is he after me so much? Why is he carrying such enmity for me?”God also thought, “This is unfair!” And he called the Sun. The Sun came and said, “I don’t know what you are talking about. Have you gone mad or something? What Darkness? I have never come across any Darkness. I have never seen her, I have never met her, so of course, why should I chase your Darkness? I don’t even know her! Where is she? Bring her before me. And unless you bring her before me, how can I answer? Both parties have to be present in court. First I have to see who this Darkness is who has been complaining against me, and with whom I am not even acquainted. All these millions of years since you have made me I have never seen her, I have never met her. I don’t even know her whereabouts.”And God said, “That is right. I will call her.”Since then, millions of years have again passed and God has been trying. You have heard that God is omnipotent – he is not, because he has not been able to call both of them together yet. Yes, sometimes Darkness comes and complains and sometimes the Sun comes and says, “This is unfair, let us both be present.” But even God is not capable of making that happen. So it is just pending, it is in the files. One day, just looking in the files I came across it, and I think it is going to remain forever in the files.Darkness and light cannot be present together. The ego is just darkness; absence of consciousness is ego. When you become conscious, ego disappears. When consciousness is total, ego is not found at all. And the totality of consciousness is another name for the experience of God.God is not a person. Let me remind you again and again that God is only an experience of absolute awareness, of ultimate ecstasy. Hence I say laugh deeply, love deeply, live deeply. Risk everything for love, laughter, life. Let your life be a great exploration and go on always moving into the unknown and the unknowable.Nobody else has used jokes in a spiritual way; hence sometimes people are shocked. When they come to listen to me for the first time, naturally they are shocked because they want to hear something very serious, as if they are not serious enough already. They want to hear something esoteric, something nonsensical, something which makes no sense to them; then they think there must be great meaning in it. When something is incomprehensible to them they think this is great philosophy. Whenever they come across something written in stupid jargon, esoteric, occult, spiritual, they become very interested. They think they are going to find some treasure in it.The treasure is not hidden in big words, the treasure is hidden in you, and it is not to be discovered through big words. It is to be discovered through wordlessness, it is to be discovered through silence.Haven’t you felt after deep laughter that a sudden silence comes to you in the wake of it? – the silence after a storm. For a moment it is as if the mind stops functioning; you are utterly relaxed, in a deep rest.Those are the moments, Masta, when you start feeling the presence of God. Those are the first glimpses that God is. There is no other proof.Hence my commune is going to remain a shock to the traditional people. They have seen many spiritual communes, but they were all serious. Jesus will understand what I am saying, but not the pope of the Vatican, because these fools go on saying that Jesus never laughed. And I tell you, on my own authority, that he must have been one of the most hilarious persons. Who else can laugh so beautifully as Jesus? Who else has the right? He was not a deadly kind of saint; he lived, and lived very close to the earth. He lived with all kinds of ordinary people – with drunkards and gamblers and tax collectors and prostitutes – and he loved eating and drinking.Indian spiritual phonies are very much against drinking. That’s why they cannot believe that Jesus is enlightened. Many Jaina monks have asked me, “Why do you say that Jesus is enlightened, as Buddha and Mahavira are? He used to drink wine!” There is nothing wrong in it, one just has to learn the art of drinking wine. One should not drink too much; the golden mean has to be followed. Nobody has ever heard that Jesus was lying in the street. He must have known how much to drink and when to drink and when not to drink.Moreover, wine is absolutely vegetarian; far more vegetarian than milk which Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist monks think is the purest food. It is animal food, closer to non-vegetarian food than to vegetarian food. It is part of the human body or the animal body. Wine has nothing wrong in it. If one is foolish one can drink too much water and can get into trouble. So it is not a question of drinking.What is wrong with enjoying eating? He must have enjoyed eating because we have many references that every night with his disciples the gathering used to continue late into the night with eating, drinking. And do you think he was eating and drinking and they all were eating and drinking and everybody was sitting serious and somber and saintly? Is this the way to drink and eat and enjoy it? They must have been telling jokes and they must have been gossiping and they must have been talking like human beings.He was very human in that sense, far more human than Buddha and Mahavira. They look more abstract, more in the sky and less on the earth. He was very earthly. He used to stay in the house of a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. Now, your Vatican pope will not have that much guts. Even though he is a Polack, that much guts I don’t think he will have.But when these people who think themselves spiritual come here, they come with their ideas, their prejudices that there should be no laughter, no dancing, no singing. And when they see sannyasins hugging, then this is too much – as if there is something wrong in hugging. When they see people holding hands with deep love they are shocked. Spiritual people should be very anti-life, utterly life-negative; they should not affirm life in any way. And my whole effort here is to affirm life in all possible ways.Masta, a few jokes for you:Once there was a little girl who came across the word frugal and asked her mother what it meant. She was told that it meant “to save.” The next day the child was asked to write a story at school, and handed in the following:“Once upon a time a princess was lost in the woods and as night fell she became frightened. She began to run, crying out, ‘Frugal me! Frugal me!’“A passing prince heard her pleas and ran to her rescue. He frugaled her and they lived happily ever after.”“Hey, Giulio, where did you get the black eye?”“Aw, I was at my girl’s house,” explained the young lover, “and we was-a dancing together real-a tight-a when her father walked-a in!”“So?”“So,” said the Italian, “the old-a guy’s deaf-a. He couldn’t-a hear the music-a!”A Texas cowboy was walking down a Tijuana street. Suddenly young Pablo walked up to him and yanked on his sleeve.“Hey, meester,” said the boy, “you wanna make love to my seester?”“Podnah,” said the Texan, “Ah don’t even drink the water here!”The second question:Osho,You said that for Buddha freedom is the highest. But his “dhamma” means “the law,” which inhibits freedom. How do freedom and law go together? Please comment.Freedom for Gautama the Buddha is the very law of life. Hence there is no contradiction. Life itself is rooted in freedom. We are not machines, we are not preprogrammed. We are utter freedom, and it is up to us what to make of it. All the alternatives are open, we can choose any alternative, that is our choice. We can become anybody; it is our choice.It is as if you find a marble rock – now it depends on you what you want to make out of it. You can sculpt a Christ, you can also sculpt a Judas. The rock is totally available to you; now you have to decide, it is your decision, your conscious decision, what you want to make out of it.Michelangelo was passing by a shop which used to sell marble. Outside the shop he saw a big marble rock which he had seen lying there for years. He asked the owner, “What’s the matter? Can’t you sell it?”The man said, “I have dropped the idea. I can’t sell it. Nobody is ready to purchase it, it is useless. I have thrown it out. But if you are interested you can take it free of charge so at least my place will be empty and I can put other rocks there.”Michelangelo took the rock with him, and after one year he invited the owner to see. The owner could not believe his eyes; he had never seen such a beautiful Jesus. He said, “How could you do it? You are really a magician! That rock was utterly useless; no other sculptor was ready to take it even free of charge.”And Michelangelo is reported to have said, “It has nothing to do with me. When I was passing, Jesus called out from the rock saying, ‘I am imprisoned here! Help me to get out of this rock!’ And I have just removed the unnecessary chunks, I have freed him.”But a Michelangelo is needed to hear it, to hear the Jesus inside the rock calling him to help him to be freed.A rock is just a rock; it depends on you what you make out of it. That’s what existentialists say: that man is born absolutely free. In the ancient days, philosophers used to think that man is born with an essence. Existentialists say man is born only as an existence, with no essence. He has to create the essence out of his own choice, and I perfectly agree with the existentialist approach.Buddha is the first existentialist of the world and far more truly an existentialist than Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jaspers and others, because after all these existentialists are only thinkers: they think about existence. Buddha really transformed himself. He was not talking about the essence – he created it, he showed the world what man can make out of himself.Gurdjieff used to say that man is not born with a soul. The meaning is the same. It looks very strange when you hear for the first time that man is not born with a soul. The soul has to be created, man is born empty. And millions die only as hollow emptinesses. Their souls are never born because they never make any effort. The old idea is that everybody is born with a soul; it frees you from the great responsibility of creating your own being, of creating yourself. When there is no responsibility to create, you go on living accidentally, like driftwood.Buddha says freedom is the very law of life. What he means by it is that there is nothing higher than freedom. But by the word law, please don’t misunderstand him. In fact for dhamma, the word law is only approximately right. In the English language there is not exactly the right word for dhamma. In Chinese there is the word Tao that exactly means dhamma. The closest word in English is logos, but that has gone out of use. Hence the law is used, but law has other associations: the ordinary law of the state, of governments, of societies. That is not the meaning of Buddha. Of course, these laws are inhibitions; they prohibit you, they hinder you from freedom.Buddha is saying freedom is the only real law and anything that hinders your freedom is against the law of life. Be free. All those laws which destroy your ultimate freedom of life have to be broken, sabotaged. You have to take your life in your own hands. You are responsible for it. No fate is responsible, no destiny is responsible. You have to create yourself by your own effort.You are just a tabula rasa. You can write beautiful poems on it, beautiful calligraphy; you can do beautiful paintings on it; or you can leave it as it is. Or you can simply throw colors on it, meaninglessly, in an insane way, like a small child. You can destroy the whole thing. And there is nobody else who is responsible except you; the total responsibility is yours.That is the most emphatic thing that Buddha wants you to remember: don’t shirk your responsibility. Whatsoever you are is your own work and whatsoever you want to be, you can be. But you can be that only if freedom is the law of life. If everything is destined, if there is something like fate, if there is something which has been preprogrammed in you, then you are not a man at all, then you are just a biocomputer. You are simply going to repeat the program, you are a gramophone record. You don’t have any freedom, you can’t change anything. You are just playthings in the hands of unknown forces.Buddha says this is not true. Hence he even denies the existence of God, for the simple reason that if God is there then there will be trouble; then he will be the suprememost being. His very presence will become an inhibition to you.That’s exactly the logic of Friedrich Nietzsche. He said: “God is dead, therefore man is now free.” But Nietzsche was only a philosopher. He could not contain that much freedom. He went mad.Buddha is not a philosopher at all, he is a mystic. He used the freedom. He really became responsible for himself. He created his own being and he became the most beautiful person who has ever lived on the earth. He followed the law of freedom and achieved the ultimate joy, the ultimate truth.You can do the same too. That is his message. He says, “Whatsoever has happened to me can happen to you. If it is not happening, nobody else is responsible except you.” So take the total responsibility in your own hands, feel and be responsible, and use the law of freedom because it is available. Life has been given to you with no preprogram; now it is up to you what you want to make out of it. You can become an ugly monster – a Genghis Khan, a Tamerlane, a Nadirshah – or you can become a Gautam Buddha, a Jesus Christ, a Lao Tzu, a Zarathustra. It all depends on you, it is your freedom. Choose.But you can choose only when you are conscious; you can choose only when you are aware, alert. The more aware you are, the more you are capable of choosing the course of your life. The more aware you are, the more you know, the more you can feel a sense of direction.Freedom is the foundation of life and freedom is the ultimate goal too. Freedom is the source and freedom is the goal. Use freedom to be free from all bondage. Use freedom to become ultimately free. Use freedom to become freedom itself.The third question:Osho,I-a never-a thought-a it would-a come-a to this-a, but-a I wish-a I-a were-a an-a Italian!Much-a love-a and-a pasta, Bigga Prema.Bigga Prema, avoid such desires, because if you carry them too long they start becoming a reality. Then don’t make me responsible for it. Be very careful what you desire, because the danger is that the desire may be fulfilled sooner or later.I love Italians – as much as I love others – but naturally many people are feeling jealous of Italians, for the simple reason that I am telling so many jokes about Italians. But the reason is not that I love Italians more than the Dutch or the Australians; the reason is simply that my librarian happens to be Lalita, an Italian, so she goes on finding Italian jokes for me. So rather than you desiring to be an Italian, just desire that I may get one assistant for Lalita from every country. In the new commune, I am thinking Lalita must have at least a dozen assistants. But beware of having this desire.Do you know why they hang salami at Italian weddings?To keep the flies off the bride.And do you know who fired the bullet into Mussolini’s body?One hundred top Italian marksmen.Bianco, the barber, nicked his customer six times while shaving him. Finally the bleeding man asked if he could have a razor.“Why?” asked the Italian. “You wanna shave-a yourself?”“No,” said the victim, “I want to defend myself!”Collared by the cops after he roared up a one-way street and crashed his 1949 Ford into a store window, the Italian drunk wanted to know what the hell was going on.“You went against the traffic, you dumb bastard,” the angry cop said, “Didn’t you see the arrows back there?”“Holy Mother-a Jesus!” the boozed-up guinea said. “I didn’t even see the Indians!”If you really want to change in your next life, in the next round when you come back, Bigga Prema, rather than being an Italian, be a Polack! Now you see, the Polack has become the pope – he has defeated all the Italians. Now if a Polack can become a pope, the next thing is that a woman is going to become a pope-a.Why do Polack dogs have flat noses?From chasing parked cars.And why can’t Polacks be pharmacists?They can’t fit the little brown bottles in their typewriters!And do you know what is written on the bottom of Polish milk bottles?“Open at other end.”Wojawicz walked into the department store with his mangy mutt. A floorwalker rushed over, pointed to the sign that read, No dogs allowed and said, “Hey, mister, can’t you read?”“So,” said the Polack, “who’s smoking?”Just the other day all the orange Italians and all the orange Polacks gathered together to decide who is really the greatest. Of course, there was no question of intellectual discussion; it had to be something existential. So they decided to go to the football ground by the side of the railway station and play football – whoever wins…For two hours everything happened – except football. Karate chops were flying and boxing and wrestling and Dynamic Meditation and Kundalini Meditation. And they had forgotten completely that they needed a few referees as well; there were no referees at all.After two hours even the football lying by the side started laughing! “What is happening?” Then a train passed by and hearing the whistle of the train the Italians thought the game was over, so they left the ground, thinking, “We are equal and the game is over.”But the Polacks were bent upon winning, and now, because the sun was going down, the game became even fiercer. And finally after one hour’s effort the Polacks were able to score one goal – without the Italians, of course, but that doesn’t matter.So if you want to be something really great, it is better to be a Polack rather than an Italian. Why choose something second-rate?Milewski was trying to light a match. He struck the first match, it didn’t work, he threw it away. He struck a second match. That didn’t work either and he threw it away. He struck a third one and it lit up.“That be a good one,” said the Polack, blowing it out. “I got to save it!”A Polack and a Jew were walking in the desert. The Jew was carrying a watermelon, the Polack was carrying a car door.After a while the Polack said, “Why are you carrying that watermelon?”The Jew said, “So when it gets too hot I cut it open and eat a piece of it.”After a while, the Jew said, “And why are you carrying that car door?”“So,” said the Polack, “when it gets too hot I just roll down the window!”The fourth question:Osho,A while ago I wrote to you about being confused, and you said you were taking care. Now since then I have got even more confused! What are you doing to me?!Prem Asang, taking care! That’s my way of taking care. You get confused because you are carrying certain ideas and prejudices in the mind. If you don’t carry any ideas, any prejudices in the mind, even I cannot confuse you; nobody in the whole world can confuse you. Confusion arises from your own inner causes.For example, if you believe in a certain idea and I say something against it, then there is confusion. You cannot leave the old idea; it is so old, it has got so many roots in you and you have lived with it so long that it has become comfortable and cozy. You have believed in it so long, it has given you so many consolations, that now suddenly to drop it will mean moving in a state of insecurity; it has become your security and safety.But listening to me you cannot cling to it anymore. You cannot drop it and you cannot cling to it, hence the confusion. You cannot cling to it anymore because what I am saying appeals to you, your heart understands it. Deep down something in your inner being says, “Yes, it is so.” Between your heart and head a conflict ensues; that is confusion.Confusion simply means that now you are unable to decide where to go: to go on clinging to the old, which will be impossible because now you have seen that it is not right, that you have been clinging only to a comfortable lie. It is not true, and your heart feels that it is not true, although it gives you consolation. Lies can give you consolation, they are very consoling; otherwise nobody would believe in lies. Everybody believes in lies for the simple reason that they are cheap and give you great consolation. You need not make any effort to realize them. They are handed over to you by others: by your parents, by your teachers, by the society, by the atmosphere. You simply go on gathering from everywhere, from every source.You are living in a sandcastle; but everything goes well – unless somebody tells you that it is a sandcastle. Once you have heard that it is a sandcastle, the problem arises: you cannot live in it anymore, it is dangerous to live in it. And you cannot get out of it because you have become so accustomed to it; hence the confusion. Confusion simply means you are unable to decide.Unless you become decisive, Asang, the confusion will go on growing. My work consists in creating confusion in you, because without creating confusion I cannot pull you out of your sandcastles, I cannot pull you out of your paper boats, I cannot pull you out of your lies and dreams. And I know perfectly well that when you have put so much investment in a certain belief – maybe you have lived for thirty years, forty years in a certain belief – to see now that it was wrong, that it was utterly stupid, that it was ridiculous, creates a great problem for you. Your self-image of being intelligent is shattered. For forty years you have carried something ridiculous without seeing it. What kind of intelligence do you have? You become suspicious of your own intelligence and that doesn’t feel good.That’s why to be with a master needs courage. To be with a master needs the courage to accept “I don’t know.”The moment you accept, Asang, “I don’t know,” all confusion will disappear, evaporate, simply evaporate – just as dewdrops evaporate in the early morning sun leaving no trace behind them. The confusion is because you are clinging to a few things which in the past you thought were very valuable. You thought that they were ornaments, golden, studded with diamonds, and now I have made you aware that they are nothing but chains, maybe golden chains and maybe studded with diamonds, but what are diamonds but only stones. And what is gold? The difference exists only in man’s mind, otherwise gold and iron are the same. The evaluation is ours, the projection is ours. But chains are chains and the chains have to be broken. Now the things you have believed were ornaments, decorations, are persistently being shown to you as nothing but chains.Either you will have to escape from me… But remember, escaping won’t help you. Once you have been on my surgical table it is better to go through the whole operation. If you escape in the middle of the operation you will remain confused your whole life, because whatsoever you have understood from me is not going to leave you, it will haunt you. So there is no escape from me.Once you are with me you have to learn the ways of transformation, you have to go through a radical change. You have to die to the past and be born anew. It is hard, it is painful. Every birth is painful, and spiritual birth particularly is very painful. There are no sedatives available. For spiritual birth one has to go through many pains, but those pains are worth it because you grow out of your imprisonments; you grow into freedom, you grow up.And once you have tasted the joy of growing up, of becoming mature, then there is no problem. Then you know that all that you have left behind was worthless, was rubbish.But, Asang, this moment has to be passed through. This critical moment has to come in every disciple’s life when the disciple is in a kind of limbo, neither here nor there, half in the past and half moving with me, many times thinking to escape.Just the other day Somendra asked a question: “But, Osho, where is the exit?” There is no exit here. It is one-way traffic. You only come in…we don’t have another door, only the entrance. Then you have to be reborn; that is the only exit. But the exit is not in escape, it is in “inscape.” It is going inward.Asang, I am taking as much care as you can tolerate at this moment. I will take more. The medicine is bitter and it has to be given in small doses. This is not homeopathic treatment, remember, this is pure allopathy – it is pure poison. It is crucifixion, because only then is there resurrection. But that too takes three days. Between the crucifixion and the resurrection there are three days. Remember those three days; they are significant, very significant. Those three days are the most difficult days.Just think of Jesus: three days in the cave, neither dead nor alive. He couldn’t have been completely dead because once you are completely dead you are gone. He was not completely alive either; otherwise he would not have remained for three days in the cave, he would have escaped sooner. He must have been hanging between these two polarities of birth and death.Those three days are significant, they are symbolic. Those three days represent body, mind, heart. You have to die in the body, in the mind, in the heart; only then can you be born as a soul. You have to pass through this dark night of the soul. This is the womb period, those nine months in the mother’s womb. In exactly the same way, the disciple has to be in the womb of the master. This buddhafield is nothing but a womb. You are in the womb. It depends on you: if you go on clinging too long it will take a long time for you to come out.In India we have many beautiful stories about Lucknow. Lucknow is the most mannerly city in India, very mannerly; too much in fact, so it is said. Once it happened…A woman got pregnant and she was carrying two children within her womb, and they wouldn’t come out. Nine months passed, then nine years passed, then ninety years passed…Finally the woman died and the doctors had to open the womb. Two small, ninety-year-old gentlemen were standing there and they were saying to each other, “Sir, you first!”Don’t take that much time – here you need not be that mannerly. Jump out of the womb as quickly as possible because the spiritual womb has no natural time – nine months or nine years – it all depends on the individual. It can happen in a single moment or it may not happen in an eternity.Asang, I am taking care of you, and as you become a little more available to me, a little more patient, a little more capable of absorbing my energy, I will take more care of you.Just a few days ago I was going to call you one night as a guest medium, but Arup informed me, “The first time you called Asang as a guest medium, for many days she was almost in a state of craziness, so please don’t call her so soon.” So I had to drop the idea.If you are ready, you can come tonight. But then don’t get too insane for many days. Try to absorb me. The more capable you become, the more I will confuse you till nothing is left to confuse, till the mind is completely gone and there is nobody to confuse.That’s what happens to my disciples who have been here long enough. Now, whatsoever I say, they listen joyously without making any comparison, without making any judgment, without any evaluation. They don’t think of what I said yesterday, because if they think of that they start becoming confused. So they live in the moment with me. I live in the moment, and once you have understood how to live, you will also live in the moment with me. Then there is no confusion, then there is all clarity, and clarity is innocence and clarity is freedom.The last question:Osho,What is your dogma?I believe you must be a tourist here; otherwise you cannot ask such a question. I don’t have any dogma. In the first place I don’t like dogs at all! And dogma means mother of dogs! Neither do I like any sonofabitch, nor do I like any mother of dogs! There are Christian dogmas and Hindu dogmas and Mohammedan dogmas, and what do they do? They go on barking at each other. I don’t have any dogma at all. Even my kids understand it here, my small sannyasins. You can ask them.Upachara has informed me:Just heard on the steps in front of the office. Five sannyasin kids are having a serious talk. One of them says, “Osho is not even a sannyasin!”Enough for today.

https://oshoworld.com/osho-audio-discourse-english-d/

The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

https://oshoworld.com/the-dhammapada-vol-12-07/

He is calm.In him the seed of renewing lifehas been consumed.He has conquered all the inner worlds.With dispassionate eyehe sees everywherethe falling and the uprising.And with great gladnesshe knows that he has finished.He has woken from his sleep.And the way he has takenis hidden from men,even from spirits and gods,by virtue of his purity.In him there is no yesterday,no tomorrow,no today.The master is calm, but with a difference. Many people are calm, but they are not masters. Calm can be cultivated very easily from the outside; it will deceive others, but it cannot deceive existence. Deep inside you will remain in turmoil.Hence, the first thing to be understood is that Buddha is never in favor of anything cultivated. The moral preachers, the moralists, are continuously telling people, “Be this, be that. Try to be calm, practice calm.” For thousands of years these things have been told to you; these qualities have been praised, appreciated, worshipped. Naturally you try to be calm and quiet and collected, but when you practice something it simply means you are creating a facade, you are just creating a face. It can’t transform your being, it is just an exercise. Yes, it will help you to be more prestigious, to be more respectable; people will look up to you as a holy man. But in fact you have become schizophrenic, you have become a split personality. You are divided; your surface says one thing, your inner reality is totally the opposite. You will live in a continuous civil war, you will be continuously at daggers with yourself.It is hell to be a saint in this way. Sinners may go to hell after they die; your so-called saints live in hell here and now. There is no certainty about the future hell, but the saint’s hell is very much a reality.Never try to cultivate any quality. Then what has to be done? Should one remain violent, disturbed, insane? No, Buddha says there is another way, the right way. The right way is that these things should come as consequences of inner awareness. The magic of awareness is that the more you become alert, naturally, the more a calm surrounds you. You need not cultivate it: it follows you like a shadow, it is simply your vibe. You are surrounded by a subtle aura of peace, serenity. When you are aware inside, there is a grace radiating from your being. That grace is spontaneous, not cultivated. And when something is spontaneous it has tremendous beauty. It is not an artificial flower, it is not a plastic flower; it is something that has grown in you, that has bloomed in you. It is your own flowering. It has fragrance because it has roots in your being.Unless calmness comes as a shadow of awareness, beware of it. It is false, it is utterly futile. The whole effort that you have put into cultivating it has been a sheer wastage. The same effort could have been put into becoming aware.That is the difference between morality and religion. Morality is a social phenomenon; society needs it because society consists of millions of people. It has to keep a certain order, a certain discipline; otherwise there will be chaos. Morality keeps that order. Morality creates a conscience in you. And conscience functions as an inner policeman who does not allow you to do anything that is against the law, or against the code, or against the tradition. Society has imprinted in your heart certain ideas and now you are dominated by those ideas. Even if you go against those ideas they will torture you, they will become a nightmare to you. If you follow them you will feel you are not tortured so much.So the immoral person finds himself in two difficulties. One comes from the outside because he starts losing people’s respect. In this world respect is the most valuable thing in people’s eyes because it is nourishment for the ego. The moment you lose respect your ego starts dying, your ego is hurt, your ego is wounded. Secondly, something inside you starts creating an inner torture for you – your conscience. That conscience is also created by the same society.Hence, society pressures you from both sides, outer and inner. You are just crushed between these two rocks. So cowards cannot be immoral people; cowards are always moral people. In fact they are not moral but only cowards: they cannot be immoral because they are cowards – it is too dangerous, too risky. And the moral people, the so-called moral people, live a superficial life. They are bound to live a superficial life because their conscience is not their own, and if their conscience is not their own, what else can be their own? They don’t possess even their own conscience, what else can they possess? They are the poorest people in the world.They are not moral because they understand the beauty of being moral; they are moral simply because they don’t have guts enough to be immoral. They follow the dictates of society and conscience just out of fear. There is fear of the law and there is fear of hell; there is fear of the policeman and there is fear of God. They are constantly trembling, their life is nothing but a constant trembling. Their prayers arise out of that trembling, and naturally those prayers are false because they are fear-oriented. Even their conception of God is nothing but a projection of their fear.That’s why these people are rightly called God-fearing people. They are not God-loving people. And remember, one who fears God can never love God, and one who loves God need never fear. Fear and love can’t exist together, it is impossible. Their coexistence is not possible in the nature of things.But society pays you enough to be moral, gives you as much ego as it is possible to give, and not only here but in the afterworld too. There are also places, special places reserved for you in heaven. The sinner is suffering here and will suffer in hell also. The so-called saint is respected here and he is going to be respected in the other world.This is a strategy, a very subtle psychological strategy, of society to exploit you. But because of this strategy you have completely lost track of real morality: a morality that is not dictated by fear, a morality that does not arise out of cowardice, a morality that is not fear-oriented.A totally different vision of morality has been given by the buddhas, by the awakened ones of all the ages. Their vision is that real morality comes not out of conscience but out of consciousness. Become more conscious, release more conscious energy in your being, explode into consciousness, and then you will see you are living a life in absolute attunement with existence. Sometimes it may be in tune with society and sometimes it may not be in tune with society, because society itself is not always in tune with existence. Whenever society is in tune with existence you will be in tune with society; whenever society is not in tune with existence you will not be in tune with society.But the really moral person never cares, he is even ready to risk his life. Socrates did that, Jesus did that. Buddha was constantly living in danger. This has always been the case, for the simple reason that they were living according to their own light. If it fits with society, good; if it does not fit with society it is bad for society, but it has nothing to do with the buddhas. Society has to change itself. Socrates is not going to change himself, Jesus is not going to change himself according to society, Buddha is not going to live according to the crowd. The crowd consists of blind people, of utterly unconscious people who are fast asleep, who know nothing of themselves. To follow them is the most stupid thing in the world that a man can do. One should be intelligent enough to wake up one’s own consciousness.Religion consists not of conscience but of consciousness. Hence, even an atheist can believe in morality. Of course, in Soviet Russia or Communist China they have to follow a certain code of morality. They may not believe in God, but they have to enforce morality on people. In fact, they have to enforce it even more because the fear of God is lost. Now the state has to be really very dangerous, because that is the only fear which will keep people confined within the boundaries of morality.It is not accidental that the Soviet government and the Chinese government don’t allow any freedom; they cannot allow it. Capitalist countries can allow a little freedom because God is there to help. You allow a little freedom, God won’t allow that freedom – it compensates. But in a Communist country there is no God so there is no fear of the supreme, the ultimate, and no other life, so there is no fear of hell.Communist governments have to create hell here, right now, so they create concentration camps; they use Siberia as a substitute for hell. And they have created all kinds of very complicated tortures, all kinds of inhuman tortures. Even the Devil himself can learn much from them. Now in Soviet Russia if you don’t agree with the society you are immediately declared a mental case – not that you are politically of a different opinion, no, that is impossible. There can’t be any possibility of somebody being politically different from the government policy, from the authoritarian principles, from the recognized ideology. Only an insane person can think that he is different. How can you go against Marx, Engels and Lenin? Impossible! This unholy trinity rules absolutely. The Soviet government is totalitarian; it has to be because it has to function in such a way that the fear of God has to be replaced by something; otherwise people will become unmanageable.Communist governments are bound to become totalitarian. They cannot be democratic – it is impossible, because who will do the work of keeping people afraid and trembling? Unless they accept God and hell… God and hell are very helpful because they do almost all of the work. For a religious person – a so-called religious person – that fear is enough to hold him back, and the rest can be done by the government, but that is a lesser part, not more than twenty or twenty-five percent. Seventy-five percent of fear comes from the psychological creation of a conscience. In a Communist country there is no question of conscience, and of course the question of consciousness does not arise at all because no such thing as meditation is accepted.A few people in Soviet Russia have become interested in my way of thinking. They have started meditating, but they have to meditate hidden underground in their basements. They cannot tell anyone else that they are meditating because meditation means you have gone insane. “There is no need to meditate at all. Why should one meditate? There is no soul to experience, no God to experience. Man is nothing but a by-product of matter. When death comes all ends, nothing remains beyond death, nothing abides.” So consciousness cannot be allowed because meditation is not allowed: meditation is the science of releasing consciousness. And conscience cannot be created because the old ways of creating fear are no longer accepted. The whole work has to be done by the government. Of course the government becomes ugly, the government becomes a monster.But the same is happening in other countries too – in more subtle ways. Communists are gross; the capitalist countries, the so-called democratic countries, are not so gross, they are subtle, but they do the same thing. They keep you tethered to the crowd, but in such an indirect way that it needs great intelligence to become aware of the fact that you are chained. Those chains are invisible.Religion really consists in creating a different kind of morality: not the so-called ordinary morality, but a morality which is spontaneous, a morality which arises by itself and is not imposed, a morality which is a consequence of your own intelligence.Buddha is talking about that when he says: “The master is calm.” He means that he has gone deep into his center, he has penetrated his being to the very core, and he has settled there. Now he is at rest. All hustle and bustle has dropped, all running hither and thither has disappeared. Now he knows there is nowhere to go. He has arrived home, he has found his ultimate shelter, the ultimate refuge. Now he knows, “This is my shrine.” Sitting in that shrine he is absolutely calm. You cannot see where he is, but you can feel his calm. You can feel him like a cool breeze, you can feel him as a shower of silence. If you come close to him, suddenly you will be touched by something invisible. Your heart will start dancing. Not that he has done anything to you, but your mind can deceive you, your mind can start rationalizing.Just the other day I was reading a manuscript. A woman came a few months ago, a friend of Pankaja and Savita. She came here just to see what had happened to Pankaja and Savita. Pankaja is a well-known novelist and has published beautiful novels. Suddenly she became a sannyasin and dropped her beautiful career. There were great possibilities: she could have become world-famous. She was on the way, becoming more and more known. Not only did she become a sannyasin, she never went back to England. Not only that – rumors must have reached England that now she functions in the ashram as a toilet cleaner. Her friend must have been puzzled, what had happened to her?Then Savita also disappeared. She was also doing well in her profession. She was a therapist, earning a lot of money and moving ahead. And she also never returned to England.Their friend came here just to see what was happening to these people, thinking that they must have been hypnotized. What else can the mind think? The simple explanation comes to the mind: “These people have been hypnotized.” Otherwise why should one leave one’s prosperous career, a good livelihood, a career which was full of possibilities? Why should one suddenly leave? Either one has gone insane or one has become hypnotized.She came here just to observe what is happening. Then she also became a sannyasin. But she escaped immediately – I gave her the name Kanan. She escaped. Now she writes a book about the whole experience and she says, “I don’t know what happened, why I became a sannyasin. There is something which pulls you. There is something intangible – one cannot figure out what exactly it is – but something like hypnosis.” She infers, “It may be in the eyes of this man or in the sound of his voice that one feels to become a sannyasin. Even I became a sannyasin, but then I became very much afraid: now I am being pulled the same way into this orange whirlpool in which Pankaja has disappeared, Savita has disappeared. It is better to go before I am too much in it and escape becomes impossible. I escaped. I dropped sannyas immediately because I was afraid – carrying this man’s mala and his picture around my neck was dangerous. Who knows what is hidden in it?”Now, this woman thinks she is very clever, she thinks she is very rational, she thinks she has done the right thing. All that she has done is she has missed an opportunity which comes only once in a while; maybe for many lives she will not come across such a man again.There is no hypnotism. Nobody is trying to pull you, nobody is trying to influence you. But certainly there is a fragrance which affects you, which affects you deeply. There is a calm which goes into the heart and stirs the fast-sleeping heart into a kind of wakefulness. But if you are too much in your dreams, and you have invested too much even in your nightmares, you may become afraid of being awakened. You may miss the opportunity, you may escape from the opportunity. But then you try to rationalize. You have to rationalize, otherwise how will you console yourself?Now, by writing this book she is trying to convince herself that she has done the right thing. She has done the most stupid thing in her life.The opportunity is still not lost, Kanan. Wherever you are in the world my eyes are reaching there too, and whatsoever I am saying here, the sound of my voice goes on resounding around the earth. If you have even a little bit of intelligence you will be pulled back into the orange whirlpool.He is calm.In him the seed of renewing lifehas been consumed.He has conquered all the inner worlds.What has happened in the master? What has really happened in the inner world of the master? Buddha says: “The first, most fundamental thing is that the seed of renewing life is burnt, utterly burnt, is consumed in the fire of awareness.” Yes, awareness is a fire. It burns all that is rubbish, but it also purifies all that is gold. It does two things: burns the rubbish and purifies the gold. It is alchemy.“The seed of renewing life” is desire. Buddha used to call it tanha. Tanha means one wants to be born again and again, one wants more and more. In this life you want more and more, but that more is never fulfilled. When you are dying, all desires are standing there unfulfilled so you start desiring another life, one more chance.There is a beautiful story, a great parable, in the Upanishads:One of the great kings, Yayati, was dying. He was one hundred years old, ripe enough to die – one should be ready by that time – but not grown-up enough; the seed of renewing life was not yet burnt. So when death came, Yayati fell at the feet of Death – a great king, a great conqueror! – and he said to Death, “Spare me only one hundred years more. I don’t ask for more, just one hundred years more. And it is nothing for you, you can do it. All my desires are still unfulfilled because I had never thought about you. I was simply preparing and preparing. I have not enjoyed my life. Now that everything is ready – I have conquered the whole world, I have all the riches, the most beautiful women, the most intelligent and courageous sons, the best army in the world, everything is settled, all my enemies killed. I was just thinking to relax and enjoy. Is this the time to come? All these hundred years have been spent simply in preparing for these moments. Spare me just one hundred years more so that I can live to my heart’s content.”Death laughed and said, “I am ready to spare you one hundred years more, but I will have to take one of your sons because I have to go with somebody who resembles you; if not you, at least one of your sons. I can’t go empty-handed, I have to give the account to my boss himself. He will ask, ‘Where is Yayati?’ What am I going to say? Such a thing has never been done before, but I feel sorry for you. Just ask one of your sons.”Yayati had one hundred sons; he must have had nearabout one hundred wives too. He asked his sons. The oldest was eighty, but he started looking downward, was not ready to say yes. Why should he? He had lived only eighty years; if his father is not contented with a hundred years, how can he be contented with only eighty years? He is entitled to live at least twenty more years. In those days, the story says, people used to live a hundred years. Why should he die a premature death, an untimely death? And this old fellow has lived enough. He did not want to hurt the old man so he didn’t say anything, he kept quiet.The father was very much shocked; he used to think that his sons were ready to sacrifice themselves. But in this world nobody is ready to sacrifice himself for anybody else. He looked around. His sons also started looking at each other, meaning “Why don’t you go?”The youngest, who was only twenty years old, stood up and he said, “I am ready. Take me with you, I am coming with you.”Even Death felt sorry for the boy. Death came close to the young man and asked, “Are you a fool or something? Your other brothers – one is eighty, one is seventy-five, one is seventy, sixty, sixty-five, fifty – these people are not ready to go and you are the youngest, you have not lived at all. Why are you ready to go?”The young man said, “If my father could not live in a hundred years, if my eldest brother could not live in eighty years, if my other brothers… Nobody has been able to live, then the whole project is nonsense. I don’t want to waste time. If I have to die it is better to die now. Why wait for eighty years? If these people have not been able to manage, it is absolutely certain it is unmanageable. Let my father try a hundred years more.”Death tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t listen. Death had to take him away.After a hundred years, Death came back and the situation was the same. Again Yayati fell at his feet and started crying and weeping and he said, “I know that now I should be ready, but nothing is fulfilled yet; all the desires are the same. I have lived all the desires, I cannot say that I have not lived them, but nothing is fulfilled. I want more. Now that I have lived a hundred years a new desire has arisen. I want more! I want to live at least one more time, a hundred years more, just one more time.”And this went on happening again and again. When Yayati became one thousand years old and Death came, he was just going to fall at his feet. Death said, “Wait – enough is enough! Can’t you see the point, Yayati? Are you so blind? You have lived one thousand years, and you have been doing the same things again and again. You have done nothing new in these one thousand years, and still you want more? Can’t you see the simple point that mind lives in the more, it goes on asking for more? There is no end to it. Now come with me, I am not going to listen anymore. Now even my boss is feeling angry with me. He says, ‘This is too much, this man has been given too much time.’ But I also wanted to try – to see what you could make out of one thousand years. You have not made any progress, you are exactly in the same place, going in circles.”Buddha calls this tanha – going in circles – this constant desire for more. One becomes a master when this desire for more disappears, when the seed is burnt in the fire of awareness. He is calm. Then of course he is calm.When there is no desire, when the winds of desire are no longer blowing, there are no waves in the inner ocean, then the ocean becomes absolutely calm. In fact, the ocean is not the cause of waves – the cause is the invisible winds. You see the waves in the ocean so you think the waves are caused by the ocean; they are not. The waves are caused by invisible winds blowing over the ocean. If the winds stop, the ocean will be absolutely calm.Why are you in turmoil? Why are there constantly so many waves inside you, so many thoughts and so many memories, fantasies? Why does this whole circus go on? For the simple reason that there are invisible winds of desire blowing upon you.The watchful person, the intelligent person, becomes aware of the root cause: it is in the winds, the winds of desire. He stops desiring. Seeing the futility of desire he drops desiring. The seed is burnt and then there is calm. This calm is not the calm of your so-called polished, cultured man. This calm is totally different, its quality is different, its source is different – it comes from the innermost core. The buddha is calm because the winds are not blowing anymore. And they cannot blow because the very seed has been burnt. He has conquered all the inner worlds. There are worlds upon worlds inside you too, just as outside there are worlds upon worlds. Scientists go on discovering new solar systems, new stars, new galaxies of stars, new milky ways. They go on discovering, there seems to be no end. There seem to be universes and universes unending. So it is in the inner world: there are also many planes and many universes, but all are rooted in a single seed.Out of a single seed a big tree can grow. You can’t see it in the seed, but if you put it in the soil soon a tree starts growing. A small seed can bring such a big tree with such thick foliage that hundreds of people can sit underneath it, thousands of birds can make their nests in it. Millions of seeds will grow in this tree, and each seed contains again millions of trees, and so on and so forth. The scientists say a single seed can make the whole earth green; not only this earth but all the earths in the universe can be made green by a single seed. What potential!You are all carrying frozen seeds within you which are just waiting for their right opportunity. Maybe you have forgotten completely about a certain desire because there has not been an opportunity to provoke it. That’s why monks and nuns and the traditional sannyasins used to escape from the world, simply to deceive themselves. When they went to the caves in the mountains they were going away from the opportunities where they would have become aware of the seed, where the seed would have had a chance to grow.But remember, the seed is there whether you give it a chance to grow or not, and the seed can remain there for years; for lives it will wait. Give it an opportunity, an accidental opportunity, and immediately the seed becomes alive. The seed can remain frozen, almost dead for millions of lives.I am absolutely against escapism for the simple reason that if you want to burn the seed the best place is in the world, in the marketplace, because there are all kinds of opportunities. You cannot avoid seeing the seed and seeing it means you have to do something about it. If you stop seeing it, if you put a seed on a rock, you will forget about the seed because it cannot grow on the rock.That’s why monks and nuns used to move to the monasteries, nunneries; those were rocks. And they chose to be in the mountains. Have you observed that all the monasteries of the world have been made in rocky mountains, not beautiful mountains where there are great trees and animals and birds – because there is danger: even two birds making love is enough of an opportunity to give you the idea. Just two animals in foreplay, and the monks and the nuns will have a great desire arising in them. Suddenly the seed will start sprouting. So they chose to be in rocks, utter rocks where not a tree grows. Or the monasteries were built somewhere in the desert. All Christian monasteries were made in the desert. The ancient Christians lived in the desert, for the simple reason that, in a desert, life is so absent, so utterly absent, that you can forget all about it.Jaina monks chose mountains, but ugly mountains, just rocks and nothing else, because anything beautiful can create trouble. The distant call of a cuckoo can drive you cuckoo! – because it has a sexuality of its own, it has a sensuality of its own, it is a sensual call. Do you know that it is the male cuckoo who is calling? The female simply waits for the male to come closer. Yes, she gives hints: “I am available,” and yet keeps herself very aloof, very proud – available, but not so easily available either.Have you seen in the animals one strange phenomenon? – that it is always the male who is taking the initiative. The peacock with beautiful feathers is the male; one should have thought otherwise, but it is the male not the female. The female has no feathers; the female is ordinary, does not look so beautiful. The male looks very beautiful and he dances with a great exhibition of all his feathers – they are really beautiful feathers – and he dances a great dance. He tries to allure.Something strange has happened only in man; it seems unnatural. In fact, ornaments should be used by men, not by women. Men should use more colorful clothes than women. There is no need for women to bother about anything else, just to be female is enough. That’s the whole story of nature if you look around: all the strategies have been used by males.The monks and nuns have to be protected, but this kind of protection is not going to help. Even if the seed can remain protected for many lives it is there, it is not burnt yet.An old maid had been going to sit in the park each day for years. As she fed the pigeons, which always roosted and fluttered around the bronze statue of a young Apollo, her eyes would wander over his nude form and she would dream of holding him alive in her arms.One day as she sat there, a good fairy took pity on her.Appearing by her side, the fairy offered her three wishes. Without delay the old maid began, “First I want to be young and very desirable.”This was no sooner said than done.“Second, I wish that the statue of Apollo would come to life.”A wave of the fairy’s wand and instantly he sprang down from the pedestal, vibrantly alive. The new voluptuous maid faltered and began to blush. Fluttering her eyelashes coyly she murmured, “I would like to give the third wish to Apollo.”Turning to the naked young god, the good fairy said, “What is your wish?”“I want to shit on a pigeon,” he answered.Now the marble statue had been carrying this seed maybe for hundreds of years. Those pigeons were continuously doing this thing to him. Waiting, waiting, waiting… One day the time arrived – all that he wants to do is this.Buddha says: He is calm. In him the seed of renewing life has been consumed. He has conquered all the inner worlds. There are three worlds, and within those three there are many worlds within worlds. The first is the world of the body, the mysteries of the body. The second is the world of the mind, the mysteries of the mind. And the third is the world of the heart, the mysteries of the heart. And each contains many worlds. Because of these three layers there have arisen three Yogas, three sciences. One is Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga means going into the mysteries of the body. And the body has many mysteries; if you go into the mysteries of the body they are unending. You can go on and on forever, it is an infinity in itself.But that is not the way to freedom and that is not the way to nirvana: you are caught in a new net. You are no longer interested in money and you are no longer interested in being a president, you are no longer interested in worldly name or fame, but now your whole interest is how to become a superman, how to attain the powers that your body contains. For thousands of years so many yogis have been wasting time in that.Buddha is not concerned with that type of inquiry at all. He wants you to cut through it. He wants you to remember that if you go into the mysteries of the body, you may be able to walk on water, you may be able to walk in fire, but what is the point of walking on water or in fire? It is simply stupid. Even if you can walk in fire, so what? What is gained? You can fly in the air like a bird, so what? Birds are doing it already – nothing special.Three yogis were eating their lunch on the seventeenth-floor girder of a new skyscraper. They were working on their bodies, talking about it continuously, discovering new mysteries.“Wow,” said the second man, who was new on the job. “I see why you guys like to eat your lunch here. The view of the city is beautiful!”“Yes, the view is nice,” said the first man. “But do you want to know why we really like to eat lunch here?”“Yes,” said the new yogi.“Well,” explained the first, “there’s the most incredible updraft right at the fourth floor, and when we finish lunch we like to jump off and ride back up on that air current. It puts you right back on the very spot you jumped from.”“Bullshit!” said the second man. “I don’t believe you.”“You don’t?” said the first, putting down his coffee thermos. “Then I’ll show you.”He jumped. Down he went, and sure enough, right at the fourth floor – whoosh! He was turned back and landed on the seventeenth-floor girder on the exact spot from which he had leaped.“Wow!” said the second man in total amazement. “That beats the hell out of hang-gliding or anything! Let me do it next!”He stood up and jumped. Down he went – then fourth floor, third floor, second floor… Splat! All over the sidewalk! Finished!Back up on the seventeenth floor, the third man, who had been silent until now, turned to the first and said, “You know, Superman, sometimes you’re a real prick!”What is the point of it all?Buddha is not interested in the Yoga of the body, neither is he interested in the Yoga of the mind – Mantra Yoga and other methods which work on the mind and create mental powers, siddhis. Yes, you can do miracles – you can read others’ thoughts, but are not one’s own thoughts enough? You can predict others’ futures, but what is there to predict? It is going to be almost the same as their past.Just the other day a sannyasin had been to some very famous Hindu astrologer, and the astrologer said to him, after great deliberation, brooding, thinking about his chart and meditating about his future, that in this lifetime he cannot become enlightened. Now, this much can be said by any fool about you, because a man who goes to an astrologer to ask about his future is bound to remain unenlightened. That is enough proof. And what does that foolish astrologer know about enlightenment? Is he enlightened? You should have asked him, “What about you? Are you enlightened, and still doing astrology?”Because of these fools I have to appoint Kabir here. Why go to other places? Somebody right on the spot is available here. Kabir makes beautiful charts, very colorful. He is doing a good job. Fools need…what to do? And if they are going to go somewhere, it is better to finish them here.Only fools are interested in the future. The intelligent person is interested only in the present. And enlightenment is not predictable; enlightenment is absolutely unpredictable. It is such a mysterious phenomenon that there is no possibility of predicting it.But now this idea has been put into his head. Now he will feel at ease: “This time it is not going to happen, so why bother?” So this man will stop meditating, he may even think of dropping sannyas. What is the point when you are not going to become enlightened this lifetime? “So we will see next lifetime when the time comes, we will meditate again and become enlightened.”But I tell you one thing: next lifetime you will go again to an astrologer. I can predict it right now, and last time also you had done this. Are you really interested in becoming enlightened or not? Why go on finding excuses? And people can find any kind of excuse – people are great rationalizers. Now you have a reason not to meditate – because this time around it is not going to happen, so why waste time? But then how is it going to happen? And why should you go to an astrologer in the first place? Even stars are not enlightened! At least one thing is absolutely certain: that enlightenment is not determined by any causes, it is a sudden phenomenon. Your death may be predictable, your illnesses may be predictable, your foolishnesses may be predictable, but not enlightenment. You see? [At this moment the video lights suddenly come on!] How does it happen? – for no reason at all!Somebody asked Picasso, “You seem to be so interested in art studies in the nude. Why?”“Well,” said Picasso, “I guess it’s because I was born that way.”One can always find some reason.Julie: “And if I refuse you, Edward, will you kill yourself?”Edward: “That has been my usual custom.”The third world is of the mysteries of the heart, Bhakti Yoga. First is Hatha Yoga, second is Mantra Yoga, third is Bhakti Yoga. Buddha says: “Go on cutting across them; don’t move sideways, otherwise you will be lost in the inner worlds.” Hence Buddha is neither interested in Yoga, nor in mantra, nor in bhakti, devotion, prayer – nothing. His simple interest, one-pointed interest, is awareness.And I absolutely agree with him because that is the only possibility for you to get rid of all this nonsense that you have been living for millions of lives. And you will go on repeating it, because just by living through it again and again you don’t become intelligent. You change a little bit, but the basic foolishness remains the same.A telegram arrived at the army camp saying that Private Smith’s father had died. The sergeant was told by the colonel to break the news gently to Private Smith. With the colonel watching, the sergeant went over to the private and said, “Smith, your father died.”The colonel called the sergeant over and said, “If it ever happens again you must be more gentle – break the news easier!”Two weeks later another telegram arrived saying that Private Smith’s mother had died.The sergeant lined up the whole platoon and said, “Anyone who has a mother take two steps forward… Not so fast, Private Smith!”Now, just the strategy has changed, but it is the same. And that’s what has been going on in your life, life after life. You change a little bit, of course, in the details, but the fundamental foolishness persists.With dispassionate eyehe sees everywherethe falling and the uprising.One who has become aware sees everywhere only one thing: that everything is born and dies, everything begins and ends, that everything is a flux. Nothing is worth clinging to, nothing is worth holding, nothing is worth possessing, because it is bound to disappear sooner or later. Hence he remains nonpossessive. He moves through the world detached, calm, cool, seeing …everywhere the falling and the uprising. He knows things come and go; he watches. When something arises he watches and knows perfectly well it will go. Misery comes – he is not worried because he knows it will go. Happiness comes – he is not excited because he knows it has come, it will go.With dispassionate eye… Awareness gives him a new kind of eye, a new vision – dispassionate. He simply looks with no desire; it is a totally different vision. When you look with no desire, the world appears totally different. When you look with desire you are confined in your desire and you color everything according to your desire.“What are you thinking about, John?”“The same as you, Jane.”“Oh, if you do, I’ll scream!”Not even a single word can you hear which is not colored by your inner processes of thought.A farmer persuaded one of his cowhands to buy two raffle tickets for which the draw was to be held that night at a dance. The next day the cowhand asked the farmer who had won the draw.“Oh, I won the first prize,” said the farmer. “Aren’t I lucky?”“And who won second prize, farmer?” asked the cowhand.“My wife won that. Wasn’t she lucky?”“Arr, she were that. And what about third prize?”“Oh, my daughter won that. Wasn’t she lucky? By the way, you haven’t paid me for your tickets yet, have you?”“No,” replied the cowman. “Aren’t I lucky?”Everybody is looking with his own world of desires, expectations, passions, lust, greed, anger. There are a thousand and one things standing between you and your world; that’s why you don’t ever see it as it is.Once your eye is completely clean, clean of all the dust… Once it becomes a pure mirror, it reflects that which is. That is truth – and truth liberates, but it has to be your own. My truth cannot liberate you, Buddha’s truth cannot liberate you. There is only one possibility of liberation and that is your own truth. All that you have to do is to create a dispassionate eye.And with great gladnesshe knows that he has finished.He has woken from his sleep.The master is glad that he is finished with all the nonsense, with all the stupidity, with all the games of life. He is glad that he is finished, he is out of it, he has transcended. He has woken from his sleep.Willie D. left Harlem to visit friends in Mobile. On his second night there he met Laura Mae, a beautiful lady whom he soon led out in the woods. As they prepared to make love, Willie removed his pants and hung them neatly on a tree.“You must be from the North,” said Laura Mae.“Right on, baby,” said Willie, “but how could you tell?”“A Southern boy don’t hang up his clothes ’cause when we’re finished we’re gonna be three miles from here!”These games are there… And where are your pants and where are you? Three miles away! Where are your senses? Where is your intelligence? You must have hung it up somewhere and you have completely forgotten where.The nurse took the gentleman standing by the bed of a woman in the maternity ward aside and asked, “Would you like to see the baby?”The gentleman nodded. “Looks just like you!” she enthused when they finally came out of the baby room.Later the nurse told the woman about her husband’s delight at seeing the baby. The woman was horrified. “Husband? My husband is on duty in the next town and hasn’t arrived yet to see the baby! That man was here to collect the overdue installment on my refrigerator!”People are asleep. What is happening to them is almost accidental. Why you have fallen in love with somebody is accidental. Your birth is accidental, your death is going to be accidental.Buddha says: “The master looks at everything falling and rising, rising and falling.” All are accidents. There is only one thing which is not accidental, which is intrinsic, and that is your awareness of it all. That awareness makes you awake.The couple evolved a perfect plan for spending their time. One night a week he goes out with the boys, the other six nights she does.Here is a flash from Detroit: they have come up with a fast car with equally fast brakes – you can come to a standstill in just the car’s length from a hundred miles per hour. It is equipped with a device which automatically wipes your remains from the windscreen.Altie and Big Bertha stood before the altar. Big Bertha weighed two hundred pounds, her groom a mere one hundred.“Does you take dis woman for your lawful wedded wife?” asked the minister.“Ah takes nothin’,” replied Altie. “Ah’s bein’ took!”Just watch your life, what is happening.After a long, boring sermon, the minister asks Sandy, “Well, how did you like my sermon, Sandy?”Sandy replies, “Oh, a bit like outer space, Minister.”“What do you mean, ‘a bit like outer space’?”“Well,” says Sandy, “plenty of it but not much in it!”And that’s exactly what your life is: plenty of it, but nothing much in it. Just accidents and nothing else. You have not yet known the intrinsic. That’s what Buddha calls sleep.He has woken from his sleep. The master has come to see that which is eternal in him. He has come to see his own consciousness, he has become aware of his own awareness. And that is the ultimate truth, the ultimate awakening.And the way he has takenis hidden from men,even from spirits and gods,by virtue of his purity.…the way he has taken… is invisible. It is not that of fasting; people can see that you are fasting, starving, killing your body. It is not that of torturing your body, it is not that of distorting your body through so-called Yoga postures. The way of the buddha is so subtle; nobody can see it except you yourself – unless you come across another buddha. Only another buddha can see it because it is simply the way of being watchful. How can anybody else see it? It has no ritual.Buddha’s religion is tremendously beautiful – no ritual, no so-called ordinary religious performances – simply, you remain watchful. But that is something inside you, nobody else can even detect what you are doing. You can be driving your car, you can be sitting in your office and you can be doing it. It is not even deep breathing; others can feel that you are doing some deep breathing. It is simply vipassana, it is simply watching, watching everything – outside, inside.Buddha has given the purest way and the simplest and the subtlest, but the most fundamental. He has given the golden key, the master key which can unlock all the mysteries of life and existence.In him there is no yesterday,no tomorrow,no today.Time has disappeared, because when you become absolute awareness there is no time left. Not only yesterdays disappear – they disappear first. In that order they disappear.In him there is no yesterday… First yesterdays disappear; you become more and more unconcerned about the past. What is gone is gone, only fools care for it. And there are fools who are so worried about their past that they even write letters to me.One man from Switzerland has written a letter just the other day, saying, “Seeing your picture and reading a few of your books I have recognized you, that we have met in our past lives. I recognize you absolutely. I am sending my picture, do you recognize me? If you recognize me, then I will come.”I have told Laxmi, “Inform that fellow that I don’t recognize anybody from the past. The past is finished. You have not read my books and you have not seen me yet. And why should you be concerned about being recognized – that I had seen you in the past? What purpose is it going to fulfill?” Some ego-fulfillment is involved: “…then I will come” – if I recognize him, recognize that I have seen him in the past.Now, this type of foolish person is caught by people like Muktananda. They will immediately say, “Yes, we have been together in the past. You have been a disciple to me in the past too and you were working so beautifully and you were growing so high. Just a little bit is left that can be done now, so get initiated into Siddha Yoga.”The past exists nowhere. Many people write to me, “Give us methods so that we can remember our past lives.” What are you going to do? Even if you remember that you were Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, how is that going to help in any way? It will create more complications. You are already in such a mess.That’s why nature closes the door every time you die. This is great compassion, otherwise you will be born mad. Remembering all your past lives you will be in such a state that it will be impossible for you to function at all – because your mother may have been your wife in the past life, and in another life she may have been your daughter. Now, how to behave with her? – as your mother, as your wife, as your daughter? You will get very confused.There is no need to bother about the past. As you become aware, the first thing to disappear from your mind is the past, and the past is one third of the mind. It is the very base of the mind, the foundation. Once it disappears, then the whole building starts collapsing.The second to go is tomorrow. When there is no yesterday you cannot conceive of tomorrow. Tomorrow is nothing but a projection of yesterday. You would like to live the joys of yesterday again tomorrow, and you would like to avoid the miseries of yesterday. That’s what your tomorrow is. If yesterday is gone, tomorrow is finished; soon it will disappear.And when yesterdays are gone and tomorrows are gone, where is today? It exists between the two. If both the banks have disappeared, the river itself will disappear. If both the banks have disappeared, the bridge will disappear. Chunk by chunk in three pieces, time dissolves: first the past, then the future, and finally the present. Then you are left with no time, a state of timelessness. And this, Buddha says, is nirvana.To experience timelessness is to experience deathlessness. To experience timelessness is to experience that which really is. It is neither past nor present nor future: it simply is. It cannot be confined to any compartment, into any category; it cannot be categorized. You simply experience each moment with tremendous peace and silence and joy. And each moment becomes so fragrant, so alive. Each moment becomes such a benediction that it is impossible to imagine it, it is impossible to describe it. One has to know it, to know it; there is no other way. Nobody can explain it to you. It is not expressible, it is not explainable. It is the greatest mystery. When time disappears, mind disappears, what is left? That which is left, that vastness is your real being – in Buddha’s words, your nonbeing, your no-self.Jesus will call it the kingdom of God; that is a positive way of describing it. And Buddha calls it a state of cessation – all has ceased. And with great gladness he knows that he has finished. He has woken from his sleep.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What is innocence and what is the way to become innocent?Innocence is your very nature. You do not have to become it, you are already it – you are born innocent. Then layers and layers of conditioning are imposed upon your innocence. Your innocence is like a mirror and conditioning is like layers of dust. The mirror has not to be achieved, the mirror is already there, or rather, here. The mirror is not lost, it is only hidden behind the layers of dust.You don’t have to follow a way to reach your nature because you cannot leave your nature, you cannot go anywhere else. Even if you wanted to, it is impossible. That’s exactly the definition of nature: nature means that which cannot be left behind, that which cannot be renounced. But you can forget about it. You cannot lose it, but it can be forgotten.And that’s exactly what has happened. The mirror is not lost, but forgotten because it is no longer functioning as a mirror. Not that any defect has arisen in it, just layers of dust are covering it. All that is needed is to clean it, to remove those layers of dust.The process of becoming innocent is not really a process of becoming, it is a process of discovering your being. It is a discovery, not an achievement. You don’t attain to something new, you simply attain to that which you have always been. It is a forgotten language.It happens many times: you see a person on the road, you recognize him, his face seems familiar. Suddenly you remember also that you know his name. You say, “It is just on the tip of my tongue,” but still it is not coming to you. What is happening? If it is just on the tip of your tongue, then why can’t you say it? You know that you know it, but still you are not able to remember it. And the more you try, the more difficult it becomes, because making an effort makes you more tense, and when you are tense you are farther away from your nature, you are farther away from that which is already there. When you are relaxed you are closer; when you are utterly relaxed, it will surface of its own accord.So you try hard, but it doesn’t come, so you forget all about it. Then lying down in your bath, or just swimming in the pool, and you are not even trying to remember that man’s name when suddenly it bubbles up. What has happened? You were not trying to remember, and you were relaxed. When you are relaxed you are wide, when you are tense you become narrow – the more tense, the more narrow. The passage between you and that which is inside you becomes so narrow that nothing can pass through it, not even a single name.All the great scientific discoveries have been made in this very mysterious way, in this very unscientific way, so to speak.Madame Curie was working on a certain mathematical problem for three years continuously and the more she tried, the farther and farther away the solution seemed. She tried every possible way, but nothing was working, nothing was happening. And there was somewhere a deep, tacit feeling: “The solution exists. I am not struggling with something absurd.” This tacit feeling continued all the time as an undercurrent; hence she could not drop the effort either. She was getting tired – three years wasted for a single problem. But deep down within herself somebody was saying, “The solution is possible. This exercise is not futile. Go on.” And she went on stubbornly, she persisted. She dropped all other projects, she forced herself totally into the one problem. But the more she tried, the more impossible it became.One night it happened, almost as it happened to Gautama the Buddha; of course, the problems were different, but the process was the same. Buddha had struggled for six years to attain enlightenment and he had attained nothing. Then one night he dropped the whole effort, went to sleep, and, by the morning when the last star was setting, he became enlightened.That night Madame Curie dropped the idea, the whole project – she closed the chapter. “Enough is enough! Three years wasted is too much for one problem.” There were other problems which were waiting to be solved. It was finished in her mind, although the tacit understanding was still there just like a constant murmur. But she had followed it long enough, it was time. One has only a limited time; three years is too much for one problem. Deliberately she dropped the idea. As far as she was concerned she closed the whole project. She went to sleep never to be bothered by that problem again.And in the morning when she got up she was surprised. On a piece of paper on her table, the solution was there, written in her own handwriting. She could not believe her eyes. Who had done it? The servant could not have done it – he knew nothing of mathematics, and if Madame Curie had not been able to do it in three years, how could the servant have done it? And there was nobody else in the house. The servant had not entered in the night, the doors were locked from inside. She looked closely and the handwriting resembled hers.Then suddenly she remembered a dream. In the dream she had seen that she had risen, gone to the table, and written something. Slowly, slowly the dream became clear. Slowly, slowly she remembered that she had done it in the night. It was not a dream, she had actually done it. And this was the solution. For three years she had been struggling hard and nothing was happening and the night she dropped the project, it happened. What happened? She relaxed.Once you have dropped the effort you become relaxed, you become restful, you become soft, you become wide, you become open. It was there inside her, it surfaced. Finding the mind no longer tense, it surfaced.Innocence is there, you have simply forgotten it; you have been made to forget it. Society is cunning. For centuries man has learned that you can survive in this society only if you are cunning, and the more cunning you are, the more successful you will be. That’s the whole game of politics: be cunning, be more cunning than others. It is a constant struggle and competition as to who can be more cunning. Whosoever is more cunning is going to succeed, is going to be powerful.After centuries of cunningness man has learned one thing: that to remain innocent is dangerous, you will not be able to survive. Hence parents try to drive their children out of their innocence. Teachers, schools, colleges, universities exist for the simple work of making you more cunning, more clever. Although they call it intelligence, it is not intelligence.Intelligence is not against innocence, remember. Intelligence is the flavor of innocence; intelligence is the fragrance of innocence. Cunningness is against innocence; cunningness and cleverness are not synonymous with intelligence. To be intelligent needs a tremendous journey inward. No schools can help, no colleges, no universities can help. The parents, the priests, the society, are all extrovert; they cannot help you to go inward. And buddhas are very rare, few and far between. Not everybody is fortunate enough to find a buddha. Only a buddha can help you to be an intelligent person, but you cannot find so many buddhas who want to become primary school teachers and high school teachers and university professors; it is impossible.So there is a substitute for intelligence. Cunningness is a substitute for intelligence. It is a very poor substitute, remember, and not only is it a poor substitute, it is just the opposite of it. The intelligent person is not cunning; certainly intelligent, but his intelligence keeps his innocence intact. He does not sell it for mundane things. The cunning person is ready to sell his soul for small things.Judas sold Jesus for only thirty silver coins – just thirty silver coins and a Jesus can be sold. Judas must have thought that he was being very intelligent, but he was simply cunning. If you don’t like the word cunning you can call him clever; that is just a good name for the same thing, for the same ugly thing.Society prepares you to be cunning so that you are capable of competing in this struggle for existence, the struggle to survive. It is a cutthroat competition, everybody is after everybody else’s throat. People are ready to do anything to succeed, to be famous, to climb the ladder of success, name and fame. They are ready to use you as stepping-stones. Unless you are also cunning you will be simply used, manipulated. Hence the society trains every child to be cunning, and these layers of cunningness are hiding your innocence.Innocence has not to be achieved, it is already there. Hence it is not a question of becoming, it is your being. It has only to be discovered – or rediscovered. You will immediately be innocent once you have dropped all that you have learned from others; hence my antagonism toward all knowledge that is borrowed. Don’t quote the Bible, don’t quote the Gita. Don’t behave like parrots. Don’t just go on living on borrowed information. Start seeking and searching for your own intelligence.A negative process is needed; it is to be achieved through negation. Via negativa is the Buddha’s way. You have to negate all that has been given to you. You have to say, “This is not mine; hence I have no claim over it. It may be true, it may not be true. Who knows? Others say it is so, but unless it becomes my experience I cannot agree or disagree. I will not believe or disbelieve. I will not be a Catholic or a Communist, I will not be a Hindu or a Mohammedan. I will simply not follow any ideology.” Because, whoever you follow, you will be gathering dust around yourself. Stop following.Here, being with me, you are not my followers, remember. You are friends certainly, but not followers. You are in a love affair with me, but it is not a question of following. My work here is not to teach you something, but to help you to discover yourself. Just drop all knowledge. It hurts because you have carried that knowledge for so long and you have been bragging so much about that knowledge – your degrees, MA’s and PhD’s and DLitt’s, and you have been bragging about all those degrees. And suddenly I am saying to you: drop all that nonsense.Just be as simple as a child. Just be again a child as you were born, as existence sent you into this world. In that mirrorlike state you will be able to reflect that which is. Innocence is the door to knowing. Knowledge is the barrier and innocence is the bridge.The second question:Osho,Can I also become a Gautama the Buddha?Yes and no. Yes because buddhahood is nobody’s personal possession. Gautama does not have it as a personal attribute; he is not the owner of it and he is not the only buddha. There have been many buddhas before him, there have been many buddhas after him. The word buddha simply means the awakened one.You are asleep. Naturally, if you can be asleep you can wake up. One who is capable of sleep is also capable of waking up; the very phenomenon of sleep implies the capacity to wake up. If you are incapable of waking up you will be incapable of sleeping too; they are two sides of the same coin.So, Govind, if you can sleep, if you can dream, you can wake up, you can be a buddha; hence I say yes. But you cannot be a Gautama the Buddha; Gautama you cannot be. You can be Govind the Buddha, but not Gautama the Buddha; that is not possible. Nature never repeats. They say history repeats, and it certainly does repeat because history consists of stupid human beings. What else can they do? They can only repeat. But nature never repeats; it never creates the same person again, the same form again. Nature is immensely innovative.That’s what is meant when we say God is a creator. A creator is never repetitive, he never creates the same painting again and again. He goes on creating something new, he is always on a new venture.Govind, God has never created another person like you and will never create another person like you. He loves individuality, he loves uniqueness. That’s his way of showing respect to you, tremendous respect. It is not only so with human beings: go into the garden, watch the leaves minutely, and you will not find even two leaves exactly the same. Not on the whole of the earth will you find two leaves exactly the same, or two pebbles exactly the same on all the seashores.Everything is unique, everything has its own signature. Just as your thumb is unique and its print is unique – there is nobody else who has the same print – what to say about your soul? Even about such small details God is so careful – or you can say “nature,” if God has lost its appeal for you. If the word God has lost its appeal for you, nature is as beautiful, or existence, or whatsoever you want. Buddha likes the word dhamma – the universal law. Lao Tzu loves the word Tao – the harmony of existence, the inner order.The universe is not a chaos, that much is certain. Whether there is a God or not is irrelevant, the universe is not a chaos. That’s why we call it a universe. It has a certain unity, hence universe, otherwise we would have called it a multiverse. It is not a chaos, there is an order running inside it, a thread which joins everything together. Even the smallest grass blade is joined to the biggest star. Nothing is separate, and yet everything is unique and individual. This is the tremendous beauty of existence: it loves and respects the individual, it nourishes the individual.Hence, Govind, you cannot be Gautama the Buddha, but there is no need to be Gautama the Buddha. That will be ugly, that will be imitative. Never try to imitate because then you will always be only a carbon copy, never something original. And unless you are something original you are not using your life’s opportunity to its maximum, you are wasting it.Don’t be a Christian – be a christ. And don’t be a Buddhist – be a buddha. The Christian is trying to be like Jesus Christ, the Buddhist is trying to be like Gautam Buddha, and this is not possible. What is possible is that you will become an imitator, an actor. And you can act beautifully. You can walk like Buddha, you can talk like Buddha, you can sit like Buddha. You can use the same words, the same language, the same gestures, but still deep down you will be Govind, not Gautam. You will know that all you are doing is just on the outside, and it is ugly because it will create a kind of hypocrisy in you.Hence all Christians are hypocrites and all Buddhists are hypocrites. All followers are bound to be hypocrites because they are divided persons, split persons. Whatsoever they show is only on the surface, and whatsoever they really are is hidden behind. So there is a constant conflict between these two, they live two kinds of lives. Avoid this.I know this desire arises. This desire seems to be very prevalent.Jesus and Moses were playing golf. When they came to a two-hundred-yard water hazard, Jesus took out a five iron club. Moses warned him that two hundred yards were too far for a five-iron, but Jesus insisted, “If Arnold Palmer can make it with a five-iron, so can I!”He hit the ball and it landed in the middle of the lake.“Will you get the ball for me, Moses?” asked Jesus.“Just this once,” he replied, walked over, raised his club, and parted the water. Then he walked out and brought the ball back to Jesus.Again Jesus took a five-iron and again Moses warned, “If you don’t make it, I’m not going to get it for you!”Jesus reassured him, “If Arnold Palmer can do it, surely I can do it!”Again he swung the five-iron and again the ball fell in the water. This time Jesus walked out on the water, reached down, and was picking up the ball when the next foursome came up to the tee where Moses was standing. The leader of the group asked Moses, “Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?”“No,” replied Moses, “he thinks he is Arnold Palmer!”Govind, just be Govind the Buddha. There is no need for you to be Gautama the Buddha. Gautama was beautiful, but it is beautiful once – twice is too much. And what is the point? What will your contribution to existence be if you are Gautama the Buddha? No contribution. Gautama has done it, he has done what a Gautama can do. You cannot improve upon it.Do something that you can do and no Gautama can ever do. God has great hopes for you: he hopes you will contribute something to existence. He never loses hope, that’s why he goes on creating people. Although people go on deceiving, people go on misusing the opportunity, people go on wasting time, but still God goes on hoping. With each child a new hope is born in the world. You have to contribute something that only you can do and nobody else can do, hence you have to do it. Forget this whole idea of being Gautama the Buddha, just be yourself.And that’s exactly what Buddha has taught, that’s exactly his essential message. His last words to his disciples were: “Appa deepo bhava – be a light unto yourself.”When he was dying, naturally thousands of disciples had gathered and they started crying and weeping. The master was leaving, it was natural, and the master had lived with them for forty-two years and they had loved the man, they had loved his vibe. He was one of the most beautiful men who ever walked on the earth. Not only was he spiritually beautiful, physically he was also one of the most beautiful men. About Jesus that cannot be said. He was spiritually beautiful, but the ancient scriptures say that physically he was not beautiful. He was only four feet five inches and, moreover, a hunchback. Buddha was one of the most beautiful expressions physically too, really a lotus flower. And they had all loved him. They had renounced everything and risked everything for this man and now he was leaving. They started crying. One can understand their crying and their weeping and their tears.But Buddha said, “Stop! Stop all this nonsense! Why are you crying? What difference is it going to make? I was not your light, you have to be your own light. And,” Buddha said to them, “it may be a blessing in the form of a curse, because when I am gone you will try to find yourselves. While I was here you were more interested in me; although I was insisting: ‘Go in!’ you were focused on me. Now I will not be here, you are bound to go inside.”And that’s exactly what happened: many people became enlightened after Buddha died. When they were asked, “Why did so many people become enlightened when Buddha died?” they all said, “Now we understand what he meant, that in the form of a curse it is a blessing – because once you have seen a buddha and he is gone there is nothing worth seeing outside. So we closed our eyes.“We have seen all that was the most worth seeing: we have seen the most beautiful person. What else is there? There is nothing worth hearing, worth seeing. We closed our eyes, we turned inward and because Buddha was not there anymore we heard his words for the first time. When he was here we were able to postpone, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. We were so enchanted by his personality, by his charisma. Once he was gone we had to fall back upon our own selves. Maybe that was his last device.”Govind, be Govind the Buddha!The third question:Osho,Are there great differences between the different races of mankind?Essentially there are no differences at all. Essentially there cannot be any differences. The whole of mankind is one species of being. But different races have evolved different qualities. They have lived in different climates, they have encountered different situations, they have passed through different histories; naturally they have learned to behave in different ways.For example, the Jews had to experience a totally different history from anybody else. They have lived for centuries without a country, they have wandered all over the world, they have lived without security, without a home; naturally that has made them very money-minded. When you don’t have a home, when you don’t have a country, then all your security becomes focused on money; then it is only money that can save you. And when you become focused on money, naturally you become more clever than others in earning it. Your whole being turns into a money-making machine. That’s what a Jew is – a money-making machine. Nobody can defeat him in that because they have lived a totally different past.When you are living in your home surrounded by the same kind of people, the same race, protected by the country, by the society, you need not worry too much about money. Even without money you are not going to die, people will support you, you can depend on that. But the Jews had no way to depend on anything else; hence money became their country, money became their religion, money became their home, money became their security. That was bound to happen.In a country like India where for thousands of years everybody has been told to seek and search for his salvation… And, of course, you can seek and search only for your salvation; you cannot seek and search for somebody else’s salvation, that is not possible. The inward journey has to be done in absolute aloneness. But the by-product of it has been that Indians have become very selfish. It was bound to happen. It is an ugly phenomenon, but too much insistence on going inward, extreme insistence on going inward, has made people very selfish, because there is nobody who is yours. That has been the teaching of all the mahatmas: “You are alone. You are born alone, you have to live alone, you have to die alone. Nobody is going with you. All relationships are just superficial, so don’t be bothered by them and don’t invest much in them.” That has made India more selfish than any other country.This is one of the most selfish countries in the world. It is because of this selfishness that India has remained in bondage for thousands of years, because everybody thinks only of himself. So if an enemy comes and conquers the country, who bothers about the country? The country does not really exist; there is no idea of nation in India. Individuals are there, but there is no nation; hence all kinds of quarrels and small divisions and subdivisions arise that you will not find happening anywhere else in the world.Every political party goes on splitting into many, many small fragments. Then those small fragments start splitting into smaller ones, and the process seems to be unending – unless you are your own party. You are the member and you are the president and you are the secretary. When only you are left – alone – only then will the process stop. And who knows whether there too the process will ever stop, because the habit of splitting everything has gone so deep that you may start saying, “The legs are not part of my party, the lower part of my body is not in my party, only the higher. The higher part is superior and the lower is inferior. The higher part means the brahmins, and the lower means the sudras, the untouchables.”Every race has passed through different phases, different climates. This is a hot country. A hot country makes people lazy, so you cannot compete with Indians as far as laziness is concerned. They are utterly lazy and lousy! You cannot compete with them, it is impossible; they will surpass everyone in that. No country can have any superiority as far as laziness and lousiness is concerned. Indians are the tops.Because it is a hot country and the climate is not provoking people to work more, people have remained poor. If one person in the whole family earns then it is enough. If just enough is available to survive, Indians are satisfied, more than satisfied. Of course, they find rationalizations for it, they find great spiritual rationalizations for it. They say, “We are very contented people.” That is all nonsense. The reality is that they are simply lazy and the climate is hot and they don’t want to work, so they have created a philosophy to support themselves: “We are not much concerned about mundane things, we only think of spiritual things.”India condemns everybody as materialist – and those materialists have always been coming and conquering these great spiritualists. All their spiritual power has not been of any use. All their Sai Babas, etcetera, have not been of any help. All they can do is produce ash, holy ash, through their spiritual powers, nothing else. Just ordinary magic tricks, any stupid person can do it; it has nothing to do with spirituality.This country has not been able to create science, technology, because, the Indians will say, “We are so spiritual we don’t bother about creating material wealth.” But they all hanker for it, deep down they all are longing for it. Their hearts are full of desires, but because of their old habit of laziness they can’t do anything.The cold countries became world powers for the simple reason that in a cold country if you want to be alive you have to work. In fact, when the climate is cold it provokes you, challenges you to work; otherwise you will become cold, you will die. You have to work hard, only then can you feel hot and alive. Cold countries became world powers; no hot country has ever been a world power, cannot be. Cold countries easily defeated big, hot countries.England is a small country, not bigger than a small state of India, a small province, but it dominated India easily, very easily, with no problem. It was so simple to dominate. Cold countries become adventurous; Indians have never been adventurous. They will not leave their villages. There are thousands of people in India who have never gone beyond the boundary of their village, and they will never go. But the cold countries started traveling around the world. Now the world is finished, they are trying to reach the stars; they have already reached the moon.Everest is Indian, the mountain is Indian, but no Indian has ever tried to climb it. “For what?” Indians will say. “For what? What is there? It is so futile!” But for a hundred years Western mountain-climbers have been coming and risking their lives; many have died knowing that it is risky. The more risky it was, the more it was a challenge.When Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Everest, was asked, “Why?” – of course by an Indian – “Why did you try in the first place?” Do you know his answer? He said, “Because it is there! It is a challenge. For no other reason. We cannot tolerate this mountain unless we conquer it, it is a humiliation. The mountain stands there so high and goes on telling us that nobody has been able yet to climb up to the top. It is a constant challenge.” But no Indian is challenged by it.Every country, every race has lived in a different way for centuries: climate, situations, history, accidents, ideologies also have made much difference.For example, the Jews would not have been in such trouble if they had not carried this idea that they are the chosen race of God. The very idea has been the cause of all their trouble. If you think you are the chosen people of God, then of course you will be in trouble, because others will start fighting with you and proving that you are not the chosen people. “We are the chosen people. Who says you are the chosen people?” The very idea has been torturing them.But this is something to understand: people love their misery. People are sadomasochists, they always love suffering. So any idea that gives you suffering, you cling to. Jews have suffered so much, but they don’t drop their idea. In fact, the very suffering and the antagonism of the whole world proves that they must be the chosen people of God; otherwise why is everybody against them?So there are great differences on the surface, and the surface is all that comes in contact with others. Intrinsically no two human beings are different; in their innermost core all human beings are just human beings.So, we have to understand both things. Essentially, all human beings are one, but accidentally they are not one. And it is not bad that they are not one. Variety is beautiful, it enriches the world, it makes the world more beautiful. It will be an ugly world where only Hindus live, where only Jews live, or where only Negroes live. It will lose all charm, it will lose all beauty.It is such a beautiful mess… Italians and Polacks and the Germans and the French, and they all have their own ways, their own understandings, and they have all developed different styles.So although everybody, every human being belongs to one species, we have still been able to create a variety – different flowerings on the same bush. It makes the world really rich. I would not like to destroy these differences, I would like to enhance them with this understanding that human beings are human beings. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower; we should drop the idea of hierarchy, but variety is good.Do you know how to recognize an Italian in a submarine? He is the only one carrying a parachute.And how do you recognize the Polack? He is the one running after the Italian to steal his parachute!A colored maid and her white employer became pregnant at the same time and gave birth on the same day. A few months later the white woman came running into the kitchen and exclaimed to the maid, “My baby said his first word today!”In the crib the colored baby sat up and said, “He did? What did he say?”An American couple was touring Europe.As the bus pulled up at yet another famous cathedral in yet another famous town, the wife turned to the husband and said, “You do the inside of the cathedral, dear, and I will do the outside.”An airplane full of tourists is flying from New York to Texas when one of the engines stops working.The captain speaks to the passengers: “Ladies and gentlemen, in order to stay alive we have to throw all the luggage overboard. Then we will have less weight and we will safely reach our destination.”So they do. But a few hours later the second engine stops working and again the captain speaks to the passengers: “Ladies and gentlemen, in order to safely reach our destination we need three persons to jump off the plane.”An Englishman stands up. “Sorry,” he says, “I beg your pardon…but of course…” He turns around to the rest of the passengers, grabs his umbrella and jumps out of the plane shouting, “God save the Queen!”A Frenchman gets up with tears in his eyes. “Vive la France!” he cries and jumps out.A man from India wearing pure white, khadi clothes, looking more like Morarji Desai than Morarji Desai himself, walks through the plane, grabs an old woman by the throat, throws her out of the plane and shouts, “Long live Mahatma Gandhi!”Once a British lady was approached by a German man. As he was quite taken by her beauty, he marched over to her and shouted, “I love you!”She said, “If you really love me, jump off the cliff!”Before he could think, he kissed her hand and jumped.A short time later the British lady was approached by an Italian. He swaggered up to her and passionately whispered in her ear, “Amore mio!”She responded by whispering in his ear, “If you really love me, jump off the cliff.”Coming up for air between kisses he answered, “If you really love me, you must jump with me!”Impressed with his wit, she conceded to make love with him.Still a short while later the British lady was approached by a British man. He made her acquaintance and invited her for tea. After several hours of polite conversation, he said, with some reserve, “I love you.”She answered, “If you really love me, jump off the cliff.”To which he gallantly replied, “Ladies first!”The fourth question:Osho,Is there really no difference between an ordinary person and one who is enlightened?Everyone is born enlightened. Everyone is born absolutely innocent, absolutely pure, absolutely empty. But that innocence, that purity, that emptiness, is bound to be lost because it is unconscious. One has to regain it; one has to gain it consciously. That is the only difference between an ordinary person and the enlightened one.The ordinary person came with the same potential, has the same potential still, but he has not claimed it yet. The enlightened one has lost it and claimed it back. The ordinary person is in a state of paradise lost and the enlightened person is in the state of paradise regained. But you can gain it any moment, it is up to you. Nobody can prevent you from becoming enlightened.It is not a question of any particular talent. Not everybody is a musician and not everybody can be a musician; that is a question of talent. Only a few are musicians and real musicians are born musicians. You can learn the technique; if you go on and on practicing music, sooner or later you will be able to play, but you will still not be a musician. You will only be a technician – one who knows how to play but has no inspiration, one who is not really in tune with the music of existence. Music is not flowing through you naturally, spontaneously.Not everybody can be a poet and not everybody can be a scientist or mathematician; these are talents. But enlightenment is not a question of talent. Everybody is enlightened; to be alive is enough. Life itself is the only need, the only requirement. If you are not dead you can still become enlightened. If you are dead, then of course wait for the next round, but nobody is so dead. People are ninety-nine percent dead, but even if you are one percent alive that is enough. That much fire is enough; it can be kindled, it can be helped. It can be used to create, to trigger more fire in you.The difference between the enlightened one and the ordinary person is not one of talent. This is the first thing to be remembered, because many people think that it is a question of talent. “A Jesus is talented, a Buddha is talented; we are not so talented. How can we become enlightened?” No, it is not a question of talent at all. You cannot become a Michelangelo and you cannot become a Shakespeare unless you are born one, but you can become a Christ, a Buddha.Everybody is entitled to it, it is everybody’s birthright, but you will have to reclaim it. The effort has to be made consciously. You have lost it simply because you were unconscious, and if you remain unconscious, then the difference will remain. The difference is only of unconsciousness.Buddha is as ordinary as you are, but he is full of awareness in his ordinariness. Because of awareness his ordinariness becomes luminous. He lives the same ordinary life, remember. That is another illusion that people are carrying within themselves: that a Buddha has to be extraordinary, that a Jesus has to walk on water. You cannot walk on water, so how can you be a Jesus? A buddha has to be special, from the very beginning.The stories say that before Buddha was born his mother had a few dreams. Those dreams are absolutely necessary. If the mother has not had those dreams before the birth, then the person cannot be a buddha. Now this is sheer stupidity! Joining Buddha with the dreams of his mother is sheer nonsense, there cannot be a more stupid idea.And what kind of dreams? Jainas have different dreams. Before Mahavira is born, the mother has a few dreams. She sees a white elephant, and that is a must. Every tirthankara, every prophet of the Jainas, before he is born has to be preceded by a dream of the mother of a white elephant, as if the son is going to be a white elephant.Buddha’s mother has to see a few dreams, a series of dreams. These are just stories, fictitious, created by the followers afterward. The story is that the mother of a buddha has to die immediately when he is born, she cannot live. How can she live after such a great phenomenon? It is so vast and so big, the experience is such that it is bigger than death, she simply disappears. But Mahavira’s mother lives, Jesus’ mother lives; they didn’t have that idea there. But they have other ideas: when Jesus is born he has to be born to a virgin mother.Now people can go to absurdities, to the very extremes of absurdities, just to make one thing settled in your minds: that Jesus is special while you are ordinary. Now where will you find a virgin mother? You have already missed. Next time maybe you try again to find a virgin mother, but unless you conspire with the Holy Ghost, it is impossible. How will you manage? And then three wise men have to come and a star has to lead them. Now stars don’t do that at all, no star can do it. Stars go on their routes; they cannot lead the wise men from the East to the exact place where Jesus is born in a stable, in a poor man’s house. Stars can’t do that, that is impossible.These fictions have been created just to give the idea that you are ordinary and these people are special. My whole effort here is to proclaim to you that if they are special you are special, if you are ordinary they are ordinary. One thing is certain: you don’t belong to different categories, you belong to the same category.The miracle is not walking on water, the miracle is not walking in fire; the miracle is waking up. That is the real miracle. All else is nonsense.Wake up and you are a buddha. Wake up and you are enlightened. And when you wake up it is not that you will become totally different from your ordinary self; you will be the same person but luminous. You will eat in the same way, but it will not be the same, there will be an intrinsic difference. You will live in the old way, yet it will not be the old because you will be new. You will bring a new touch to everything and whatsoever you touch will start turning into gold, will start turning into something meaningful. Before it was meaningless, now it will have significance and meaning. And it is time that you wake up.The master cannot force you to wake up; the master can only create a situation in which a process can be triggered in you. And any situation can be helpful.Lao Tzu became enlightened just by seeing a leaf, a dry leaf falling from a tree. As the leaf started falling toward the earth, he became enlightened. Now what happened? Seeing the dead leaf falling on the wings of the wind, with no idea of its own, utterly relaxed, utterly surrendered to the winds, he had a glimpse. He must have been in a very vulnerable state. And from that very moment he became a dead leaf in the winds. He surrendered his ego, he surrendered his clinging, he surrendered his own ideas of what should be and should not be. He surrendered all his mind, he simply became a let-go. And that’s how he became enlightened.Anything can trigger the process. The master only creates a thousand and one situations. Who knows what situation is going to trigger the process?Here you are going through hundreds of groups, doing all kinds of meditations, because nobody can predict in what moment, in what situation, what is going to trigger the process. It has always happened in such a mysterious way, it is not a scientific phenomenon. It is not a question of cause and effect, otherwise things would have been easier. You heat the water to a hundred degrees and it becomes vapor. But it is not like that. A few people evaporate at zero degrees, a few people evaporate at a hundred degrees, a few people evaporate at one thousand degrees. People are not matter; people are consciousness, people are freedom, so nobody knows what will trigger the process. Not even the master can say, “This is going to trigger the process.” He can arrange all kinds of devices and he can wait patiently, lovingly, compassionately, prayerfully. And you have to move through all kinds of devices.I am talking to you… Any word may trigger it, or maybe just a pause may trigger it, and suddenly the sleep is gone, the dreams have disappeared. You are born, spiritually born, twice-born. You have again become a child. That’s what buddhahood is, that’s what enlightenment is.You ask me, “Is there really no difference between an ordinary person and one who is enlightened?” There is no difference in the sense that both belong to the same world of consciousness. One is asleep, one is awake; hence the difference. But the difference is only peripheral, not central, not intrinsic, but accidental.Respect the buddhas and that will teach you to respect yourself. Respect the buddhas, but don’t condemn yourself. Love yourself because you are also carrying a buddha within you. You are also carrying a bud which is going to become a buddha. Any moment, any day… It can be now, it can be here…The fifth question:Osho,A German newspaper called you the most famous religious leader after Pope Paul and Khomeini. How do you feel in that company?I would rather be in hell than be in that stupid company – Pope Paul the Polack and Khomeini the Khomeiniac! I have not done anything so sinful in my life to suffer that company. I have no karmas to be punished – that would be a punishment.I have heard…One mahatma, a great saint, died – must have been someone like Muktananda. One of his followers died the next day. When the follower reached heaven, the first thing that he was interested in was, “Where is our guru, our Muktananda? He must be enjoying – he must have been given all the joys that only heaven can provide.”And then suddenly he saw Muktananda underneath a beautiful tree – with whom, do you know? – with Sophia Loren! Sophia Loren sitting in his lap, both naked, hugging each other. The follower fell at the feet of Muktananda. He said, “Guru Deva, O Great Master, I always knew that you were the greatest master; now I am seeing with my own eyes. God is so pleased with you, he has given you Sophia Loren as a reward!”Muktananda looked very angrily at the man and said, “You fool, stop talking nonsense! You don’t understand a thing. She is not my reward, I am her punishment!”I have not committed any sin so I don’t think that I belong to that company. I belong to very ordinary people – drunkards, gamblers, not to such stupid people, full of holy cow dung.But that journalist must think he is praising me. That’s what goes on in the world: people are so unconscious that they don’t know what praise is and what condemnation is. This is condemnation, not praise.Khomeini is not religious at all. Khomeini is the most irreligious person present today. And do you think Pope Paul is religious? If he is religious he cannot even be Catholic, what to say about being Pope Paul? He cannot be a pope. A religious person cannot be a Catholic or a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. These are just politicians playing the same game of power politics in the name of religion.I have seen the article. The article is one of the most positive articles written about me, except for this small condemnation. So the journalist is not really trying to condemn me; in his vision, in his idea, he is praising me as the third most important religious leader.I am not religious in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not a leader at all. I don’t like leading anybody. Certainly I am a finger pointing at the moon, but I am not a leader. You have to do all your walking, I am not coming along with you. I am not going to be ahead of you leading you. You are not to follow me, you have to be your own self. I can simply share my experience.If that experience touches something in you, if that experience makes you aware that life is not what you think it is, that it is far more, that’s enough. If I can create a thirst in you, that’s enough – a thirst for godliness. I am not a leader. If I can create enough thirst in you, then you will seek and search. Those who seek find, and those who search are bound to find, are absolutely, inevitably bound to find. All that is needed is an authentic thirst, a thirst in the very heart, in the very center of your being.But these people are fast asleep. This journalist has never been here, he does not understand anything that I am saying. Otherwise he would not have compared me with Khomeini and Pope Paul.The Prince of Wales was vacationing in Paris. After a sumptuous dinner and many drinks he asked the hotel manager for a beautiful young lady to keep him company during the night. The manager showed him to his room and sent him a young lady.Although the prince was quite drunk he tried to make love with the lovely woman. Each time he tried, however, she would cry out, “Matouska! Matouska!” After several attempts he fell asleep exhausted.The next morning the prince went for a stroll to a nearby village where he noticed some boys shooting marbles into holes in the ground. Suddenly one of the boys shouted, “Matouska! Matouska!”The prince, surprised to hear this word used again, was curious and asked what it meant.One boy answered, “Matouska means the wrong hole.”What more can you expect from a man who is fast asleep and drunk? But he was doing his best – at least he was trying to make love… Missing the target, that is another thing.The sixth question:Osho,What is a father?A father is a Catholic priest – who is neither a husband nor a father; but Catholics are well known to do such strange things. Why they call their priests “father” is really strange. Pope also means “father”; it is another form of “papa.”Father Francesco and Father Viggiani were sitting in a grotto chatting.“Do you think the pope will ever allow priests to marry?” asked Father Francesco.“It won’t happen in our time,” replied Father Viggiani. “Maybe in our children’s.”The seventh question:Osho,Can I also become the president of America?My God, Tom! I believe you must be the same Tom – Tom the Tourist! Now great things are happening to you. Reading your question, for the first time I understood the meaning of the word tomfoolery. I had always wondered, why this word tomfoolery? Now I know.Yes, you can be the president, only I think President Tom won’t look right. Change your name to Banana, Tomato, Potato. Mr. Potato the President – what pure poetry! And I think you have the required qualifications for it. The first thing is, you have to be stupid.You have seen what Jimmy Carter did just two days ago? When Vivek told Asheesh, Asheesh thought it was a joke because our orange people don’t read newspapers. Who cares about all this nonsense? But what he has done is so stupid one cannot believe it. They must have sent their best people for a rescue mission, and what happened is really just great, far out. The two American planes crashed into each other and eight persons died and the rescue mission was canceled. Now the whole world is laughing.But this is bound to happen when you make a peanut grower a president, it is bound to happen. What else can he do? His whole life he was growing peanuts, now he has grown up and become a nut himself.So the first requirement is: you have to be stupid. If you are not, at least pretend to be. That’s what Nixon was trying to do; he was not that stupid, but he pretended long enough. But finally the Americans found out that he was not that stupid; they threw him out immediately. So don’t be caught, continue doing something stupid. If you are caught, the same fate awaits you. Be like Ford, just pure stupidity, unadulterated!I have been trying to find the second requirement for you. I have been doing great research since your question. The second requirement is: you need an ugly wife. This is something strange. Nixon, Ford, Carter, they have such ugly ducklings. It is strange, it cannot be coincidental. Only Kennedy had a beautiful wife, and they killed him, remember. So avoid!Now Reagan has every chance, because just the other day I was looking at his wife’s photograph. I said, “This man seems to have every possibility. Now he can defeat anyone – as far as his wife is concerned he can defeat Nixon, Ford, Carter, all.” And they are sitting together on a sofa and the caption reads, “Reagan is being charged by his wife.” I was simply wondering… This woman can discharge anybody! If you have such a wife, you will renounce the world immediately! And Reagan is being charged by his wife…So these two things I have found – stupidity and an ugly wife. And change your name: become Reverend Banana, Reverend Tomato, Reverend Potato – anything will do. Tom does not look good, it is too ordinary; you need a special name, and then you can become the president. And you have toured enough now. Go back home now, it is time. Carter is losing ground every day, don’t miss this opportunity. Get married to an ugly woman, pretend to be stupid. Learn to laugh for no reason, no rhyme. Just exercise your lips, keep them open as much as possible. And I think you have every possibility, as any other American has. Don’t waste your time here anymore because you don’t belong here. This is not the place. We don’t prepare people to become presidents and prime ministers.The last question:Osho,Buddha says, “The master gives up mischief.” But as I know you, you are par excellence master of mischief! Have you something to say about it?Do you think I need to say something about it? But Buddha had no knowledge of me. When he said that, I was not included in it. When I make sutras, then you will see.Enough for today.

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The Dhammapada Vol 12 01-10Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Dhammapada Vol 12 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,You continually speak of dropping the ego, but how can I do so when I can't distinguish between what is the ego and what is my true nature?The ego cannot be dropped. It is just like darkness; you cannot drop darkness, you can only bring light in. The moment light is, darkness is no more. You can say this is the way to drop darkness, but don’t take it literally. Darkness does not exist at all, it is the absence of light; hence you cannot do anything directly to it. You can only do something to light, either bring light in or take it out. If you want darkness, put the light off; if you don’t want darkness, put the light on. The ego cannot be dropped.Meditation can be learned. Meditation functions as a light, meditation is light. Become light, and you will not find the ego anywhere.If you want to drop it, you will be in trouble because who is this one who wants to drop it? It is the ego itself now playing a new game, the game called spirituality, religion, self-realization. Who is asking this question? It is the ego itself, befooling you. And when the ego asks how the ego can be dropped, naturally you think, “This can’t be the ego. How can ego ask for its own suicide?” That’s how ego goes on deceiving you.Your self-nature has no questions, it needs no answers. Your self-nature is absolutely light, full of light. It knows no darkness, it has never met any darkness.Bodhidharma reached China. He was one of the greatest buddhas of all the ages. After Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma seems to be the most precious person in the Buddhist heritage. When he reached China, his fame had reached far ahead of him. Even Emperor Wu who ruled over the whole of China came to receive him at the boundary. And the conversation that transpired between the two is of immense importance. It has to be meditated upon again and again. It has a tremendous message for you all.Emperor Wu was not only a great emperor, he was very religious too, and he had done much for Gautam Buddha’s message. In fact no other person except Emperor Ashoka had done as much for Buddhism as Emperor Wu had done. He had transformed the whole of China into a Buddhist world. He had made thousands of temples for Buddha, hundreds of monasteries, and millions of Buddhist monks were supported by the royal treasury. He had all the Buddhist scriptures translated into Chinese. Thousands of scholars worked for years, almost their whole lives. He had done great work. Naturally, he wanted to know from Bodhidharma, “What is my merit?”The first thing that he asked Bodhidharma was, “I have done so much, what is my merit? What have I gained? What virtue?”Bodhidharma looked at him very sternly. If you have seen Bodhidharma’s pictures you will be puzzled. He looks more like a lion than like a man – very fierce; his eyes are very penetrating, like swords. He must have cut Wu down to his proper size just by his look.Wu started trembling, he had never come up against such a man. He had conquered many enemies, he had conquered many dangerous kings, but Bodhidharma was the most dangerous person he had come across. It was a cool morning, but he started perspiring.Bodhidharma said, “Merit? Virtue? You are stupid. Now this is the ego, and nothing else, getting nourished and fat in the name of religion and spirituality. You are bound for the seventh hell, mind you!”Wu could not believe his ears, could not believe his eyes. He said, “But thousands of other monks have come from India and they have all said, ‘Wu, you have done a great service to Buddha’s religion. You are a beloved of Buddha, you are blessed by Buddha.’ But you are saying just the opposite!”Bodhidharma said, “Forget all about those monks. They were buttressing you, they were praising you because they knew that that’s what you expected from them. They are cunning and crafty people. They know nothing of Buddha and his message. I am a buddha myself, I am not a Buddhist monk. I speak on my own authority, and I say to you: you are cursed!”Emperor Wu asked, “Do you mean to say there is nothing holy, nothing spiritual, in all these beautiful acts?”Bodhidharma said, “No action is holy, because every action arises out of the ego. When you forget all about actions, when you disappear and things start happening on their own and you cannot claim that they are your actions, only then does something of immense value, of immense beauty, penetrate your life.“Spirituality has nothing to do with doing, spirituality is the fragrance of being, and you are not a being yet. You are still concerned that you have done this, you have done that.“The ego is a doer, your self-nature is a non-doer. Your self-nature simply allows existence to flow through it, it simply allows the ultimate law to function through it. Your self-nature is just a hollow bamboo. In the hands of the ultimate nature it becomes a flute and a beautiful song is born out of it. But the flute cannot say, ‘This is my song. What is my merit? What am I going to gain out of it? To what heaven, to what joys will I attain?’ The bamboo flute is just nothing. Its whole being consists of nothingness. That’s why the song can flow through it, it is utterly empty.”Shocked – but he could see the point – Wu said, “You are the first man who is not impressed by my great power, money, my empire. You are the first man with whom I am feeling that something is possible. How can I drop this ego? Yes, I can understand your point. First, I was claiming a great empire, now I am claiming something of the beyond. But the claim is the same and the claimer is the same. I can see your point. I bow my head to you. I am grateful that you have not been polite to me, that you have hit me hard. You have wounded me, but I am thankful. How can I drop this ego?”Bodhidharma asked, “What ego do you want to drop? Again you want to do something. If you drop it, then the ego will persist. This is the subtle game of ego: if you drop it, the ego starts coming from the back door. It starts saying, ‘Look! I have dropped the ego. Look how humble I am. There is nobody who is more humble than me. I am the humblest person in the world, just dust under your feet.’ But look into the eyes, look into the heart of the man who is claiming that he is the humblest person – it is the same ego. It is not egolessness. Egolessness cannot claim humbleness. Egolessness cannot claim egolessness. Egolessness cannot claim at all, it simply falls silent. It cannot even say, ‘I am not, I am nobody’ because the “I” can exist in any claim whatsoever.”The emperor asked, “Then help me because I cannot get out of this ego.”Bodhidharma said, “Come early in the morning, three o’clock. Come alone, don’t bring anybody with you. And don’t be worried, I will finish it once and for all.”The emperor could not sleep the whole night. “What does this mad monk mean? He will finish it once and for all? The man looks so dangerous, and three o’clock is not the time to meet such a person. He can do anything, he’s so unpredictable. And he has asked that I should go alone.”Many times he decided not to go, but the pull was great, the man had something magnetic. He had to go. At three o’clock he found himself getting ready. He went. Bodhidharma was staying outside the town in a small temple. It was dark, and Bodhidharma was waiting with his staff in his hand.He said, “So you have come, although you hesitated much. You decided many times not to come. You could not sleep the whole night, neither did you allow me to sleep, because I had to go on pulling you. But now that you have come, things can be settled forever. Sit in front of me, close your eyes, go in, and find out where the ego is. And don’t fall asleep because I am sitting in front of you with my staff. I will hit you on the head immediately if you go to sleep. Be alert because when I hit I hit really hard. And if you can find the ego, just show me “This is the ego” and I will finish it. First you have to find it, where it is.”The emperor followed the logic. He closed his eyes. It was impossible to fall asleep. Bodhidharma was sitting there. Even with closed eyes he could see Bodhidharma sitting there, and once in a while Bodhidharma would hit his staff on the ground just to let him know “I am here. You go on searching.”Two hours passed, three hours passed. Wu looked and looked. For the first time he looked inside. In fact, if you look inside and you can remain alert, just for forty-eight minutes… That is the limit. The ego can go on eluding you only for forty-eight minutes, not more than that. This has been the experience of all the buddhas down the ages. Now, don’t ask why forty-eight minutes, because that’s impossible to answer. It is just like at a hundred degrees water evaporates, nobody asks why. Why not at ninety-nine degrees? Why not at a hundred and one degrees? There is no question about it, it is simply so, the law of nature. At a hundred degrees water evaporates. Exactly like that, if you can remain alert and watchful continuously without wavering, for forty-eight minutes, your whole inner being becomes so quiet, so silent, so peaceful, so alert. For the first time there is clarity, transparent clarity. You can see everything that is there.Wu looked and looked and looked and could not find any ego, because ego cannot be found. It is fictitious, it is just your idea, it has no substance in it. It is not even a shadow, what to say about substance? It exists only because you have not looked in. Looking in, you discover your light which is always there, you just have to look in and find it. He was looking for the ego, but he found the light – because the ego is not there and the light is there. He had gone to search for the ego but he found the light. And once the light was found there was no darkness.Three hours passed and the sun was rising, and Wu’s face was transformed. He had a new beauty, a new grace. Bodhidharma laughed and he said, “Now, open your eyes. You have not been able to find it… I have finished it forever.”Wu opened his eyes, touched Bodhidharma’s feet and said, “Master, you have not done anything and yet you have finished it.” That’s the miracle of a master; he never does a thing, and yet the ultimate miracle happens in his presence. His presence is the miracle, his presence has the magical quality.You need not drop the ego. Just look in, search for where it is – first find it. Don’t worry about self-nature right now. Just go in, search for the ego, and you will not find it; instead you will find your self-nature, luminous, fragrant like a lotus flower. One never comes across such beauty anywhere else. It is the most beautiful experience of life. And once you have seen your own lotus of light, your own lotus blossoming, the ego is finished forever. Then you will not ask such meaningless questions.“How to distinguish,” you ask, “…between what is the ego and what is my true nature?” Either the ego is there and the true nature is not known, or the true nature is known and there is no ego left. You cannot have both, hence you cannot make any distinctions; you cannot distinguish them, they can’t be present together. Only one can be present.Right now, whatsoever you are is ego, so don’t be worried about distinguishing. If there were no ego, the question would not have arisen at all. Self-nature knows no questions; self-nature is ecstasy, not a problem.The second question:Osho,Please tell me what the difference is between surrendering to a master and following a master?There is a great difference, they are poles apart. Surrendering to a master is something of the heart, it is a love affair, it is not an intellectual conviction. It is not that you are convinced intellectually that what the master is saying is right. It is not philosophical. What the master is saying may be absurd. In fact, it is bound to be absurd because he speaks from a totally different kind of vision, from the peak where opposites meet; where the ultimate synthesis has happened; where life and death are one; where man and woman are one; where negative and positive are one. Hence whatsoever he says is bound to be paradoxical.Surrendering to a master means you have felt his grace. It is not a question of his knowledgeability. He may not be knowledgeable at all. Jesus was not knowledgeable. Mohammed was not even able to read or write, he was not even able to sign his own name. But thousands fell in deep love with the man. He had no logical acumen. If you go into the Koran you will not find great philosophy, just simple statements which can be refuted very easily. But the man must have had something totally different. So many people gravitated toward him. Now, you cannot see gravitation: it is an energy, it is a force, invisible. It is a communion, heart to heart. The master’s presence overwhelms you, then surrender happens.It is not something that you do. You cannot do surrender, remember. Surrender done is not surrender at all, because you can withdraw. Any day you can say, “I take back my surrender.” Surrender is something that happens. Sometimes it happens even in spite of you, you never wanted it to happen, you resisted it. People resist to the very end. When it becomes impossible to resist, only then do they surrender, because surrender goes against the ego, it shatters your ego. The very idea of surrendering to someone is against your whole upbringing, your whole education, your whole psychology. You are brought up with the idea of having a strong ego.Surrender means you are dropping your whole upbringing, you are pushing aside all your knowledge, you are bypassing your mind, you are allowing the heart to say “Yes!” – a total yes. It is a happening, not a doing. It is just like falling in love.What is the difference between falling in love and marriage, an arranged marriage? Exactly that is the difference between surrendering to a master and following a master. Surrendering to a master is like falling in love. The force is irresistible. You are behaving like a madman. The master is mad, now you are becoming mad. The master is like a flame, and you are moving toward the flame like a moth, to your own death.Following a master is a safe phenomenon, like an arranged marriage. You are moving on safe ground in an arranged marriage. You think about everything – the family of the woman or the man, their economic status, their social prestige, everything except love. It is a calculated phenomenon. There is no risk in it. And not to take any chances you go to the astrologer so that he can even predict the future, how things will be going in the future: “Will I be sailing safely?”You make everything safe before you take the plunge. It is not a jump, it is a calculated step. And that’s what following a master is. It is intellectual, it is of the mind, it is of the head. You are trying to understand intellectually, logically what he is saying. Does it appeal to you?Who are you and what do you know? And how are you going to judge whether he is right or wrong? – according to your prejudices, according to your conditioning? A Christian coming across Jesus may be impressed, but not a Jew, because their conditioning differs.I have heard about two hippies…They were hungry and had no money, and on a Sunday morning they were just passing by a church when an idea occurred to them. Both had long hair, beards, tattered clothes, they looked exactly like Jesus and his followers would have looked.One said to the other, “We should find a cross; we should go to the cemetery and take a cross from some grave. You carry the cross, you look more like Jesus, and I’ll go ahead of you proclaiming that the Lord has come. Let’s see, maybe something is possible.”So they entered the church. It was a Protestant church. The first entered and shouted loudly, “Awake! Behold! The Lord has come back! He has fulfilled his promise.”Everybody looked and then the second hippie entered with the cross. A few women fainted, a few old people fell at his feet. And people started giving money. When they went out they had collected fifty dollars. They were very happy.The week went beautifully – marijuana and all. They enjoyed it as spiritually as possible.The next week they entered a Catholic church. Even more things became possible. The Catholics went crazy! They could not believe their eyes. People were crying and weeping and trembling and calling “Lord!” They collected one hundred and fifty dollars. That week they were really high…The third week, just for fun, they thought why not try the synagogue? So they went into the synagogue. They proclaimed, “Behold! The Lord has come back as he promised!”The old rabbi fixed his glasses, looked, and then asked his assistant, “Go and bring the hammer and nails. It seems that fool has come back.”You behave according to your conditioning…If Mahavira appears suddenly on M.G. Road, only Jainas – and that too only Digambara Jainas – will recognize him. The Svetambara Jainas, another sect of the Jainas, will not recognize him because they don’t believe that he lived naked. They believe he lived in white clothes which, of course, were invisible. So they will ask, “Where are the invisible clothes?” And Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians will simply rush to the police station, because a naked man is standing on M.G. Road who seems to be an Osho freak!How are you going to judge? According to your prejudices. When you become convinced “This man is saying the right thing,” that simply means he is saying the thing that you think is right. But if you know already what is right, there is no need to bother about the man.Following is useless, it is unnecessary. You are simply collecting support for your own beliefs. It is not going to help, it is not going to change you. Only surrender transforms. Anything that happens through the heart can bring a radical revolution into your being. The head is impotent – avoid the head.Sir, avoid the head! Listen to the heart and follow the heart, then surrender happens of its own accord.The third question:Osho,What is misunderstanding?Misunderstanding happens only to knowledgeable people, it never happens to the innocent. It never happens to those who know that they know nothing; only understanding happens to them. But to those who think they know already, their very knowledge is a disturbance, a distraction. It is knowledge that creates misunderstanding.If you are already carrying something in your mind, and then you listen to me, there are only two possibilities: either you find me agreeing with you, or you find me disagreeing with you. If you find me agreeing with you, you must have misunderstood because I cannot agree with you. It is impossible. I can agree with you only if you are also awakened, if you are also in the same space, only then. So you must have distorted the words, dropped a few words, added a few words, given them new meanings – your meanings, coloring them, dyeing them according to your philosophy, way of life, or whatsoever you call it. It is a kind of adjustment. And then you can be very happy that I agree with you.I cannot agree with you. It is impossible. Agreement is possible only if we both exist in the same space, otherwise not. In your confusion, in my clarity, there is no possibility of agreement. So that is the first kind of misunderstanding, which is far more dangerous than the second kind of misunderstanding.The second kind of misunderstanding is: I say one thing and you immediately jump against it because you have come with a negative approach. The first misunderstanding comes from the one who has come with a positive approach. Ordinarily, people think that if you come with a positive approach you cannot misunderstand. The positive approach is very much appreciated around the world. Of course, your priests, your leaders praise your positive approach because you are agreeing with them. I cannot praise it because your agreement means nothing to me.Your negative approach means disagreement, but both are misunderstandings. If you have come already with a negative mind – that you are against me, that this man is wrong – you must have gathered it from public opinion, from newspapers, from magazines. And if you have come already with a negative attitude, then whatsoever I say you will find something wrong with it. You are bent upon finding something wrong with it. That is another kind of misunderstanding.To me, both are misunderstandings, and the first is more dangerous because the second misunderstanding is not going to do any harm. You will go empty-handed, that’s all; you have not lost anything. But the first misunderstanding can be dangerous. You will go with the idea that I agree with you. You will become more egoistic, thinking that your ideas are right, and that is more dangerous. If you think my ideas are wrong, there is no problem, you remain the same. But if you think that your ideas are right because they are in agreement with me and I am in agreement with you, then you are going with a more strengthened ego. The positive approach is far more dangerous than the negative.The real seeker comes with neither the positive mind nor the negative mind. He comes only with an open mind. He comes silently. He has no a priori idea this way or that way. He simply listens, he does not interfere. He does not go on continuously judging. He remains in a kind of let-go – silent, open, vulnerable. It is not a question of agreeing or of disagreeing. You are simply listening. You are simply listening to what this man has to say. You are not continuously commenting inside yourself “Yes, this is right, that is wrong. This agrees with the Gita and this does not agree with the Gita. If it does not agree with the Gita, how can this man be right? The Gita is bound to be right.”What do you know about the Gita? All that you know about the Gita is your idea of the Gita. You can’t understand Krishna. To understand Krishna you have to be a krishna, to understand Buddha you have to be a buddha, there is no other way. And when you are a buddha, why should you bother to understand Buddha? When you are a krishna, what is the need to understand Krishna? You yourself know.The real seeker listens with an empty mind, utterly empty. He listens totally, with no evaluation, no judgment. Then there is no possibility of misunderstanding. And the miracle of right listening is that, if you listen silently, whatsoever is true immediately strikes deep down somewhere in your heart a chord, a rhythm. Deep down somewhere in your heart a synchronicity happens. That is the miracle of truth. If the mind is silent and if truth is being told, your heart immediately starts beating with it, starts dancing with it. And that is true agreement, not the agreement of the head, not the agreement of the ego, but something existential, something total. Then you have understood. And if something is not true, your heart remains cold.So there is no need to bother whether it is right or wrong. If it is right, it touches something so deep in you that you were not even aware that such a depth exists. And if it is not right, nothing moves in you. So your whole being becomes decisive, not just your head – which is just a fragment. Never allow the fragment to decide for the whole; let the whole decide.The fanatic fisherman was telling a pal about his great dream: “I dreamt I was out on a lake alone in a boat with Elizabeth Taylor.”His pal said, “Wow – how did you make out?”He said, “Great – I caught a ten-pound flounder!”You know fishermen, you know people who are mad about catching fish – who cares about Elizabeth Taylor? That is beside the point. He catches a ten-pound flounder.He was really a golf nut. He was just about to tee off on the first hole when a beautiful girl came running up to him in a gorgeous bridal outfit.The golfer waved her away and said, “Sylvia, I told you – only if it rains!”Two drunks were driving over a bridge and one said, “When you come to the end of the bridge, turn left.”The other slobbered, “What’re you telling me for? You’re drivin’!”In your state of sleep, in your state of drunkenness, what agreement? What disagreement? What understanding? What misunderstanding? It is all the same.Here, listening to me, become more and more silent and alert. Forget all about agreeing and disagreeing. I am not interested in converting you, I am not a missionary. I am not interested in creating a following, not at all. I am certainly interested in sharing my joy with you, certainly interested in sharing my truth with you. But that is a totally different matter.Dave and Mabel were just married and on their way home to the farm. Their old horse was getting slower and slower, and despite Dave’s efforts, just before dusk the nag fell and died. There was nothing to do but put up camp for the night under a nearby tree.The newly-weds snuggled under the blanket, and Dave turned to Mabel, saying, “Well, what about it, love?”“What about what, dear?” Mabel replied.“Oh, never mind,” said Dave.Shortly after, Dave said, “Well… Ah, hum, what about it?”Mabel replied, “What about what, dear?”Dave asked, “Oh, didn’t your mum ever tell you about what marriage is for?”Mabel answered, “I don’t know what you mean, dear!”Dave said, “Well… Ah… Um… Ah… You are a woman, and I am a man, and you see… Well… A man has this… And it gives life…”“Well, for God’s sake, Dave,” said Mabel, “go and stick it in the horse and let’s get going!”The fourth question:Osho,In your prophetic vision, what do you think will be the future of science?I have no prophetic vision, I am not a prophet. I am not that old-fashioned at all. Do you think I am coming out of the Old Testament?I am a twentieth-century man and still fully alive, and I don’t care a bit about the future; neither do I care about the past. My whole concern is the present because only the present exists. The past is no more, the future is not yet. Both are nonexistential. Those prophets who were concerned about the future must have been mad. They were always talking about the future.There are only two types of mad people in the world: a few who are always talking about the past, and a few who are always talking about the future. The people who are talking about the past are the historians, archaeologists, etcetera. And the people who are talking about the future are the prophets, visionaries, poets. I am neither.My whole concern is this moment – now, here.So drop that idea, Raju. Raju is a scientist, and naturally he is interested in the future of science. I am not a prophet, but one thing I can say – and it has nothing to do with the future really. It is happening right now. Because people are blind they cannot see it. I can see it. It has already become a reality.The greatest thing that is happening – which will be understood only later on – is the meeting of science and religion, is the meeting of East and West, is the meeting of materialism and spiritualism, is the meeting of the outer and the inner, is the meeting of the extrovert and the introvert. But that is happening right now. It will grow in the future, but my concern is the present, and I am tremendously happy that something of great importance is on the way.The seed has sprouted. You are so much concerned with the past or with the future that you can’t see the small sprout that is growing right now. Here, in front of your eyes, the meeting of the opposites – the opposites are turning into complementaries.Science alone is only half and cannot be a fulfillment for man. It can give you a better body, it can give you better health, longer life. It can give you more comforts, more luxury. I am not against any of these. I am not an ascetic, I am not that stupid at all. But it can only give you things of the outer world – which are beautiful in themselves.I would like everyone to live in more comfort, in more luxury, in better health, better nourished, better fed, better educated. But that’s not all; that is only the circumference of life, not the center.Religion provides the center. It gives you a soul. Without it, science is a corpse. A beautiful corpse maybe; you can paint the corpse, you can wash the corpse and put beautiful garments on it, but a corpse is a corpse. And, remember, the same is the case with religion. Religion alone is not enough at all. Religion alone makes you a ghost, maybe a holy ghost, but it makes you a ghost.You can see this happening in India. The whole country has become a holy ghost – the body has disappeared, the physical health has disappeared, the material wealth has disappeared. And when there is no body to support a soul, you are simply talking nonsense. You can go on talking about the brahman – the ultimate reality – but on a hungry stomach it does not work. It may be just an escape from reality.If religion itself is not realistic it becomes an escape from reality. If religion is not materialistic enough it becomes an escape, it becomes a dreamworld, a Disneyland. That’s what has happened in the East: we talked too much of the spirit and forgot all about the reality that surrounds us. We became introverts, too concerned about ourselves. We forgot all about the beauties of the trees and the mountains and the sun and the moon and the stars. Humanity in the East became ugly. It has a center but no circumference. Everything has shrunk to the center.The West has a circumference but no center. People have everything, but something essential is missing.Science and religion are becoming one. They are already becoming one. I am not saying they will become one, they are already becoming one. All the greatest scientists – Eddington, Planck, Einstein – people of the highest caliber in the world of science, became aware that science alone is not enough. There is something far more mysterious which cannot be grasped only through scientific methodology and means, something which needs a different approach, which needs more meditative awareness.Eddington says in his autobiography, “When I started my career as a scientist I used to think that the world consisted of things, but as I grow old I am becoming more and more aware that the world does not consist of things but of thoughts.”Reality is far closer to thoughts than to things. Reality is far more mysterious than you can weigh, measure, than you can experiment with. Reality is not only objective but also subjective. Reality is not only content but also consciousness. And the greatest religious people, like J. Krishnamurti, are aware that religion cannot exist anymore as it has existed up to now. Something of a radical change is needed.My own approach is that we have to create Zorba the Buddha.Today, just by coincidence, is Buddha’s birthday, also his enlightenment day, and also the day of his death. He was born on this day, he became enlightened on this day, he died on this day. Today’s full moon belongs to him. It is a strange coincidence that this long series of Buddha lectures – one hundred and twenty-six lectures in all… When I started I had no idea that it would end today.Just the other night Laxmi told me, “Tomorrow is Buddha Purnima” – Buddha’s full moon. Let this day also be the birth of a new buddha. The new buddha will be a synthesis of Zorba the Greek, and Gautama the Buddha. He cannot be just Zorba, and he cannot be just Buddha.That’s my whole effort here, Raju, to create a bridge between Zorba and Buddha – to create a bridge, a golden bridge, or a rainbow bridge, between the earth, this shore, and the farther shore, the beyond. It is happening here, and you can’t see it happening anywhere else.We have all kinds of scientists here. Now, Raju himself has become a sannyasin. He has great scientific intelligence. He is young, but of tremendous intelligence. He is one of those scientists who put the first man on the moon – he belongs to that project. There are so many other scientists here. There are poets and musicians, painters, all kinds of people, and they have all joined together in one great effort: meditation. There is only one meeting-point here and that is meditation. On only one point do they meet; otherwise they all have their own individualities. Out of this meeting a tremendous explosion is possible. It is already happening. Those who have eyes can see it happening.This may be the only place on the earth where all the countries are represented. We were missing, Russians but now I am happy to say that they are also here. All the races are meeting here, all the religions are meeting here. This is a miniature universe, a small world, and we are all meeting here as human beings. Nobody is a Christian, Hindu or Mohammedan. Nobody knows who is a scientist, who is a musician, who is a painter, who is a famous actor. Nobody even tells…Just the other day I came across the news: one of our sannyasins has won a great, world-famous prize. She has been here, she was here for months, but she never told anyone that she is a great actress. And now she is world-famous; she is now thought to be one of the most serious contenders for the highest award. But she never told anybody anything.There are musicians of great caliber, poets, authors, painters, sculptors, magicians, all kinds of people are here, and they have all met in a deep merging. Their only meeting-point is meditation and their love for their master.A totally new science is bound to arrive. It will be both science and religion, only then can it be total. It will be a science of both the inner and the outer. In fact, the days of religion are over, just science will do, one word will do. Science is a beautiful word; it means knowing, wisdom.Science should be divided in two categories: objective science – chemistry, physics, mathematics, etcetera – and subjective science. Then there is no need to divide religion and science. And the meeting of religion and science in one whole will create, for the first time, a whole man on the earth. Otherwise, up to now humanity has been schizophrenic, split, insane, divided.I am all for the whole man, because to me the whole man is the holy man.The fifth question:Osho,What is the difference between being mad and being enlightened?Not much. The only difference is that the enlightened person knows that he is mad, and the madman does not know that he is mad.The sixth question:Osho,If Italians are “women,” British are “ladies” and Germans are “females,” what about South American witches? Can you make some comment about them?They are amazons.The seventh question:Osho,I am leaving tomorrow for France. Please tell me a joke to make the Frenchies laugh.An agitated Frenchman came into a Paris bistro and told the waiter to bring him a triple shot of cognac. He downed the huge drink in one gulp and asked for another.The waiter brought it and asked, “What’s the matter, monsieur? Did your wife catch you making love to the maid?”“No,” he sighed. “The maid caught me in bed with my wife!”The eighth question:Osho,Why does the Buddha always say: “Be a light unto yourself”?Simple. Buddha says “Be a light unto yourself” because you cannot trust Indian electricity.In fact, you cannot trust anything made in India.What is the difference between an American computer and an Indian one?The American computer has a memory; the Indian one has a vague remembrance.How many Polacks does it take to put in a light bulb?Four – one to hold the bulb and three to spin him around.How many Jews does it take to put in a light bulb?Three – one to put it in and two to supervise.How many Californians does it take to put in a light bulb?Four – one to put it in and three to share the experience.How many Italians does it take to put in a light bulb?About sixteen – one to give the orders, one to handle the money, one to get the bulb, one to tell the rickshaw driver where to go, one to clean up the broken glass, one to translate, three to carry the ladder, one to check the switch, one to shoo away the beggars, four to entertain you while you wait two or three minutes, two or three minutes, two or three minutes…etcetera.And how many Indians it takes to change a light bulb?Two hundred – one to hold the bulb, and one hundred and ninety-nine to turn the house around!The last question:Osho,In a previous life you must have been an Italian. Could you say something about that experience?I am not a Californian, so I cannot share the experience with you. But I will tell you a few jokes.“I find it hard to believe that you murdered that crippled old man for fifty cents,” the outraged judge told the Italian mugger.The Italian shrugged. “Fifty cents here, fifty cents there – it adds up.”Martinelli always takes his super-ugly wife along with him when he goes away on business.He explains, “It’s easier to take her along than to kiss her good-bye.”Maria was complaining to her neighbor, Donna Arminda, “These pains drive me crazy. Every night it’s the same thing. If I turn right, the pain attacks the liver; if I turn left, it attacks my heart. It’s really hell!”“But why don’t you sleep on your belly?” asked the neighbor.“On my belly? If I sleep on my belly, Roberto attacks me!”An Italian was walking down the street with a pig under his arm.“How much did that cost you?” asked a passerby.“Fifty cents,” replied the pig.“I see you are no gentleman,” hissed the woman on the street corner at the Italian who laughed as the wind swept her skirt over her head.“No,” he replied, “and I see-a you are not-a one-a either.”A long-suffering Italian husband was burying his wife. It chanced that in passing through the gate, the coffin was thrust hard against one of the posts. Almost immediately, to the amazement of the mourners, a muffled scream was heard. The lid was hastily unscrewed, and lo! the woman was not dead at all. She was taken home, and lived for three years. Then she died again.At the funeral, as the coffin was being lowered from the hearse, the husband addressed the bearers very solemnly: “Boys, mind that post!”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Thus have I heard at one time. The Lord dwelt at Sravasti…. Early in the morning the Lord dressed, put on his cloak, took his bowl, and entered the great city of Sravasti to collect alms.When he had eaten and returned from his round, the Lord put away his bowl and cloak, washed his feet, and sat down on the seat arranged for him, crossing his legs, holding his body upright, and mindfully fixing his attention in front of him. Then many monks approached to where the Lord was, saluted his feet with their heads, thrice walked round him to the right, and sat down on one side.At that time the venerable Subhuti came to that assembly, and sat down. Then he rose from his seat, put his upper robe over one shoulder, placed his right knee on the ground, bent forth his folded hands towards the Lord, and said to the Lord: It is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O well-gone, how much the bodhisattvas, the great beings, have been helped with the greatest help by the Tathagata….How then, O Lord, should one who has set out in the bodhisattva-vehicle, stand, how progress, how control the thoughts?After these words the Lord said to Subhuti:…Therefore, Subhuti, listen well, and attentively! Someone who has set out in the vehicle of a bodhisattva should produce a thought in this manner: As many beings as there are in the universe of beings, comprehended under the term “beings”…all these I must lead to nirvana, into that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind. And yet, although innumerable beings have thus been led to nirvana, no being at all has been led to nirvana. And why? If in a bodhisattva the notion of a “being” should take place, he could not be called a “bodhi-being.” And why? He is not to be called a bodhi-being in whom the notion of a self or of a being should take place, or the notion of a living soul or of a person.I love Gautama the Buddha because he represents to me the essential core of religion. He is not the founder of Buddhism – Buddhism is a by-product – but he is the beginner of a totally different kind of religion in the world. He’s the founder of a religionless religion. He has propounded not religion but religiousness. And this is a great radical change in the history of human consciousness.Before Buddha there were religions but never a pure religiousness. Man was not yet mature. With Buddha, humanity enters into a mature age. All human beings have not yet entered into that, that’s true, but Buddha has heralded the path; Buddha has opened the gateless gate. It takes time for human beings to understand such a deep message. Buddha’s message is the deepest ever. Nobody has done the work that Buddha has done, the way he has done. Nobody else represents pure fragrance.Other founders of religions, other enlightened people, have compromised with their audience. Buddha remains uncompromised, hence his purity. He does not care what you can understand, he cares only what the truth is, and he says it without being worried whether you understand it or not. In a way this looks hard; in another way this is great compassion.Truth has to be said as it is. The moment you compromise, the moment you bring truth to the ordinary level of human consciousness, it loses its soul, it becomes superficial, it becomes a dead thing. You cannot bring truth to the level of human beings; human beings have to be led to the level of truth. That is Buddha’s great work.Twenty-five centuries ago, just some day early in the morning – just like this day – this sutra was born. Twelve hundred and fifty monks were present. It happened in the city of Sravasti. It was a great city of those days. The word sravasti means the city of glory. It was one of the glorious cities of ancient India; it had nine hundred thousand families in it. Now that city has completely disappeared. A very very small village exists – you will not find even its name on any map; even the name has disappeared. Now it is called Sahet-Mahet. It is impossible to believe that such a great city existed there. This is the way of life – things go on changing. Cities turn into cemeteries, cemeteries turn into cities…life is a flux.Buddha must have loved this city of Sravasti, because out of forty-five years of his ministry he stayed in Sravasti twenty-five years. He must have loved the people. The people must have been of a very evolved consciousness. All the great sutras of Buddha, almost all, were born in Sravasti.This sutra – The Diamond Sutra – was also born in Sravasti. The Sanskrit name of this sutra is Vajrachchhedika Prajnaparamita Sutra. It means perfection of wisdom which cuts like a thunderbolt. If you allow, Buddha can cut you like a thunderbolt. He can behead you. He can kill you and help you to be reborn.A buddha has to be both – a murderer and a mother. On the one hand he has to kill, on the other hand he has to give new being to you. The new being is possible only when the old has been destroyed. Only on the ashes of the old the new is born. Man is a phoenix. The mythological bird phoenix is not just a mythology, it is a metaphor. It stands for man. That phoenix exists nowhere except in man. Man is the being who has to die to be reborn.That’s what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a professor, a learned man, a rabbi, a member of the board that controlled the great temple of Jerusalem. One dark night he came to see Jesus. He could not gather courage to come to him in the day time; he was afraid what people would say. He was so respectable, so much respected. Going to a vagabond teacher?…going to somebody who is hated by all the rabbis and all the learned people?…going to somebody who moves with thieves and drunkards and prostitutes? But something in him was very desirous to see this man. Maybe he had seen Jesus walking, coming to the temple. He must have felt something deep in his unconscious for this man. He could not hold himself back.One night when everybody had left, when even the disciples had gone to sleep, he reached Jesus and he asked, “What should I do so that I can also enter into the kingdom of God?”And Jesus said, “Unless you die nothing is possible. If you die, only then can you enter into the kingdom of God. You will have to die as you are, only then can you be born as really your inner being is.”The ego has to die for the essential being to surface. That is the meaning of Prajnaparamita Vajrachchhedika. It cuts like a thunderbolt. In one stroke it can destroy you. It is one of the greatest sermons of Buddha. Get in tune with it.Before we enter into the sutra, a few things to be understood…that will help you to understand it. Gautama the Buddha has started a spirituality that is nonrepressive and nonideological. That is a very rare phenomenon. The ordinary kind of spirituality, the garden variety, is very repressive. It depends on repression. It does not transform man, it only cripples man. It does not liberate man, it enslaves man. It is oppressive, it is ugly.Listen to these words of Thomas à Kempis, author of Imitation of Christ. He writes: “The more violence you do to yourself, the greater will be your growth in grace. There is no other way save of daily mortification. To despise oneself is the best and the most perfect counsel.” There are thousands of saints down the ages who will agree with Thomas à Kempis. And Thomas à Kempis is pathological.Or the French priest Bossuet says: “Cursed be the earth! Cursed be the earth! A thousand times cursed be the earth.” Why? Why should the earth be cursed? Life has to be cursed. These people have been thinking as if God is against life, as if life is against God. Life is God, there is no antagonism, there is no separation even. They are not different things, they are two names for one reality.Remember this: Buddha is nonrepressive. And if you find Buddhist monks to be repressive, remember, they have not understood Buddha at all. They have brought their own pathology into his teachings. And Buddha is nonideological. He gives no ideology, because all ideologies are of the mind. And if ideologies are of the mind, they cannot take you beyond the mind. No ideology can become a bridge to reach beyond the mind. All ideologies have to be dropped, only then the mind will be dropped.Buddha believes in no ideals either, because all ideals create tension and conflict in man. They divide, they create anguish. You are one thing and they want you to be something else. Between these two you are stretched, torn apart. Ideals create misery. Ideals create schizophrenia. The more ideals there are, the more people will be schizophrenic, they will be split.Only a nonideological consciousness can avoid being split. And if you are split how can you be happy? how can you be silent? how can you know anything of peace, of stillness?The ideological person is continuously fighting with himself. Each moment there is conflict. He lives in conflict, he lives in confusion, because he cannot decide who really he is – the ideal or the reality. He cannot trust himself, he becomes afraid of himself, he loses confidence. And once a man loses confidence he loses all glory. Then he is ready to become a slave to anybody – to any priest, to any politician. Then he is just ready, waiting to fall in some trap.Why do people become followers? Why are people trapped? Why do people fall for a Joseph Stalin or an Adolf Hitler or a Mao Zedong? Why in the first place? They have become so shaky, the ideological confusion has shaken them from their very roots. Now they cannot stand on their own, they want somebody to lean on. They cannot move on their own, they don’t know who they are. They need somebody to tell them that they are this or that. They need an identity to be given to them. They have forgotten their self and their nature.Adolf Hitlers and Joseph Stalins and Mao Zedongs will be coming again and again, until and unless man drops all ideologies. And remember, when I say all ideologies, I mean all ideologies. I don’t make any distinction between noble ideologies and not so noble. All ideologies are dangerous. In fact the noble ideologies are more dangerous, because they have a more seductive power, they are more persuasive. But ideology as such is a disease, exactly a disease, because you become two: the ideal and you. And the you that you are is condemned, and the you that you are not is praised. Now you are getting into trouble. Now sooner or later you will be neurotic, psychotic or something.Buddha has given a nonrepressive way of life, and nonideological too. That’s why he does not talk about God, he does not talk about heaven, he does not talk about any future. He does not give you anything to hold onto, he takes everything away from you. He takes even your self. He goes on taking things away, and finally he takes even the idea of self, I, ego. He leaves only pure emptiness behind. And this is very difficult.This is very difficult because we have completely forgotten how to give. We only know how to take. We go on taking everything. I take the exam and I take the wife and I even take the afternoon nap. You go on taking – even the afternoon nap, a thing which cannot be taken, you have to surrender to it. Sleep comes only when you surrender. Even a wife, a husband, you go on taking. You are not respectful. The wife is not a property. You can take a house – how can you take a wife or a husband? But our language shows our mind. We don’t know how to give – how to give in, how to let go, how to let things happen.Buddha takes all ideals away, the whole future away, and finally he takes the last thing that is very very difficult for us to give – he takes your very self; leaves a pure, innocent, virgin emptiness behind. That virgin emptiness he calls nirvana. Nirvana is not a goal, it is just your emptiness. When you have dropped all that you have accumulated, when you don’t hoard anymore, when you are no longer a miser and a clinger, then suddenly that emptiness erupts. It has always been there.Hakuin is right: “From the very beginning, all beings are buddhas.” That emptiness is there. You have accumulated junk so that emptiness is not visible. It is just like in your house you can go on accumulating things; then you stop seeing any space, then there is no more space. A day comes when even to move in the house becomes difficult; to live becomes difficult because there is no space. But space has not gone anywhere. Think of it, meditate over it. The space has not gone anywhere; you have accumulated too much furniture and the TV and the radio and the radiogram and the piano and everything – but the space has not gone anywhere. Remove the furniture and the space is there; it has always been there. It was hidden by the furniture but it was not destroyed. It has not left the room, not for a single moment. So is your inner emptiness, your nirvana, your nothingness.Buddha does not give you nirvana as an ideal. Buddha liberates instead of coercing. Buddha teaches you how to live – not for any goal, not to achieve anything, but to be blissful herenow – how to live in awareness. Not that awareness is going to give you something – awareness is not a means to anything, it is the end in itself, the means and the end both. Its value is intrinsic.Buddha does not teach you otherworldliness. This has to be understood. People are worldly; the priests go on teaching the other world. The other world is also not very otherworldly, it cannot be, because it is just an improved model of the same world. From where can you create the other world? You know only this world. You can improve, you can decorate the other world better, you can remove a few things that are ugly here and you can replace them with a few things which you think will be beautiful, but it is going to be a creation out of the experience of this world. So your other world is not very different, cannot be. It is a continuity. It comes out of your mind; it is a game of imagination.You will have beautiful women there – of course more beautiful than you have here. You will have the same kinds of pleasures there – maybe more permanent, stable, but they will be the same kinds of pleasures. You will have better food, more tasty – but you will have food. You will have houses, maybe made of gold – but they will be houses. You will repeat the whole thing again.Just go into the scriptures and see how they depict the heaven and you will find the same world improved upon. A few touches here and a few touches there, but it is not in any way otherworldly. That’s why I say the otherworldliness of other religions is not very otherworldly; it is this world projected into the future. It is born out of the experience of this world. There will not be misery and poverty and illness and paralysis and blindness and deafness. Things that you don’t like here will not be there, and things that you like will be there and in abundance, but it is not going to be anything new.Mind cannot conceive of anything new. Mind is incapable of conceiving the new. Mind lives in the old, mind is the old. The new never happens through the mind. The new happens only when mind is not functioning, when mind is not controlling you, when mind has been put aside. The new happens only when the mind is not interfering.But all your scriptures talk about the heaven – and the heaven or the paradise or firdaus or swarga, is nothing but the same story. It may be printed on a better art paper, with better ink, on a more improved press, with more colorful illustrations, but the story is the same; it cannot be otherwise.Buddha does not talk of otherworldliness or the other world. He simply teaches you how to be here in this world; how to be here alert, conscious, mindful, so that nothing impinges upon your emptiness; so that your inner emptiness is not contaminated, poisoned; so that you can live here and yet remain uncontaminated, unpolluted; so that you can be in the world and the world will not be in you.The otherworldly spirituality is bound to be oppressive, destructive, sado-masochistic – in short, pathological. Buddha’s spirituality has a different flavor to it – the flavor of no ideal, the flavor of no future, the flavor of no other world. It is a flower here and now. It asks for nothing; all is already given. It simply becomes more alert so you can see more, you can hear more, you can be more.Remember, you are only in the same proportion as you are conscious. If you want to be more, be more conscious. Consciousness imparts being. Unconsciousness takes being away. When you are drunk you lose being. When you are fast asleep you lose being. Have you not watched it? When you are alert you have a different quality – you are centered, rooted. When you are alert you feel the solidity of your being, it is almost tangible. When you are unconscious, just dragging by, sleepy, your sense of being is less. It is always in the same proportion as the consciousness is.So Buddha’s whole message is to be conscious. And for no other reason, just for the sake of being conscious – because consciousness imparts being, consciousness creates you, and a you so different from you that you are that you cannot imagine. A you where “I” has disappeared, where no idea of self exists, nothing defines you…a pure emptiness, an infinity, unbounded emptiness.This Buddha calls the state of meditation – sammasamadhi, right state of meditation, when you are all alone. But remember, aloneness is not loneliness. Have you ever thought about this beautiful word, alone? It means all one. It is made of two words – all and one. In aloneness you become one with the all.Aloneness has nothing of loneliness in it. You are not lonely when you are alone. You are alone but not lonely – because you are one with the all; how can you be lonely? You don’t miss others, true. Not that you have forgotten them, not that you don’t need them, not that you don’t care about them, no. You don’t remember others because you are one with them. All the distinction between one and all is lost. One has become the all and all has become one. This English word alone is immensely beautiful.Buddha says sammasamadhi is aloneness. The right meditation is to be so utterly alone that you are one with all. Let me explain it to you. If you are empty your boundaries disappear because emptiness can have no boundaries. Emptiness can only be infinite. Emptiness cannot have any weight, emptiness cannot have any color, emptiness cannot have any name, emptiness cannot have any form. When you are empty, how will you divide yourself from others? – because you don’t have any color, you don’t have any name, you don’t have any form, you don’t have any boundaries. How are you going to make any distinctions? When you are empty you are one with all. You have melted into existence, existence has merged with you. You are no more an island, you have become the vast continent of being.Buddha’s whole message is condensed in this one word – sammasamadhi, right meditation. What is right meditation and what is wrong meditation? If the meditator exists then it is wrong meditation. If the meditator is lost in meditation then it is right meditation. Right meditation brings you to emptiness and aloneness.This sutra…this whole sutra is concerned with how to become utterly empty. This is his basic gift to the world.Thus have I heard at one time.These sutras have been remembered by Buddha’s great disciple Ananda. And one thing to be remembered: all sutras start, Thus have I heard….When Buddha died all the disciples gathered together to collect whatsoever Buddha had said in those forty-five years. Ananda was the only one who had lived continuously for those forty-five years with Buddha. He was the most authentic to be relied upon. Others had heard, but they had heard from others. Sometimes they were with Buddha and sometimes they were not with Buddha. Only Ananda had lived like a shadow.So Ananda relates, but the beauty is that he never says that “Buddha said this”; he simply says, “Thus have I heard.” The difference is great. He does not say, “Buddha has said this,” because, he says, “how am I to say what Buddha has said? All that I can say is this – that this is what I have heard. What Buddha said, only he knows. What he meant, only he knows. All that I can remember is what I have heard. My capacities are limited. He may have meant something else. I may have forgotten a few words, I may have put in a few words of my own.”This is a great sincerity. He could have claimed, “This is what Buddha said. I was present, I am an eyewitness.” And he was an eyewitness; nobody can deny that. But look at the humbleness of the man: he says, “Thus have I heard. Buddha was saying, I was hearing…I can only relate what I have heard. It may be right, it may not be right. I may have interfered, I may have interpreted, I may have forgotten a few things, something of my own mind may have got into it – all that is possible. I am not an enlightened man.” Ananda was not yet enlightened, so he says, “This is all that I can say, I can vouch for.”Thus have I heard at one time. The Lord dwelt at Sravasti…. Early in the morning the Lord dressed, put on his cloak, took his bowl, and entered the great city of Sravasti to collect alms.When he had eaten and returned from his round, the Lord put away his bowl and cloak, washed his feet, and sat down on the seat arranged for him, crossing his legs, holding his body upright, and mindfully fixing his attention in front of him.This you will be surprised at. When Ananda speaks, he goes into very small details. One never knows – when you are reporting about a buddha you have to be very careful, mm? Even this much he reports again and again – such small things.Early in the morning the Lord dressed, put on his cloak, took his bowl, and entered the great city of Sravasti to collect alms.Ananda is following him like a shadow, a silent shadow just watching him. Just to watch him was a benediction. And he watches everything.When he had eaten and returned from his round, the Lord put away his bowl and cloak, washed his feet, and sat down on the seat arranged for him…When for the first time Buddhist sutras were translated into Western languages the translators were a little bit puzzled – why this continuous repetition? It goes on and on like that; again it will be, again this repetition. Why are these small things related? They could not understand it. They thought that this is repetitive, that this is a very unnecessary repetition, not needed at all. What is the point of it all? But they missed. What Ananda is saying is that Buddha pays attention to small things as much as to big things. For a buddha there is nothing small and nothing big – one thing.When he takes his bowl he is as respectful to the bowl as he would be respectful to any God. When he puts his cloak or puts his dress on he is so mindful; he’s absolutely alert, he is not mechanical. When you put your dress on you are mechanical. You know mechanically how to put it on, so what is the point of paying attention to it? Your mind goes on moving into a thousand directions. And you take a shower – but you are very disrespectful to the shower. You have not been there, you have been somewhere else. You eat, but you are disrespectful to the food. You are not there, you simply go on swallowing the food inside you. You go on doing your things habitually, mechanically. When Buddha does a thing he is utterly there, he is nowhere else.When he had eaten and returned from his round, the Lord put away his bowl and cloak, washed his feet, and sat down on the seat arranged for him, crossing his legs, holding his body upright, and mindfully fixing his attention in front of him.These minute details are worth relating because they bring the quality of buddhahood. Each moment he lives in awareness. What he is doing is irrelevant; each moment he pours his attention into whatsoever he is doing. When he makes a gesture he is totally the gesture. When he smiles he is totally the smile. When he talks he is totally his words. And when he is silent he is totally silent.To watch a buddha is a blessing in itself – how he walks, how he sits, how he makes gestures, how he looks at you. Each moment is a radiant moment of awareness. That’s why Ananda reports. There must have been great silence when Buddha came, arranged his dress, washed his feet, sat on the seat arranged for him, sat upright, then focused his whole attention in front of him. What is this “fixing your attention in front of yourself”? That is a special Buddhist method called anapansatiyoga – mindfulness of breath coming in and breath going out. That is the meaning of focusing your attention in front.When Buddha is doing something, for example dressing, then he is attentive of that act. When he is walking he is attentive of walking. When he is not doing anything then he is attentive of breath coming in and breath going out. But he is attentive; even while he is asleep he is attentive.Ananda asked Buddha once…. For ten years he lived with Buddha and he was surprised that he remained in the same posture the whole night. Wherever he put his hand, he kept it there the whole night. He must have looked many times, must have sneaked in in the night. It was worth it, mm? – how the Buddha sleeps? And he was surprised and puzzled that he kept the same posture – the same posture the whole night. He could not hold his curiosity. One day he said, “It is not right for me to get up in the night and look at you, I should not do such a thing, but I am curious about you and I am puzzled. You remain in the same posture. Do you sleep or do you continue your awareness?”And Buddha said, “Sleep happens in the body, I remain alert. Now the sleep is coming, now it has come, now it has settled, now the body is relaxed, the limbs are relaxed – but I keep my awareness burning bright.”Meditation is a twenty-four-hour thing. It is not that you do it once a day and you are finished with it. It has to become your flavor, it has to become your climate. It should surround you wherever you are, whatsoever you are doing.…and mindfully fixing his attention in front of him, he sat. Then many monks approached to where the Lord was, saluted his feet with their heads, thrice walked round him to the right, and sat down on one side.To ask a question to a buddha needs a certain attitude, only then will you receive the answer. Not that buddha will not give the answer. You can ask very disrespectfully – buddha will give the answer, but you will not receive it. So it is not a question that only when you are respectful will buddha give the answer. Buddha will give the answer anyway, but if you are not very respectful, very humble, receptive, feminine, you will miss it. How you ask the question determines whether you will be able to receive the answer or not.How you ask, in what mood…. Are you receptive? Are you just curious? Are you asking the question out of your accumulated knowledge or is your question innocent? Are you asking just to test whether this man knows or not? Are you asking from a state of knowledge or from a state of not knowing? Are you humble, surrendered? Are you ready to receive the gift if it is given to you? Will you be open, will you welcome it, will you take it to your heart? Will you allow it to become a seed in your heart? To ask a question to a buddha is not to ask a question to a professor. It needs a certain quality in you; then only will you be benefited by it.Then many monks approached to where the Lord was, saluted his feet with their heads, thrice walked round him to the right, and sat down on one side.Walking thrice is symbolic of the three bodies. The first round is for the physical body, the body that we can see, which is available to the senses. The physical body of the Buddha is also beautiful; it is the shrine where the divine abides. So the first round is a salutation for the first body, the physical body. The second round is for the bliss body, the second body. And the third round is for the buddha body, the truth body.These three rounds are symbolic of something else too. In Buddhism there are three shelters, three refuges: “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Sangha, I take refuge in the Dharma.” These three rounds are symbolic of them too.When a person comes to Buddha to ask anything, he has to take refuge. He has to have this state of mind – that “I am falling in tune with Buddha,” that “I am ready to vibrate in the same wavelength.” “I take refuge in the Buddha. You are my shelter, I come to you as a disciple, I come to you knowing that I don’t know, I come to you in innocence, I bow down to you, I recognize that you know and I don’t know – so I am ready to receive whatsoever you think I am worthy to be given.”“I take refuge in the Sangha, in the commune” – because one buddha is only a representative of all the buddhas of the past and the future. One buddha is a door to all the buddhas. You can call the buddhas the christs or the krishnas; it doesn’t make any difference. These are different names given by different traditions.So the first refuge is in this buddha who is just in front of you. The second refuge is in all the buddhas, the sangha, the commune of the buddhas – past, present, future. And the third refuge is in the dharma – that essential being that makes a man a buddha. That art of awakening is dharma, the religion.At that time the venerable Subhuti came to that assembly and sat down.One of the great disciples of Buddha is Subhuti. Then he rose from his seat, says Ananda – and again he repeats the whole thing, because Subhuti is also no ordinary man. He is almost a buddha, just on the verge of it; any moment he is going to become a buddha. So Ananda repeats again:Then he rose from his seat, put his upper robe over one shoulder, placed his right knee on the ground, bent forth his folded hands towards the Lord, and said to the Lord: It is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O well-gone, how much the bodhisattvas, the great beings, have been helped with the greatest help by the Tathagata….How then, O Lord, should one who has set out in the bodhisattva-vehicle, stand, how progress, how control the thoughts?Subhuti is close to buddhahood. He is a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means one who is ready to become a buddha, who has come close to it; one step more and he will become a buddha. Bodhisattva means bodhi-essence, bodhi-being: ready ninety-nine degrees – and on the hundredth degree he will evaporate. But a bodhisattva is one who tries to remain a little longer at ninety-nine degrees so that he can help people out of his compassion, because once he has jumped the hundred degrees, he has gone beyond…. Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate bodhiswaha. Then he has gone and gone beyond and beyond. Then it will be very difficult to make contact with the people who live on this shore.The greatest help is possible from those who are at the ninety-nine-degree point. Why? – because they are still not enlightened. They know the ways of the people who are unenlightened. They know the language of the people who are unenlightened. They are yet with them, and yet in another sense ninety-nine percent they have gone beyond. That one percent keeps them linked, bridged.So a bodhisattva is one who is close to buddhahood but is trying to remain on this shore a little longer so that he can help people. He has arrived; he would like to share his arrival. He has known; he would like to share what he has known. Others are stumbling in darkness; he would like to share his light with them, his love with them.Subhuti is a bodhisattva. Ananda reports about him also in the same way as he reports about Buddha: Then he rose from his seat…. Just imagine, visualize, a bodhisattva rising. He is utter awareness. He is not just rising like a robot. Each breath is known, fully known. Nothing passes unknown. He is watchful. What the Catholic tradition calls recollectedness, that is what Buddhists call sammasati – right mindfulness. Mindfulness or recollection, to be recollected, to live recollectedly: sammasati – not to do a single act unconsciously.He rose from his seat, put his upper robe over one shoulder, placed his right knee on the ground, bent forth his folded hands towards the Lord, and said to the Lord…And remember, even a bodhisattva, who has come very close to becoming a buddha, bows down to the Buddha in utter gratitude.It is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O well-gone…Well-gone means one who has gone to the other shore. Subhuti is on this shore, Buddha is on that shore. Subhuti has come to that understanding: he can see the other shore, he can see Buddha on the other shore: O well-gone….This word well-gone has many meanings. One: one who has reached to the other shore. Another, one who has reached to the ultimate of meditation. Buddha has said that there are eight steps towards ultimate meditation. One who has reached to the eighth is called well-gone. But it is the same. One who has reached samadhi, the ultimate samadhi, he has gone to the other shore, he is no more – that is what is meant by well-gone. Gone, utterly gone. He is no more, he is just an emptiness. The self has disappeared, evaporated. O well-gone…. It is wonderful, it is exceedingly wonderful, how much the bodhisattvas, the great beings, have been helped with the greatest help by the Tathagata.Tathagata is the Buddhist word which means well-gone. Subhuti says, “How much help has been given, how wonderful it is – it is exceedingly wonderful, it is unbelievable how much you have given to us. And you go on giving, and we don’t even deserve it.”…Wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O well-gone, how much the bodhisattvas, the great beings, have been helped by the Tathagata….How then, O Lord, should one who has set out in the bodhisattva-vehicle…One who has decided to remain on this shore a little longer to help people. How should he……stand, how progress, how control the thoughts?What is he asking? He is asking a question which may not be relevant to many of you, because it becomes relevant only when you have become a bodhisattva. But some day, some day or other, you will be becoming bodhisattvas. Some day or other the question will be relevant. It is better to think about it, it is better to meditate over it.He says, “Those who have decided to be bodhisattvas, how should they stand?” He is saying, “The attraction of the other shore is so much, the pull of the other shore is so much – how should they stand on this shore? We would like to help people, but how? The pull is such, the magnetic pull is such – the other shore is calling. So teach us how we can stand here, how we can become again rooted on this shore. We have become uprooted; in this world we don’t have any roots. Ninety-nine percent of the roots are gone.”Just think of a tree – ninety-nine percent of the roots are gone; only one percent of the roots are there. The tree is asking, “How should I stand now? I am going to fall, and I understand that if I can stay a little longer I will be of immense help to people, and they need it. I was in need – you helped me. Now others are in need – I should help.” That is the only way a disciple can pay his debt to the master. There is no other way. The master has helped you; the master needs no help – how to pay the debt? what to do? The only thing to do is help somebody who is still stumbling, groping in the dark. Do whatsoever the master has done for you to others, and you have paid your debt.He asked “How to stand?” – it is difficult, it is almost impossible – and “How to progress, how to start helping people?” – because that too is difficult. Now we understand their miseries are all false. Now we understand that they are suffering just nightmares; their miseries are not true. Now we know they are afraid only of a rope, thinking that it is a snake. Now it is very difficult to help these people. It is ridiculous. And we know that they need help, because we know our own past. We were trembling, crying, screaming. We know how much we have suffered, although now we know that all suffering was just like a dream, it was illusory; it was maya.”Just think, if you know that the other person is just talking nonsense, that he has no wounds….Once a man was brought to me. He had got the idea somehow that two flies had entered into his stomach – because he sleeps with an open mouth. And the flies kept on revolving in his stomach. Naturally, if they have entered they will revolve. He was continuously worried and he was not even able to sit in one posture. He would move to this side and that and he would say, “They have gone to this side, and now they have gone to that side.” He was almost mad.Now, he had been to all the doctors and nobody was of any help, and they all laughed; they said, “You are just imagining.” But just to say to a person that he is imagining his misery is not of much help because he is suffering. It may be imaginary to you, but to him it makes no difference whether the suffering is imaginary or real; he is suffering all the same. What you call it makes no difference.I touched his stomach and then said, “Yes, they are there.” He was very happy. He touched my feet, he said, “You are the only man…. I have been to many doctors and physicians – ayurvedic and allopathic and homeopathic – and they are all fools! And they go on insisting on one thing. I tell them, ‘If you don’t have any medicine simply say that you don’t have any medicine, but why do you go on saying that I am imagining?’ Now here you are…can’t you see?”I said, “I can see perfectly – they are there. I deal in such problems.” I said, “You have come to the right person. This is my whole work – I deal in such problems which don’t really exist. I am an expert in dealing with problems which are not.” I said, “You just lie down and close your eyes. I will have to blindfold you, and I will take them out. And you open your mouth and I will call them. A great mantra is needed.”He was very happy. He said, “This is how it should be done.” I blindfolded him, told him to open his mouth, and he was lying there, very happy, waiting for the flies to come out. And I rushed into the house to find two flies.It was difficult because I have never caught flies before, but somehow I managed, and when he opened his eyes and saw those two flies in the bottle he said, “Now give this bottle to me. I will go to those fools.” And he was perfectly okay. But it is very difficult to help such people, very difficult, because you know that their difficulty is all false.Subhuti is asking, “Lord, first tell us how to stand here, because our roots are gone, we don’t belong to this world anymore. Our attachments are gone – they are the roots. And how to progress, to work? – because we now know that this is all just nonsense; people are imagining all their miseries. And how to control thoughts?”What does he mean? – because a bodhisattva has no thoughts ordinarily, not the thoughts that you have. Now there is only one thought, and that thought is of the other shore…and the other shore continuously pulls. The door is open, you can enter into utter bliss, and you are holding yourself at the door – and the door is open.First you were searching for many lives for where the door is; then you were knocking and knocking for many lives – now the door is open. And Buddha says, “You wait, you remain outside the door. There are many who have to be helped.” Naturally a great desire to enter, a great passion to enter through the door will arise. That’s what he is asking.After these words the Lord said to Subhuti:…Therefore, Subhuti, listen well, and attentively! Someone who has set out in the vehicle of a bodhisattva should produce a thought in this manner…It does not look very good in the English translation. The Sanskrit word is chittopad. One should create such a mind, such a decision; one should create such a great decision, determination – chittopad – in this manner:…As many beings as there are in the universe of beings, comprehended under the term “beings”…all these I must lead to nirvana…“Not one or two, Subhuti, not one or two, but all the beings – men, women, animals, birds, trees, rocks. All the beings in the world. One should create such a determination that “I will lead all of them into nirvana.”…into that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind. And yet, although innumerable beings have thus been led to nirvana, no being at all has been led to nirvana.That too you have to remember, you should not forget; otherwise, leading others, you will fall into ignorance again. All the beings have to be led to the other shore, and still you have to remember that their miseries are false, so your remedies are also false. And you have to remember that they have no selves; neither do you have any self. So don’t forget; don’t think that you are helping people, that you are a great helper, this and that, otherwise you will fall again. Again you will grow roots on this shore.So two things have to be remembered. You have to remain on this shore with great determination, otherwise you will be pulled by the other; and yet you are not to grow roots again, otherwise you will not be of any help. You will destroy yourself, you will fall into the dream again.And why? If in a bodhisattva the notion of a “being” should take place, he could not be called a “bodhi-being.” And why? He is not to be called a bodhi-being in whom the notion of a self or of a being should take place, or the notion of a living soul or of a person.So you have to remember, Subhuti, two things. One, that you have to lead all the beings to the other shore, and still you have to remember that nobody has a being – neither you nor they. All egos are false and illusory. Go on remembering this and go on with great determination. Help people to the other shore. They are already there; you just have to make them alert and aware. But don’t get lost, don’t become a savior – these two things.And again and again Buddha will repeat in this sutra the vehicle of the bodhisattva. I would like you all to become bodhisattvas.Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind without struggle and anguish, without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts? Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seedlike form of the no-mind? Is it helpful to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death? My mind seems to explode when I do. It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.The no-mind cannot arise out of the mind. It is not a growth of the mind, it is not in continuity with the mind; it is discontinuous. It is as discontinuous as disease is with health. The health does not arise out of the disease, it arises out of the removal of the disease. Disease was encroaching the space and was not allowing the health to bloom. The disease has to be removed. It is like a rock blocking the path of a small spring. You remove the rock and the spring starts flowing. It does not arise out of the rock. The rock was blocking it, the rock was a block. So is the mind. Mind is the block for the no-mind.No-mind simply means that which is not mind at all. How can it arise out of the mind? If it arises out of the mind it may be super-mind, but it can’t be no-mind. That’s where I differ from Sri Aurobindo. He talks about the super-mind. A super-mind is the same mind more decorated, more cultivated, more cultured, more sophisticated, more strong, more integrated – but all the time the same old mind.Buddha says not super-mind but no-mind; not super-soul but no-soul; not super-individuality, super-self, but no-self, anatta. That is where Buddha is unique and his understanding the deepest. A super-mind is a growth, a no-mind is a leap, a jump. The no-mind has nothing to do with the mind at all. They never meet even, they never encounter each other. When the mind is there, the no-mind is not there. When the no-mind is there, the mind is not there. They don’t even say hello to each other – they can’t. The presence of the one is necessarily the absence of the other. So remember it.That’s why I say Sri Aurobindo never became enlightened. He remained polishing the mind. He was a great mind, but to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Bertrand Russell a great mind. But to be a great mind is not to be enlightened. So is Friedrich Nietzsche a great mind – and Aurobindo and Nietzsche have many similarities. Nietzsche talks about the superman and Aurobindo also talks about the superman. But the superman will be a projected man. A superman will be this man; all the weaknesses destroyed, all the strengths strengthened – but this man. Bigger than this man, stronger than this man, higher than this man, but still on the same wavelength, the same ladder. There is no radical change, there has never been a discontinuity.No-mind means discontinuity with all that you are. You have to die for no-mind to be.So the first thing. You ask, “Is it possible that the no-mind evolves quite naturally out of the mind?” No. It is not an evolution, it is a revolution. The mind is dropped and suddenly you find the no-mind is there, has always been there. The mind was clouding, making you confused, was not allowing you to see that which is. So it is not an evolution.And you ask, “Is it possible without struggle and anguish?” It has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. No-mind has nothing to do with struggle and anguish. It does not come out of struggle and anguish. Anything that comes out of struggle and anguish will carry the wounds. Even if those wounds are healed, the scars will be carried. It will be again a continuity.The struggle and anguish is not for the no-mind; the struggle and anguish arises because the mind struggles to keep itself in power. The fight is given by the mind. The mind does not want to go, the mind wants to stay. The mind has become so powerful it possesses you. It says, “No, I am not going to get out. I am going to stay here.” The whole struggle and anguish is because of the mind. The no-mind has nothing to do with it. And you will have to go through this anguish and struggle. If you don’t go through the anguish and the struggle, the mind is not going to leave you.And again let me repeat, the no-mind is not born out of your struggle; out of your struggle only comes the mind. The no-mind comes without any struggle. The rock gives you the struggle. It does not want to move. It has remained in that spot for centuries, for millennia – who are you to remove it? “And about what spring are you talking? There is none. I have been here for centuries and I know – there is none. You forget all about it!” But you want to remove the rock. The rock is heavy, the rock is rooted in the earth. It has remained there for so long. It has attachments; it does not want to go. And it knows nothing of the spring. But you will have to remove this rock. Unless this rock is removed, the spring will not flow.You ask, “…without exploding, hammering, cutting and such wild acts?” The no-mind has nothing to do with your acts. But the mind will not go. You will have to hammer and cut and you will have to do a thousand and one things.“Is the very idea of no-mind, which seems to be in the mind and yet transcending the mind, a seedlike form of the no-mind?”No – there is no seed in the mind of the no-mind. The mind cannot contain even the seed of no-mind. The mind has no space to contain it. No-mind is vast, like the sky. How can it be contained in a tiny thing, the mind? And the mind is already too full – full of thoughts, desires, fantasies, imaginations, memories. There is no space.In the first place it is very tiny – it cannot contain the no-mind. In the second place it is so full, overcrowded, so noisy. The no-mind is silent; the mind is noisy. The mind cannot contain it; the mind has to cease. In that cessation is the beginning of a new life, a new being, a new world.“Is it helpful,” you ask, “to meditate along these lines of mind-transcending concepts like eternity, nirvana, death?”Those so-called mind-transcending concepts are still concepts and are of the mind. When you are thinking of eternity, what will you do? You will think. When you are thinking of nirvana, what is going to happen? Your mind will spin and weave, and your mind will give you beautiful ideas about nirvana – but that will be all mind work.What can you think about death? What will you think if you think about death? You don’t know! How can you think anything about that which you don’t know?Mind is perfectly capable in repeating the known; with the unknown it is impotent. You don’t know eternity, all that you know is time. Even when you think of eternity it is nothing but lengthened time, stretched time – but it is time. What do you know about nirvana? – all that you have heard about it, read about it. That is not nirvana. The word nirvana is not nirvana, and the concept of nirvana is not nirvana. The word God is not God, and all the pictures and all the statues that have been made of God have nothing to do with him – because he has no name and no form.And what are you going to think about death? How can you think about death? You have heard a few things, you have seen a few people dying, but you have never seen death. When you see a man dying what do you see? He breathes no more; that’s all that you see. His body has become cold; that’s all that you see. What more? Is this death? – the body becoming cold, breathing stopping? Is this all? What has happened to the innermost core of the person? You cannot know without dying. You cannot know without experiencing. The only way to know the unknown is to experience it.So these concepts won’t help. They may rather, on the contrary, strengthen the mind, because the mind will say, “Look, I can even supply you mind-transcending concepts. See what I am doing for you. Keep me with you always. I will help you to become enlightened. Without me you will be nowhere. Without me how will you think about death and nirvana and eternity? I am absolutely essential. Without me you will not be anything at all.”No, these meditations won’t help. You have to see it – that the mind is not going to help at all. When you see the point that mind is not going to help at all, in that very helplessness, in that very state, there is silence; all stops. If the mind cannot do anything, then nothing is left to do. Suddenly all thinking is paralyzed; it is pointless. In that paralysis you will have the first glimpse of no-mind…just a small window will open. In that stopping of the mind you will have a taste of no-mind. And then things will start moving. Then it will be easier for you to get lost into the boundariless.You cannot meditate, you have to go into it. Meditating upon it is a pseudo activity; it is a kind of avoiding, escaping. You are afraid of death, you think about death. You are afraid of nirvana, you think about nirvana. Thinking gives you the feeling that you are capable even of thinking about death and nirvana.“My mind seems to explode when I do.”Mind is very cunning. It must be deceiving you – because mind cannot explode while you are thinking. About what you are thinking does not matter; while you are thinking, mind cannot explode. Mind will be enjoying it, and in that very enjoyment you are thinking you are exploding.“It feels like I am pushing over my limit and I get afraid of becoming schizophrenic.”You need not be afraid of ever becoming schizophrenic, because you already are – everybody is. Mind is schizophrenic, because mind knows nothing of unity. Mind is always split. Mind always has alternatives. To be or not to be, to do this or to do that. Mind is always indecisive. Even if you choose something it is only a part of the mind that chooses it, the other part remains against it.The mind is never total, so mind is schizophrenic. You need not be afraid of that. To be in the mind is to be schizophrenic. Only buddhas are beyond it. The whole humanity is schizophrenic, more or less. When you go beyond a point then you have to seek and search for the psychiatrist, but the difference is only of degrees; the difference is only of quantity not quality. Even between you and your psychoanalyst there is only a difference of degrees.Remember, mind will not help. Mind cannot help, mind can only hinder. Seeing this, no-mind arrives. It is not that you bring it; it arrives on its own accord.The second question:Osho,In yesterday's sutra, Buddha says: Someone who has set out in the vehicle of a bodhisattva should decide that “I must lead all the beings to nirvana, into that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind.” What is this realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind?Buddha has talked about two kinds of nirvana. One he calls nirvana with substratum. The tree has disappeared, the tree of desires. The foliage, the leaves, the flowers, the fruits – everything has disappeared. But the roots are still there underground, hidden in the dark soil. From the outside the tree has been removed, but the tree is still capable of renewing itself again. The substratum is still there, the seed has not been burnt yet. This he calls nirvana with substratum.This is exactly the same that Patanjali calls sabeej samadhi – samadhi with seed. It is very difficult from the outside. The tree has been completely removed, but underneath the soil the roots are still alive waiting for the right moment to sprout again. Rains will come and they will sprout. They are waiting for their season, for the moment again to assert.This is the state when many times you have come to the point where mind disappears, no-mind is felt, but again mind comes back, again it sprouts. You reach to a peak. In that moment of that peak experience you think all is finished, now you will never be falling back to the valley of darkness. You think that you will never go back into those ugly and miserable days, that the dark night of the soul is over, that the morning has arrived, that the sun has arisen.But again one day you suddenly find you are slipping back into the darkness – again the valley, again light is no more, again that peak experience is just a memory. And one starts becoming doubtful whether it has happened or not, or “Have I been just imagining? Or maybe I was just dreaming.”…Because if it had happened, then where has it gone? Where is that sunlit peak? Where are those moments of ecstasy? And misery is back and anguish is back and agony is back – you have fallen into hell again. This happens many times.This Buddha calls nirvana with substratum; sabeej samadhi in Patanjali’s words. Manifestation of the world is gone but the unmanifested seed remains.The second nirvana Buddha calls the nirvana without substratum. In Patanjali’s words nirbeej samadhi – seedless samadhi. Not only the tree has been destroyed, but the seed also burned. A burned seed cannot sprout again; all substratum is gone. Then you remain on the peak forever, then there is no falling back.That’s what Buddha says in yesterday’s sutra: Someone who has set out in the vehicle of a bodhisattva should decide that “I must lead all the beings into nirvana,…into that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing behind.” Which leaves no substratum, no roots, no seeds behind.The third question:Osho,What is the Zen approach towards sex? The Zen people seem to have a neuter gender, or asexual aura about them.Zen has no attitudes about sex, and that is the beauty of Zen. To have an attitude means you are still obsessed this way or that. Somebody is against sex – he has an attitude; and somebody is for sex – he has an attitude. And for and against go together like two wheels of a bullock cart. They are not enemies, they are friends, partners in the same business.Zen has no attitude about sex. Why should one have any attitude about sex? That’s the beauty of it – Zen is utterly natural. Do you have any attitudes about drinking water? Do you have any attitudes about taking food? Do you have any attitudes about going to sleep in the night? No attitudes.I know there are mad people who have attitudes about these things too: that one should not sleep more than five hours. Sleep is a kind of sin, something like a necessary evil, so one should not sleep more than five hours; or in India there are people who think only three hours. And I have come across one person who has not slept for ten years – and he is worshipped for this only; he has nothing else, no other creative talents. It is his only talent. Maybe he is just an insomniac. Maybe even this is not a talent, maybe he cannot sleep. He has gone so neurotic that he cannot relax, and he looks mad. One will become mad if one has not slept for ten years. And people come, crowds come, to worship him: “He has attained something great.” What has he attained? What is the attainment there? He is just an abnormal person, ill. To sleep is natural. And he is bound to be very tense – he is tense. He must be boiling within. Just think, for ten years not sleeping! But now it has become a great investment, now it is paying. His madness has become an investment, now thousands of people worship him – only for this?Down the ages this has been one of the greatest calamities – that people have been worshipping uncreative things, and sometimes pathological things. Then you have an attitude about sleep. There are people who have an attitude about food. To eat this or to eat that; to eat only so much, not more than that. They don’t listen to the body, to whether the body is hungry or not. They have a certain idea and they impose the idea on nature.Zen has no attitudes about sex. Zen is very simple, Zen is innocent. Zen is childlike. It says there is no need to have any attitudes. Why? Do you have any attitude about sneezing? – to sneeze or not, whether it is sin or virtue. You don’t have any attitude. But I have come across one man who is against sneezing, and whenever he sneezes he immediately repeats a mantra to protect himself. He belongs to a small foolish sect. That sect thinks that when you sneeze the soul goes out. In the sneeze the soul goes out, and if you don’t remember God it may not come back. So you have to remember, you have to immediately remember so that the soul is given back. If you die while sneezing you will go into hell.You can have attitudes about anything. Once you have attitudes, your innocence is destroyed and those attitudes start controlling you. Zen is neither for anything nor against anything. Zen says whatsoever is ordinary is good. To be ordinary, to be a no one, to be a nothingness, to be without any ideology, to be without character, to be characterless….When you have a character you have some kind of neurosis. Character means something has become fixed in you. Character means your past. Character means conditioning, cultivation. When you have a character you are imprisoned in it, you are no more free. When you have a character you have an armor around yourself. You are no more a free person. You are carrying your prison around yourself; it is a very subtle prison. A real man will be characterless.What do I mean when I say he will be characterless? He will be free of the past. He will act in the moment according to the moment. He will be spontaneous; only he can be spontaneous. He will not look back into the memories for what to do. A situation has arisen and you are looking in the memory – then you have a character. Then you are asking your past, “What should I do?” When you don’t have any character you simply look into the situation and the situation decides what has to be done. Then it is spontaneous and there is response and not reaction.Zen has no belief system about anything – and that is the case with sex too: Zen says nothing about it. And that should be the ultimate thing. Tantra has an attitude about sex. The reason? – it tries to redress what the society has done. Tantra is medical. The society has repressed sex; Tantra comes as a remedy to help you redress, balance. You have leaned too much to the left; Tantra comes and helps you to lean to the right. And to redress the balance sometimes you have to lean too much to the right, only then the balance is gained. Have you not seen a rope walker, a tightrope walker? He carries a staff in his hand to keep balance. If he feels he is leaning too much to the left, he immediately starts leaning to the right. Then again he feels that now he has leaned too much to the right, he starts leaning towards the left. This is how he keeps in the middle. Tantra is a remedy.The society has created a repressive mind, a life-negative mind, an anti-joy mind. The society is very much against sex. Why is the society so much against sex? – because if you allow people sexual pleasure you cannot transform them into slaves. It is impossible – a joyous person cannot be made a slave. That is the trick. Only sad people can be turned into slaves. A joyous person is a free person; he has a kind of independence to him.You cannot recruit joyous people for war. Impossible. Why should they go to war? But if a person has repressed his sexuality he is ready to go to war, he is eager to go to war because he has not been able to enjoy life. He has become incapable of enjoying, hence has become incapable of creativity. Now he can do only one thing – he can destroy. All his energies have become poison and destructive. He is ready to go to war – not only ready, he is hankering for it. He wants to kill, he wants to destroy. In fact, while destroying human beings he will have a vicarious joy of penetrating. That penetrating could have been in love and would have been beautiful. When you penetrate a woman’s body in love, it is one thing. It is spiritual. But when things go wrong and you penetrate somebody’s body with a sword, with a spear, it is ugly, it is violent, it is destructive. But you are searching for a substitute for penetration.If society is allowed total freedom about joy, nobody will be destructive. People who can love beautifully are never destructive. And people who can love beautifully and have the joy of life will not be competitive either. These are the problems.That’s why primitive people are not so competitive. They are enjoying their life. Who bothers to have a bigger house? Who bothers to have a bigger balance in the bank? For what? You are happy with your woman and with your man and you are having a dance of life. Who wants to sit in the marketplace for hours and hours and hours, day in, day out, year in, year out, hoping that in the end you will have a big bank balance and then you will retire and enjoy? That day never comes. It can’t come, because the whole life you remain an ascetic.Remember, the business people are ascetic people. They have devoted everything to money. Now a man who knows love and has known the thrill of love and the ecstasy of it will not be competitive. He will be happy if he can get his daily bread. That is the meaning of Jesus’ prayer: “Give us our daily bread.” That is more than enough. Now Jesus looks foolish. He should have asked, “Give us a bigger bank balance.” He asks only for the daily bread? A joyous man never asks for more than that. The joy is so fulfilling.It is only unfulfilled beings who are competitive because they think life is not here, it is there. “I have to reach to Delhi and become the president,” or to the White House and become this or that. “I have to go there, joy is there” – because they know there is no joy here. So they are always on the go, go, go, go. They are always on the go, and they never reach. And the man who knows the joy, is here. Why should he be going to Delhi? For what? He is utterly happy herenow. His needs are very small. He has no desires. He has needs certainly, but no desires. Needs can be fulfilled, desires never. Needs are natural, desires are perverted.Now this whole society depends on one thing and that is sex repression; otherwise the economy will be destroyed, sabotaged. War will disappear and with it the whole war machinery, and the politics will become meaningless and the politician will no longer be important. Money will not have value if people are allowed to love. Because they are not allowed to love, money becomes the substitute, money becomes their love. So there is a subtle strategy. Sex has to be repressed, otherwise this whole structure of the society will fall immediately.Only love released into the world will bring revolution. Communism has failed, fascism has failed, capitalism has failed. All “isms” have failed because deep down they are all sex repressive. On that point there is no difference – no difference between Washington and Moscow, Beijing and Delhi – there is no difference at all. They all agree upon one thing – that sex has to be controlled, that people are not to be allowed to have innocent joy in sex.To redress the balance comes Tantra; Tantra is a remedy, so it emphasizes sex too much. The so-called religions say sex is sin and Tantra says sex is the only sacred phenomenon. Tantra is a remedy. Zen is not a remedy. Zen is the state when the illness has disappeared – and of course, with the illness, the remedy too. Once you are cured of your illness you don’t go on carrying the prescription and the bottle and the medicine with you. You throw it. It goes to the dustbin.Ordinary society is against sex; Tantra comes to help humanity, to give sex back to humanity. And when the sex has been given back, then arises Zen. Zen has no attitude. Zen is pure health.The fourth question:Osho,Is everything, is the world okay? And what has that to do with love? When you say the world is okay it sounds okay to me. If anybody else says so, or if I say so, it sounds wrong.It depends who is saying it. When I say the world is okay, I am not propounding a theory, I am sharing a vision. In fact, the word theory comes from a Greek root theoria, and theoria means vision. When I am saying anything to you, it is not mind stuff; I am sharing my experience. In those moments, if you are available to me and open to me, you will also have the vision; a little bit of my vision will spill into your being. For a moment the doors will open and you will say, “Yes, this is so.”When somebody else is saying it, and if it is not his vision…. Even when you say to somebody and it is no more your vision – it was just a borrowed eyesight – it will not sound right. If a man like Buddha even tells a lie, it will sound like truth. And if you tell even a truth, it will sound like a lie.It depends more from where it comes, the source; not what you say, but who says. You can go on repeating Christ’s words and nobody is going to crucify you. Why? Why don’t they crucify you? You can declaim the whole Sermon on the Mount and you can go on standing. And that’s what people are doing all over the world – Christian priests, and missionaries and Witnesses of Jehovah, mm? All kinds of people are doing that – carrying the New Testament, quoting the New Testament, repeating the words, and nobody crucifies them. Why? When Jesus said these things what was the matter? The words had fire then. Jesus was sharing his vision. When you repeat, there is no vision in it; it is a mere word. It has no passion, no intensity, no truth. Truth comes only through experience.You ask: “Is everything, is the world okay?” When I say the world is okay, what do I really mean? I mean this is the only world and there is no other world. You don’t have any way to compare. Okay or not okay is irrelevant. This is the only world there is; there is no other. You cannot compare whether it is better or not better. Comparison is not possible. Comparison is possible only when there are two worlds, but there are not.So when I say all is okay, I mean there is no point in comparing. But why do people say that this is not the right world? They have created an utopia in their mind and they compare with the utopia. They have an idea of how things should be and then nothing seems to be right, because things are not like their utopian idea. If you think man should have four eyes…. And that looks very logical: two for the back. Two eyes don’t look right – what about the back? What if somebody comes from the back and hits you? God has missed there…two eyes in the back. Then things are not okay – man has only two eyes; man should have four. Then suddenly man is not okay. And man is the same; you have just created an idea, and that idea condemns.Man should live more than seventy years. Why? Once you say that man should live seven hundred years then seventy years look very poor. But why? What will you be doing here for seven hundred years? Don’t you think seventy years are enough to do harm? to destroy? You need seven hundred years? Just think of Adolf Hitler living seven hundred years….Once you have an idea, a goal, then things become different. I have no idea; I am absolutely non-utopian, I am absolutely realistic. I carry no ideals in my mind. Then this is the only world; roses are red and trees are green and people are this way – the way they are – and it is absolutely beautiful.“Is everything, is the world okay? And what has that to do with love?”That has much to do with love. If the world is okay, only then you can love. If the world is not okay you become a politician, you become political. The politician depends on the idea that the world is not okay: he has to bring a revolution, he has to change things, he has to put things right, he has to improve upon God. That is the politician’s mind. And the politician has no love, he has only condemnation, because he has judged.The religious mind has no judgment. Jesus says, “Judge ye not.” The religious mind has no judgment, has no condemnation, hence he can love. And remember, in your life also, you can love only when you don’t judge. If you have too many ideas to judge with, you will never love. You will go on imposing your ideas on whomsoever becomes a victim of your so-called love. You will go on imposing your ideas on him. Even if a child is born to you, immediately you will jump on him and start manipulating, managing, improving. And you will destroy the being. That’s how everybody has been destroyed by the parents and by the society.If you love a woman, you immediately start improving how she should be. And the woman, of course, is a great improver. If you become a victim of a woman’s love, then you are no more. Then she will improve you so much that she will make something else out of you. After a few years you will not be able to recognize who you are. She will cut and prune and do things and paint: “Behave this way” and “Speak this way” and “Talk this way.”A young woman fell in love with a man. The woman was a Catholic and the man was a Jew. The woman’s family was very worried, and they said, “We cannot allow you.” The family was very rich, and they said, “If you marry this man then you will not inherit anything.” And she was the only child, so all the money was hers.Now this was too much, so she asked, “What should I do?”So they said, “First convert him, let him become a Catholic – then….”So she tried, and she was very happy, because the Jew was more interested in the money than in the woman, so he was very willing. A Jew is a Jew, he was very willing. He started reading The Bible and started going to the church, and he was over-enthusiastic. The woman was very happy – things were going perfectly well – and after every month she would report to her parents that things are going perfectly well.Then one day she came home and was crying and weeping and the father asked, “What is the matter? What happened?”She had gone to ask the man to get married, she was thinking that he was ready. And she said to her father, “Yes, he is ready, but I have done too much reformation, I have reformed him too much.”The father was confused. He said, “I don’t understand. What do you mean, too much?”She said, “Yes, now he wants to become a Catholic monk. I have overdone it.”What you call love is more or less reforming the other. And you go on saying that you want to reform the other because you love. This is absolutely untrue. If you love you never reform anybody. Love accepts. Love respects the other as he is.If the world is okay as it is, only then can you love it. The revolutionary, the politician cannot love it; only the religious consciousness can love it. And when you love you come to know that it is even more okay than you had thought before. Then you love more, and then you come to find that it is immensely beautiful, not just okay. Then more love…and by and by you find that the world disappears – it is God himself.The fifth question:Osho,The first time I saw a dead human being was when I saw my dead grandmother. She lay there and looked so white and peaceful, so silent and happy, open and closed at the same time. I was jealous, but at the same time afraid. I thought she must be so lonely. I could not reach her anymore. When I saw you, dear Osho, on your birthday darshan, I had exactly the same feelings. Did you not feel very very lonely between all the noises, shatterings, movings? You were so far and in holy silence – as never before for me. Are you dead and alive at the same time?The question is from Aranyo.Death is beautiful, as beautiful as life – if you just know how to communicate with death. It is beautiful because it is relaxation. It is beautiful because the person has fallen back into the source of existence – to relax, to rest, to be ready to come back again.A wave rises in the ocean, then falls back into the ocean, then rises again. It will have another day, it will be born again in some other form. And then it falls again and disappears.Death is just disappearing into the source. Death is going to the unmanifested. Death is falling asleep into the divine. You will bloom again. You will again see the sun and the moon, and again and again till you become a buddha – till you are capable of dying consciously, till you are capable of relaxing consciously, knowingly, into the divine. Then there is no coming back. That is utter death, that is ultimate death. The ordinary death is a temporary death; you will be coming back again. When a buddha dies, he dies forever. His death has the quality of eternity. But even the temporary death is beautiful.And you are right, Aranyo, I am dead and alive at the same time. As a person, I am dead. As somebody, I am dead. As nobody, I am alive.You say, “The first time I saw a dead human being was when I saw my dead grandmother. She lay there and looked so white and peaceful, so silent, so happy, open and closed at the same time. I was jealous but at the same time afraid.”Remember, that may be your relationship with me too, jealous and at the same time afraid too. You will have to put your fear aside, because the fear can prevent you – can prevent you from enjoying this opportunity that is available to you. It is very difficult to find a nobody; you have found one. And unless you also become a nobody, go on remembering you are missing the opportunity. Die as I have died, and then you will be alive as I am alive.There is a life which has nothing to do with any person. There is a life which has nothing to do with any self. There is a life of emptiness – innocent and virgin. I make it available to you. Put your fears aside, come closer to me. Let me become your death and your resurrection.A Zen master, Bunon, has said, “While living, be a dead man, be thoroughly dead, and behave as you like and all is well.”The last question:Osho,Is knowledge always dangerous?Not always. And knowledge is not dangerous, knowledgeability is dangerous. To know about facts is perfectly good, but to forget the mystery of life is dangerous. So knowledge is not always dangerous; sometimes it can be of great help too.A little anecdote:Irish Paddy’s wife Maureen had been rushed to the hospital that morning. Nine months pregnant, and now in labor, she gives birth to two beautiful twin daughters.Irish Paddy, after a day’s work laboring with rubble on the building site, marched up to the hospital in the cool of an autumn evening to visit his wife in the maternity ward.“Oh, hello, little sweet darling,” he cooed to his Maureen, as he approached the bed with a glint of curiosity in his right eye, as he observed two tiny babies arriving by the bed, hand in hand with a nurse.“I have had twins, me luv,” said Maureen.For ten long minutes Paddy sat bemused by that bed, not knowing how to work it out.The ward bell rang, Paddy kissed his wife and left. “By Christ!” he muttered, as he walked the long corridor, “If I find the other bugger I will kill him.”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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Because a bodhisattva who gives a gift should not be supported by a thing, nor should he be supported anywhere…. The great being should give gifts in such a way that he is not supported by the notion of a sign.And why? Because the heap of merit of that bodhi-being, who unsupported gives a gift, is not easy to measure….The Lord continued: What do you think, Subhuti, can the Tathagata be seen by the possession of his marks?Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? What has been taught by the Tathagata as the possession of marks, that is truly a no-possession of no-marks.The Lord said: Wherever there is possession of marks, there is fraud; wherever there is no-possession of no-marks, there is no fraud. Hence the Tathagata is to be seen from no-marks as marks.Subhuti asked: Will there be any beings in the future period, in the last time, in the last epoch, in the last five hundred years, at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth?The Lord replied: Do not speak thus, Subhuti! Yes, even then there will be beings who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth.For even at that time, Subhuti, there will be bodhisattvas…. And these bodhisattvas, Subhuti, will not be such as have honored only one single Buddha, nor such as have planted their roots of merit under one single Buddha only.On the contrary, Subhuti, those bodhisattvas who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will find even one single thought of serene faith, be such as have honored many hundreds of thousands of buddhas, such as have planted their roots of merit under many hundreds of thousands of buddhas.Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata.And they all, Subhuti, will beget and acquire an immeasurable and incalculable heap of merit.Therefore, Subhuti, listen well and attentively, says Gautama the Buddha. These are strange words – strange, because Buddha is addressing a bodhisattva. They would not have been strange if they were addressed to an ordinary human being. One can understand that the ordinary human being needs to listen well. To listen is so difficult. To listen means to be herenow. To listen means to be without any thought. To listen means to be alert and aware. If these conditions are fulfilled, only then you listen.The mind goes on like a maniac inside, a raving maniac. The mind goes on spinning a thousand and one thoughts, and the mind goes on moving all over the world – in the past, in the future. How can you listen? And howsoever you listen, it will not be right listening at all. You will listen to something else which has not been said at all, you will go on missing that which is said – because you will not be in tune. You will listen to the words of course, because you are not deaf, but just that much is not listening.That’s why Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, “If you have ears, listen. If you have eyes, see.” Those disciples were neither blind nor deaf. They had eyes as healthy as you have, ears as good as you have. But Jesus’ words are not strange; they are relevant. He is talking to ordinary people; he has to bring their attention, he has to shout. But Buddha’s words are strange – he is addressing a bodhisattva, a great being, a bodhi-being; one who is just on the verge of becoming a buddha.What does it mean exactly when he says: Therefore, Subhuti, listen well and attentively?To listen well ordinarily means to listen in a receptive mood, in deep receptivity. When you listen if you are arguing, if you are judging, if you are saying, “Yes, this is right because it fits with my ideology, and this is not right because it doesn’t appeal to me logically. This is right, this is not right. This I can believe, this I cannot believe….” If you are continuously sorting out things inside, you are listening but you are not listening well.And you are listening with your past mind interfering. Who is this judging? It is not you, it is your past. You have read a few things, you have heard a few things, you have been conditioned for a few things. It is the past continuously interfering. The past wants to perpetuate itself. It does not allow anything that can disrupt it. It does not allow anything new; it allows only the old that fits with it. That’s what you go on doing when you judge, when you criticize, when you discuss inside and debate.To listen rightly means to listen obediently. This word obedience is beautiful. You will be surprised to know that the original root from which the word obedience comes is obedire – it means a thorough listening. Why does obedience mean thorough listening? Are they the same thing? Yes, they are. If you listen totally, thoroughly, you will obey. If truth is there, you will obey. You will not need any decision on your part. Truth is self-evident. Once heard, it automatically follows that you will follow it. Once heard, you will become obedient to it. Hence this word obedience comes from obedire – listening thoroughly. Or, as the Jewish tradition says, to bare your ear. If you have really opened your ear and there is no interference and no disturbance inside, and no distraction from anywhere, you have not only opened your ear, you have opened your heart. And if the seed falls into the heart, sooner or later it will become a tree, sooner or later it is going to bloom. It may take a little time for it to become a tree. It will have to wait for the right season, for the spring to come, but it will become a tree. You will obey it if you have heard the truth.That’s why the mind does not allow you to hear it, because the mind is aware of the fact that once truth is heard then there is no way to escape. So if you want to escape, it is better not to hear. Once heard, you are caught into it; then there is no escape. How can you escape when you know what truth is? Then the very phenomenon that you know what truth is creates a discipline in you. You start following it. And it is not something that you enforce upon yourself, it comes on its own accord.The ear locks have to be removed. What are the ear locks? The fear of truth is the basic lock. You are afraid of the truth – notwithstanding what you say, notwithstanding that you again and again say, “I want to know the truth.” You are afraid of truth because you have lived in lies. And you have lived in lies so long that all those lies are afraid, trembling – if truth comes they will all have to leave you. They have become owners of you. Just as darkness is afraid of light, so lies are afraid of truth. The moment you come closer to truth, the mind will become very much disturbed. It will create much stir, it will raise much dust, it will create a cloud around you so that you cannot hear what truth is.The ear locks have to be removed. The basic lock is fear. You are locked in fear. Buddha has said that unless you are fearless you will not attain to truth. And look at your religions, at what you have done. Your so-called religions are all based in fear. And through fear there is no way to truth; only fearlessness knows what truth is.When you bow down in a church or in a mosque or in a temple, to a statue, to a scripture, to tradition, from where is your bowing coming? Just watch inside – and you will find fear and fear and fear. Out of fear there is no faith, but the so-called faith is all based on fear. That’s why it is very rare in the world to come across a man who has faith, because faith happens only when fear has disappeared. Faith appears only on the death of fear.Faith means trust. How can a fearful man trust? He is always thinking, he is always cunning, he is always protecting, defending. How can he trust? To trust, you need courage. To trust, you need to be brave. To trust, you need to be able to risk. To trust, you need to move into danger.Just the other day I was looking at a Chinese ideogram for crisis and I was intrigued by it, because the Chinese ideogram for crisis consists of two symbols: one means danger, another means opportunity. Yes, that moment is a critical moment when you are facing danger and opportunity both. If you don’t go into danger you will miss the opportunity. If you want the opportunity you will have to go into danger. Those who know how to live dangerously, only they are religious. Fear is the basic ear lock. Then there are others, but they arise out of the fear – the judging, the argumentation, clinging with the past, not allowing the new any entry in your being.In many many forms, in many many languages, the word for obedience is an intensive form of the word listening. Horchen, gehorchen, obeir, obedire, etcetera – all these words simply say passionate, intense, total listening. One thing more. You will be surprised to know that the word absurd is the exact opposite of obedience. Absurdus means absolutely deaf. So if you say something is absurd, you are simply saying, “I am absolutely deaf to what this is going to tell me.” Replace an absurd attitude with an obedient attitude and then you will be able to listen, then you will be baring your ear, then you will be utterly open.It is good to say to an ordinary human being, “Listen attentively.” But why does Buddha say this to Subhuti? There is something very significant to be understood. A word has no meaning in itself; the meaning is created only when the word is addressed. To whom it is addressed will determine the meaning. So you cannot find the meaning in any dictionary because dictionaries are not written for bodhisattvas, they are written for ordinary human beings.So what does this mean, Listen well and attentively? It means a few things which have to be understood. One: when a man like Subhuti is there, there is no question of ear locks, not at all. There is no question of his openness to Buddha; there is no doubt about it, he is open. There is no doubt that he is no longer arguing with Buddha; he is totally with him, flowing with him. But when a person has attained to bodhisattvahood, when one has come very close to buddhahood, there arise a few new problems.Each new stage of consciousness has its own problems. This is the problem with a bodhisattva: he is open, he is receptive, he is ready, but he has become uprooted from the body. His heart is open, his being is open, but he is no more rooted in the body. He has become detached from the body, the body is just hanging around. He does not live in the body, he is almost unidentified with the body – that is the problem.When someone says to you, “Listen well,” he means that your body is listening but you are not listening. When Buddha says it to Subhuti he means, “You are listening, but your body is not listening.” It is just the opposite. When you listen your body is here, you are not here. The words reach to the ear, they make sound and noise there, and from the other ear they go out. They never cross your being; your being does not touch them. With a man like Subhuti just the opposite is the case. His being is there but his body is not there. He has lost track of the body. He forgets, he tends to forget the body. There are moments when he will not think of the body at all. He will be there but the body will not be there. He has come to bodilessness.Now, listening is possible only when body and soul both are together. In you the body is present, the soul is absent. In Subhuti, the soul is present but the body is absent. That is the meaning of Buddha when he says, “Subhuti, listen well.” Bring your body here. Let your body function. Get into the body, be rooted in the body, because the body is the vehicle, the body is the instrument, the medium.And Buddha says,…and attentively. Is Subhuti lacking in attention? That is not possible, otherwise he would not be a bodhi-being. A bodhi-being is one who has attained to attention, who is aware, who is alert, who is conscious, who is no more a robot. Then why does Buddha say, “Be attentive, listen attentively?” Again a different meaning has to be understood.A man like Subhuti tends to go inwards. If he is not making an effort he will drown into his being, he will be lost there. He can be outside only if he makes an effort. Just the opposite is with you. With a very great effort you can rarely move into your inner being. For a single moment thoughts stop and you are lost into the inner splendor. But it rarely happens, and after long arduous efforts – meditation, yoga, this and that – and then only for a few moments you have that beauty, that benediction. The sky opens, the clouds disappear and there is light and there is life and there is utter joy. But only for rare moments…again and again it is lost. If you make great effort to be attentive, you attain the inner experience.With Subhuti, just the opposite is the case. He is lost inside himself, he is utterly drowned by his inner joy. Unless he makes an effort he will not be able to listen to what Buddha is saying. He is perfectly capable of listening to Buddha’s silence. If Buddha is silent there is communion, but if Buddha is saying something then he has to make effort, he has to pull himself together, he has to come out, he has to come in the body, he has to be very attentive. He is drunk with the inner wine.Hence Buddha says these strange words: Listen well, and attentively. And this is for the first time that I am explaining to you these words. For twenty-five centuries nobody has commented on these words. They have been taken ordinarily, as if Buddha is saying to anybody, “Listen well, attentively.” Buddha is not talking to an ordinary human being.For twenty-five centuries nobody has commented rightly. People have been thinking they understand the meaning of the words. The meaning of the words changes; it depends by whom they are used, for whom they are used. The meaning of the words depends on the context and the circumstance. The words don’t have any meaning in themselves. The words are meaningless. The meaning arises only in a particular situation.Now this situation is very rare. Buddha has used these words thousands of times; every day he had to use these words to people – “Listen well, attentively.” So those who have commented on The Diamond Sutra have missed. I think the commentators were not knowers. They knew the language but they were completely unaware of this strange situation. Buddha has not addressed some ordinary human being; Buddha has addressed somebody who is very close to buddhahood, who is just on the boundary of it, entering into buddhahood.And he starts the statement with “therefore”: Therefore, Subhuti, listen well and attentively. Now this “therefore” is also very illogical. “Therefore” is only logical when it comes as a part, as a concluding part, of a logical syllogism: All men die. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. Then “therefore” is perfectly right. It is part of a syllogism, a conclusion. But here there is no logic, nothing has preceded it, there has been no premise. And Buddha starts with the conclusion – therefore.That too has a strangeness about it. And that is Buddha’s way. That is how in The Heart Sutra he addressed Sariputra: Therefore, Sariputra…. Now he says: Therefore, Subhuti…. Subhuti has not said anything for which “therefore” is needed, Buddha has not said anything for which “therefore” is needed, but something is present in Subhuti’s being. “Therefore” is related to that presence; nothing has been uttered.A master responds to what is present in you. A master responds more to your silence than to your words. A master is more interested in your quest than in your questions. A master is more interested in your needs than in your questions. This “therefore” indicates a subtle need in the innermost being of Subhuti. Maybe Subhuti himself is not aware of it, maybe Subhuti will take a little time to become aware of it.The master has to go on looking into the disciple’s being, and the master has to respond to the inner need – expressed, unexpressed, that is not the point. Maybe left alone the disciple will take months to find out the need – or even years, or even lives. But the master looks not only into your past, not only into your present, but into your future too. What is going to be your need tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, this life and the next life? – the master provides for the whole journey. This “therefore” is related to some need in Subhuti’s inner being.Now the sutras:Because a bodhisattva who gives a gift should not be supported by a thing, nor should he be supported anywhere….This is the need for which Buddha has used Therefore, Subhuti, listen well and attentively. Deep down Subhuti must be having this idea, a very subtle idea: If I give to people what I have attained, great will be my merit.This may not be in words, this may not have yet become a thought; it may be just a feel, a ripple, deep inside. “If I give the dharma as a gift to people…” and that is the greatest gift, Buddha had said. The greatest gift is to give people your enlightenment, to share it. It has to be the greatest. Somebody shares his money, it is nothing. Even if he is not going to share, the money will be left here when he dies. Somebody shares something else. But to share enlightenment is to share eternity, to share enlightenment is to share the divine, to share enlightenment is to share the ultimate. Buddha has called it the greatest gift.Now he is saying to Subhuti to share whatsoever you have attained. And create a decision, chittopad, create a great decision in your being that you will not leave this shore unless you have liberated all the human beings. Make a great decisive act in your being before you start disappearing. Before your boat starts moving to the other shore, create a great desire to help people. That desire to help people will function as a chain with this shore. Before it is too late, create chittopad. Bring your whole energy into it – that “I will not leave this shore whatsoever the temptation of the other shore.”And there is great temptation. When all has changed and you have become capable of moving to the other shore for which you have been longing and longing for millions of lives, the temptation is great not to be here at all. For what? You have suffered enough, and now you have the passport to enter into nirvana. And Buddha says, “Deny the passport, throw it away, and make a great decision that you will not leave this shore until and unless you have liberated all the human beings.”Listening to this, a subtle desire must have arisen into Subhuti’s heart, at the deepest substratum of his being, that “That will be a great thing. How much merit I will get out of it, how much punya, how much virtue.” That must have been a small ripple. It is even difficult for Subhuti to read it, to read what it is. It must have flashed, an intuitive flash, just for a second or a split second, but it has been reflected in Buddha’s mirror.A master is a mirror. Whatsoever is in you is reflected in him. Sometimes he will not answer the question that you have asked because your question may be just a curiosity and has nothing to do with your inner being, or your question may be just an exhibition of your knowledge. Or your question may be just to prove to others, “Look what a great seeker I am. I ask such beautiful questions.” The question may not be existential, it may be just intellectual. Then the master is not going to answer it.And sometimes the master will answer a question that you have not asked; not only not asked, but that you have never known existed in you. But it will relate to your innermost need and requirement.Buddha says:Because a bodhisattva who gives a gift should not be supported by a thing, nor should he be supported anywhere….The support means motive. The support means that “I will be getting something out of it.” Then you have missed the whole point. Then it is a bargain, then it is no more a gift. And nirvana can only be a gift, it cannot be a bargain. It is not business. You have to give it for the sheer joy of giving it. You should not carry any motive to gain anything out of it. If you are carrying any motive to gain anything out of it you cannot help anybody; in fact you yourself still need help. You are not liberated yet, you don’t have the passport for the other shore yet. You can misguide, but you cannot guide.The real gift is an overflowing. You are so full of your enlightenment that it simply goes on overflowing. It is anybody’s to take. And you feel obliged when somebody takes it from you because he unburdens you. When a cloud comes and showers on the earth it feels thankful to the earth, because the earth has received and the cloud is unburdened. Yes, exactly like that.When enlightenment is arising, it goes on welling up. You can go on sharing as much as you want, and it goes on again and again coming up, again overflows, again overflows. There is no end to it. You have come to the eternal source. Now you should not be a miser and you should not be motivated and you should not have any idea to get anything in return.Because a bodhisattva who gives a gift should not be supported by a thing, nor should he be supported anywhere…. The great being should give gifts in such a way that he is not supported by the notion of a sign.He will not think, “This is a gift,” and he will not think that “I am the giver and you are the recipient.” No, all these ideas and notions should be dropped. There is no giver, no gift, no recipient; it is all oneness. The one you are helping is also you. The one you are giving to is another form of you…as if you are giving from the left hand to the right hand. There is no need to feel great about it. There is no giver, there is no receiver and there is no gift.The great being should give gifts in such a way that he is not supported by the notion of a sign.And why? Because the heap of merit of that bodhi-being, who unsupported gives a gift, is not easy to measure….Now this is a problem you will have to face again and again. The problem is, your merit is great if you don’t think about it. If you think about it, it disappears. If you desire it you will never get it. If you don’t desire it, it goes on showering on you.On the lower plane, Jesus’ statement is right. That statement has been given to ordinary people: “Ask and it shall be given. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you.” But Buddha is speaking to Subhuti, and he is exactly saying, “Ask and it shall not be given. Seek and you will not find. Knock and the doors will turn into a China wall, they will never open.” And remember, the difference comes from the audience. Jesus is talking to common people, Buddha is talking to a very uncommon person.The Lord continued: What do you think, Subhuti, can the Tathagata be seen by the possession of his marks.Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? What has been taught by the Tathagata as the possession of marks, that is truly a no-possession of no-marks.The Lord said: Wherever there is possession of marks, there is fraud; wherever there is no-possession of no-marks, there is no fraud. Hence the Tathagata is to be seen from no-marks as marks.These will look like puzzles. They are not. They appear to be puzzles but they are not. But on those heights from where Buddha is speaking everything becomes contradictory; contradiction becomes the only expression. One has to be paradoxical on those plenitudes of being. Logic loses all meaning. If one insists on being logical then one cannot move on those plenitudes and one cannot express that truth. That truth is bound to be contradictory.Buddha asks, “Subhuti, is a tathagata to…be seen by the possession of his marks?” Buddhist scriptures say that a buddha has thirty-two marks of being a super-man. Those thirty-two marks, are they to be the deciding factor?For ordinary human beings it is okay, because you don’t have any other eyes; you can see only the outward sign. You live by signs, marks. But for a man like Subhuti who can see inward, who can see in the Buddha, those marks should not be relevant anymore. And moreover, to possess anything is not the quality of a buddha – not even those thirty-two marks. They are irrelevant. A buddha has to be utterly ordinary, because he possesses nothing. That is his real mark, not to possess anything. Not to possess even buddhahood, that is the real mark of buddhahood. This is how things become contradictory.A real buddha is one who does not claim even to be a buddha, because all claims are fraudulent. To claim is to be a fraud. A buddha claims nothing, he has no claim. He desires nothing. He is not in any way interested in exhibiting. He is not interested in convincing anybody about who he is. He is utterly there – you can partake of him, you can join him in his dance, you can share his celebration – but he is not there to prove anything. To prove anything only proves that you have not attained yet. He is not defensive.And those outer marks can be created by people who may not be buddhas. Anything can be created. For example, Buddha’s breathing is utterly silent, as if he does not breathe at all. But that can be done by any yogi who is not a buddha. You can practice breathing, you can practice exercises, and you can bring the breathing to almost a halting point. You can defeat Buddha.His breathing is slow because he has slowed down, not because he has practiced any breathing exercises. His breathing is slow because he is not going anywhere, because all desires have disappeared; that’s why his breathing is slow, almost invisible. The reason is not that he is a great yogi, no. The reason is that desires dropped, there is no hurry. He is just on a morning walk, he is not going anywhere. He has no future, no worry.Have you watched? When you are worried your breathing becomes disturbed. When you are angry your breathing becomes violent. When you make love and passion arises, your breathing becomes very very disturbed, feverish. A buddha’s passion has become compassion, his desires have dropped, disappeared…as if ripe leaves have fallen from the tree. And his breathing has slowed down, slowed down, slowed down.But if this is the sign, then any pretender can show the sign. Buddha sits utterly silently, his posture is unmoving, he remains in one posture. But this can be done by anybody, just a little practice is needed, but by that practice you will not become a buddha.So Buddha says:The Lord said: Wherever there is possession of marks, there is fraud…If somebody claims, “I possess these marks of Buddha. Look, I am a buddha!” then there is fraud, because the very claim is a proof of fraud.…Wherever there is no-possession of no-marks there is no fraud. Hence the Tathagata is to be seen from no-marks as marks.Why does Buddha suddenly ask this question of Subhuti? A desire must have arisen in Subhuti, mm? – these are the things to be understood. A desire must have arisen in Subhuti. He is just on the verge of becoming a buddha. A desire must have arisen: “Soon I will possess thirty-two marks. Soon I will be a buddha, I will be proclaimed a buddha. I will have thirty-two marks.”This may have been just an unconscious desire, but a ripple…. Seeing the Buddha and his thirty-two marks, his grace, his beauty, who will not start desiring? And Subhuti is capable now, just on the threshold of buddhahood. While Buddha is talking about giving as if you are not giving, while Buddha is saying that if you can give without the notion of a giver and the gift and the receiver, great will be your merit…listening to this he must have longed. The longing may have been a subtle seed, but he must have longed. “Then with that great merit I will become a buddha. I will have thirty-two marks – the same fragrance that surrounds the Buddha, the same grace, the same splendor, the same benediction! Aha!” He must have somewhere created the desire.Seeing that desire, Buddha says, What do you think, Subhuti, can the Tathagata be seen by the possession of his marks? Unless you see this undercurrent in Subhuti’s consciousness or unconsciousness you will not understand The Diamond Sutra.Subhuti asked: Will there be any beings in the future period, in the last time, in the last epoch, in the last five hundred years, at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth?Now you will be surprised: this is the time Subhuti is talking about, and you are the people. Twenty-five hundred years have passed. Subhuti has asked about you.Buddha has said that whenever a religion is born, whenever a buddha turns the wheel of dharma, naturally, slowly slowly the wheel starts stopping. It loses momentum. You turn a wheel, it will start moving. Then by and by, by and by, a moment will come when it will stop.When a buddha moves the wheel of dharma, it takes two thousand five hundred years for it to stop completely. After each five hundred years it goes on losing momentum. So those are the five ages of the dharma. After each five hundred years the dharma will be less and less, decreased and decreased and decreased, and after twenty-five centuries the wheel will stop again. It will need another buddha to turn it for the coming twenty-five centuries.This is a rare phenomenon. It is really intriguing that Subhuti asked Buddha:Will there be any beings in the future period, in the last time, in the last epoch, in the last five hundred years, at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth?The Lord replied: Do not speak thus, Subhuti! Yes, even then there will be beings who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth.For even at that time, Subhuti, there will be bodhisattvas.…And these bodhisattvas, Subhuti, will not be such as have honored only one single Buddha, nor such as have planted their roots of merit under one single Buddha only.On the contrary, Subhuti, those bodhisattvas who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will find even one single thought of serene faith, will be such as have honored many hundreds of thousands of buddhas, such as have planted their roots of merit under many hundreds of thousands of buddhas.Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata.And they all, Subhuti, will beget and acquire an immeasurable and incalculable heap of merit.Buddha is talking about you. The sutra is being read to you. Twenty-five centuries have passed. Subhuti has asked about you!The other day I had told you that many of you will become bodhisattvas, many of you are on the way. It is strange that Subhuti should ask such a question. And more strange is that Buddha says, “Those people after twenty-five centuries will not be less fortunate than you but will be more fortunate.”Why? I have been telling you many times that you are ancient ones, that you have walked on this earth many many times, that you are not listening to dharma for the first time, that you have come across many buddhas in your past lives – sometimes maybe a Krishna and sometimes maybe a Christ and sometimes maybe a Mahavira and sometimes maybe a Mohammed, but you have come across many many buddhas, many enlightened people.You are fortunate to know so many buddhas, and if you become a little alert, all the seeds that have been sown in you by the past buddhas will start blooming, will sprout. You will start flowering.Buddha says:Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata.It is very mysterious, but it is possible. A buddha can have a vision of the future. He can see through the fog of the future. His clarity is such, his vision is such, he can throw a ray of light into the unknown future. He can see. It will look very mysterious that Buddha sees you listening to The Diamond Sutra. From your standpoint it seems almost unbelievable, because you don’t know even how to see in the present. How can you believe that anybody can see in the future?You know only one capacity: that is the capacity to look into the past. You can only look backwards. You are past-oriented. And whatsoever you think about your future is not a vision of the future, it is just a projection of the modified past. It is not future at all. It is your yesterday trying to be repeated as tomorrow.You have tasted something yesterday and it was sweet and you want it again tomorrow: this is your future. You have been in love with somebody and you want to make love again in the future: this is your future. It is a repetition of the past, it is not future at all. You don’t know what future is at all. You can’t know what future is because you can’t even know what the present is. And the present is available, and you are so blind that you cannot even see into that which is already here.But then, eyes open, you can see even into that which is not present, that which is going to happen. You can have glimpses of that. The way to see the future is first to see the present. One who can be absolutely in the present becomes capable of looking into the future.This is ecstatic to even think that Gautama the Buddha had seen you listening to The Diamond Sutra. In The Diamond Sutra you are talked about. That’s why I have chosen it. When I came across these words I thought, “This is the thing for my people. They must know that even they have been looked into by Gautama the Buddha; that something about them has been said twenty-five centuries ago; that they have been predicted.”The wheel that Buddha moved has stopped. The wheel has to be moved again. And that is going to be my and your life’s work – that wheel has to be moved again. Once it starts revolving it will again have twenty-five centuries’ life. Once it starts moving it goes on moving for twenty-five centuries at least.And it has to be done again and again and again, because everything loses momentum, everything functions under the laws of nature – entropy. You throw a stone, you throw with great energy, but it goes a few hundred feet and it falls down. Exactly like that, dharma has to be made alive again and again. Then it breathes for twenty-five centuries and then dies. Everything that is born has to die.But Buddha says, “Subhuti, do not speak thus.” Subhuti must be thinking, “Only we are fortunate. We have listened to Buddha, lived with Buddha, walked with Buddha. We are fortunate, we are blessed people. What will happen after twenty-five centuries when the wheel of dharma has completely stopped moving?” He is thinking about you unfortunate people.Buddha says, “Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Don’t start thinking that only you are fortunate.” That is a very subtle ego: “We are fortunate, nobody else is so fortunate.” Buddha immediately puts his hand on Subhuti’s mouth:Do not speak thus, Subhuti! Yes, even then there will be beings who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will understand their truth.And I know, here are people who understand the truth. Slowly slowly the morning is happening, the dark night is disappearing. Slowly slowly the seed is gaining ground, entering in your heart.For even at that time, Subhuti, there will be bodhisattvas….There are many here who are going to become bodhisattvas. Just a little more work, just a little more play, just a little more effort into meditativeness, just a little more pouring of the energy, just a little more concentration of the energy, avoiding of distractions, and it is going to happen. And it is going to happen to many. And you are the fortunate ones, Buddha says.And these bodhisattvas, Subhuti, will not be such as have honored only one single Buddha, nor such as have planted their roots of merit under one single Buddha only.On the contrary, Subhuti, those bodhisattvas who, when these words of the sutra are being taught, will find even one single thought of serene faith…If you can even understand a single word of The Diamond Sutra, if you can understand a simple look of my eyes into your eyes, if you can understand a simple gesture of my inner dance….Buddha says:…will find even one single thought of serene faith, will be such as have honored many hundreds of thousands of buddhas, such as have planted their roots of merit under many hundreds of thousands of buddhas.Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata. And they all, Subhuti, will beget and acquire an immeasurable and incalculable heap of merit.And you are the people Buddha is talking about. And you are the people I am depending on. The wheel of dharma has stopped. It has to be turned again.Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What has gone wrong? Why is it that people meet everything new rather reluctantly, and with fear, rather than with eager joy?The new does not arise out of you, it comes from the beyond. It is not part of you. Your whole past is at stake. The new is discontinuous with you, hence the fear. You have lived in one way, you have thought in one way, you have made a comfortable life out of your beliefs. Then something new knocks on the door. Now your whole past pattern is going to be disturbed. If you allow the new to enter you will never be the same again, the new will transform you.It is risky. One never knows where you will end with the new. The old is known, familiar; you have lived with it for long, you are acquainted with it. The new is unfamiliar. It may be the friend, it may be the enemy, who knows. And there is no way to know. The only way to know is to allow it; hence the apprehension, the fear.And you cannot remain rejecting it either, because the old has not given you yet what you seek. The old has been promising, but the promises have not been fulfilled. The old is familiar but miserable. The new is maybe going to be uncomfortable, but there is a possibility – it may bring bliss to you. So you cannot reject it either and you cannot accept it; hence you waver, you tremble, great anguish arises in your being. It is natural, nothing has gone wrong. This is how it has always been, this is how it will always be.Try to understand the appearance of the new. Everybody in the world wants to become new, because nobody is satisfied with the old. Nobody can ever be satisfied with the old because whatsoever it is, you have known it. Once known it has become repetitive; once known it has become boring, monotonous. You want to get rid of it. You want to explore, you want to adventure. You want to become new, and yet when the new knocks on the door you shrink back, you withdraw, you hide in the old. This is the dilemma.How do we become new? – and everybody wants to become new. Courage is needed, and not ordinary courage; extraordinary courage is needed. And the world is full of cowards, hence people have stopped growing. How can you grow if you are a coward? With each new opportunity you shrink back, you close your eyes. How can you grow? How can you be? You only pretend to be.And because you cannot grow you have to find substitute growths. You cannot grow but your bank balance can grow, that’s a substitute. It needs no courage, it is perfectly adjusted with your cowardliness. Your bank balance goes on growing and you start thinking that you are growing. You become more respectable. Your name and fame go on growing and you think you are growing? You are simply deceiving yourself. Your name is not you, neither is your fame you. Your bank balance is not your being. But think of the being and you start shaking, because if you want to grow there then you have to drop all cowardice.How do we become new? We do not become new of ourselves. Newness comes from the beyond, say from God. Newness comes from existence. Mind is always old. Mind is never new, it is the accumulation of the past. Newness comes from the beyond; it is a gift from the divine. It is from the beyond and it is of the beyond.The unknown and the unknowable, the beyond, has ingress into you. It has ingress into you because you are never sealed and set apart; you are not an island. You may have forgotten the beyond but the beyond has not forgotten you. The child may have forgotten the mother, the mother has not forgotten the child. The part may have started thinking, “I am separate,” but the whole knows that you are not separate. The whole has ingress in you. It is still in contact with you. That’s why the new goes on coming although you don’t welcome it. It comes every morning, it comes every evening. It comes in a thousand and one ways. If you have eyes to see, you will see it continuously coming to you.Existence goes on showering on you, but you are enclosed in your past. You are almost in a kind of grave. You have become insensitive. Because of your cowardliness you have lost your sensitivity. To be sensitive means the new will be felt – and the thrill of the new, and the passion for the new and the adventure will arise and you will start moving into the unknown, not knowing where you are going.Mind thinks it is mad. Mind thinks it is not rational to leave the old. But the divine is always the new. That’s why we cannot use past tense or future tense for God. We cannot say, “God was,” we cannot say, “God will be.” We can only use the present, “God is.” It is always fresh, virgin. And it has ingress in you.Remember, anything new coming in your life is a message from the divine. If you accept it you are religious. If you reject it you are irreligious. Man needs just to relax a little more to accept the new, to open up a little more to let the new in. Give way to the divine entering you.That is the whole meaning of prayer or meditation – you open up, you say yes, you say, “Come in.” You say, “I have been waiting and waiting and I am thankful that you have come.” Always receive the new with great joy. Even if sometimes the new leads you into inconvenience, still it is worth it. Even if sometimes the new leads you into some ditch, still it is worth it because only through errors one learns, and only through difficulties one grows. The new will bring difficulties. That’s why you choose the old – it does not bring any difficulties. It is a consolation, it is a shelter.And only the new, accepted deeply and totally, can transform you. You cannot bring the new in your life; the new comes. You can either accept it or reject it. If you reject it you remain a stone, closed and dead. If you receive it you become a flower, you start opening…and in that opening is celebration.Only the entry of the new can transform you, there is no other way of transformation. But remember, it has nothing to do with you and your efforts. But to do nothing is not to cease to act; it is to act without will or direction or impulse from your past. The search for the new cannot be an ordinary search, because it is for the new. How can you search for it? You don’t know it, you have never met it. The search for the new is going to be just an open exploration. One knows not. One has to start in a state of not-knowing, and one has to move innocently like a child, thrilled with the possibilities – and infinite are the possibilities.You cannot do anything to create the new, because whatsoever you do will be of the old, will be from the past. But that does not mean that you have to cease to act; it is to act without will or direction or impulse from your past. Act without any will or direction or impulse from the past – and that is to act meditatively. Act spontaneously. Let the moment be decisive.You don’t impose your decision, because the decision will be from the past and it will destroy the new. You just act in the moment like a child. Utterly abandon yourself to the moment – and you will find every day new openings, new light, new insight. And those new insights will go on changing you. One day, suddenly you will see you are each moment new. The old no more lingers, the old no more hangs around you like a cloud. You are like a dewdrop, fresh and young.Remember, a buddha lives moment to moment. It is as if a wave rises in the ocean, a majestic wave. With great joy and dance it comes up, with hope and dreams, to touch the stars. Then the play for the moment, and then the wave disappears. It will come again, it will have another day. It will again dance and again it will be gone. So is the divine…comes, disappears, comes again, disappears. So is a buddha-consciousness. Each moment it comes, acts, responds, and is gone. Again it comes and is gone. It is atomic.Between two moments there is a gap; in that gap buddha disappears. I say a word to you, then I disappear. Then I say another word and I am there, and I disappear again. I respond to you and then I am no more. Then the response is again there and I am no more. Those intervals, those emptinesses keep one utterly fresh, because only death can keep you absolutely alive.You die once, after seventy years. Naturally you accumulate seventy years’ garbage. A buddha dies every moment – no garbage is accumulated, nothing is accumulated, nothing is ever possessed. That’s why Buddha said the other day that to possess marks is to be a fraud, because possession is of the past. Not to possess marks is to be a buddha.Just think of it – each moment arising, just like a breath. You breathe in, you breathe out. You breathe in again, you breathe out again. Each breath coming in is life and each breath going out is death. You are born with each incoming breath, you die with each outgoing breath. Let each moment be a birth and a death. Then you will be new.But this new has nothing to do with your past, your will, your direction, your impulse. It is to act spontaneously. It is not reaction but response. All that is done out of the past is old, so that one can of oneself do nothing new. To see this is to be done with the old and with the past and with yourself. That is all we can do. But it is everything, it is all. Upon the ending of the old, the new may follow, it may not. It does not matter. The very wish for the new is an old wish. Then one is utterly open. Even to ask for the new is an old wish.A buddha is not even asking for the new. There is no desire for anything, that “It should be like this.” If there is desire you will manage it like that, you will impose yourself upon it. See life desirelessly. See life without any conditions. See life as it is – yatha bhutam – and you will be continuously renewed, rejuvenated.That is the real meaning of resurrection. If you understand this you will be free from memory, psychological memory that is. Memory is a dead thing. Memory is not truth and cannot ever be, because truth is always alive, truth is life; memory is persistence of that which is no more. It is living in a ghost world, but it contains us, it is our prison. In fact, it is us. Memory creates the knot, the complex called “I,” the ego. And naturally this false entity called “I” is continuously afraid of death. That’s why you are afraid of the new.This “I” is afraid, not really you. The being has no fear, but the ego has fear because the ego is very very afraid of dying. It is artificial, it is arbitrary, it is put together. It can fall apart any moment. And when the new enters there is fear. The ego is afraid, it may fall apart. Somehow it has been managing to keep itself together, to keep itself in one piece, and now something new comes – it will be a shattering thing. That’s why you don’t accept the new with joy. The ego cannot accept its own death with joy – how can it accept its own death with joy?Unless you have understood that you are not the ego, you will not be able to receive the new. Once you have seen that the ego is your past memory and nothing else, that you are not your memory, that memory is just like a biocomputer, that it is a machine, a mechanism, utilitarian, but you are beyond it…. You are consciousness, not memory. Memory is a content in consciousness, you are consciousness itself.For example, you see somebody walking on the road. You remember the face but you can’t remember the name. If you are the memory you should remember the name too. But you say, “I recognize the face but I don’t remember the name.” Then you start looking in your memory, you go inside your memory, you look to this side, to that side, and suddenly the name bubbles up and you say, “Yes, this is his name.” Memory is your record. You are the one who is looking into the record, you are not the memory itself.And it happens many times that if you become too tense about remembering something it becomes difficult to remember it, because the very tension, the very strain upon your being does not allow the memory to release its information to you. You try and try to remember somebody’s name and it doesn’t come, even though you say it is just on the tip of the tongue. You know that you know, but still the name is not coming.Now this is strange. If you are memory, then who is preventing you and how is it not coming? And who is this who says, “I know, but still it is not coming”? And then you try hard, and the harder you try the more difficult it becomes. Then, fed up with the whole thing, you go into the garden for a walk and suddenly, looking at the rosebush, it is there, it has surfaced.Your memory is not you. You are consciousness, memory is content. But memory is the whole life-energy of the ego. Memory is of course old, and it is afraid of the new. The new may be disturbing, the new may be such that it may not be digestible. The new may bring some trouble. You will have to shift and reshift yourself. You will have to readjust yourself. That seems arduous.To be new one needs to become disidentified with the ego. Once you are disidentified with the ego you don’t care whether it dies or lives. In fact you know that whether it lives or dies it is already dead. It is a mechanism. Use it, but don’t be used by it. The ego is continuously afraid of death because it is arbitrary. Hence the fear. It does not arise out of being, it cannot arise out of being, because being is life. How can life be afraid of death? Life knows nothing of death.It arises out of the arbitrary, the artificial, the somehow put together, the false, the pseudo. And yet…and yet…it is just such letting-go, just that death that makes a man alive. To die in the ego is to be born into being, into the divine.The new is a messenger from existence, the new is a message from existence. It is a gospel. Listen to the new, go with the new. I know you are afraid. In spite of your fear go with the new, and your life will become richer and richer and you will be able one day to release the imprisoned splendor.The second question:Osho,What do you mean by saying that life is perfect?I mean exactly that. Life is perfect. But I understand why the question has arisen. The question has arisen because you have some ideas about perfection and life does not fit with your ideas, hence you call it imperfect.When I call life perfect, I don’t mean that it fits with my idea of perfection – I have none. When I call life perfect, I simply mean there is nothing else to compare it with, there is no ideal. This is all there is; it has to be perfect.Your perfection is always comparison; my perfection is just a simple statement of fact, it is not a comparison. You compare, you say, “Yes, this is perfect, that is not perfect,” and you have a criterion of what is perfect.I have heard about a Sufi master who was talking to a few people in the coffee house and he said an old Sufi saying: “Life is perfect, everything is perfect, everybody is perfect.”A hunchback was listening, he stood up and he said, “Look at me! I am the proof that life is not perfect. Look at me! Is this not enough to disprove your idea that life is perfect? Look at me – how ugly I am, and in how much difficulty. I am a hunchback.”The Sufi looked and said, “But you are the most perfect hunchback that I have ever seen.” The most perfect hunchback….Once you start seeing life as it is, and you have no idea how it should be, everything is perfect. Even imperfection is perfect. What I mean when I say life is perfect is a simple thing: I mean don’t bring your ideals to it, otherwise you make life imperfect: because once you bring the ideal then you are creating the imperfection.If you say man has to be seven feet tall and he is not, there is difficulty. Or if you have the idea that man has to be only four feet tall and he is not, then there is difficulty. Life simply is. Somebody is seven feet tall and somebody is four feet tall. One tree grows to the clouds, another remains small. But all is perfectly well, all is as it should be, because there is no “should” in my mind. I simply listen and see life as it is. I have no idea how it should be. That’s why I say it is as it should be, there is no other life.The message is: drop comparing, drop judging, otherwise you will remain miserable – and just because of your judgments and comparisons. Look at life without being a judge. Who are you to judge? What do you know about life? What do you know even about yourself? Who are you to judge? Judgment comes from the idea that you know; judgment is knowledgeability.Look at life with a state of not-knowing, through a state of not-knowing. Look at life through wonder – and suddenly all is perfect. Yes, sometimes it is cloudy, but it is perfect. And sometimes it is sunny and it is perfect. And sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn’t rain, but it is perfect. As it is, it is a blessing. To be in tune with this blessing is to be prayerful.The third question:Osho, You sometimes say about people that they have missed again or lived in vain. That sounds like there is a goal or a point which can either be missed or attained. And then again you say there is no goal, everything just is, so how can I possibly miss?You missed again! The moment you ask how, you miss. There is a point, not to be realized but only to be recognized. And there is no “how” to it because it is already there; you have just to look, you have just to be in a silent space so that you can look. You have to be just in a moment when you are not doing anything, not going anywhere, not trying to improve upon things – relaxed. In that pause, in that relaxation, it is there. It is a recognition; not a realization but a recognition, because deep down you are already that and you have always been that.Ask how, and you miss again, because how means something has to be done about it. No method is needed, no path is needed, no technique is needed. All techniques and all paths and all methods have to be dropped. You have to be in a state of utter silence so that you can hear the still small voice within you. It has been there all along, but you are so noisy with your desires that you cannot listen to your own music.Don’t ask how, and drop all the methods that you have accumulated through asking how. Just fall into a silent space. It is a knack, not a technique. Looking at the morning sun rising, just sit silently and look; what is there to be done? The moon is in the sky, just lie down on the grass and be there with the moon; and the white clouds floating…just be with them. And the birds are singing and the children playing…and you don’t do anything.Be passive. In your passivity, the divine comes. Be feminine. In your femininity, the divine comes. Have you not watched it? Buddha looks very feminine, Krishna looks very feminine. Why? – because it is simply a metaphor. They have been depicted as feminine, graceful, to show that that is their inner quality – receptivity.When you are doing something you are being aggressive. When you are not doing anything you are non-aggressive. And the ultimate cannot be conquered; you can only allow him to conquer you.The fourth question:Osho,What is respect to a master? How do we respect you? Are rituals needed in honor of you? Can we joke with you? In Sufi dancing we were told to think of something to make us giggle. I thought of you slipping, just like slipping on a banana peel. Is it disrespect or is it just okay?With me it is perfect. But you have been disrespectful to the banana peel.And remember, bananas are not buddhas – they will never forgive you.The fifth question:Osho,Can meditation be passionate?Yes, that is the only way for meditation to exist. Passion is energy, passion is fire, passion is life.If you are doing meditation just so-so, without any passion, without intensity, without fire, nothing will happen. If you are praying just as a formality and it is not love that has arisen in your heart, it is meaningless, it is absurd.If you are praying to God without passion there will be no connection between you and God. Only passion can become the bridge, the thirst, the hunger. The more thirsty you are, the more is the possibility. If you are utterly thirsty, if you have become just a thirst, your whole being is consumed by your passion, then only something happens – in that intensity, in that moment of hundred-degree passion.Don’t be lukewarm. People live a lukewarm life. They are neither this nor that, hence they remain mediocre. If you want to get beyond mediocrity, create a life of great passion. Whatsoever you do, do it passionately. If you sing, then sing passionately. If you love, then love passionately. If you paint, then paint passionately. If you talk, then talk passionately. If you listen, then listen passionately. If you meditate, then meditate passionately.And from everywhere you will start having contact with the ultimate – wherever passion is. If you are painting with utter passion, your painting is meditation. There is no need for any other meditation. If you are dancing with absolute passion so that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains, it is meditation – no other need, nowhere to go, no yoga postures…. This is the yoga posture: the dancer has disappeared and the dance is there. It is pure energy – energy vibrating.In that state you contact. Why in that state do you contact? – because when the passion is great, the ego dies. The ego can exist only in mediocre minds; only mediocre people are egoistic. The really great are not egoistic, they cannot be. But their life has a totally different direction, a different dimension – the dimension of passion.Have you observed these two words – passion and compassion? Passion becomes transformed into compassion. There is a quantum leap from passion into compassion – but the quantum leap happens only when you are boiling at one hundred degrees, then the water becomes vapor. It is the same energy that exists as passion and one day becomes compassion. Compassion is not antagonistic to passion; it is passion come of age, it is passion bloomed. It is the spring season for passion. I am all for passion. Do whatsoever you do but be lost into it, abandon yourself into it, dissolve yourself into it. And dissolution becomes salvation.The sixth question:Osho,This morning, sitting by your stage after lecture, I felt as if I was sitting at your feet and you were sharing a beautiful story of waterfalls and trees and happiness. You were smiling and there was so much joy and yet when you left only minutes earlier there was a stunned feeling of having been hit over the head with a very big stick, hard. Osho, what are you doing to us? Are you telling us beautiful stories or hitting us over the head or what?Those stories are just a preparation for the hit. I am doing both. First I have to tell stories to you – beautiful stories of trees and mountains and clouds, beautiful stories about the other shore, beautiful stories of buddhahood and bodhisattvahood. And when I see that now you are lost in the stories and I can hit and you will not be angry, then I hit. The stories only just prepare the ground, but the basic work is a hammer on your head. I have to destroy you.Naturally the work is such that first I have to persuade. First I have to seduce you to come closer and closer and closer; only then the hammer can descend on you. Otherwise you will escape. Those stories don’t allow you to escape, they keep you close to me. Those beautiful stories function like a glue between me and you, and when I see the right time has come I hit – and when I hit, I hit passionately.The seventh question:Osho,You would like us all to become bodhisattvas. That means one has to make that firm decision to help others to the other shore. However, I do not feel able to make that decision. Sometimes I feel love towards others, sometimes I am just busy with myself. So should I wait or is the decision not such a thing as a statement but rather like a fruit that ripens by itself? And why then is Buddha a buddha and not a bodhisattva?First, these three things have to be understood. One, the ordinary state of human mind – when you cling to the world, to this shore, and the other shore seems to be fictitious. You cannot trust the other shore. You cling so much to this shore that the only problem is how to help you to uncling from it.Right now, this is not going to help if you start thinking of being a bodhisattva. This is not going to help, this will be dangerous. This will only be a strategy to cling to this shore. You are not yet freed of this shore. This will be a new way to cling to the world again. And this is very tricky – now it will be in the name of religion, compassion, love for people, service. Now it will have great ideology in it: “I am here to help people, that’s why I am not going to the other shore.” And you don’t want to go to the other shore, and you don’t know that the other shore exists, and you don’t even believe that the other shore is. Now you are falling into a very subtle trap.This is the first stage of the ordinary mind: it clings with the world, it goes on finding more and more new reasons to cling. It is very difficult to uncling. The second stage is of a bodhisattva, one who has come to that unclinging state where he is ready to fly to the other shore, he has no longer any roots in this world. In the first stage it is difficult to uncling, in the second stage it is very difficult to cling.The Diamond Sutra is for the second stage people, not for the first stage people. First you have to uncling, first you have to destroy all your roots in this world. When you have destroyed all your roots, then only can you be of help to others, otherwise you cannot be of any help. You don’t have anything to share. You can go on believing “I love people,” but you don’t have love yet. Still you desire people to love you. You are still a beggar, you are not yet in that position to share your love for no reason at all, just for the sheer joy of sharing.First reach to the second stage. First let yourself be utterly egoless. Destroy all your roots in this world, don’t be possessive. Only then will what Buddha is saying be relevant to you: then the problem will arise. First the problem is how to uncling, then the problem arises how to cling a little more.Buddha says, when you have no roots then you are needed here. Then you have something to share. Then you have diamonds to share. Then before leaving, share, and remain here as long as you can. This is the second stage. The third stage is of a buddha who has reached to the other shore.Now you ask: “And why then is Buddha a buddha and not a bodhisattva?” The third stage is more difficult. To be on the other shore and yet be on this shore is the most difficult thing. To be on the other shore and still go on helping people is the most difficult thing. So these are the three difficulties. First, to uncling from this shore. Second, when the unclinging has happened, to remain on this shore. And third, when you cannot remain on this shore…because a moment comes when it becomes impossible.Every bodhisattva has to become a buddha. You cannot cling to this shore, that is illegal. A point comes when you have to leave. A little is possible; at the most one life, not more than that. Then you will have to leave. One life you can cling, because all the roots are destroyed but you have the body, so you can remain in the body. One life you can cling at the most, then you have to leave.Then comes the third stage – the buddha. Buddha is one who has left and yet goes on helping people. But remember, if you have been a bodhisattva, only then will you be able in the third stage to help people, otherwise not.There are two words to be understood. One is arhat, another is bodhisattva. Arhat is one…it is the same state – the world is destroyed, he has no more attachment, the ego is gone – but immediately he moves to the other shore. He is called arhat. He does not bother about others, he simply goes to the other shore when he is ready. The arhat will not be able to help from the other shore because he will not know how to help, he has never been trained for help. A bodhisattva is also in the same state as an arhat. He has known, he has seen, he has become truth, but he stays on this shore a little longer and goes on helping people in whatsoever way he can. He learns the way to help.If you have been a bodhisattva and then you go to the other shore, on the other shore the arhat will also become a buddha and the bodhisattva will also become a buddha – the other shore is the shore of buddhahood – but the one who has been a bodhisattva on this shore will be able to help from the other shore too. He will find ways and means. And the buddha goes on helping down the centuries.Even now, if you are open to Buddha, the help will be coming to you. Even now, if you are passionately in love with Buddha, the help will be coming to you. He is still shouting from the other shore, but the shout from the other shore is very far away. You will have to listen very attentively, more attentively than you are listening to me, because the voice will be coming from the other shore.Sooner or later I will be gone. If you learn how to listen to me attentively, many of you will be able to listen to me from the other shore too.Buddhahood is the ultimate state of consciousness. But if you pass through bodhisattvahood you will remain available to the world, you will be a window to God forever. If you don’t pass through bodhisattvahood you will disappear into the infinite, but nobody will be helped by you.The last question:Osho,Whenever you talk about realizing one's buddhahood, you say it is sudden, like lightning, not a process, but what I can see happening in me is a very slow process of becoming more contented, less in the grip of the ego. Can you clarify the difference between that process and the “sudden flash” that happened to you? Is there any danger in becoming too contented with the slow process?No, there is no danger. The enlightenment is always like lightning. It is in a flash, it is a sudden explosion. It cannot come gradually because it cannot be divided; you cannot have it in bits.Then what is happening to Deepta? She feels she is becoming slowly slowly contented. This is not enlightenment, this is the ground in which enlightenment happens. The ground can be prepared gradually, in fact has to be prepared gradually. You cannot prepare the ground like lightning, in a flash. Sometimes it takes lives to prepare the ground.The preparation for buddhahood is gradual, but the actual happening of buddhahood is a sudden explosion in you. So don’t be afraid, this is good. You are moving on the right track. Become more and more contented.The day you are utterly contented, the flash.Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul, no perception of a person. Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma, or a perception of a no-dharma. No perception or non-perception takes place in them.And why? If, Subhuti, these bodhisattvas, should have a perception of either a dharma, or a no-dharma, they would thereby seize on a self, on a being, on a soul, on a person.And why? Because a bodhisattva should not seize on either a dharma or a no-dharma. Therefore this saying has been taught by the Tathagata with a hidden meaning: “By those who know the discourse on dharma as like unto a raft, dharmas should be forsaken, still more so, no-dharmas.”The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as “the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment,” or is there any dharma which the Tathagata has demonstrated?Subhuti replied: No, not as I understand what the Lord has said. And why? This dharma which the Tathagata has fully known or demonstrated – it cannot be grasped, it cannot be talked about, it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma. And why? Because an absolute exalts the holy persons.To recapitulate…in the last sutra Subhuti asked: “Will there be any beings in the last epoch, at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine, who will be able to understand the dharma?”Buddha said: “Do not speak thus, Subhuti! Yes, even then there will be beings who will understand the truth. Even one single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man.” Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known, Subhuti, they are to the Tathagata.A few things to be understood, then it will be easy to enter into today’s sutra. First, the good doctrine, the dharma. Buddha calls a doctrine good if it is not a doctrine. If it is a doctrine it is not a good doctrine. Buddha calls a philosophy good philosophy if it is not a philosophy. If it is a philosophy then it is not good philosophy.A doctrine is a set, fixed phenomenon. The universe is in flux; no doctrine can contain it. No doctrine can be just to it, no doctrine can do justice to existence. All doctrines fall short.So Buddha says: “My doctrine is not a doctrine but just a vision. I have not given you any set rules, I have not given you a system.” He says: “I have only given you an approach towards reality. I have only given you the keys to open the door. I have not said anything about what you will see when you open the door. Nothing can be said about it.”Just think of a man who has lived always in a dark cave, who knows nothing of light, who knows nothing of color, who has never seen the sun or the moon. How can you tell him about the rainbows? How can you talk to him about stars? How can you describe roses to him? It is impossible. And whatsoever you say to him, if he understands it, it will be wrong. He will create a doctrine and that will be wrong.So Buddha says: “I have not given any doctrine to you. I have given you only the key to open the door so that you can come out of the dark cave of your being and you can see yourself what is the case – yatha bhutam, that which is.” Nothing has been said about it; that’s why it is not a doctrine. Buddha is not a philosopher, he is a physician. That’s exactly what he has said: “I am a physician, not a philosopher.”A philosopher is one who goes on talking about color and light to a blind man, and goes on confusing him and confounding him. The blind man is incapable of understanding anything about light. Buddha says: “I am not going to philosophize about light, I will simply give you a medicine, I will try to cure your eyes. Then you can see for yourself.” This is called the good doctrine, this is called dharma. This is a totally different vision.The second thing to understand…Buddha says to Subhuti: Do not speak thus. Why? – because this idea has been persistently arising in people, even in people like Subhuti, of the highest spiritual qualities…that they are special, that their time is special, that their age is special, that never again will people be able to touch such heights. This is an egoistic, a subtle egoistic attitude. It shows much about Subhuti. He is still carrying a subtle ego.Down the ages almost all people have suffered from this disease; they think that their time is something special. No time is special. The divine is available in all times. In India, Hindus say that now nobody can become enlightened because it is Kali Yuga, it is the last, the dirtiest age – nobody can become enlightened. Jainas say that nobody can become enlightened because it is Pancham Kal, the fifth epoch. Even Buddhists, perfectly aware of The Diamond Sutra, go on saying that nobody can become enlightened in this age, and even they try to interpret Buddha’s words in such a way that it starts appearing as if nobody can become enlightened.Just the other night I was reading a commentary on The Diamond Sutra. The commentary says, “Yes, Buddha says that people will be there who will be able to understand a little bit of the truth, and great will be their merit – but merit is not enlightenment. Merit is just the ground.”So the interpreter, the commentator says, “In this age nobody can become enlightened; at the most you can attain to some merit. You have to wait for the right age to become enlightened. Your merit will be of great help, it will put the foundation, but you cannot make the shrine right now.” This is how people go on.What Buddha is saying is simply this fact, that all time is similar for the seeker – and so it is for the non-seeker. In Buddha’s time there were millions of people who never became enlightened. It is not like spring – that when spring comes all the trees bloom. If that is the case, then all the people in Buddha’s time would have become enlightened. Only a few people became enlightened. So it is not like spring, it is not a question of climate; it is not a particular auspicious time that makes people enlightened.Those who seek and search, they attain. Those who don’t seek and search, they will not attain; even if the time is auspicious, it doesn’t matter. And the time is the same, the time is neither good nor bad. Time is neither for enlightenment nor against enlightenment. Whatsoever you want your life to become, time gives you the opportunity.Time is impartial. It does not impose anything on you, it simply gives you freedom. You can become enlightened, as enlightened as you desire, or you can remain as unenlightened as you decide. Existence cooperates with you, but this idea arises again and again. I have come across many scriptures of the world: people think, “What will happen to others in the future?”This idea persists even in ordinary human beings. You can see any old man and he talks about his time. Those beautiful days, those golden days which he had lived were something special, now there is nothing in the world. And remember, when you become old you will tell to your children the same long tales, tall tales, and you will again say, “Those were the days.”I have heard about a man who went to Paris when he was eighty with his wife, who was seventy-eight. They looked around. The old man said, “Things have changed, Paris is no longer Paris. I had come fifty years ago when I was thirty – that was the real Paris.”The woman laughed, and as women are more earthly, more pragmatic, she said, “My understanding is different. I think you are no longer you, that’s all. Paris is the same. Just look at the young people – they are enjoying, as much as you must have enjoyed when you were young.”Now for a man who is eighty, Paris means nothing, Paris is its nightlife. For a man who is eighty, it is irrelevant. He is no longer so foolish as to enjoy it. He is no longer that young to be so foolish. Dreams have disappeared. And I think the wife is right: “You are not you, Paris is the same.”It happens to you too. You start thinking that those days of your childhood were beautiful; now things are not so good. You feel sorry for the kids who are living now. You don’t know – they will feel sorry for other kids again. This has always been so. And every man thinks his time has some special quality, it is revolutionary.And I have heard, these were the first words uttered by Adam when Adam and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden. He told Eve, “Look, we are living in, we are passing through great revolutionary times.” Naturally, being thrown out of the garden of Eden must have been a great crisis; nobody has been through such a crisis again.Buddha says: Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Why? – because all time has the same quality. Space and time are not corrupted by you, they cannot be corrupted. You cannot even catch hold of time, how can you corrupt it? They are not polluted. You can pollute the air and the sea, but you cannot pollute time, or can you?How can you pollute time? You cannot even catch hold of it. By the time you catch hold of it, it is gone. By the time you become aware of the moment, the moment is no more. It has already become past, it has already become history. You cannot pollute time. Time is one of the most pure things, it is always pure.That’s why Buddha says: Do not speak thus, Subhuti. Yes, even then there will be beings who will understand the truth…. There will always be beings who will understand, because truth is not a quality that happens sometimes and does not happen sometimes. Truth is always there. That is what is called truth – that which is always there.Truth has nothing to do with time, it is eternal. You can attain to truth in the day, you can attain to truth in the night, you can attain to truth in the marketplace, you can attain to truth in the Himalayas, you can attain to truth being a man or a woman, a child, a young man, an old man. You can attain to truth any moment, any place, because truth is always available, you just have to become available to it.And Buddha says: Even one single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man. One single thought of serene faith…. What is faith in Buddha’s sense of the word? Ordinarily faith is fear, faith is nothing but fear. If you go to the churches and to the temples and the gurudwaras, you will find fearful people, frightened people – frightened of life and frightened of death and just seeking some shelter in some god; feeling helpless, finding some security somewhere; or missing their father and their mother and projecting some father and mother there in heaven.They are not mature, they cannot live without their mums and dads. The dad may be dead, the mum may not be alive anymore; but they are children, they need some apron to cling to, they need somebody. They cannot live on their own, they cannot trust themselves.When you are afraid, and because of your fear you become religious, this religion is bogus. This religion is a kind of monkey religion, ape religion, imitative. Out of fear arises imitation. What does Buddha mean when he uses the word faith? His word is shaddha. The Sanskrit form of shaddha is shraddha; it does not really mean faith, it means confidence, faith in oneself. It is a totally different religion. Buddha calls it right religion and the other religion he calls the wrong religion.If you approach reality out of fear and trembling you are approaching in a wrong way, and when you are approaching in a wrong way whatsoever you come to see and feel will be wrong. Your eyes are wrong, your heart is wrong. Truth cannot be known out of fear, truth can only be known out of fearlessness. Shaddha is needed, a confidence in oneself is needed, a trust in one’s own being is needed.One should approach reality out of trust, not out of fear. The essence of faith or trust is letting go. The fearful man can never let go. He is always on the defense, he is always protecting himself, he is always fighting, he is always antagonistic. Even his prayer, his meditation, is nothing but a strategy to protect himself.The man of faith knows how to let go, the man of faith knows how to surrender, the man of faith knows how to flow with the river and not to push it. He goes with the stream wherever it takes him. He has that courage and confidence that he can go with the stream.This is my experience and observation too. Whenever a fearful person comes to me he is incapable of surrender, although he thinks he is so strong that he cannot surrender. Nobody likes to feel that he is weak, particularly the weaklings never like it. They don’t want to come to the realization that they are weak, that they are cowardly. They think they are very strong – they can’t surrender.My own observation is the stronger the person, the easier is the surrender. Only the strong man can surrender, because he trusts himself, he is confident of himself, he knows that he can let go. He is unafraid. He is ready to explore the unknown, he is ready to go into the uncharted. He is thrilled by the journey of the unknown. He wants to taste it, whatsoever the cost and whatsoever the risk. He wants to live in danger.A man of faith always lives in danger. Danger is his shelter, insecurity is his security, and a tremendous inquiring quest is his only love. He wants to explore, he wants to go to the very end of existence, or to the very depth of existence, or to the very height of existence. He wants to know what it is – “What is it that surrounds me? What is it that I go on calling ‘I’? Who am I?”A strong man is ready to surrender. He knows that there is no need to fear. “I belong to existence, I am not a stranger here. Existence has mothered me, existence can’t be inimical to me. Existence has brought me here, I am a product of existence. Existence has some destiny to fulfill through me.”The strong man always feels that destiny there: “I am here to do something that is needed by the existence and nobody else can do it except me, otherwise why should I be created?” So he is always ready to go into the dark, to search, to seek. This Buddha calls shaddha, faith. It is better to translate it as trust.Even one single thought of serene faith…. And then he adds another condition to it – serene faith. You can have a kind of trust; it may not be serene, it may be full of turmoil. That won’t help, that won’t take you far. Faith has to be serene. Faith has to come out of stillness, not out of the noise of the mind. Faith has not to be a belief. Belief is always noisy.You choose one belief against others: naturally there is conflict, it is a choice. There are thousands of beliefs around you hankering for your attention: the Christian, the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Jaina – thousands of beliefs. There are three hundred religions on the earth and each religion has many sects. Now they are all competing for you, they want to possess you, and naturally your mind becomes very very shaken and wavering. What to choose, what not to choose, with whom to go?And even if you choose out of this noise and turmoil, a part of your mind always goes on saying, “You are not doing right.” And that part will take revenge. Sooner or later that part will assert and will disrupt your being and you will feel torn apart.Buddha says a serene faith is needed. What is serene faith? A faith that does not arise out of choice but out of understanding. Just the other day I received a letter from Chintana. She has been a Christian nun and she is very much torn apart. She cannot decide whether to be with me or to go back to her nunnery. Now whatsoever she will do will be out of chaos. If she decides to be with me, a part of her mind will go on fighting with her. If she decides to go to the nunnery, a part of her mind will go on desiring to be here.Whatsoever she chooses will be wrong. The choice itself will come out of turmoil, anxiety. It will be a kind of repression. If she chooses the nunnery, she will be repressing the love for me. If she chooses me, she will be repressing the desire for the nunnery – the seclusion, the isolation, the protection, the comfort, the convenience of the nunnery.Now what will Buddha suggest to Chintana? Buddha will suggest meditate, don’t choose. There is no hurry. Be choiceless. Meditate, pray, become more and more silent. One moment will come when, out of serenity, the choice. Not that you are choosing against any of your parts; just out of the serenity it blooms like a lotus. It is a total blooming, your whole being is with it. It is not a choice against any other alternative, it is just your very fragrance. Then you are not torn apart. This Buddha calls serene faith. And he says even a single thought of serene faith is enough to transform a man.This is my suggestion to Chintana too. Today she may be even more worried; it is the twenty-fifth of December – she will be torn apart. But I will not suggest to her to choose me or to choose the monastery. Don’t choose. Wait, have patience. Let God choose for you. You meditate. How can you choose? You are not yet wise enough to choose. Pray, and wait.And don’t play tricks – because you can play tricks with your own mind. You can have your idea – you have really chosen – and then you can wait, and then from the back door you can force your choice and you can believe that this is from God. No, when I am saying don’t choose, don’t choose. Forget about choosing. How can you choose?Meditate, become serene, still, silent. One day when there will be no thought in the mind suddenly you will feel something has been decided and you are not the one who has decided it, it is God’s decision. Then whatsoever it is, it is good.Known they are, Subhuti, to the Tathagata through his Buddha-cognition. Seen they are, Subhuti, by the Tathagata with his Buddha-eye, fully known, Subhuti, they are to the Tathagata.Now these two things have to be understood. One is the word tathagata. It is a very strange word and has two meanings, absolutely opposed to each other, two meanings diametrically opposed to each other. It is a strange word. The first meaning is tathagata; that means, thus came. The second meaning is tathagata; it means, thus gone. One meaning is thus came, another meaning is thus gone. A few people have chosen the first meaning – thus came. Then it means a man who has not come on his own, who has no motive for coming here. Mm? That is what Christians like about Christ – he’s sent by God. He has no motive, no desire to be fulfilled here. He has come as a messenger.That is what Mohammedans like about Mohammed. They call him Paigamber, the messenger. He has not come for any of his own desires to be fulfilled here. He is utterly contented, he has no cause to be here. Others are here with a cause; they have not just come, they have come because of their desire. They wanted to come, that’s why they have come.Buddha has come, not that he wanted to come, he is sent by existence itself. It is existence that has taken form in him. It is uncaused, unmotivated, no personal desire. That is the first meaning of tathagata – thus came.The second meaning a few people have chosen – thus gone. That means one who has already gone from here. If you go deep into Buddha you will not find anybody there, he has left the abode. He no more exists in the body, he is no more present in the body. He has become empty. He is well-gone, perfectly gone to the other shore. His real existence is on the other shore; on this shore only a shadow is moving.But my own choice is both together. I would like to interpret the word tathagata as thus came, thus gone…like the wind. The wind comes for no reason of its own, for no motivation of its own. It is utterly surrendered in existence. Wherever the existence sends it, it comes. Wherever there is need, it comes. It has no goals of its own. It does not say, “I will go only to the north. I’m not going to the south, I am fed up with the south.” Or, “I am going only to the east, I am a very religious wind.” Or, “I am only going to the west, I want to enjoy life.” No, the wind says nothing. Wherever there is the need, the wind goes. Thus came, thus gone.And when it goes from that place, it doesn’t cling there. A wind comes and goes. It does not say, “Now I have arrived, and I have taken so much trouble to come, I will not go. Now I will remain here. After such a long journey, crossing so many seas and mountains, I have come here. Now I will not go, I will stay here. Otherwise what is the purpose of my coming here?” No, the wind comes and the wind goes.Buddha is like that wind. Thus came, thus gone. No clinging. His coming and going is mysterious. His coming and going is unpredictable, it is unexplainable, because only motives can be explained and causes can be explained. In that ultimate state of enlightenment, in that purity, on that plenitude, things are mysterious, things simply happen. One never knows why, there is no need to ask the why. Everything is beautiful and a benediction. Coming is benediction, going is benediction. To be in the body is benediction, to go out of the body is benediction. To have a being is benediction, to disappear into non-being is benediction. All is benediction.The taste of enlightenment is of benediction. Whatsoever happens, it makes no difference, it doesn’t matter. There is no choice, no motive, no desire. Things happen on their own, they are very mysterious. That’s why a buddha cannot be explained. A buddha can be experienced, hence the need of disciplehood.Sometimes people come and ask me, “What is the need of becoming a sannyasin?” The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will not be able to have the taste of me. The need is that without becoming a sannyasin you will never come close to me, you will never have that orgasmic experience that is possible by feeling deep empathy with me.Sannyas is empathy – to be totally with me, utterly with me, to drop all defenses, to come so close that my nothingness starts overflowing in you, to come so close that there are no more boundaries, that we start overlapping. For that experience, sannyas is needed. And a buddha can be known only that way, there is no other way.And the other thing to be understood is, he says, “I have seen through the buddha-eye, I have known through buddha-cognition.” What is this buddha-eye and the buddha-cognition? What in yoga is known as the third eye, or Hindus know as Shiva-netra, the eye of Shiva, is known in Buddhist scriptures as the buddha-eye.You have two eyes; they are symbolic of duality, you are divided. When you attain to one single sight, when a third vision arises in you which is not divisible, then you start seeing the unity of existence. It is as if you break a mirror and then all those fragments reflect so many faces of you. You have only one face, but those fragments of the mirror reflect a thousand faces. If you put that mirror again together, again one face arises.Reality is one but we have two eyes, hence everywhere reality becomes divided. For example, one thing you call “love,” another thing you call “hate.” In fact they are one thing. Love and hate are not the right words to describe them. The energy is the same – it is love-hate. The “and” has to be dropped. In fact you cannot even put a hyphen between the two: lovehate is one word. Daynight is one word, lifedeath is one word, miserybliss is one word, painpleasure is one word, mattermind is one word. But because we have two eyes, everything is divided in two and then we go on arguing for centuries.Now for five thousand years man has been arguing whether man is body or soul. There are not two things. The body is nothing but the outermost form of the soul, and the soul is nothing but the innermost core of the body. They are not two. And God and the world are not two either. The creator and the creation are one.This is called the buddha-eye – to come to a point where your two eyes merge and melt and become one. Jesus says, “If your eyes be like one, then your whole being will be full of light.” That’s what enlightenment is.A few words of Jesus are beautiful: “When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the outer as the inner, and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female, then shall you enter the kingdom.”Or again: “It is impossible for a man to mount two horses and to stretch two bows; and it is impossible for a servant to serve two masters, otherwise he will honor the one and offend the other. But if your eyes be like one then your whole being will be full of light.”In Buddhist tradition that oneness of vision, that unfragmented vision, that total vision, that whole vision, is called buddha-eye. And whatsoever is seen through buddha-eye is buddha-cognition. And when you have the buddha-eye and you look at life with that one vision it unites everything, and then you are able to know fully, not before that. Before that, your knowledge is always partial, fragmentary, lopsided.Now the sutra.And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being, no perception of a soul, no perception of a person. Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma, or a perception of a no-dharma. No perception or non-perception takes place in them.These eight things are known as the eight barriers to wisdom. They have to be understood. First, this is the definition of a bodhisattva. Who is a bodhisattva? One who has crossed these eight barriers of wrong attitudes, of wrong approaches towards life.The first, no perception of a self takes place. These four words have to be understood – they are almost synonymous, but only almost: self, being, soul, person. In the dictionaries they are almost the same, but Buddha gives different colors to them, and they have different colors, slight differences.First, the self means the ego – my, mine, I – as distinct from the five elements that constitute me. Man is constituted of five elements, just a combination of these five. You take the five apart and man disappears. Buddha says there is nothing else other than the five. It is like a chariot: you take parts of the chariot apart, you take the wheels, you take the horses, you take everything else, and if in the end you want to know where the chariot is, the chariot has disappeared because the chariot was just a combination of those parts.This is one of the greatest insights of Buddha, no other religion has gone to that height. All other religions have stopped with some idea of self, with some idea of ego. Howsoever refined, howsoever holy, howsoever virtuous, but some idea of the ego has remained. You call it self, you call it soul, you call it atma; what you call it doesn’t matter. Buddha is very very clear about it – that your deepest core consists of nothingness. There is no ego.The word “I” is only utilitarian, it corresponds to no reality. It is needed – even Buddha uses it. It is good as a means to communicate; it designates, but it corresponds to no reality.So the first, self, means “I am separate from the constituents.” Buddha says you are not there, only the constituents are there. You are utter emptiness. The second is being – being means individuality, the idea of being identical with oneself at different times. You say that “I was once a child, now I am a young man, and soon I will become an old man.” You have some idea as if you persist. One time you were a child, then you became young – but you are the same. And then you will become old and you will be the same. Buddha says each moment you are changing.He is perfectly in agreement with Heraclitus. You cannot step twice in the same river. The river goes on flowing. When you were a child you were a different individual, now you are a different individual. When you will be old you will be a different individual again. In fact every day you are different, every moment you are different.Why does this idea persist that “I am the same”? This persists because the change is so subtle and your vision is not so subtle. It is as if you light a candle in the evening, it burns the whole night, and in the morning you blow it out and you say, “It is the same flame that I am blowing out.” It is not. The flame has been continuously changing, disappearing, new flame arising each moment. But between two flames, one disappearing, another arising, the gap is so subtle, so small, that you cannot see it. That’s why this idea of individuality, of being, persists.Buddha says life is a process, life is not like a thing. It is a continuous move. Life is a river. Buddha says if we want to be true to reality we should drop all nouns from the language, only verbs are true. River is not true, rivering is true. Tree is not true, treeing is true. Love is not true, loving is true. Life consists of verbs, not of nouns.And the third thing is the soul, the idea of a supra-force abiding in the body, a unifying and vivifying force separate from everything else. That too – Buddha says there is no supra-force. There is nothing inside abiding in you. It is not that you are the house and there is a host inside, a resident inside. All that resides inside is pure nothingness.And the fourth is the idea of person, the being. The belief in a permanent entity who would migrate from rebirth to rebirth. That Buddha calls person – that you will die and your person will immediately be born into some other womb. Continuity is there but there is no person. Continuity is there but there is no self. Continuity is there but there is no individuality. Continuity is there but there is no soul.This vision of Buddha is so utterly unique that even this country, such a religious country, India, could not swallow it. It was felt as if Buddha had decided to destroy the whole foundation of religion. He was giving a totally new vision, far higher than the ordinary concepts of soul, self, etcetera, because in those concepts your ego goes on hiding in new ways. They are nothing but ways of the ego to exist and to continue existing.Buddha says:And why? Because, Subhuti, in these bodhisattvas no perception of a self takes place…When a person turns inwards, when your consciousness turns inwards and looks into your own being, nothing is found:…no perception of a self takes place, no perception of a being takes place, no perception of a soul takes place, no perception of a person takes place.These four things are immediately dissolved.Nor do these bodhisattvas have a perception of a dharma…Dharma means the positive element in life and no-dharma means the negative element in life. The positive and negative – Buddha says even these are not true, they disappear. A perception of a dharma does not take place. You don’t come upon a positive reality inside, neither do you come upon a negative reality inside. You simply come upon a total nothingness.And remember, that nothingness should not be thought synonymous with no reality, with negativity. Nothingness simply means no positive, no negative. Both have disappeared, that duality is no more there. This is utter silence. Not finding anything, not even finding yourself, you are freed. Not that you are freed, but you are freed from yourself.When others speak of freedom they always mean that you will be there, free. When Buddha talks about freedom he says you will be freed – you will not be there. How can you be in freedom? If you are there in freedom there will remain a kind of imprisonment. You are the imprisonment. You can’t be free. When you are not, freedom is. When you are, freedom is not.And seventh, no perception. When there is nothing to see, how can you see it is a perception? No self, no positivity, no negativity – there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, you cannot see that a perception has taken place. A perception needs something to perceive. So, the seventh thing, no perception exists. But then you can say, “Then does non-perception exist?”Buddha says when there is nobody to see and nothing to see, how can non-perception exist either? He is destroying all the roots for the ego, all the subtle ways of the ego. These are the eight barriers. When all these have disappeared, a person is a bodhisattva.And then the problem arises, “How to remain on this shore?” Only then…then you have something to share – your nothingness. Then you have something to share – your paradise. Then you have something to share – your utter existence. But now how to remain on this shore? How to linger here a little while more?And Buddha says:And why? If, Subhuti, these bodhisattvas should have a perception of either a dharma or a no-dharma, they would thereby seize on a self, on a being, on a soul, on a person.If you see something inside, remember, you are still outside. If you see something, even Krishna playing on his flute, or Jesus crucified and fresh blood flowing from his hands, or Buddha sitting silently under his bodhi tree, if you come across anything inside, remember, you are still outside. That’s why Buddha says, “If you meet me on the way, kill me immediately.”One has to come to a point where there is nothing to see. When there is nothing to see, the seer also disappears; that is the point to remember. It is very difficult to understand. The seer exists only with the seen. That’s why Krishnamurti goes on saying again and again, “The observer is the observed.” When there is nothing to see, how can you be as a seer there? When content disappears, the container also disappears. They exist together, they are two aspects of the same coin.Buddha says there is no such thing as a spiritual experience, all experiences are non-spiritual. Mm? Somebody comes and says, “My kundalini is rising” – a Gopi Krishna in Kashmir says his kundalini is rising. It is not spiritual, no kundalini is spiritual. It is a physical phenomenon, a worldly phenomenon, and can give you pleasure just as sex can give you pleasure. It is the same energy moving upwards. It has nothing to do with spirituality, not at least with what Buddha means by spirituality.And Gopi Krishna says that he has attained because his kundalini has risen. He feels tingling energy moving in his spine. But a spine is a spine. And now he thinks that the kundalini has arisen, it has reached to sahasrar, the seventh chakra, and he has become creative. So he has started writing poetry. Those poems are just rubbish. If they prove anything, they simply disprove all kundalini. I have never come across such rubbish poetry – just like schoolchildren. Even sometimes they write more beautiful things.You can find only one comparison, and that is Shree Chinmoy. He writes poetry. In one night he will write one thousand poems. Even to call them poems is an exaggeration. They are not even prose, they don’t have anything of poetry in them.But these people think they have attained to spiritual creativity, because kundalini has arisen. Somebody has seen light in the head and he thinks now enlightenment has happened – “because I have seen light. When I close my eyes there is great light.” And I am not saying that light cannot be seen and I am not saying kundalini does not arise – it arises so easily. You can see here, so many sannyasins are in that state that Gopi Krishna thinks is kundalini. It is nothing to brag about.Any experience is bound to be outside, because you are the experiencer and the experience is there, facing you. When all experiences disappear, there is spirituality. But then a phenomenon happens: when all experiences disappear, the experiencer also disappears. In the wake of it, it disappears, because it cannot exist, it cannot subsist without experiences. It feeds on experiences. When the experience and experiencer are both gone you are a bodhisattva.And why? Because a bodhisattva should not seize on either a dharma or a no-dharma. Therefore this saying has been taught by the Tathagata with a hidden meaning: “By those who know the discourse on dharma as like unto a raft. dharmas should be forsaken, still more so, no-dharmas.”Buddha says everything has to be forsaken – dharmas, no-dharmas, experiences, great experiences, spiritual experiences, and finally the experiencer too. Everything has to be forsaken. When nothing remains, not even a trace of anything, not even the idea that now there is nothing…. Even if this idea remains – that now there is nothing – everything is there. This idea is enough to contain the whole world. If you say, “Now nothing is there,” you have missed the point. You cannot even say that – that nothing is there. Who is there to say? Who is there to observe? There is utter silence, absolute silence.So Buddha says that the dharma, the religion, is like a raft. These are his famous words. Buddha says in Majjhim Nikaya: “Using the figure of a raft, brethren, will I teach you the norm as something to leave behind, not to take with you. If one has crossed with the help of a raft a great stretch of water, on this side full of doubts and fears, on the further side safe and free from fears, one would then not take it on one’s shoulders and carry it with one, but though it was of great use to him, he would leave it behind and have finished with it. Thus, brethren, understanding the figure of the raft, we must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.”All methods – yoga, Tantra – all techniques, all meditations and all prayers, are strategies to reach to the other shore. Once you have reached, they have to be left behind. Feel thankful, but don’t start carrying them on your shoulders, otherwise you will be a fool.Or Buddha says again: “The example of the raft shows dharmas should be treated as provisional, as means to an end. The same holds good of emptiness too, the negation of dharmas. This corollary has elsewhere been illustrated by the simile of medicine which can heal any illness. Once a cure has been effected it must be abandoned together with the illness because its further use would only make one ill again.”Buddha says: “Just so, when this medicine called emptiness has brought about a cure of the disease of the belief in existence. Attachment to emptiness is a disease as much as attachment to existence. Those who continue to use this medicine of emptiness after they have gained possession of health, only make themselves ill again.”Remember, first one has to drop everything and become empty, and then one has to drop that emptiness too. That emptiness is just a medicine. Buddha is right when he says, “I am a physician, not a philosopher.” He does not give you a doctrine to cling to. And whatsoever he gives to you is provisional, arbitrary, and one day it has to be dropped and forgotten.When all disappears – the world and God, matter and mind, body and soul, you and I – when all disappears and finally the idea that all has disappeared also disappears, you have arrived, you have become a bodhisattva. Then the problem is how to linger on this shore, how to be here even a single moment?You will have to create a chittopad, a great decision: “There are others stumbling in darkness. I have attained – I have to share it.” Out of that chittopad, out of the creation of a new mind…because the old mind has gone, and with the old mind gone you cannot stay here. You will have to create a new mind.Two words to be understood: one is passion, another is compassion. They both have passion in them. Passion is the old mind, the desiring mind, the mind full of desire. When all desires have disappeared and the old mind is gone, you will have to immediately create compassion so that through compassion you can be here. For a little while you can help a few people to raise their eyes to the other shore. For a little while you can direct a few people, you can indicate the way.The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment?That is one of the methods of Buddha – he asks his disciples sometimes, “What do you think, Subhuti? Do you think that I have attained the truth, the dharma, or have I preached truth to people? What do you think about it?”Is there any dharma which the Tathagata has fully known as the ultimate, right and perfect enlightenment, or is there any dharma which the Tathagata has demonstrated?Subhuti replied: No…It was very easy to fall in the trap of the Buddha, the question was difficult. The question was such that one would tend to say yes. “Yes, Buddha has attained, otherwise who has attained?” But the very idea of attainment will be unspiritual. And Buddha is saying there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain.And it would have been very very simple for Subhuti to say, “Yes, Lord. You have preached as nobody has preached, you have demonstrated as nobody has demonstrated.” But if there is nothing to attain, what can there be to demonstrate? If there is nothing to attain and nobody to attain, who can demonstrate it and what is there to demonstrate?But Subhuti was not deceived by Buddha’s question.Subhuti replied: No, not as I understand what the Lord has said. And why? This dharma which the Tathagata has fully known or demonstrated – it cannot be grasped, it cannot be talked about, it is neither a dharma nor a no-dharma.So first he says, “No, you have not attained anything, because there is nothing to attain if I understand you rightly. And how can you demonstrate that something which is beyond something is beyond nothing too? How can you demonstrate it? There is no way to grasp it and no way to say it because it is neither positive nor negative.” Language is capable only of catching hold of the positive and negative; that which transcends both is not graspable.And again, the final thing he says is:And why? Because an absolute exalts the holy persons.The absolute means the beyond, the transcendental, that which is beyond hate and love, that which is beyond life and death, that which is beyond day and night, that which is beyond man and woman, that which is beyond hell and heaven, that which is beyond all dualities, that is the absolute – and the absolute exalts the holy persons. An absolute, that absolute, that transcendental, is exalting you.The Sanskrit word for it is very rich. It is prabhaveeta. It means many things, it contains a wealth of meanings. It means “exalted by,” “glorified by,” “draw their strength from,” owe their light to.” The moon reflects the light of the sun – it is prabhaveeta, it is just a mirror.So is a buddha. A buddha is an empty mirror. He simply reflects existence as it is – yatha bhutam. He does not say anything. A mirror says nothing, a mirror has nothing to say, it simply reflects. It does not do anything to that which is, it simply reflects as it is – yatha bhutam.In Buddha, existence is reflected. The absolute exalts, the absolute is reflected. Buddha is not doing anything.A real master is just a mirror, he simply reflects that which is. He has no philosophy to preach, no doctrine to propound. Existence is his philosophy, life is his doctrine. He has nothing to grind, he has no motive anywhere. He himself is not, that’s how he has become a mirror.A bodhisattva is on the point of becoming a mirror. If he creates a new mind, a new route – chittopad – of compassion, he will linger on this shore a little while. It is very miraculous, because he no longer belongs to this world. The world exists in him no more, still it happens, this miracle happens.The being of a buddha here on this shore even for a few days or a few years is a miracle, the greatest miracle.A man came to Buddha once and he asked, “Why don’t you show a few miracles?”And Buddha said, “I am the miracle.”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 06 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What is all this stuff about bodhisattvas? I don't believe a word of it. There is no such thing.Yes, it is all nonsense. But you will have to understand the word nonsense. It is beyond sense. You need not believe it, you cannot believe it – you can only experience it. It is a nonsense experience. But it is true, it is absolutely true. It happens. Till it happens there is no way to believe in it, and there is no need either. Buddha is never in favor of any kind of belief. Whatsoever he says, it is experience, it is existential. It is something beyond the mind.Ordinarily we use the word nonsense for that which is below mind. But there is something beyond mind too – that too is nonsense. The mind cannot make any sense out of it. Unless your mind disappears you will not be able to see what this bodhi-being is. It is not a thing, true, it is an experiencing.You know desire, you know passion, you know sex, you know love. Try to explain it to a child in whom the sexual desire has not yet taken form, and he will say it is all nonsense. Just try to explain it to a four-year-old child – that you have fallen in love – and he will look at you with unbelieving eyes. What are you talking about? What is this stuff “love”?And all your romance and all your poetry and all that is throbbing in your heart is impossible to relate to a child. He has not tasted of that experience yet, he is unaware of it. The desire has not arisen in him. Buddha calls that desire wasana. That wasana has not arisen in him. And unless it arises there is no way to communicate anything about it.The same wasana, the same energy that is involved in desire, in sex, in love, one day is freed of desire. One day desire drops. Just as one day it arises, one day it drops too. Anything that is born will die, anything that begins will end. And if life goes very very naturally and spontaneously then there is a certain stage which can be demarked.Sex arises at the age of fourteen – sexual maturity – and the child is thrilled with something unknown and new. The child has got the wind of desire – a great passion and fire is arising in him. Now never again will he be that innocence that was there before this desire. He will never look at things with that innocence again.If life moves spontaneously, naturally, then exactly fourteen years before your death the desire will disappear; exactly fourteen years before your death sex will become irrelevant. Suddenly again you will find that dream is no more there, that passion has subsided, that storm has disappeared, and there is silence, utter silence. But your energy was involved in the desire, the desire has disappeared, where will the energy go?You are still creating energy by food, by breathing, by exercise, by living. You go on transforming divine energy into human energy. Where will this energy go? The old path is no more available; it cannot move into the direction of sexuality. Where will it move? Buddha has another word for it. He calls it karuna, compassion.Passion is no more significant. Energy is available, great energy is available; it needs somewhere to move, because energy cannot be static, its very nature is to be dynamic. It starts overflowing from you in compassion. That is the state of a bodhisattva. When sex disappears, desire disappears, future disappears. When you are suddenly herenow and you have that great energy in you and you cannot contain it, it starts flowing, it starts overflowing your cup. It is compassion.This is the state of a bodhisattva. It is not a thing. And it does not happen ordinarily because people have become unnatural. That’s why, in all the languages of the world, when an old man is interested in sex it is thought to be something dirty – the dirty old man. Why dirty? The young man is not thought to be dirty, but why the old?The phrase has come down the ages from the ancient past when it used not to happen. It was an ill state of affairs. It was not normal, it was abnormal – something had gone wrong. Otherwise, before your death the desire has to disappear. Otherwise, what have you been doing in life if you have not even come to that point where desire disappears? You have missed the opportunity of life.And remember, I am not against desire. I am all for it. When it is time, go into it. And go into it so totally that when the time comes to get out of it, you can get out of it totally too. Only one who goes totally in it will be capable of coming totally out of it. One who goes lukewarm, halfheartedly, partially, in a repressed way, will never be able to get out of the entanglement, will never be able to see the stupidity of it, will never be able to see the illusoriness of it.So I am not against desire. I am all for passion; go into it, and go totally and wholeheartedly. While it is time, see whatsoever is possible to see. That very seeing will make you free of it, and one day the fruit is ripe to fall down. When the ripe fruit falls down, the tree is unburdened. In that unburdening, what will you do? The energy will still be there – more so, because before it was involved in so many things; now it is not involved at all. Relaxed, you will become a reservoir of energy. This energy will start overflowing you, for no reason at all.A bodhisattva is one who has so much that he needs to give it, who has so much that when you accept his love, his being, his enlightenment, you oblige him. He is like a flower full of fragrance…and the fragrance wants to be freed to the winds. Or he is like a cloud full of rainwater and is searching a thirsty earth which can welcome it, which can absorb it. So is a bodhisattva…a cloud full of rainwater, moving hither and thither in search of a thirsty soul, in search of somebody who will welcome it. The bodhisattva is obliged to you when you accept his gift.Bodhisattvahood is a state of consciousness. It is nonsense, true. It is not a thing, true – but it happens. It is very illogical. It is illogical, it looks absurd, because it does not relate to your experience yet. But soon many of you are going to enter into that realm. I see many of you just standing on the threshold. You cannot see. I can see that you are on the threshold, getting ready to take the ultimate jump. When it has happened then you will know what Buddha is talking about.The Diamond Sutra is not preached to the layman, it is preached only to the sannyasins, only to those who are coming to bodhisattvahood or those who have come. In fact it has to be preached before one is coming to bodhisattvahood, because in that moment of bodhisattvahood, if you don’t know anything about what to do, if you are not aware that there is a way to unburden – that you can release your blissfulness, that there is no need to contain it – if you don’t know anything about it, it will be difficult for you, very difficult. Your very blissfulness will become a pain in the chest, will become an ache in the heart. Rather than becoming a dance and a song it will become painful.Do you know, when bliss becomes very intense it becomes painful. When light is too intense it is too dazzling, and you almost go blind. When love is too much you cannot bear it. When joy is too much your heart can stop; it can be too painful. And you don’t know anything. When bodhisattvahood happens the joy is such, the magnitude of it, the blissfulness is such, the intensity of it, that you can die just out of it or you can go mad.Buddhism is the only tradition in the world where bodhisattvas have not been known to go mad. Why? In Sufism they go mad, in Hinduism they go mad, many of them go mad. Sufis have a special name for them – mastas. But there is nothing like that in Buddha’s tradition. Why? Buddha is so aware of all the possibilities and is preparing the path so scientifically that he goes on giving you indications, directions, suggestions, for those moments which are going to happen.Down the ages, in these twenty-five centuries, a Buddhist saint has never been known to go mad, it is rare. In Sufism many go mad, in Hinduism many go mad. The reason is that Sufis and Hindus have nothing compared to bodhisattvahood; no instruction is given. And in the West the problem is even more complicated. Christianity has no idea about it. So in Christianity it has happened that ordinary people who were not in any way saints have been worshipped as saints, and those who were saints have been declared mad or possessed by the devil.In many Western asylums there are people who are not really mad but because of bodhisattvahood they have gone mad. They don’t need psychiatric treatment, they don’t need electric shocks, they don’t need tranquilizers. They don’t need unnecessary torture, they don’t need psychoanalysis. All that they need is a compassionate buddha around them. The presence of a buddha – all that is needed is that. Just the presence of the buddha will bring them back, will become a great pull, a magnetic force, and will bring them back to their consciousness. But they are being tortured, they are being put through unnecessary things, because once you think they are mad you start treating them as mad.Buddhism is one of the most scientific religions of the world. It has all the maps that are needed for the growth of consciousness. And bodhisattvahood is very essential. Before one becomes a buddha one is bound to pass through bodhisattvahood. But, it is nonsense, that is true.The second question:Osho,Where does care for others become interference?The moment ideology enters, care becomes interference, love turns bitter, becomes almost a kind of hatred, and your protection becomes a prison. The ideology makes the difference.For example, if you are a mother, take care of the child. He needs you, he cannot survive without you. You are a must.He needs food, he needs love, he needs care – but he does not need your ideology, he does not need your ideals, he does not need your Christianity, your Hinduism, your Islam, your Buddhism. He does not need your scriptures, he does not need your beliefs. He does not need your ideals of how he should be. Only avoid ideology, ideals, goals, ends, and then care is beautiful, then care is innocent. Otherwise care is cunning.When there is no ideology in your caring – you don’t want to make your child a Christian, you don’t want to make your child this or that, communist or fascist, you don’t want your child to become a businessman or a doctor or an engineer…. You don’t have any ideas for your child. You say, “I will love, and when you grow up, you choose – and be whatsoever is natural for you to be. My blessings…whatsoever you are, my blessings. And whatsoever you will be, from my side you are accepted and welcome. Not that only when you become the president of the country will I love you and if you become just a carpenter then there will be no love, then I will feel ashamed of you. Not that only when you bring a gold medal from the university will there be a welcome and if you come back a failure I will be ashamed of you. Not that only when you are good, virtuous, moral, this and that, will you be my child and otherwise I am not related to you, you are not related to me.”The moment you bring any idea, you bring poison in the relationship. Care is beautiful, but when care has some idea, then it is cunningness, then it is a bargain, then it has conditions. And all our love is cunning, hence this misery in the world, this hell. Not that care is not there – care is there, but it is with too much cunningness. The mother cares, the father cares, the husband cares, the wife cares, the brother, the sister – everybody is caring. I’m not saying that nobody is caring – people are caring too much; but still the world is hell.Something is wrong, something is fundamentally wrong. What is that fundamental wrong? Where do things go wrong? Caring has conditions in it: “Do this! Be that!” Have you ever loved anybody with no conditions? Have you ever loved anybody as he or she is? You don’t want to improve, you don’t want to change; your acceptance is total, utter. Then you know what care is. You will be fulfilled through that care, and the other will be helped immensely.And remember, if your care has no business in it, no ambitions in it, the person you cared about will love you forever. But if your care has some ideas in it, then the person you cared about will never be able to forgive you. That’s why children are incapable of forgiving their parents.You go and ask the psychiatrists, the psychoanalysts – all the cases that come to them are the cases of children whose parents cared too much. But their care was businesslike; it was cold, it was calculated. They wanted some of their ambitions to be fulfilled through the child. Love has to be a free gift. The moment there is a price tag on it, it is no longer love.The third question:Osho,Why don't you allow nonvegetarian food in the ashram?The question is from Swami Yoga Chinmaya. There must be some idea in Chinmaya’s mind to eat meat. There must be some deep hidden violence. Otherwise the question is coming from a vegetarian and there are thousands of nonvegetarians here. This looks very absurd, but this is how things are. The vegetarian is not a true vegetarian; he is just a repressed one. Desire arises.But why I don’t allow nonvegetarian food in the ashram has nothing to do with religion, it is just pure aesthetics. I am not one who thinks that if you take nonvegetarian food you will not become enlightened. Jesus became enlightened, Mohammed became enlightened, Ramakrishna became enlightened – there has been no problem about it. You can take nonvegetarian food and you can become enlightened, so there is no religious problem about it.To me the problem is that of aesthetics. Because Jesus continued to eat meat, I have a feeling that he did not have a great aesthetic sense. Not that he is not religious – he is perfectly religious, as religious as Buddha, but something is missing in him. Ramakrishna continued to eat fish; just nonaesthetic, it looks a little ugly.Enlightenment is not at stake, but your poetry is at stake, your sense of beauty is at stake. Your humanity is at stake, not your super-humanity. That’s why it is not allowed in my ashram – and it will not be allowed. It is a question of beauty.If you understand this many things will be clear to you. Alcohol can be allowed in this ashram but not meat, because alcohol is vegetarian – fruit juice…fermented, but it is fruit juice. And sometimes to be a little drunk gives rise to great poetry. That is possible, that has to be allowed. In the new commune we are going to have a bar – Omar Khayyam. Omar Khayyam is a Sufi saint, one of the enlightened Sufis.But meat cannot be allowed, that is just ugly. Just to think that you are killing an animal to eat, just the very idea, is unaesthetic. I am not against it because the animal is killed…because that which is essential in the animal will live, it cannot be killed, and that which is nonessential, whether you kill it or not, is going to die. So that is irrelevant, that is not a point for me to consider. The question is not that you have killed the animal and killing is not good, no. The question is that you have killed the animal – you. Just to eat? While beautiful vegetarian food is available? If vegetarian food is not available, that’s one thing. But the food is available. Then why? Then why destroy a body? And if you can kill an animal, then why not be a cannibal? What is wrong with killing a man? The meat derived from a human body will be more in tune with you. Why not start eating human beings? That too is a question of aesthetics.And the animals are brothers and sisters, because man has come from them. They are our family. To kill a man is only to kill an evolved animal, or to kill an animal is just to kill somebody who is not yet evolved but is on the way. It is the same. Whether you kill the child when he is in the first grade or whether you kill the young man when he has come to his last grade in the university, it does not make much difference. The animals are moving towards human beings, and human beings had once been animals. It is only a question of aesthetics. Why not kill your wife and eat her? She is so beautiful and so sweet….A friend came to a cannibal and the food was prepared and the friend had never tasted anything like it. He had never even dreamed that food could be so tasty, so delicious. When he was leaving he said to the cannibal, “I loved the food. I have never loved food so much. When I come next, prepare the same dishes.”And the cannibal said, “That is difficult, because I only had one mother.”Why can’t you eat your mother? Why can’t you eat your husband or your child? – so delicious! The question is not religious, I would like to remind you again, it is a question of aesthetics. An aesthetic man will see that life remains beautiful, it does not become ugly and nightmarish.But the question has arisen in Chinmaya’s mind, that shows something. In India people who are vegetarian are not really vegetarian; it is just because they are born in a vegetarian family so from the very beginning the vegetarianism has been imposed on them. And naturally they are curious, naturally they want to taste other things also, and naturally the idea arises, “The whole world is nonvegetarian; people must be enjoying.” The vegetarian feels that somehow he is missing much. That’s why the question has arisen.It has nothing to do with meditation. You can eat meat and you can meditate. You can eat meat and you can love. It has nothing to do with love either. But you will be showing one thing about yourself – that you are very crude, that you are very primitive, uncultured, uncivilized; that you don’t have any sense of how life should be. It was out of an aesthetic sense that vegetarianism was born. It became entangled in religion and got lost. It has to be taken out from the religious context.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 07 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The Lord then said: Yes, Subhuti…. For the Tathagata has taught that the dharmas special to the buddhas are just not a buddha’s special dharmas. That is why they are called the dharmas special to the buddhas.The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the streamwinner, “By me has the fruit of a streamwinner been attained”?Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? Because, O Lord, he has not won any dharma. Therefore is he called a streamwinner. No sight-object has been won, no sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, or objects of mind. That is why he is called a streamwinner.If, O Lord, it would occur to a streamwinner, “By me has a streamwinner’s fruit been attained,” then that would be in him a seizing on a self, seizing on a being, seizing on a soul, seizing on a person….The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it then occur to the arhat, “By me has arhatship been attained”?Subhuti: No indeed, O Lord. And why? Because no dharma is called arhat. That is why he is called an arhat…. And why? I am, O Lord, the one whom the Tathagata…has pointed out as the foremost of those who dwell in peace. I am O Lord, an arhat free from greed. And yet, O Lord, it does not occur to me, “An arhat am I and free from greed.”If, O Lord, it could occur to me that I have attained arhatship, then the Tathagata would not have declared of me that “Subhuti, this son of good family, who is the foremost of those who dwell in peace, does not dwell anywhere; that is why he is called a dweller in peace, a dweller in peace.”The Diamond Sutra will appear to most of you as absurd, as mad. It is irrational but not anti-rational. It is something beyond the reason, that’s why it is so difficult to express it in words.Once a whisky drinking, chain-smoking and popcorn munching American priest was staying with me. Roaming in my library, accidentally he found The Diamond Sutra. For just ten to fifteen minutes he looked into it here and there, then he came to me and said, “This man Buddha must have been mad. And not only was he mad, he had mad followers too.”I can understand his statement. Buddha will look mad to you too, because he is trying to say that which cannot be said, he is trying to catch hold of something which is essentially elusive. Hence all these strange sayings – they are strange. They are strange because the way they are put, the way they are expressed, is not logical. It does not make any sense, not at least on the surface.And if you have not felt something of the beyond it is very difficult for you to understand what Buddha is trying to do. We can understand only that which we have experienced, if not in toto then at least in part. Otherwise our understanding remains rooted in our experience.It happened: Charlie had been to school that morning for the first time. When he came home his mother said, “Well, Charlie, how do you like school?”“I like it well enough, but I have not got my present yet.”“Your present?” queried the mother. “What do you mean?”“Teacher said, when she saw me, ‘You may sit here for the present, little man.’ I sat there all morning and didn’t get a thing!”Now, a small child’s understanding is a small child’s understanding. And that’s how you are – small children as far as Buddha is concerned, as far as his statements are concerned. His statements are of the ultimate experience. You will have to be very very patient, only then something will start dawning in your consciousness. They are of utter significance. Even if a single statement is understood that will prove radical, that will change you from your very roots.A father took his young son to an opera for the first time. The conductor started waving the baton and the soprano began her aria. The boy watched everything intently and finally asked, “Why is he hitting her with his stick?”“He is not hitting her with the stick,” the father explained.“Then why is she screaming?”In your mind these ideas will come many times: What is Buddha saying? It looks so utterly mad, it doesn’t make sense. It is beyond sense. You will have to gather yourself together to climb to something higher than you. You will have to stretch your hands towards the beyond. Even if you can touch just a fragment of these sayings, your life will not be the same again.But it is difficult. We live rooted in the earth. We are like trees rooted in the earth. Buddha is a bird on his wings in the sky. Now these trees rooted in the earth are trying to understand the message of the bird who has no roots in the earth anymore, who is flying in the sky, who knows the vastness, the infinity of the sky. He has a different understanding, a different vision. And the distance is immense.Only very few can have a few glimpses of what Buddha is trying to do. Something of absolute value is being conveyed to you. If you cannot understand, then remember that you cannot understand. Don’t say, like that whisky drinking, chain-smoking, popcorn munching priest, that Buddha is mad. Don’t say that, beware of that. It is easier to say that Buddha is mad then you are freed of the responsibility of understanding; then you can close The Diamond Sutra and forget all about it.If you say, “It is beyond me,” then there is challenge. When you say, “Maybe I am very childish, juvenile. I cannot understand, I have to grow into my understanding. How can Buddha be mad?” then there is a challenge and you start growing.Always remember that: never decide about the other. Even if Buddha is mad, take it as a challenge. You will not lose anything. If he is mad, then too you would have gone beyond your boundaries just in the effort to understand him. If he is not mad, then you have met with something precious, then you have stumbled upon a great treasure.The sutras:The Lord then said: Yes, Subhuti…. For the Tathagata has taught that the dharmas special to the buddhas are just not a buddha’s special dharmas. That is why they are called the dharmas special to the buddhas.Now look at the absurdity – but it is significant, it is very meaningful. What are the dharmas of the buddhas, the special characteristics of a buddha? His special characteristic is that he has no characteristics, that he is utterly ordinary, that if you come across him you will not recognize him.He is not a performer, he is not a politician, he is not an actor. He has no ego to perform. He is not there to convince anybody about his importance. He is utterly absent – that is his presence. That’s why these absurd statements. His characteristic is that he lives as if he is dead; that he walks and yet nobody walks in him, that he talks yet nobody talks in him…there is utter silence, never broken.Zen monks say Buddha never uttered a single word, and Buddha spoke for forty-five years continuously. If anybody can surpass him, it is me; nobody else can surpass him. And I say to you, I have also not uttered a single word. Zen people are right. I agree with them with my own experience. I go on saying things to you and yet deep inside there is absolute silence, not disturbed by what I say. When I am speaking the silence is there, not even a ripple arises in it.I am here, in a way utterly present, in another way absolutely absent, because there is nothing arising in me which says “I.’” Not that I don’t use the word; the word has to be used, it is utilitarian – but it connotes to no reality. It is just a utility, a convenience, a strategy of language; it corresponds to no reality.When I say “I,” I am simply using a word to indicate towards me, but if you look into me you will not find any “I” there. I have not found. I have been looking and looking and looking. The more I have looked in, the more the “I” has evaporated. The “I” exists only when you don’t look inwards. It can exist only when you don’t look. The moment you look, the “I” disappears.It is just like when you bring light in a dark room, darkness disappears. Your look inwards is a light, a flame. You cannot find any darkness there – and your “I” is nothing but condensed darkness.The basic characteristic of a buddha, the Buddha dharma, his unique quality, is that he is not, that he has no attributes, that he is indefinable, that whatsoever definition you put upon him will be unjust because it will demark him, it will limit him, and he is not limited. He is pure void. He is a nobody.Buddha is so ordinary that if you come across him you will not recognize him. You can recognize a king, you know the language how to recognize a king, and the king knows what language you recognize. He prepares for it, he rehearses for it. He is bent upon proving to you that he is special. Buddha has nothing like that. He is not trying to prove anything to anybody. He is not trying to be recognized by you. He has no need to be recognized. He has come home. He does not need your attention.Remember, attention is a psychological need. It has to be understood. Why do people need so much attention? Why in the first place does everybody want people to pay attention to them? Why does everybody want to be special? Something is missing inside. You don’t know who you are. You know yourself only by others’ recognition. You don’t have any direct approach into your being, you go via others.If somebody says you are good, you feel you are good. If somebody says you are not good, you feel very very depressed – so you are not good. If somebody says you are beautiful, you are happy. If somebody says you are ugly, you are unhappy. You don’t know who you are. You simply live on opinions of others, you go on collecting opinions. You don’t have any recognition – direct, immediate – of your being. That’s why you gather a borrowed being. Hence the need for attention.And when people are attentive to you, you feel as if you are being loved, because in love we pay attention to each other. When two persons are in deep love they forget the whole world. They become engaged into each other’s being absolutely. They look into each other’s eyes. For those moments all else disappears, exists not. In those pure moments they are not here. They live on a plenitude somewhere high in the sky, or in heaven, and they are absolutely pouring their attention into each other.Love is attentive – and everybody has missed love. Very rare people have attained to love, because love is the divine. Millions live without love because millions live without the divine. Love has been missed. How to substitute that gap? The easier substitute is to get people’s attention. That will befool you, deceive you that they love you.That’s what happens to a political leader: he becomes the prime minister of the country or a president of the country and of course the whole country has to pay attention to him. He feels good. It is a vicarious way of feeling loved, and nobody loves him. Once he is out of the post, nobody is going to care where he is.Who cares about Richard Nixon, whether he is alive or dead – who bothers? You will know about him only when he dies. Then newspapers will have to say something about him. Then suddenly you will know, “So he was alive?” Who cares about a politician who is not in power? But when he is in power people pay attention. They pay attention to power, but the politician thinks the attention is being paid to him.And the politician is one who is searching for love and has not been able to love and has not been able to be loved. The search is for love; it has taken a very very subtle change and turn. Now it has become a search for attention. He wants to see his picture every day in the newspaper. If one day his picture is not there in the newspaper he feels neglected.He is fulfilling his love desire, but it cannot be fulfilled that way. Love, whenever it happens, brings attention with it like a shadow, but attention does not bring love. Attention can come in a thousand ways. You can create some mischief and people will pay attention to you. The need of the politician and the criminal is the same.The criminal also wants the same thing – attention. He murders and then his picture is in the newspapers, his name is on the radio, he is on the TV. He feels good. Now everybody knows who he is, now everybody is thinking about him – that he has become a name in the world. The famous and the notorious both seek the same thing.Buddha is absolute love. He has loved existence, existence has loved him. That’s what samadhi is, when you are in an orgasmic relationship with the total. He has known the total orgasm – the orgasm which is not of the body and not of the mind either, but of totality, not partial. He has come to know that ecstasy. Now there is no need to ask for any attention from anybody.He will pass you on the road and you will not be able to recognize him because you recognize only politicians, criminals and people like that. You can recognize a madman on the road because he will be creating mischief, but you will not recognize a buddha. Buddha will pass so silently, without a whisper. That is his chief characteristic, to be as if he is not. But if that is the chief characteristic – to be as if one is not – then he has no characteristics.That’s what Buddha means when he says:Yes, Subhuti…. For the Tathagata has taught that the dharmas special to the buddhas are just not a buddha’s special dharmas. That is why they are called the dharmas special to the buddhas.The extraordinariness of a buddha is his utter ordinariness. His ordinariness is his extraordinariness. To be ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world.Just the other night I came across a very beautiful story about Saint Francis, a buddha.Saint Francis of Assisi lay on his deathbed. He was singing, and singing so loudly that the whole neighborhood was aware. Brother Elias, a pompous but prominent member of the Franciscan order, came close to Saint Francis and said, “Father, there are people standing in the street outside your window.” Many had come. Fearing that the last moment of Francis’ life had come, many who loved him had gathered together around the house.Said this Brother Elias, “I am afraid nothing we might do could prevent them from hearing you singing. The lack of restraint at so grave an hour might embarrass the order, Father. It might lower the esteem in which you yourself are so justly held. Perhaps in your extremity you have lost sight of your obligation to the many who have come to regard you as a saint. Would it not be more edifying for them if you would, er, die with more Christian dignity?”“Please excuse me, Brother,” Saint Francis said, “but I feel so much joy in my heart that I really can’t help myself. I must sing!”And he died singing. In the whole Christian history, he’s the only one who has died singing. Many Zen people have died singing, but they don’t belong to Christianity. He is the only Zen master amongst Christian saints. He didn’t care a bit about Christian dignity.Now what happened? This Brother Elias wants to prove to people that Saint Francis is a saint. Now he is afraid that people will not think that he is a saint; they may think he is mad or something. A saint has to be sad by the very definition. Christians believe only in sad saints. They cannot believe that Jesus ever laughed; that is below Christian dignity. Laughter? – so human, so ordinary? They know only one thing, to put Jesus there high above humanity – but then all that is human has to be taken out of him. Then he becomes just a dead, bloodless thing.This Brother Elias is worried. This is the last moment, Francis is dying, and he will leave a bad name behind him. People will think either he was not a saint or he was mad. He is worried because he wants to prove. In fact he is not worried about Saint Francis, he is worried about himself and the order: “It will be very embarrassing for us later on. How are we going to answer these people? What happened in the last moments?” He is worried about himself. If the master is mad then what about the disciple? He is a disciple.But see two different planes, two different dimensions together. Elias is concerned with public opinion. He wants to prove his master to be the greatest master, to be the greatest of saints, and he knows only one way to prove it – that he should be serious, that he should take life seriously, that he should not laugh and should not sing, should not dance. They are too human, they are too ordinary. Ordinary mortals can be forgiven, but not a man of the stature of Saint Francis.But Saint Francis has a different vision – he is just ordinary. He says, “Please excuse me, Brother, but I feel so much joy in my heart that I really can’t help myself. I must sing!” In fact, it is not that Francis is singing, Francis has become the song. That’s why he cannot help it, he cannot control. There is nobody left to control it. If the song is happening it is happening. It is not within control, it can’t be, because the controller has disappeared. The self, the ego, no longer exists. Saint Francis does not exist as an individual. There is absolute silence inside. Out of that silence this song is born. What can Francis do? That’s why he says, “I can’t help it. I must sing!”And he died singing. And there can be no other better death. If you can die singing that proves that you lived singing, that your life was a joy and death became the crescendo of it, the culmination.Saint Francis is a buddha. The characteristic of a buddha is that he is ordinary, that he has no ideas about himself of how he should be, that he simply is spontaneous, that whatsoever happens, happens. He lives on the spur of the moment, that is his authenticity. You can call it his characteristic, but what kind of characteristic is this? It is simply that he has no character, he has no straitjacket of a character around himself; he has no armor, he does not live from the past, that he does not know what Christian dignity is. He lives in the moment like a child.Yes, Subhuti…. For the Tathagata has taught that the dharmas special to the buddhas are just not a buddha’s special dharmas. That is why they are called the dharmas special to the buddhas.Ordinariness is his extraordinariness, nobodiness is his somebodiness, absence is his presence, death is his life.The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the streamwinner, “By me has the fruit of a streamwinner been attained”?Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? Because, O Lord, he has not won any dharma. Therefore is he called a streamwinner. No sight-object has been won, no sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, or objects of mind. That is why he is called a streamwinner.If, O Lord, it would occur to a streamwinner, “By me has a streamwinner’s fruit been attained,” then that would be in him a seizing on a self, seizing on a being, seizing on a soul, seizing on a person….Buddha had talked about four stages of the seeker. The first he calls the streamwinner. Streamwinner means one who has entered into the buddhafield, one who has become an initiate, one who has become a sannyasin. Why is he called the streamwinner? – because he is no more standing on the shore, he is no more static, he has started moving with the stream of life. He is no more fighting with the river. That ego that used to fight with the river and that ego that used to go upstream is no longer there.Now again you will feel it is absurd. The stream has won, that’s why he is called a streamwinner. He has dropped all conflict. He has surrendered, that’s why he has become victorious, that’s why he is called a streamwinner. Strange words. First he was trying to win the stream. That’s what all are doing in the world – trying to have a life according to their own desires and plans and projections, trying to impose a pattern on life of their own making, of their own dreams, of their own desires. Everybody is trying to go upstream, everybody is trying to fight with life, with nature, with God. The ordinary human life is the life of conflict.But with whom are you fighting? You are fighting with your own source. With whom are you fighting? With yourself. And the fight is going to lead you into deeper and deeper frustrations because you cannot win, that is not the way to win. You will be defeated, because you are only a small part and the existence is vast, is enormous. You cannot win against it. You can win only with it.You cannot win against it, you can win only through it. If it supports you, you can win. If it doesn’t support you, you can go on believing but you will be defeated. It is only a question of time. Sooner or later you will be tired, frustrated, exhausted by the fight, and then you will drop – but then you drop in defeat. And then in that defeat there is no joy. How can there be joy in defeat? The people of understanding know that before defeat comes, if you can surrender there will be joy.Surrender and defeat are so different and so alike. The defeated also seems to be surrendered, and the surrendered seems to be defeated, but that is just apparent, only on the surface. Deep down they are worlds apart. The defeated is feeling angry, in rage, in frustration, he is in hell. The surrendered, the one who has surrendered, has no misery. He is elated, he is ecstatic. He has understood that the whole fight was meaningless, that the whole fight was destined to fail, doomed to fail.It is as if my left hand starts fighting with my right hand. It is as if my fingers start fighting with my body. How can they win? It is foredoomed. The man of understanding surrenders. He says, “Let God be. Let thy will be done. Let thy kingdom come.” He says, “I am no more. Flow through me. Let me be just a hollow bamboo, a reed flute. Sing through me if you wish so; if you don’t wish so, let silence pass through me.” He becomes just a passage. He starts moving with the stream. He says, “Let life’s stream take possession of me. I will not fight. I will not even swim. I will float, I will go with the wind.”To enter into such an understanding with life is called becoming a streamwinner. But it is a strange word. Surrender is called winning – because fighting leads to failure and defeat. Surrender leads to conquest, to victory.This life is paradoxical. What can Buddha do? Life is paradoxical. Those who have surrendered prove themselves to be the winners, and those who go on fighting one day find they have lost all their energy in fight and there is no sign of any victory anywhere.Remember, Alexander has failed, not Francis. Napoleon has failed, not Jesus. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane have failed, not Buddha. The real history should not be bothered with failures – Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Alexander. The real history should think more of Buddha, Jesus, Francis – the real people who have won. But their winning came out of their surrender.Just think of it, just think of the beauty and benediction of it when you are not fighting, when you are just going down the river with it. It takes you to the ocean, it is going to the ocean. You are unnecessarily making much fuss. It is going already. You simply go with it and you will reach to the ocean, to the ultimate, to the infinite. This utter surrender to existence Buddha calls the fruit of the streamwinner.The second stage is called once-returner and the third, never-returner and the fourth, arhat. The streamwinner forsakes three fetters. The first is ego, individuality, the idea of a separate self. Naturally that is the whole root cause of fighting. Second, living by mere rule and ritual; there are so many religious people but they live only by rule and ritual. They know nothing of religion. Ritual is not religion, rule is not religion.Religion is a totally different kind of life – a life of awareness, life of love, life of compassion. But if you look around the world you will see millions of people going to the churches, temples, mosques, gurudwaras, praying, doing this and that, and it is all ritual, and religion is nonexistential.I have heard an ancient Indian story:A man was doing the traditional shraddh ceremony to honor his just departed father. Shraddh is a ceremony that when somebody’s father dies you pray for his journey, you pray for him.During the ceremony the family dog wandered into the prayer room. Afraid of defiling the occasion the man hastily got up and tied his dog to a post outside on the verandah.Years later, when he died, his son performed the shraddh ceremony in his turn. Anxious to follow it in every detail he had to catch hold of a dog from the neighborhood, because he remembered that it must be very important. “My father had got up in the middle of his prayers to do it, and when he had tied the dog to the post then he was so happy and he went again and prayed.” And he was not going to miss anything, the ceremony had to be perfect.By this time it happened that the family had no dog so he had to run in the neighborhood to find a stray dog. He caught hold of one, tied it carefully to a post on the verandah, then finished the ceremony with a satisfied conscience. In that family, down the centuries, the rule is still followed. In fact, the sacred dog ritual has become the most important item in the ceremony.That’s how things move. People live in unconsciousness. Your fathers were doing something, their fathers and their fathers were doing something. It takes on an aura of sacredness. You just go on repeating it, you don’t care what the meaning of it is.Jesus called God “My Father – Abba.” You go on calling him father but it is meaningless. You don’t have that heart, the ritual is just superficial. You don’t have that heart that can call God Abba. The word abba is not meaningful, but the feeling in the heart. If that feeling is there, there is no need even to say that word, feeling will do. But if the feeling is not there then it is a dead ritual.I have heard:After the four-year-old girl was tucked in bed, she folded her hands and started praying. By mistake she started saying her table-prayers. Realizing what she had done, she looked upward with a big smile and said, “Erase that, Jesus.” Then she proceeded with her bedtime prayer.Rituals are like that. They don’t grow in you, they are just imposed from the outside. You go on repeating, they become mechanical.Buddha says that a few things have to be dropped by the streamwinner. One is ego, the second is living by mere rule and ritual, and the third is doubt, perplexity.A doubting mind cannot relax. A doubting mind cannot surrender. A doubting mind can never be total; a part goes on fighting, a part goes on saying no. A doubting mind cannot say an absolute yes, and that is the fundamental of becoming a streamwinner – to say yes to life, to say yes unconditionally, to say yes simply, with your whole being. That is prayer enough. If you can simply sit silently and can say yes to existence, enough – nothing more is needed, no ritual.These three things have to be dropped by a streamwinner. Then the second stage is called once-returner. Once-returner means one who will die and come once more. He has to forsake greed, sensuality and ill will. But he will come once more.The third stage is called never-returner, one who will not come again. He has to forsake lust for life, lust for the other life, lust to be. And the fourth stage is called the state of arhat, one who is absent, nobody, nothingness. He has become a buddha.Buddha asked Subhuti about these four. He asks:…Does it occur to the streamwinner “By me has the fruit of a streamwinner been attained”?A simple question, but very significant.Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? Because, O Lord, he has not won any dharma.If you say, “I have surrendered,” then you have not surrendered, because how can you surrender? You have to be surrendered. The “I” has to be surrendered. You cannot say, “I have surrendered.” If it is something of your doing then it is not surrender.People come to me and they ask, “How can we surrender to you?” And I say, “You cannot. You are the barrier in surrender. You just get out of the way and there is surrender.”Surrender is not something that has to be done or that can be done, it is not a doing. Surrender is an understanding. “I” is always in a fighting mood. “I” can never be without fight, it exists through fight, it survives through fight, it depends on fight. Either you will be fighting with others, or if you change that you will start fighting with yourself. That’s what your monks go on doing in the monasteries. They don’t fight in the world, they don’t fight with anybody, they have renounced the world; now they start fighting with themselves.The body says, “I am hungry,” and they say, “No.” Now this is fight. Now ego has arisen in a new way. The ego says, “Look, I control my body so beautifully. I am the master and the body is the slave.” Your eyes are tired and they say, “We want to go to sleep,” and you say, “No. I have decided to stay awake the whole night. This is my meditation. I am on a particular meditation, I cannot sleep.” And you feel good. Now you are fighting.Your body wants a little comfort and you sleep on the stones, your body wants a little shelter and you stand in the hot sun, your body wants a few clothes and you stand naked in the cold. These are ways of fighting. Now you don’t have the world to fight with so you have divided yourself in two.The ego lives through friction, any kind of friction will do. The husband fights with the wife, the wife fights with the husband. These are nothing but ways of feeding the ego. The more you fight, the more the ego becomes strong, and the greatest strength the ego gets is from fighting with yourself, because that is the hardest fight. To kill somebody else is one thing; to kill yourself slowly, continuously, for many years, is a difficult job, it is a slow suicide, and the ego feels very good. That’s why the so-called religious monks have great egos; you will not find such great egos in the ordinary people in the marketplace. If you want really great egos, if you want to see how they are, go to the Himalayas and in the caves you will find them.The man who has surrendered cannot claim that “I have surrendered,” he can only say surrender has happened.…No, indeed, O Lord. And why? Because, O Lord, he has not won any dharma. Therefore is he called a streamwinner.Because you have dropped the “I,” that’s why you are called a surrenderer. You cannot claim that “I have surrendered.” If you claim you have missed the whole point.No sight-object has been won, no sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, or objects of mind. That is why he is called a streamwinner.He has not won anything like an object. In fact, rather than winning anything he has dropped the very idea of winning. That’s why he is called a streamwinner. He has dropped the whole fight, the whole war, that he was doing for many many lives. He has dropped the whole project, he is no longer interested in it.He cannot show you anything and say, “I have won this. See! This is my victory.” He cannot show you his kingdom that he has won. He has not won anything visible. In fact, rather than winning anything visible he has dropped his ego, he has lost his ego. But in that losing of the ego is great victory. But that victory is such that it cannot be claimed.If, O Lord, it would occur to a streamwinner, “By me has a streamwinner’s fruit been attained,” then that would be in him a seizing on a self, seizing on a being, seizing on a soul, seizing on a person….The moment you think, “I have won, I have surrendered,” again you have created a new “I,” again a self has arisen, again you have started seeing in the ways of the ego. Again you have perceived the self.The English word perception is beautiful. It comes from per-cap and capio, meaning to take hold of, to seize, to grasp, to capture. The moment you perceive that you are there in any way, you have again captured the ego and the ego has captured you. Again you are back into the old rut. The whole point is lost, you are no more a streamwinner.This way Buddha asks about once-returner and never-returner, but because it is the same I have dropped it, I have not taken it into the sutra. Finally:The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it then occur to the arhat, “By me has arhatship been attained”?Subhuti: No indeed, O Lord…. And why? Because no dharma is called arhat. That is why he is called an arhat…. And why? I am, O Lord, the one whom the Tathagata…has pointed out as the foremost of those who dwell in peace. I am, O Lord, an arhat free from greed. And yet, O Lord, it does not occur to me, “An arhat am I and free from greed.”If, O Lord, it could occur to me that I have attained arhatship, then the Tathagata would not have declared of me that “Subhuti, this son of good family, who is the foremost of those who dwell in peace, does not dwell anywhere; that is why he is called a dweller in peace, a dweller in peace.”Simple, once you get the idea. The idea is that when you start moving into the world of truth, you cannot be a claimer. Your claim will be a disclaim.Once a man came to Buddha and asked, “Have you attained?” and Buddha said, “I cannot claim because I have attained.”Just see the beauty of it. He says, “I cannot claim because I have attained. If I claim, that will be a sure sign that I have not attained.” But see the difficulty too. If Buddha says, “I have not attained,” then he is saying a lie. If he says, “I have attained,” that is not possible because there is no “I” in that attainment. That attainment is such that it happens only when the “I” has gone. You see the difficulty, how language becomes impotent.Buddha asked:What do you think, Subhuti, does it then occur to the arhat, “By me has arhatship been attained”?Now arhatship is not a state. It is not something like an object; you cannot catch hold of it, you cannot possess it, you cannot hoard it. It is a freedom, not a thing to be possessed. It is a freedom. You simply go on dropping your chains. One day all chains have disappeared – even the last chain of the idea of “I” has disappeared. Then there is nobody present. That consciousness is called arhat.Buddha asks, “Does it occur to the arhat, ‘I have attained arhatship’?”That is why he is called an arhat…. And why? I am, O Lord, the one whom the Tathagata…has pointed out as the foremost of those who dwell in peace.Now Subhuti takes himself as an example. He says, “You have declared of me that I have attained. You have declared of me that I have become an arhat. You have declared that I dwell in peace.” This is a special way of Buddha of saying that there is nobody inside – dwelling in peace.Dwelling in peace means there is nobody, because if there is somebody, peace is not possible. If there is somebody, some turmoil will continue. The house is silent only when there is nobody in the house. Even if somebody is there a little bit, turmoil will continue. Even if one person is there he will put things from here to there, he will do something. Even if he is fast asleep he will snore. Something is bound to happen. When there is nobody at all then there is peace.Buddha calls the state of arhathood when there is absolute peace, so much that there is not anybody to be found there. When Buddha used to say, “Now Subhuti, you dwell in peace,” he is saying, “Now Subhuti, you are no more.” It is the same.Subhuti says, “You have declared that Subhuti dwells in peace, you have declared that Subhuti has become an arhat, and you must be true, Lord. How can you be untrue? But I cannot say, it does not occur to me, ‘An arhat am I and free from greed.’ If it occurs to me, then you are wrong. If it occurs to me that I am an arhat, then ego has arisen, then a self is seized, then again I am caught in the old trap. If it arises in me that I dwell in peace then the peace is lost because the “I” has come back, the dweller is back.” Then you cannot dwell in peace, then something is bound to happen – some misery, some dream, some desire, and the world, the whole world starts.The ego is the seed of the world. The small seed contains the whole world. Just feel “I am” and the whole world comes following, immediately!Subhuti says:…It does not occur to me, “An arhat am I and free from greed.” If, O Lord, it could occur to me that I have attained arhatship, then the Tathagata would not have declared of me that “Subhuti, this son of good family, who is the foremost of those who dwell in peace, does not dwell anywhere; that is why he is called a dweller in peace, a dweller in peace.”When one has disappeared, when the dweller is no more, then the peace is attained.Nothingness is the taste of Buddha’s message. One has to come to that point when one is not, when only absence prevails, but then nobody can claim, then nobody can come and say and brag about it.To understand Buddha you will need a few glimpses of non-being. Just linguistically you can understand what he is saying, but that won’t help much, that won’t take you far into it. You will have to have a few glimpses of it – and they are possible.Sometimes just sitting silently, doing nothing, keep quiet; not even a mantra to disturb you, not even the name of God, not even a special yoga posture to sit in, not even to contemplate, not even to meditate – just sitting silently in your room or by the side of a tree or by the side of the river, lying in the grass, looking at the stars or with closed eyes. Just being there, just a pool of energy going nowhere – and glimpses will start coming to you. For a moment you will feel you are and you are not.You are, utterly you are, and still you are not. You are not and for the first time you are. Then you will see why Buddha is so paradoxical. You are only when you are not. When all is absent there is great presence. When the ego has completely disappeared you are the whole, you are the all. You disappear as the drop and you become the ocean. On one side you have disappeared and on another side you have appeared, and for the first time.Enlightenment is a death and a resurrection. And they both happen together, simultaneously. Here happens death and immediately it is followed by resurrection. But you will have to taste, you will have to savor it. These words are not mere words, these are not just doctrines and philosophies; they are existential experiences.I understand your difficulty. Many questions have come to me that “When you talk on Sufis our hearts dance, but this Diamond Sutra and our hearts are not dancing.” This is higher, this is more rarified.Sufis you can understand, they are close to you. They talk about love. At least you have heard about the word love, you have some ideas what love is. You may not understand the Sufis’ love, what they mean, but at least you know something about love, you know at least what you mean, and when hearing about love your heart starts melting. But these words of Buddha are far superior.But it is not so with everybody. A few questions have come to me that they are thrilled. It depends. You can ask Prasad; his heart is dancing so much with The Diamond Sutra that he is almost having a heart attack. Or you can ask Pradeepa.Remember one thing: here I am speaking for so many people. They are different, their approaches are different. Sometimes it will fit with you, sometimes it may not fit with you. When it doesn’t fit you have to keep patience, because when it fits with you it will not fit with somebody else. He has to keep patience. I am speaking for many people – and not only am I speaking with you and for you, I am speaking for millions who are not here, to whom these words will reach.Sometimes if you feel the thing is too difficult for you or unapproachable for you, be patient. Listen. Maybe your heart is not dancing, maybe it is higher or deeper than the heart.There are things of the head, there are things of the heart, and there are things which are beyond. This is of the beyond. And the beyond is very difficult. You know something of the head, you know something of the heart, but you know nothing of the beyond.But these words are rare. This Diamond Sutra is a diamond, the most valuable diamond that exists in the world literature. Nobody has spoken like that, nobody has taken such flights. But if you feel that you cannot fly so high, don’t close yourself. Make efforts. Even if you can go a little further than you can go right now, even if you can take a few steps towards the unknown, that will be enriching to you.Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 08 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Why have all the great masters come from the East?Because humanity has yet not been total. The East is introvert, the West is extrovert. Man is split, mind is schizophrenic. That’s why all the great masters have come from the East and all the great scientists have come from the West. The West has developed science and has completely forgotten about the inner soul; is concerned with matter, but has become oblivious of the inner subjectivity. The whole focus is on the object. Hence all the great scientists are born in the West.The East has become too much concerned with the inner soul and has forgotten objectivity, matter, the world. Great religious masters developed out of this, but this is not a good situation, this should not be so. Man should become one. Man should not be allowed to be lopsided anymore. Man should be a fluidity, neither extrovert nor introvert. Man should be capable of being both together. The inner and the outer, if balanced, give the greatest ecstatic experience.The person who is neither leaning towards the inner too much nor towards the outer too much is the person of equilibrium. He will be a scientist and a mystic together. That is something that will happen, that is something that is going to happen. We are preparing the field for it. I would like to see a man who is neither Eastern nor Western, because to be Eastern as against Western is ugly. To be Western as against Eastern is again ugly. The whole earth belongs to us and we belong to the whole earth. A man should be just man, a man should be just human – total, whole. And out of that wholeness will arise a new kind of health.The East has suffered, the West has suffered. The East has suffered; you can see it all around – the poverty, the starvation. The West has suffered, you can see inside the Western mind – tension, anxiety, anguish. The West is very poor inwardly, the East is very poor outwardly. Poverty is bad. Whether it is inner or outer makes no difference, poverty should not be allowed. Man should be rich, inner, outer, both. Man should have all dimensional richness.Just think of a man who is an Albert Einstein and a Gautam Buddha both. Just meditate on that possibility – that is possible. In fact if Albert Einstein had lived a little longer, he would have turned into a mystic. He had started thinking about the inner, he was becoming interested in the inner mystery. How long can you remain interested in the outer mystery? If you are really interested in mystery then sooner or later you will stumble upon the inner too.My concept is of a world which is neither Eastern nor Western, neither inner nor outer, neither extrovert nor introvert – which is balanced, which is whole. But this has not been the case in the past. That’s why your question is relevant.You ask: “Why have all the great masters come from the East?” Because the East has been obsessed with the inner as against the outer. Naturally, when down the centuries you have been obsessed with the inner, you will create a Buddha, a Nagarjuna, a Shankara, a Kabir. It is natural.If you are obsessed with the outer as against the inner, you will create an Albert Einstein, an Eddington, an Edison, that’s natural. But this is not good for the totality of human beings. Something is missing. The man who has inner growth and has not grown outwardly remains juvenile in the outside, remains stupid outside. And the same is the case with the man who has grown much, who has become mature, very mature, as far as mathematics goes and physics goes and chemistry goes, but who inside has not been even born yet, who is still in the womb.This is my message to you: drop these hemispheres – East and West – and drop these hemispheres of inner and outer. Become fluid. Let movement, flow, be your very life. Remain available to the outer and to the inner both.That’s why I teach love and meditation. Love is the passage to go out, meditation is the passage to go in. And a man who is in love and meditative is beyond schizophrenia, is beyond all kinds of split. He has become one, he is integrated. In fact, he has soul.The second question:Osho,Don't you get bored, bored, bored and fed up, day after day answering the same questions, while we sit there with ears blocked, eyes tight, mouth sealed, never ever getting the message – that there are no answers? You continually astound me in your dewdrop freshness in the early morning light, and still I am blind, deaf and lame, cut off from sharing in your radiance except for brief moments.The first thing: I am not, so I cannot be bored and fed up. First you have to be to be bored. The more you are the more you will feel bored; the less you are the less bored. That’s why children are less bored than old people. Have you not observed it? Children are almost not bored. They go on playing with the same toys, they go on running after the same butterflies, they go on collecting the same seashells. They are not bored.Have you ever told a story to a child? After listening to it he says, “Tell it again…and again.” And whenever you will meet him again he will say, “Tell me that story. I loved it.” Why is a child not bored? – because he is not. Or, he is in a very rudimentary way; the ego has not evolved yet. The ego is the factor that creates boredom.Animals are not bored, trees are not bored, and what novelty is there in the life of animals and trees? The rosebush goes on producing the same roses year in, year out, and the bird goes on singing the same song every morning and every evening. The cuckoo knows not many notes, just a single note. It goes on repeating it; it is monotonous. But not a single animal is bored, not a single tree is bored. Nature knows nothing of boredom. Why? – because nature has no ego yet.A Buddha is not bored, a Jesus is not bored, because they have dropped the ego again. The nature has not evolved yet: Buddha has dropped it. Buddha and nature are almost the same. I say almost because there is only one difference – of great significance, but only one difference. The difference is that of awareness. Nature is without ego but unaware, Buddha is without ego but aware.Once you know you are not there, who is going to be bored, who is going to be fed up? That’s why I can come every morning and go on answering your questions. I am not bored. I cannot be bored. For almost twenty-five years I have not tasted boredom. I have started forgetting the very taste of it, how it feels.The second thing: the questions are not the same. They cannot be – they come from different people, how can they be the same questions? Yes, sometimes the words may be the same, but the questions are not the same. Two persons are so different from each other – how can they ask the same question? Even if the words are the same, even if the construction of the question is the same, yet – I would like you to be reminded – they can’t be the same.Now this question is asked by Anand Shaila; nobody else can ask it. Nobody else upon this big earth can ask it. To ask this question a Shaila will be needed. And Shaila is only one; there are not many Shailas.So remember, each individual has such uniqueness. To call those questions the same is disrespectful. I respect your questions. They are not the same. They have nuances of their own, colors of their own, but you need very penetrating eyes to see the difference; otherwise you may not be able to see.When you look around and you see all the trees are green, do you think it is the same green? Then you don’t know how to look at color. Then bring a painter, then ask the painter and he will say, “They are all different greens. There are thousands of types of greens – different shades, different nuances. No two trees are the same green.” Just look around and you will see – yes, each green is a different green.So are questions. And even if the same person asks the question again and again, then too it cannot be the same because you go on changing. Nothing is static. You cannot step in the same river twice, and you cannot meet the same person again. Shaila cannot ask this question tomorrow, because there will no longer be the same person tomorrow. The Ganges will have flowed, much water will have gone down. This moment it is relevant, tomorrow it may not be relevant, something else may surface in the consciousness.No two persons can ask the same question, and not even the same person can ask the same question again, because the person goes on changing. A person is like a flame, constantly changing. But again you have to look very deep. I have never come across the same questions. I am always thrilled by your questions. I always wonder how you manage to ask.“Don’t you get bored, bored and fed up, day after day answering the same questions while we sit here with ears blocked, eyes tight, mouths sealed, never ever getting the message that there are no answers?”Just because you sit there “ears blocked, eyes tight, mouth sealed, never ever getting the message,” it becomes a challenge to me. It is a great adventure. You persist, I also persist. The question is: Who is going to win? Whether you will remain always closed or some day you will take pity on me and you will listen…open your ears, your heart, a little bit? It is a struggle. It is wrestling that goes on between the master and the disciple – a constant fight.And the disciple cannot win. It has never been heard that he can win. He can postpone, he can delay, but he cannot win. And the more you delay the more your defeat becomes certain. I am encroaching on your being in different ways. You just go on sitting there with your closed ears and closed eyes and closed heart – you just remain there, that’s all. You just be here. Sooner or later, one day, you will have heard the message.How long can you go on remaining closed? They say if a man persists in his folly he becomes wise. You persist. Some day, in spite of you, you will have heard. That’s why I go on speaking every morning, every evening, year in, year out.And you say “…never ever getting the message – that there are no answers.” You will get that message only when there are no questions in your mind, never before that. How can you get the message that there are no answers if you have questions yet? The very question presupposes an answer. The question is the search for the answer. The question has taken it for granted that the answer exists, otherwise how will the question exist? The question cannot exist on its own, it depends on the answer or at least on the possibility of the answer.The day you realize that there are no longer any questions in you, only that day will the message be heard that there are no answers. And that day you will see that neither you have asked nor I have answered. There has been utter silence. All that questioning and answering has been like a dream.But because you question, I have to answer. That is the only way to help you to get rid of your questions. Remember, my answers are not answers but only devices. My answers are not answering your questions, because I know perfectly well that there are no questions. All questions are false. You have dreamed about them. But when you ask, I respect you. I answer. My answer is just a respect to you, and my answer is a device. It will help you to see that the question by and by disappears.One day suddenly you will be awake with no questions. That day you will see that I have not answered a single thing. Nothing can be answered because there is not a single question in existence. Existence exists without any questions. It is a mystery – not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be loved, a mystery to be lived.And Shaila says: “You continually astound me in your dewdrop freshness in the early morning light and still I am blind, dead, lame, cut off from sharing in your radiance except for brief moments.”Those brief moments will do. Those brief moments are the hope. In those brief moments I will enter in you. Those brief moments will become bigger and bigger slowly. One day you will find those brief moments have won over you. Even if for a single moment there is a contact between me and you, it is enough, it is more than enough. Even that small insight will become a fire in you. That small spark is going to burn your whole mind utterly, to the very roots, root and all.The third question:Osho,I don't enjoy these Buddha sutras. They are dry, difficult and complicated. Is not truth simple?Truth is simple and truth is difficult. In fact it is difficult because it is simple. It is so simple and your minds are so complicated that you cannot understand it, you go on missing it. It is so simple that it gives no challenge to you. It is so simple that you pass by the side of it remaining completely unaware that you have passed truth.Truth is simple because truth is obvious. But simple does not mean easy. The simplicity is very complex. If you enter in it you will be lost, you may never be able to get out of it. That simplicity has depth in it, it is not shallow. And to attain to that simplicity you will have to lose many things – and to lose those things is difficult.For example, why do these Buddha sutras look difficult to you? – because they are illogical. If you can lose your logic, they will be simple. The difficulty is coming from your mind, not from Buddha’s sutras. He is a very simple man. He is simply stating a fact. But the problem arises from you, because you cannot accept that simple fact. You have your ideas. Those ideas interfere.You say, “How can this be? If this man is right then my whole logic is wrong.” And that you cannot accept. Your whole education, training, has been of logic, and he goes on stating illogical things. He is helpless. At that height, at that plenitude, logic does not exist. What can he do? At that plenitude everything is paradoxical. At that plenitude, opposites meet, contradictions become complementaries. What can he do? He has to assert them. The problem is arising from you – because you want those truths to be translated according to your logic.Suppose a boy in a high school physics class were to object, “I don’t approve of Albert Einstein’s formula.”“No?” says the teacher. “Why not?”“Well, firstly it is boring, and whenever you explain it I inevitably fall asleep. Secondly, it is unbalanced. Look at it! E = mc2. He has put one figure all by itself on one side of the equation, and three others all together on the other side. It is unartistic. Why didn’t he move one of those figures to the left side to make the formula more symmetrical? That’s why I hate it.”Now he is raising beautiful questions. It is not symmetrical: “What kind of equation is this? Both sides are not equal. It is unartistic. Just by putting one figure on the other side, things would have been far better, more symmetrical.”The boy is completely unaware of what he is talking about, but whatsoever he is saying looks logical. But the Einsteinian formula is not there to entertain you. It is to express reality. If you are bored with it, that simply shows that you are very dull witted, that you cannot understand that penetrating insight. It is said that only twelve persons used to understand Einstein’s theory of relativity. All around the earth, only twelve?The truth is simple, but when you go into its details, when you start penetrating into its reality, it becomes difficult. For example, Saint Augustine is reported to have said, “Everybody knows what time is. I know what time is, but when somebody asks me: ‘What is time? Try to explain it to me,’ then I am at a loss.”You know what time is, you live according to time. Six o’clock in the morning you get up, eleven o’clock in the night you go to bed, one o’clock you take your lunch. You go to the office, you come home. You use time, you know what time is, but can you explain it? The moment you try to explain it becomes elusive. You have never seen it, you have never seen it in your hand. You cannot grasp it. What is it?Augustine is right – that the problem arises when you try to explain it. Light is so simple, it is all around, dancing on the trees, the whole sky is full of light. Try to explain it to a blind man and he will be bored and he will say, “Stop all this nonsense.” First, you will find it very difficult to put it into words. Or, drop the question of light. It is a scientific question, you may not be interested in it.You have loved, you know what love is. You must have loved – at least you must have loved your mother, your father, your sister, some woman, your wife, your husband, your children. Can you explain what love is? Then you become dumb. Then suddenly you lose all intelligence – as if somebody has simply struck you dead. You become paralyzed. What is love? Can you define it?Love is everybody’s experience, more or less, but nobody can define it. Nirvana is not everybody’s experience – once in a while nirvana happens – and Buddha is trying to explain to you what nirvana is.Truth is simple, but the moment you try to explain it, it becomes difficult. But remember, you are not here only to be entertained. And I am not against entertainment either – it is good in its own time. But something more than entertainment is needed, only that will become your enlightenment. Entertainment is a very lower need. Enlightenment is the highest need. If you simply go on from one entertainment to another you will remain shallow, you will never grow, you will remain immature. You have to sometimes go into the depths of life and love and light and God. Sometimes you have to fly into eternity to have a taste of it. Only that will make you mature.I understand your difficulties. You say: “I don’t enjoy these Buddha sutras.” Then learn how to enjoy. Then learn how to enjoy higher things. There are higher things. If you want to enjoy classical Indian music you will have to learn. You cannot just go and enjoy it, it needs a certain preparation in you, it needs a certain receptivity in you. It is not vulgar. It needs a certain understanding in you…a deep understanding of sounds and silence – because music consists of sound and silence. It is not only sound, it contains silence in it.The music becomes higher and deeper when it contains more silence in it. When it provokes your silence, when it penetrates your heart and releases your inner silence, when listening to it your mind disappears, your thoughts stop…. But then you will have to learn, you will have to go through a certain discipline, you will have to become more meditative. One day you will be able to enjoy it. But if you want to enjoy it right now and you are not ready for it, don’t blame it.Don’t say that Buddha’s sutras are boring, just say that you are not capable yet of understanding that plenitude, that you are not capable of looking to that height, that you are not capable enough to climb the Everest of consciousness. Buddha is talking from the highest peak. You will have to move from your dark hole a little bit. You will have to climb the mountains, only then you will understand those sunlit sutras.It is a difficulty because for that understanding we are not prepared at all, hence sometimes you may feel bored. But fight with boredom, destroy your boredom, pull yourself out of it. You have to go with the Buddha, you have to see what he has seen. Seeing it, you will be fulfilled.The fourth question:Osho,Is the only thing that keeps us from coming home the doubt that we are not already home, which is reinforced by everyone around us?Yes, Shobha. The doubt is the only thing that prevents – the doubt that we are not as we should be, the doubt that the divine cannot be within us. How can God be within us? – because you have been taught God is there in the seventh heaven sitting on his golden throne, surrounded by his angels playing on their harps, singing hallelujah.He is not here, he is far away. He is big, he is huge, he is eternal, he is this and he is that. How can he be in your heart? Such a tiny heart you have. And how can he be in your heart? – you are so ugly and you are so horrible and you condemn yourself in a thousand and one ways continuously. How can he be there? If God is there in you, then where will the devil live? The doubt….And when somebody says that God is within you, you cannot accept it. You have heard it many times, Jesus saying to people, “The kingdom of God is within you.” But even Christians don’t listen, even the followers. Even Jesus’ intimate followers, immediate followers, go on asking about God who is in heaven and Jesus goes on saying, “He is within you,” and they go on talking about the God who is in heaven, and they go on saying, “When we all will die, how will we live in paradise? Who will be at the right hand of God? What will be our position there? Who will be who? What will be the hierarchy?” And Jesus goes on saying, “He is within you,” but nobody believes it, because you have not been taught to trust yourself.From your very birth you have been distracted from your being. Everybody has condemned you – your parents, your teachers, your priests, your politicians. Everybody has condemned you. Everybody has said, “You! You are not right as you are. You have to become right. You have to attain to some perfection.”Goals have been given to you, and because of those goals and those perfectionist ideals you remain condemned and crushed. How can you receive the message that the divine is within you, that you are already home, that you have never left it in the first place, that all is okay as it is? Just relax, and it is yours. Not that you have to search and seek, but just relax into it and it is yours.Doubt arises: “God within me? And my father was saying, ‘You are the ugliest kid in the town.’ And my mother was saying, ‘Why didn’t you die? You are a condemnation to the family, you are a blame to the family. We are sorry that we have given birth to you.’” And your teacher was saying that you are a fool, that you are stupid, that you are idiotic. And the priest was saying that you are bound for hell, that you are a sinner.Just the other night I was reading about an Indian mystic who was invited into a Christian church. After the talk the Christian priest shouted loudly to the congregation: “All you sinners! Now kneel down and pray! Kneel down in prayer!”They all knelt down except the mystic, the Hindu mystic. The priest looked at him, he said, “Aren’t you going to participate with us in prayer?”He said, “I was going to participate, but I am not a sinner. And I don’t see that anybody else here is a sinner. I was going to participate in the prayer, but now you have made it impossible for me. I cannot kneel down. I am not a sinner. God is within me; I cannot be that disrespectful to God. I can pray only because God is within me. And I am not praying for anything – my prayer is my thankfulness, my gratitude for all that he has already given to me. My thankfulness is that he has chosen me as his abode, that he has honored me, that I am part of him, that he belongs to me. I am ready to pray, I am ready to kneel down, but not as a sinner, because that is not true.”You have been taught that you are sinners, that unless Jesus saves you, you are bound to go to hell. You have been condemned so much that when this Eastern message bursts forth in your being you start doubting: “This is not possible. I?…and I have never left home? Maybe it is true about Buddha, maybe it is true about Jesus, but I? – I am a sinner.”Nobody is a sinner. Even while you are in the darkest hole of your life you are still divine. You cannot lose your divinity, there is no way to lose it. It is your very being. It is the stuff you are made of.Shobha has asked: “Is the only thing that keeps us from coming home the doubt that we are not already home, which is reinforced by everyone around us?”Yes, it is reinforced by everyone around you. That’s why I say love is only when somebody accepts you as divine. He reinforces the truth that you are divine. If anybody reinforces the untruth that you are not divine, it is not love. She may be your mother, he may be your father, it doesn’t matter. If anybody gives you a self-condemnatory idea, he is poisoning you. If anybody says that you are not accepted as you are, that God will love you only if you fulfill certain conditions, then he is destroying you, he is your enemy – beware of him.The fifth question:Osho,The other day I came through the gates with an Indian sannyasin and he was turned away by the guard with no reason given. When I spoke to Laxmi about it, she more or less told me to mind my own business. Whenever I see people being unjustly treated, my immediate reaction is to go to their assistance. Is it really none of my business what happens to other people?The question is from Ma Deva Tulika.This is significant for everybody present here, and everybody who is going to be in any way related to me. Whatsoever happens in this commune happens according to me. I know who was turned from the gate. And the man who has been turned away knows why he has been turned from the gate. And it is none of your business to come into it.This you have to understand absolutely, that whatsoever happens here…I may not come out of my room, I never come out except in the morning and the evening, and I never go around the ashram – but whatsoever happens here is perfectly known to me, is happening according to me. Please don’t interfere.There are a few other people also like Tulika who are continuously interfering with the work. You are nobody to judge what is right and what is wrong. If you know it already you are not needed here, you have become enlightened – you go home.This is none of your business to decide what is just and what is unjust. This is not an ordinary place, so ordinary things won’t apply here. Some extraordinary experiment is on. I know what is somebody’s need. If I feel that somebody has to be rejected from the gate, he has to be rejected. If I feel that no reason has to be given, then no reason has to be given. That’s my device for his life and for his work.Now you should not come into it. If you start coming into it you will only lose your opportunity for growth. Guards have their duties, they know what they are doing. And I am in contact with them, with what they are doing. You simply bypass.It is not an ordinary place. Everything is looked after, and if somebody needs a hit on the head, he is given. You should not prevent it; otherwise you will be coming into his growth too, you will hinder him, and you will be hindering yourself. And you can get unnecessarily excited about it.There are a few people – Padma Sambhava is one. They go on writing to me that this has happened and somebody has done this and this should not be. Here you are nobody to decide what should be and what should not be. The moment you become part of my commune you leave everything to me; otherwise work will be impossible.Now I know the man who has been rejected and I know why he is rejected – and he also knows why he has been rejected. There is no reason to give any reason. If reasons have to be given for each and every thing, then my whole work will be simply to go on supplying reasons. There are thousands of people coming, and everybody has to be given reasons and explanations about everything? Laxmi is right.And always remember that Laxmi never does anything on her own. She is a perfect vehicle; that’s why she has been chosen for that work. Now I cannot choose Tulika for work, because she has her own idea what is right and what is wrong. Laxmi has no idea. She simply listens and does. Whatsoever is said, she does.And you have to learn these ways, because soon we will be becoming a bigger commune and thousands of people will be coming, and these things have to be settled. You should not bring them again and again. Again and again you go on writing questions: “Somebody has done this….” That is for me to look to, and if I think that it is not right it will be prevented. You need not bring it to my notice even. You waste my time.And you get so excited…. There are some foolish people who have renounced their sannyas because they saw something unjust was being done. Now they’re just losing their opportunity. It was not their business. You have come here for your own growth. This acceptance has to be total, only then work is possible, only then I can help you. Please don’t give suggestions to me. The moment you give me a suggestion, you are disconnected from me.This is not going to be a democracy. You are not to be asked what should be done and what should not be done. This should be remembered from the very beginning – that this is not going to be a democracy. Your votes will never be taken. You become part of it with that knowledge, that whatsoever I decide is absolute. If you don’t choose that way, you are perfectly okay to leave.People are prevented from entering, but nobody is prevented from leaving. You can leave. Have you seen anybody being prevented from leaving? Leaving is perfectly free – you are free, that is your decision. If you want to be here you have to be totally here. If you feel that this is not the place for you, that your ideas are not being fulfilled, that it is not according to you, you are free to leave.This place will never be according to you. This place is to change you, it is not to be according to you. This place is going to be a transformation for you. And these are the beginnings. Who are you to know what is right and what is wrong? And who are you to ask for the reason? How do you come in?The Indian who has been prevented, if he feels like asking he will come and ask. He has not asked because he knows, he has been told why he is being prevented. He has been a nuisance around here. But these things are not to be inquired about by everybody. And this is not good, that everybody should be told about this nuisance. This is disrespectful to him. He has been told, and he understands because he knows what he has been doing.Now you suddenly jump in. You think you are doing some great work, some great service. You think you are saving some person from some injustice. You don’t know the whole story. And you need not know the whole story, because who is sitting there to tell you all the stories about everybody? You decide only about your own self. This is a place where many things will never be according to you. You have to fall in tune with things. If you think that that is not possible for you, you are free to leave.And let this be the last question. Many questions have been coming to me. Somebody participates in a group and writes, “Why is there so much violence in the encounter group?” And that comes from a groupleader, a woman who has been a groupleader. She participated for one or two days in the encounter group and dropped out. And she had asked for it. I was not going to give her the encounter group, I was giving her some other groups, but she asked, “I want to do the encounter.” So I said “Okay.” But when I say, “Okay,” you should understand what I mean. I mean that then it is for you to decide.She thinks she knows because she is a groupleader. She has been leading groups so she thinks she knows. And I knew that very moment that she would not be able to go through it, because the encounter group that is going on here is the best in the world at this moment. Nowhere else is such absolute freedom allowed.In the West the encounter group has limitations, because the encounter groupleader has limitations. He can go only so far. When he sees that things are becoming difficult, that now he may not be able to control, that things may go too far, that he may not be able to bring them back, then he prevents.Here we don’t believe in any boundaries.I send people to the encounter group only when I see that now they understand that they have to go beyond all boundaries – boundaries of sex, boundaries of violence, anger, rage. They have to break all boundaries. That is breakthrough – when all those boundaries break down.Now the woman became very much afraid, now she is against the group. Now she is asking me, “Why do you allow such violence?” That is not your business. If you are not capable of going into it, you are not required to go into it, mm? You can do some nonviolent group – Zazen, Vipassana. We have all kinds of toys around here. Mm? You can choose.But don’t go on writing to me. Whatsoever happens here is happening with my knowledge. Not a single thing happens here which is not known to me, so you need not inform me about things, I know them already. It is a sheer wastage of time.And the moment you surrender and become an initiate, a sannyasin, that surrender has to be total. Just live a few months in that total surrender and you will see – it is alchemical, it transforms you.New people come and they think, “What is the matter? The old sannyasins don’t interfere? Somebody is prevented by the guard and the old sannyasins simply go by. What has happened to these people? Do they understand or not that this is not right? Have they become apathetic, indifferent?”No, they have learned, and they have learned just like you. Slowly slowly they have learned that whatsoever happens is happening according to a plan, a device. There is some hidden pattern in it. And nobody except me knows what that hidden pattern is. So you cannot go to Laxmi, she does not know. She simply asks me what is to be done and she does it. You cannot ask Sant on the gate, “What are you doing?” He simply does what he is told to do.If you are to be a part of this commune you have to understand this. You have to relax, you have to stop judging. Soon, after a few months of relaxation and acceptance, you will be able to understand. That’s what has happened to the older sannyasins – now they understand.The sixth question:Osho,I have always felt the need for little rewards at the end of the day – a few beers, cigarettes or drugs. Now none of these things bring any satisfaction, yet the desire for something, some form of gratification, continues. What is this longing and what will satisfy it?Nothing will satisfy it. There is a subtle mechanism of desire to be understood. Desire functions in this way: desire places a condition on your happiness: “I will be happy if I can get this car, this woman, this house.” Fulfillment of the desire removes that condition on your happiness. In your relief you feel good. Actually, all you have done is remove a quite unnecessary obstruction to your happiness, but it is not long before you find yourself thinking, “If I can create that obstruction again, then remove it all over again, the relief I feel in removing it will be as good as it was then.” And so it is that desires, even when we fulfill them, lead again and again to the creation of new desires.Do you follow it? First you make a condition. You say, “Unless I get this woman I am not going to be happy. I can be happy only with this woman.” Now you start striving to get this woman. The more difficult it is the more you become enthusiastic, feverish. The more difficult it is the more you are challenged. The more difficult it is the more you put all your being at stake; you are ready to gamble. And of course more hope arises and more desire to possess the woman. It is so hard, it is so difficult. It must be something great, that’s why it is so hard, that’s why it is so difficult. You chase and chase and one day you get the woman.The day you get the woman the condition is removed: “If I get the woman then I will be happy.” You had put that condition in the first place. Now you get the woman, you feel relief. Now there is no more chasing, you have arrived, the result is in your hands, you feel good – good because of the relief.One day I saw Mulla Nasruddin walking, swearing and in great pain. I asked him, “What is the matter? Is your stomach aching or do you have a headache or something? What is the matter? You look in such agony.”He said, “Nothing. The shoes that I am wearing are too small.”“But then why are you wearing them?”He said, “This is the only relief that I get at the end of the day – when I take my shoes off. God, it is such…then I enjoy. But this is the only joy I have, so I cannot drop these shoes. They are one size too small. It is really hell, but in the evening it gives heaven. When I go home and I take my shoes off and I fall on my sofa, I say I have arrived. It’s so beautiful!”That’s what you are doing. You create pain, you create anguish, chasing, fever, and then one day you come home and take the shoes off and you say, “Great, this is great. So I have arrived!” But how long can it last? The relief lasts only a few moments. Then again you are hankering.Now this woman is useless because you have got her. You cannot make a condition again. You can never say again, “If I get this woman I will be happy,” because she is already with you. Now you start looking around at somebody else’s woman, “If I get that woman….” Now you know one trick – that first you have to put a condition on your happiness, then you have to follow the condition desperately, then one day relief comes. Now this is futile. A man of understanding will see that there is no need to put any condition, you can be unconditionally happy. Why go on walking in small shoes and suffer just to get relief in the end? Why not have the relief all the time? But then you will not feel it, that is the problem. To feel it you need contrast. You will be happy but you will not feel it.And that is the definition of a really happy man: a really happy man is one who does not know anything about happiness, who has never heard about it, who is so happy, so unconditionally happy, that how can he know that he is happy? Only unhappy people say, “I am happy, things are going great.” These are unhappy people. A happy person knows nothing about happiness. It is simply there, it is always there. It is like breathing.You don’t feel very happy about breathing? – then just do one thing, close your nose. Do some yoga exercises and repress your breath inside and go on repressing and go on repressing. Now the agony arises. And you go on repressing. Be a real yoga disciple – go on repressing. And then it bursts forth and there is such great joy. This is foolish – but this is what everybody is doing. That’s why you wait for the result in the evening.Happiness is herenow, it needs no condition. Happiness is natural. Just see the point of it. Don’t make any conditions on your happiness. Remain happy for no reason at all. There is no reason to find some cause to be happy. Just be happy.Trees are happy and they will not get any beer in the evening and any cigarettes, and they are perfectly happy. Look!…And the wind blowing is happy, and the sun is happy, and the sands are happy and the seas are happy, and everything is happy except man – because nobody is making any conditions. Just be happy.If you cannot be happy, then don’t make such impossible conditions – that it is difficult. Then Mulla is right – such a small thing. I understand. He is far more intelligent than you understand him to be. Such a simple device – wearing one size smaller shoes – such a small device, nobody can prevent you from it, and by the evening you are happy. Just small devices, create small devices, and be as happy as you want.But you say, “I will be happy only when this great house is mine.” Now you are making a big condition. It may take years, and you will be tired and exhausted, and by the time you reach to the palace of your desires you may be close to death. That’s what happens. And you wasted your whole life and your great house will become your grave. You say, “Unless I have a million dollars, I am not going to be happy.” And then you have to work and waste your whole life. Mulla Nasruddin is far more intelligent: make small conditions and have as much happiness as you want.If you understand, then there is no need to put any conditions. Just see the point of it – that conditions don’t create happiness, they only give relief. But the relief cannot be permanent, no relief can ever be permanent. It lasts only for a few moments. Have you not watched it again and again? You wanted to purchase a car; the car is in your porch and you are standing there, very very happy. How long does it last? Tomorrow it is this old car, one day old. Two days after it is two days old, and all the neighborhood has seen it and they all have appreciated it, and finished! Now nobody talks about it. That’s why car companies have to go on putting out new models every year, so that you can have new conditions.People go on hankering after things just to get relief, and relief is available. Have you heard the story?A beggar was sitting under a tree and a rich man’s car broke. The driver was fixing it and the rich man came out and the beggar was having a good rest under the tree. It was breezy and sunny and beautiful, and the rich man also came and he sat by the side of the beggar and he said, “Why don’t you work?”The beggar asked, “For what?”And the rich man said, “If you work, you can earn money.”The beggar asked, “For what?”The rich man felt a little annoyed and he said, “When you have money you can have a big balance in the bank.”But the beggar again asked, “For what?”The rich man was even more annoyed. He said, “For what? Then you can retire in your old age and rest.”“But,” the beggar said, “I am resting now! Why wait for old age and do all this nonsense? – earn money and make a bank balance and then finally rest. Can’t you see I am resting now! Why wait?”Why wait for the evening? And why wait for the beer? Why not drink water and enjoy it while you are drinking it?You have heard Jesus’ story that he turned water into wine? Christians have missed it. They think he really turned it into wine. That is not true. He must have taught the secret that I am teaching you to his disciples. He must have told them, “Drink it so joyously that water becomes wine.”You can drink water so joyously that it almost intoxicates you. Try! Just water can intoxicate you. It depends on you. It does not depend on the beer or the wine. And if you don’t understand it, ask some hypnotist, ask our Santosh. He knows. Even if only water is given to somebody who has been hypnotized and told under hypnosis that this is wine, he will become intoxicated – with water.Now doctors know about placebos, and sometimes the results are very puzzling. In one hospital they were doing some experiments. To one group of twenty patients with the same disease medicine was given, and to the other twenty with the same disease just water was given – just to see whether water can work. Neither the doctor nor the patients know which is water and which is medicine, because if the doctor knows then even his behavior will change. Giving water he will not give it that seriously and that will make some suspicion arise in the patient. So neither the doctor nor the patient – nobody knows. The knowledge is kept in a vault, locked.And the miracle is that the same number of patients are helped by water as are helped by medicine. Out of twenty, seventeen persons are healthy by the second week, from both the groups. And the more miraculous thing is, those who were kept on water remained healthy longer than those who were kept on medicine. The people who were kept on real medicine started coming back soon, after a few weeks.What happened? Why did water help so much? The idea that it is medicine helps, not the medicine. And because water is pure water, it cannot harm. Medicine will harm. That’s why the people who had been given real medicine started coming back. They started creating some new desire, some new disease, some new problems…because no medicine can go without affecting your system in some way or other. It will have its reactions. Water cannot have any reaction. This is pure hypnosis.You can drink water with such zest, with such prayer, that it becomes wine. You see the Zen people drinking tea with such ceremony and ritual, with such awareness, then even tea becomes something phenomenal. Ordinary tea is transformed. Ordinary acts can be transformed – a morning walk can be intoxicating. And if a morning walk cannot be intoxicating, then something is wrong with you. Just watching a roseflower can be intoxicating. And if it cannot intoxicate you, then nothing can intoxicate you. Just looking in the eyes of a child can be intoxicating.Learn how to live the moment joyously. Don’t look for results, there are none. Life is not going anywhere, it has no ends. Life is not a means to any end, life is just herenow. Live it. Live it totally, live it consciously, live it joyously – and you will be fulfilled.Fulfillment should not be postponed, otherwise you will never be fulfilled. Fulfillment has to be now – now or never.The last question:Osho,People think I am mean, but I feel I am only miserly. What do you say, Osho?I will tell you one anecdote.A young man was overjoyed one morning to learn that he had won fifty thousand pounds on the football pools. He lived with his mother and father, both elderly and not too well off, and when he told them about his win they too were overjoyed.“Naturally,” he said, “I want you to share in my good fortune, so I am going to make you a present of ten pounds each.”There was silence for a moment and then the old man spoke. “Well, son,” he said, “we have done a lot for you, mother and I, and you have never gone short of anything over the years, but now you are able to stand on your own two feet, I think you should know that, well, your mother and I were never legally married.”“What!” exclaimed the young man. “Do you mean to say that I am a…?”“Yes, you are,” said the old man. “And a ruddy mean one at that!”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 09 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has learned from Dipankara?…Subhuti replied: Not so, O Lord, there is not.The Lord said: If any bodhisattva would say, “I will create harmonious buddhafields,” he would speak falsely.And why? The harmonies of buddhafields…Subhuti, as no-harmonies have they been taught by the Tathagata. Therefore he spoke of “harmonious buddhafields”….The Lord said: And again, Subhuti, suppose a woman or a man were to renounce all their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges; and suppose that someone else, after taking from this discourse on dharma but one stanza of four lines, would demonstrate it to others.Then this latter on the strength of that would beget a greater heap of merit, immeasurable and incalculable.Thereupon the impact of dharma moved the venerable Subhuti to tears. Having shed tears, he thus spoke to the Lord: It is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O Well-Gone, how well the Tathagata has taught this discourse on dharma. Through it cognition has been produced in me…. And it is indeed no perception. And why? Because the buddhas, the lords, have left all perceptions behind.The Lord said: So it is, Subhuti.Most wonderfully blest will be those beings who, on hearing this sutra, will not tremble, nor be frightened, or terrified….Moreover, Subhuti, the Tathagata’s perfection of patience is really no perfection.And why? Because, Subhuti, when the king of Kalinga cut my flesh from every limb, at that time I had no perception of a self, of a being, of a soul, or a person.And why? If, Subhuti, at that time I had had a perception of self, I would also have had a perception of ill will at that time….And further, Subhuti, it is for the weal of all beings that a bodhisattva should give gifts in this manner.And why? This perception of a being, Subhuti, that is just a non-perception. Those all-beings of whom the Tathagata has spoken, they are indeed no-beings.And why? Because the Tathagata speaks in accordance with reality, speaks the truth, speaks of what is, not otherwise. A tathagata does not speak falsely….”Tathagata,” Subhuti, is synonymous with true suchness….The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti? Is there any dharma which the Tathagata has learned from Dipankara?…Subhuti replied: Not so, O Lord, there is not. Dipankara is an ancient buddha. Gautama the Buddha, in his past life when he was not enlightened, had gone to Dipankara. He wanted to be accepted as a disciple, but Dipankara laughed and he said, “There is nothing to be learned.”Truth cannot be learned. Yes, something has to be understood, but nothing has to be learned. Truth has to be recognized. It is already there in your being, it has to be uncovered. But there is nothing to learn.Truth is not new, truth is your very being. You have to become aware. Not that you have to become more knowledgeable, in fact the more knowledgeable you are the less aware you will be. The more you think you know the more you will be covered with ignorance.Knowledge is ignorance. The knowledgeable person is covered with dark clouds of memory, information, scripture, philosophy.Dipankara said to Gautama, “You need not think in terms of learning. Truth is already in you. Truth cannot be transferred.” Not only this, but when Gautama touched the feet of Dipankara, Dipankara bowed down and touched the feet of Gautama. Gautama was not enlightened in those days. He was very puzzled, embarrassed too.There was a great assembly of monks; nobody could understand what was happening, what was going on. Dipankara had never done that to anybody else. And Gautama said, “What have you done? Why have you touched my feet? I am a sinner, an ignorant person. To touch your feet is right, but you touching my feet is absurd. Have you gone mad?”And Dipankara laughed again and he said, “No, Gautama. You are puzzled because you don’t know your future. I am not mad. I can see it happening – you will be a buddha soon. Just to honor that fact I have touched your feet. And, moreover, for one who is enlightened all are enlightened. It is only a question of time. It doesn’t matter much. I have become enlightened today, you will become enlightened tomorrow, somebody else will become enlightened the day after tomorrow – it doesn’t matter. Enlightenment is going to happen to everybody, to every being. You can go on delaying it, that is up to you. The moment you stop delaying, the moment you stop postponing, it is there. It has always been waiting for you to recognize it.”It is one of the most beautiful stories – that Dipankara touched the feet of Gautama. And Gautama was an unknown man. After centuries, nearabout three thousand years afterwards, Gautama became enlightened. The first thing he did was he bowed down to Dipankara. Now there was no Dipankara, but he bowed down and he laughed and he said, “Now I understand why you touched my feet. Now I can touch everybody’s feet. Now I know that the whole existence is going to be enlightened.”Enlightenment is a natural happening. If we don’t hinder it, it is bound to happen. It is not that you have to achieve it, all that you have to do is not to hinder it. You hinder it in a thousand and one ways. You don’t allow it to happen. When it starts happening you become frightened. When it takes possession of you, you cannot give that much possession – you shrink back, you withdraw. You come back in your tiny cell of the ego. There you feel protected, defended, secure.Enlightenment is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known. And if it cannot be known how can it be taught? And if it cannot be taught, what is the point of being a master and a disciple?Just a few days ago there was a question: “Why have you declared yourself to be Osho?” It is a drama. I have decided to play the part of Osho and you have decided to play the part of disciples – but it is a drama. The day you will become aware you will know there is no master and no disciple. The day you will understand, you will know that it was a dream – but a dream which can help you to come out of all your other dreams, a thorn which can help to pull out your thorns from your flesh. It can be instrumental – but a thorn all the same. A poison which can help you to drop your other poisons – but a poison all the same. Use it as a raft. That’s why I say it is a drama.Your being a disciple and my being a master is a drama. Play it as beautifully as possible. To you it is a reality, I know; to me it is a drama. From your side it is a great reality, from my side it is a game. One day you will also understand that it is a game. That day will be the day of your enlightenment.Dipankara was simply saying to Gautama, when he touched his feet, that this is just a game. You touch my feet or I touch your feet – it makes no difference. We are all enlightened, we are all gods. Not that I am god and you are not god – all is divine. Trees are gods, so are animals, so is everything, even rocks!God is fast asleep in the rocks. He has become a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, a little more alert in you. In a buddha he has come perfectly to absolute alertness. But the difference is not of quality, the difference is only of quantity. And if you are this much aware, you can become that much aware too.Buddha says:The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has learned from Dipankara?He is asking, “Have I learned anything from Dipankara?” There is nothing to learn. Truth is a given fact. Whatsoever you learn will be lies. Truth need not be learned. Truth has not to be invented but only discovered, or more right will be to say it has only to be rediscovered.And the word learning is dangerous. Learning is accumulating information. The more you accumulate information the deeper your reality goes into the unconscious. You become burdened, you become too top-heavy. Your head starts clamoring with knowledge, becomes very noisy, and then you cannot hear the still small voice of your heart. That silence is lost in the noise of knowledge.That’s why even sinners achieve but scholars miss – because the sinner can be humble, but the scholar cannot be humble. The sinner can cry and weep, but the scholar knows. He is adamant in his knowledge, he is egoistic in his knowledge. He is hard, he cannot melt. He is not open, he is closed. All his windows and doors are blocked by his knowledge, his scriptures that he has accumulated.To come to truth means unlearning rather than learning. You have to unlearn that which you have known. It is not a becoming but an unbecoming, it is not a learning but an unlearning. To unlearn is the way. If you can unbecome then you will be capable of becoming. If you are capable of unlearning, if you can drop all knowledge utterly, unconditionally, without any clinging, you will become innocent – and that innocence brings you home.Subhuti replied: Not so, O Lord, there is not.Between a master and a teacher what is transferred? Not truth, not knowledge – then what is transferred? In fact, nothing is transferred. In the presence of the master something arises in the deepest core of the disciple, not that it is transferred. Nothing travels from the master to the disciple, nothing at all, but the presence of the master, the very presence of the master, and something that was deep inside starts surfacing. The presence of the master calls forth the being of the disciple. Not that something is given or transferred, just the very presence of the master becomes a catalytic presence and the disciple starts changing.Of course, a disciple will think that something is being done by the master. Nothing is being done. No real master ever does anything. All his doing consists of being present to you, in being available to you. All his work consists of one simple thing – that he should be there, just like the sun.The sun rises in the morning and buds open and become flowers. Not that the sun gives them something, not that the sun comes and opens the buds – nothing is done by the sun, just the presence of the light and the bud starts opening. The opening comes from the bud itself…and the flowering and the fragrance – it all comes from the bud itself. The sun has not added anything to it, but the presence has been catalytic. Without the sun being present there the bud would find it almost impossible to open. It would not know that opening is possible. It would never become alert of its possibilities and potential.A master simply makes you aware of your potential. If he has achieved, you can achieve. He is just like you – the blood and the bones and the body. He is just like you. If something is possible in his being, if his bud can become a flower, then why can’t you become? This very idea sinks deep into the heart, stirs your whole being, and energies start surfacing, your bud starts opening.This is called satsang in the East – to be in the presence of the master. And the real disciple is one who has come to know how to be present to the master. The master is present, but how to be present to the master?Have you seen the sunflower? That is the symbol for the disciple. Wherever the sun moves, the sunflower moves that way. It is always present to the sun. In the morning it is facing east, in the evening it is facing west. It has moved with the sun. Wherever the sun is, the sunflower moves. The sunflower is the symbol, the metaphor, for the disciple.Buddha is asking, “Do you think, Subhuti, I have learned anything from Dipankara?” Subhuti says, “Not so, O Lord” – because there is nothing to learn. Does it mean Buddha is ungrateful to Dipankara? No, not at all. When he became enlightened, the first gratitude was towards Dipankara who had disappeared into the infinite long long ago, not even a trace was left behind. He exists only in the memory of Buddha, nowhere else.About Dipankara there exists no scripture. Maybe in those days scriptures were not written. There exists no other reference about him. Buddha is the only sole reference. Three thousand years have passed, nobody knows anything about Dipankara; but when Buddha became enlightened the first gratitude, the first thankfulness, was towards Dipankara. Why? Because it was in his presence that the longing became a passion – to become a buddha. It was in his presence that the great desire to become a buddha arose. It was in his presence that the bud of Gautama started dreaming of becoming a flower. It was in his presence that the dream unfolded. Three thousand years it took to drop the hindrances, the obstacles, but what are three thousand years in the eternity of time? Nothing…just a few moments.Why is Buddha asking Subhuti? So that Subhuti can understand that there is nothing to be learned from Buddha. Buddha himself has not learned anything from Dipankara, so “There is nothing, Subhuti, to learn from me. Be with me, don’t think in terms of learning. The moment you think in terms of learning you are not with me.”Here also there are two types of people – the disciples and the students. The students are those who are in search of learning something. They are here to gather something so that they can brag and say that they know this and they know that. They are just collecting colored stones while diamonds are available.The disciple is one who is not interested in knowledge, who is interested in being, who is interested just to be here with me, for no other reason, for no other motive. His heart has been touched, his dream has started unfolding, a great intense desire is arising in him.Just the other night Saroj was here and she was saying that she becomes very afraid of death. I asked her, “Why? Why do you become so much afraid?” And her answer was beautiful. She said, “Not because of death, Osho, but because I have not yet known anything, not yet realized anything. I have not yet felt anything. I am afraid that I might die without knowing the truth, that is my fear.”A disciple is one who has become immensely interested in being – in truth itself, not knowing about it. She is not afraid of death, she is afraid death may come in and may disturb the intimacy that is arising between me and her. Death may come and may disrupt the presence that she is drinking, the presence that is going into her being and changing a thousand and one things in her soul – that is the fear.A disciple is one who does not bother about knowing but is interested in being. Not that he wants to know something about God, but that he wants to taste God, to drink out of that reservoir called God, to become part of that oceanic energy.Remember, if you are a student here you are not very wise. To be a student here is to be unintelligent. This is not a school. Life is available here – but you have to be a disciple. To be a disciple means to be courageous enough to come close to a master, whatsoever the cost. The disciple means the one who can take the risk of being close to a master. It is a risk – a risk because you will die. The bud will die, only then the flower can come. The seed will die, only then the tree can come. You will have to die, only then the divine can bloom in you.The Lord said: What do you think, Subhuti, is there any dharma which the Tathagata has learned from Dipankara? A great seeker has written: “I went to the wise for answers. There were many wise men, each one with his answer. It was by that that I came in time to see that they betrayed themselves. But there were also a few I happened upon who were otherwise, one or two, who sat with a serene vitality, who smiled at my questions, and in face of my insistence for answers, generously gave me further questions.“There were moments with them that I forgot all about wisdom and smiled as carelessly as fools and children only can. I got no answers from the truly wise. It was lack of wisdom that had sent me to the wise. How then could I have understood anything wise, even if it was sayable, even if it was said? The truly wise were too true to give wise answers.”The truly wise gives you his being, gives himself. The truly wise simply makes himself available to you, and if you are courageous you can drink and eat out of his being. That’s what Jesus means when he says to his disciples, “Eat me! Drink me!” The master has to be eaten, the master has to be absorbed, digested; only then will you stumble upon your own truth. There is nothing to learn – no dharma to learn, no doctrine to learn, no philosophy to learn.The Lord said: If any bodhisattva would say, “I will create harmonious buddhafields,” he would speak falsely.And why? The harmonies of buddhafields…Subhuti, as no-harmonies have they been taught by the Tathagata. Therefore he spoke of “harmonious buddhafields”….The word buddhafield is of tremendous importance. You have to understand it, because that is what I am doing here – creating a buddhafield. It is just to create a buddhafield that we are moving away from the world, far away, so that a totally different kind of energy can be made available to you.Buddhafield means a situation where your sleeping buddha can be awakened. Buddhafield means an energy field where you can start growing, maturing, where your sleep can be broken, where you can be shocked to awareness – an electric field where you will not be able to fall asleep, where you will have to be awake, because shocks will be coming all the time.A buddhafield is an energy field in which a buddha matures beings; a pure land, an unworldly world, a paradise on earth, which offers ideal conditions for rapid spiritual growth. A buddhafield is a matrix.The word matrix comes from Latin; it means the womb. From that word we get the words matter, mother, etcetera. The womb offers three things to a newly formed life: a source of possibility, a source of energy to explore that possibility, and a safe place within which that exploration can take place.That’s what we are going to do. The new commune is going to be a great experiment in buddhahood. Energies have to be made available to you, possibilities have to be made clear to you. You have to be made aware of your potential, and you have to be given a safe place from where you can work – a place where you are not distracted by the world, a place where you can go on without any disturbance from the crowd, a place where ordinary things, taboos, inhibitions, are put aside, where only one thing is significant: how to become a buddha.…Where everything else simply disappears from your mind – money and power and prestige; where all else becomes insignificant, when all else becomes exactly what it is – a shadow world – and you are no longer lost in the apparent.Maya is to be caught up in the apparent. That is the greatest illusion in the world. The apparent holds such sway on our minds. A buddhafield is a place where you are taken away from the apparent. In the silence of a commune, in the uninhibited, untabooed atmosphere of a commune, the master and the disciple can enact the drama totally. The ultimate is when the master can touch the feet of the disciple, when the master and disciples are lost into one reality.The Lord said: If any bodhisattva would say, “I will create harmonious buddhafields,” he would speak falsely.And why? The harmonies of buddhafields…Subhuti, as no-harmonies have they been taught by the Tathagata. Therefore he spoke of “harmonious buddhafields”….Now understand: if somebody says, “I will create the buddhafield,” and the emphasis is on “I,” then the statement is false, because a person who has the “I” still alive cannot create a buddhafield. Only a person who has no “I” within him can create a buddhafield. In fact then to say he creates is not right; language is inadequate.The Sanskrit word for creation is far better. The Sanskrit word is nispadayati. It means many things: it can mean to create, it can mean to accomplish, it can mean to ripen, it can mean to mature, it can simply mean to trigger into existence. That’s exactly the meaning.A buddha does not create, he triggers. Even to say he triggers is not good; in his presence things happen, in his presence things are triggered, processes start. Just his presence is a fire, a spark, and things start moving and one thing leads to another, and a great chain is created.That’s how we have been going on. I simply sit in my room doing nothing, and seekers from all over the world have started pouring in. I don’t even write a letter…just the presence. One comes, another comes, and the chain is created. Now the time has come when a buddhafield is needed, a matrix is needed, because – you don’t know – thousands more are on the way. They have already moved, they are already thinking of coming.And the more people are there, the bigger the buddhafield will be there, and the more powerful it will be. The possibility is that we can create one of the greatest and the most powerful buddhafields ever created in the world, because never before was there such search, because never before was man in such a crisis.We are on the threshold of something new that is going to happen to humanity. Either humanity will die and disappear, or we will take a jump, a leap, and a new being will be formed. We are exactly at the same point as millions of years ago when monkeys came down from the trees and humanity started and a new being was born. Again the moment is coming very close. It is a very dangerous moment, because there is every possibility….It was possible that the monkey may not have survived on the earth, he may have died on the earth, but a few monkeys took the risk. And they must have been thought of as fools by other monkeys – mm? – who had always lived on the trees and were perfectly happy. They must have thought, “These people are going mad, crazy. Why in the first place are you going to live on the earth? Why create unnecessary trouble for yourselves? Our fathers and their fathers and their fathers have all lived in the trees.”Again the same situation is going to happen. Man has lived a long time the way he has lived. By the end of this century a critical quantum leap is possible. Either man will die in a third world war or man will take the jump and will become a new man. Before that happens a great buddhafield is needed – a field where we can create the future.But a bodhisattva cannot say, “I will create harmonious buddhafields.” If the emphasis is on “I” then the person is not yet a bodhisattva. Even buddhas use the word I, but they insistently emphasize that it corresponds to no reality, that it is just a language use, that it is utilitarian.And Buddha says, “Those harmonious buddhafields are not even harmonious.” Why? – because harmony means conflict is still alive. Harmony means the conflicting parts are there but they are no longer conflicting. Buddha says the real harmony is when the conflicting parts have dissolved into one unity. But then you cannot call it harmony, because harmony needs many, harmony means that there are many fragments in a harmonious whole. Buddha says the real harmony is when those many are no longer there; they have become one.So a harmony, a real harmony, cannot even be called harmony. The real harmony is simple unity. There is no conflict and no friction, because all the fragmentary parts have disappeared, dissolved.And why? The harmonies of buddhafields…Subhuti, as no-harmonies have they been taught by the Tathagata. Therefore he spoke of “harmonious buddhafields.”Remember again and again, it is a question of the inadequate language. That’s why Buddha goes on insisting again and again to remind you so that you don’t become a victim of inadequate language expressions.The Lord said: And again, Subhuti, suppose a woman or a man were to renounce all their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges; and suppose that someone else, after taking from this discourse on dharma but one stanza of four lines, would demonstrate it to others.Then this latter on the strength of that would beget a greater heap of merit, immeasurable and incalculable.It is said that Hui Neng, one of the greatest Zen masters, the sixth patriarch in the Zen tradition, became enlightened by hearing four lines of The Diamond Sutra. And he was just passing by in a marketplace. He had gone to purchase something, he was not even thinking of enlightenment, and somebody by the side of the road was reading The Diamond Sutra. That man had been reading The Diamond Sutra for his whole life – he must have been a kind of scholar or a parrot – and it was his usual thing, his ritual, to read the sutra every morning, every evening.It was evening and the market was just closing and people were going home and Hui Neng was passing. He heard just four lines. He was struck dumb. He stood there, it is said, the whole night. The Diamond Sutra finished, the market closed, the man who was chanting it went, and Hui Neng was standing there and standing there and standing there. By the morning he was a totally different man. He never went home, he went to the mountains. The world became irrelevant. Just hearing? – yes, it is possible if you know how to hear. This Hui Neng must have been of a very very innocent mind. He was a wonderful man.Buddha says that even if somebody demonstrates one stanza of four lines from The Diamond Sutra, his merit is more, his merit is immeasurable and incalculable, more than the merit of a man or a woman who…were to renounce their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges.Renunciation does not help, understanding helps. Renouncing the world is not going to take you anywhere; you have to understand. Renunciation is a stupid effort. Only stupid people renounce, the wise tries to understand what the case is. The wise is never an escapist. Only the stupid people are escapists because they cannot face life, they cannot encounter life, and they cannot take its challenge. They don’t have the guts. They move to the Himalayas, they escape to Tibetan monasteries or somewhere else. They run away from the world. These are the cowards. And religion is possible only if you have courage – immense courage is needed.Buddha says these sutras are so valuable that if you can listen totally, with an open heart, if you are vulnerable to them, they can transform your life. Even sometimes a single word can be such a transforming force.I have heard about a man, he must have been like Hui Neng. He was very old, sixty-five or seventy. He had gone for a morning walk, and some woman must have been waking her son, or somebody else, inside a hut. The old man was on the road and the woman was saying, “It is time to get up. It is morning! It is no longer night!”The old man heard these words. Mm? – it was not even The Diamond Sutra, it was just a woman telling somebody, “Get up! It is enough! You have slept long. It is no longer night. The sun has risen, it is morning,” and the old man heard. He must have been in some receptive state of mind – the early morning, the birds singing and the sun and the cool breeze – and those words struck hard, like arrows in the heart: “It is morning and you have slept too long and it is no longer night.” He never went home. He went outside the town, sat in a temple meditating.People came to know about him, and the family came rushing and they said, “What are you doing here?”He said, “It is morning, it is no longer night, and I have already slept enough. Enough is enough! Excuse me, leave me alone. I have to wake up. Death is coming – I have to wake up.”And whenever he would pass the door of that woman – he had never seen that woman – he would go and bow down at the door. That was his temple and that woman was his master. He had never seen the woman, and the woman was an ordinary woman.Sometimes a few words, even uttered by ordinary people, can fall in the right soil of the heart and can bring great transformation. What to say about words of a buddha?…Thereupon the impact of dharma moved the venerable Subhuti to tears.Having shed tears, he thus spoke to the Lord: It is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O Well-Gone, how well the Tathagata has taught this discourse on dharma. Through it cognition has been produced in me….and it is indeed no perception. And why? Because the buddhas, the lords, have left all perceptions behind.It is very rare that a man of the qualities of Subhuti will cry and weep and tears will come to him. But when such compassion, when such love from Buddha is showering on him, when such diamond words are falling on him like rain…he was overwhelmed.Thereupon the impact of dharma moved the venerable Subhuti to tears.Remember, there is no deeper way to relate your gratitude than tears, there is no higher way to pray than tears. Just a few days ago Geet Govind had come from Esalen. He could not say a single word to me – tears and tears. And he started feeling a little embarrassed. He wanted to say something, but nothing was coming.Those tears were beautiful. And since then he has been crying here. For all these two or three weeks that he has been here he has been crying, and he has been writing to me: “Osho, what to do? How to stop these tears? They go on and on.” The impact…. He has made contact with me, hence the tears. He has seen me, hence the tears. His eyes are showing gratitude, hence the tears. The eyes are fulfilled, hence the tears.Never be afraid of tears. The so-called civilization has made you very very afraid of tears. It has created a kind of guilt in you. When tears come you start feeling embarrassed. You start feeling, “What will others think? And I am a man and I am crying! It looks so feminine and childish, it should not be so.” You stop those tears and you kill something which was growing in you.Tears are far more beautiful than anything else that you have with you, because tears come from the overflow of your being. And tears are not necessarily of sadness; sometimes they come out of great joy and sometimes they come out of great peace and sometimes they come out of ecstasy and love. In fact they have nothing to do with sadness or happiness. Anything that stirs your heart too much, anything that overwhelms you, encompasses you, takes possession of you, anything that is too much, that you cannot contain and it starts overflowing – that brings tears.Accept them with great joy, relish them, nourish them, welcome them, and through tears you will know how to pray. Through tears you will know how to see. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing truth. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing the beauty of life and the benediction of it.Thereupon the impact of dharma moved the venerable Subhuti to tears.Having shed tears, he thus spoke to the Lord: lt is wonderful, O Lord, it is exceedingly wonderful, O Well-Gone, how well the Tathagata has taught this discourse on dharma. Through it cognition has been produced in me….He says, “Your presence, your compassionate words, your love, your grace, has produced cognition in me. It has given me an insight, a vision of what truth is…and it is indeed no perception.” Still Subhuti says, “But let me remind you, it is no perception because there is nobody to perceive it. It is pure cognition.”Knowing has arisen, but there is nobody who knows and there is nothing that is known, only knowing has arisen. It is pure knowing. The division is not there of the knower and the known and the knowing. It is just knowing.And why? Because the buddhas, the lords, have left all perceptions behind.“And now I know why it is said that the buddhas have left all perception behind, because perception needs the perceiver and the perceived, observation needs the observer and the observed. All these dualities have been dropped. There is only oneness.”It is very difficult to say it.Michael Adam’s words will be helpful:“It has taken all these words to tell, but what is there to tell? Here and now, what is there? A wind in the trees – it blows and they bend. I have spoken in many words; it is cause for smiling now, for truth is only a word. Life is a word, death is a word, love is a word, happiness is a word, God is a word. The wind and the tree, the robin and seal, the child and the sun are real. The rest is only words.“Words about the sun lack even the reality of shadows and are colder by far. What the sun is, the clamoring mind and the seeking heart cannot know, for the sun is of another kind, makes no sound and does not strive. But this still and silent earth would seem to understand, and without effort the earth would seem to know what the sun is. Beneath this semblance of death, under the shroud of snow, in the very midst of the winter, the open quiet earth well knows what the sun is.”The disciple has to become like thirsty earth – the thirsty earth knows what the cloud is. The disciple has to become like open, vulnerable earth. The vulnerable earth knows what the sun is. It cannot say it, it cannot express it, but it knows.That’s what Subhuti means when he says, “Cognition has arisen in me. I cannot say; I am not there to capture it, I am not there to seize it, I am just an emptiness – but perception has arisen, cognition has arisen, darshan has arisen. I have seen, and there is no seer.”The Lord said: So it is, Subhuti.Most wonderfully blest will be those beings who, on hearing this sutra, will not tremble, nor be frightened, or terrified….These sutras are deathlike, they are crucifixion – you will have to die. Only through death will you know what life is. Resurrection is possible, but only through crucifixion. That’s why Buddha said these sutras are dangerous, and:Most wonderful blest will be those beings who, on hearing this sutra, will not tremble, nor be frightened, or terrified….Moreover, Subhuti, the Tathagata’s perfection of patience is really no perfection.And why? Because, Subhuti, when the king of Kalinga cut my flesh from every limb, at that time I had no perception of a self, of a being, of a soul, or a person.And why? If, Subhuti, at that time I had had a perception of self, I would also have had a perception of ill will at that time….He reminds Subhuti of his old experience of a past life, when the king of Kalinga had cut off his limbs. He says, “At that time when my limbs were cut off, my hands were cut off, my legs were cut off, and my tongue and my eyes were taken away, I was watching and I could not see any “I” arising in me. There was nobody who was seeing it, there was nobody who was hurt by it. If any perception of “I” had arisen at that time, then it would have been followed by ill will. Then I would have been angry with the king who was killing me and destroying me, but I was not angry; there was no anger.”The ego brings anger. Anger is the shadow of the ego. The ego brings aggression, violence. Once the ego disappears all violence disappears. A man becomes love only when the ego has completely disappeared.And further, Subhuti, it is for the weal of all beings that a bodhisattva should give gifts in this manner.And why? This perception of a being, Subhuti, that is just a non-perception. Those all-beings of whom the Tathagata has spoken, they are indeed no-beings.And why? Because the Tathagata speaks in accordance with reality, speaks the truth, speaks of what is, not otherwise. A tathagata does not speak falsely….”Tathagata,” Subhuti, is synonymous with true suchness….Buddha says, “I have said only that which is – yatha bhutam. I have not said anything else. That’s why my statements are so paradoxical, so illogical – because truth is illogical. To understand truth, you will have to drop logic.”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 10 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,Even in my relationship with you, words become less important all the time. Why should a buddha and a bodhisattva need to talk at all?What are you talking about, what talk? It never happened. Nobody has said anything and nobody has heard anything. The Diamond Sutra has no sutras in it, Mahasattva, that’s why it is called The Diamond Sutra. It is an utter emptiness. If you get caught in the words you will miss the message. The Diamond Sutra is absolutely empty, there is no message in it. There is nothing to read and nothing to hear. It is utter silence.If you read something in The Diamond Sutra you have missed it. If you find some doctrine in it, some philosophy in it, then you must be imagining, it must be your dream. Buddha has not said anything, neither has Subhuti heard anything. In that non-talking and non-hearing, something has happened – something which is beyond words. Ananda has tried to capture that for you in words, but it was not delivered in words. It was a communion between two emptinesses.You just go to the sea and you see the morning, and the fresh air and the sunrays and the waves, and you come home and you relate to somebody what you have seen. Then you relate only words. The word sea is not the sea and the word sun is not the sun and the word freshness is not freshness. How do you commune? You have come back from the beach and your beloved asks, “What happened?” You bring all that has happened into words, knowing perfectly well that it cannot be brought into words, it cannot be reduced into words. Words are so pale.Something has certainly happened between Buddha and Subhuti, something which is transcendental. Maybe they had just looked into each other’s eyes. Something was triggered in the consciousness of Subhuti by Buddha’s presence. Ananda is trying to report it for you. You are blind. You cannot see light, you can only hear the word light.So remember: The Diamond Sutra is not a sutra at all, that’s why it is called The Diamond Sutra, the most precious, because it contains no philosophy, no system, no theory. It contains no words, it is an empty book.If you can forget the words and you can go deeper into the gaps between the words, if you can forget the lines and can go deeper between the lines, in the intervals, in the pauses, then you will find what has happened. It is not a verbal communication.I am also talking to you, but still I would like to remind you to remember that my message is not in my words. You will have to step upon the words to get it. Use the words as a staircase, as stepping stones. Remember, stepping stones can become hindrances if you don’t know how to step over them.You have to listen in silence to silence.Mahasattva, Buddha has not said a single word, neither has Subhuti heard a single word. It is the compassion of Ananda to make a few maps for you. Those maps are not the countries. If you have a map of India, that map is not India, it cannot be. How can it be? But it can be of some limited help to you; it can lead you to the real India. It is like the arrow on the milestone by the side of the road, it points towards something.This whole Diamond Sutra points towards silence. Hence so many contradictions in it, because only through contradictions can silence be created. Each word has to be contradicted by its opposite immediately it is uttered so that they destroy each other and in the wake, silence is felt.The second question:Osho,The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel. There is only nothingness. And sometimes, looking into your eyes, I get the same feeling of a vast emptiness. If it is natural – if being alone is basic, the very essence of my being – then how could the illusive idea of becoming one, of falling in love with somebody eternally, come into being in the first place? And why is it so painful to become aware that it is an illusion? Please clear my doubts.You are the doubter and you are the doubt. There is no other doubt. First, when you say, “The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel,” if you have really been falling deeper you will feel aloneness but you will not feel “I am alone,” because then there are two things, I and aloneness. Then you are not alone. Then there is the experiencer and the experienced, the observer and the observed. Then you are not alone, the other is there – the experience is the other.When you really fall deep into yourself, you will not find yourself; that is the whole thing to understand. It is only on the surface that the waves exist. If you go deeper into the ocean you will not find waves…or can you? How can you find waves in the depth? They exist only on the surface, they can exist only on the surface. They need winds to exist.The “I” can exist only on the surface because it needs “thou,” the wind of the “thou,” to exist. When you go deeper into yourself the winds are no longer there, “thous” are no longer there. How can there be “I”? I and thou exist in a pair, they are never divorced. Yes, you will find aloneness, but not I-ness. And aloneness is beautiful. Let me remind you again, the word alone means all one. That’s how it is constructed – all one. On the surface you are separate from all. In fact, on the surface you are lonely because you are separate from the all. In the depth, when you have disappeared, there is no distinction between you and all. All is one; you are no longer, aloneness is.You say, “The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel.” You must be imagining that you are falling deeper into yourself. The mind can go on playing games. It can play the game of being alone, it can play the game of being in prayer, it can play the game of being in meditation, but if “I” remains then you can be certain it is a game, nothing real has happened. That’s why again the desire for the other will arise.The “I” cannot exist alone. It needs the other to support it, to feed it, to nourish it. It will bring you back to the other. That’s why when you are lonely you start thinking of your beloved, of your friend, of your mother, father, this and that, a thousand and one things. You create imaginary “thous.” If a man is put in isolation for more than three weeks he starts talking to himself. He creates the whole dialogue. He himself is divided in two – I and thou. He becomes two so the game can be played. “I” cannot exist separate from “thou.”“The deeper I fall into myself, the more alone I feel.”No, you must be feeling lonely. Never use these two words as synonymous. Loneliness is negative, aloneness is positive. Loneliness simply means you are missing the other. The other is absent, there is a gap in you. Aloneness means you are present, there is no gap in you. You are full of presence, you are utterly there. Loneliness is the absence of the other, aloneness is the presence of your eternal being.You say: “There is only nothingness.” No, if there is only nothingness then there is no problem. If there is only nothingness and nobody to know it, nobody to feel it, then there is no problem. Then from where comes the doubt? How can the doubter arise? No, you are there. That nothingness is bogus because you are there. How can it be nothingness? It is just your idea.This used to happen in my family when I was a child. I was so lazy – I am still – I was so lazy, utterly lazy, that my family lost all hope with me. By and by they started forgetting about me, because I would never do anything. I would sit in the corner and just sit, either with closed eyes or with open eyes, but I was so absent to them that by and by they became oblivious to me.Sometimes it would happen that my mother would need something from the market, vegetables or something, and I would be sitting in front of her and she would say, “Nobody seems to be present here.” She was just sitting in front of me and talking to me: “Nobody seems to be here. I want somebody to go and fetch vegetables from the market.” And I was sitting in front of her and she said, “Nobody is here.”I was counted as nobody. Even if a stray dog would enter in the house I would allow it. I was sitting at the gate and the dog would enter and I would watch. And my mother would come rushing out and she would say, “Nobody is here to prevent this dog” – and I was sitting there!By and by they had accepted that I was as if not. But that does not make much difference; I was there. I had seen the dog coming, I was hearing their words. I knew I could manage to go to the marketplace and fetch vegetables for her. And I would laugh at the whole idea – that she went on saying that nobody was there.That’s what is happening to you. You are there, and you say nothingness is. You are oblivious of yourself, you don’t take note of yourself, otherwise you are there. If you are not there, who is saying that nothingness is? Then there is nothingness when you are not there, then there is pure nothingness. In that purity is nirvana, enlightenment. That is the most valuable place to be, the most spacious place to be. It is the space everybody is searching for, because it is unlimited, infinite, and its purity is absolute. It is not polluted by anything; even you are not there. There is light and there is consciousness, but there is no “I.” “I” is like ice, frozen consciousness. Consciousness is like melted ice, liquid, or, even better, even the water has evaporated, has become invisible.And you say: “And why is it so painful to become aware that it is an illusion?” – the other. It is painful because the “I” starts dying. To recognize the other as the illusion, to recognize love as illusion is very hard, because then the “I” starts dying. If you drop the “you,” the “I” cannot exist. And you don’t know the beauty of dropping the “I.”And you ask: “If it is natural – if being alone is basic, the very essence of my being – then how could the illusive idea of becoming one, of falling in love with somebody eternally, come into being in the first place?”It came only because of that – because aloneness is basic, essential. The Hindu scriptures say that God was alone. Just think, just visualize God alone and alone and alone for eternity. He became fed up with his aloneness, it was monotonous. He wanted to have a little play. He created the other and started playing hide-and-seek.When you are tired of the play, when you become fed up with the play, you become a buddha again. You again drop your toys. They are created by you, the value is imagined by you; you have put the value on them. The moment you withdraw your value they disappear, you are again alone.The Hindu concept is tremendously valuable, significant. It says God was alone, it became monotonous, and he created the world, the other, just to have a little chitchat with the other, to have a little dialogue. Then again and again one comes and feels tired and bored with the other, disappears into oneself, again reaches to one’s nothingness and becomes a god.You are all gods who are deceiving themselves. It is your choice. The day you choose not to be this way you will be free. It is your dream. Because of aloneness, because aloneness is the essential quality of your being, the other has been created.You just try it: go for a few weeks to the mountains and sit alone and you will feel very good. Everybody is tired of relationship and fed up and bored. Go to the mountains and sit silently and you will feel so beautiful, but after three or four days, five days, seven days, three weeks, you will start thinking of the other. Your woman again starts being attractive to you. You forget all the nastiness and all the nagging. You forget all that she has been doing to you, you completely forget all. She is again beautiful, she is again lovely, she is again fantastic, mm? – you put value again.Then you have to come down from the mountains to the plains, and for two or three days with the woman things are going beautifully – a new honeymoon – and after two or three days things become difficult again, and again you start thinking how to meditate, how to be silent. This is how you go on. Just watch your consciousness and its fluctuations and through it you will know the whole process of existence, because you are a miniature existence.The pendulum of consciousness goes on swinging between meditation and love, between aloneness and togetherness. And because all the religions of the world up to now have been either of love or of meditation they were fragmentary, they were not total. I am giving you the total religion. I am not choosing.For example, Buddha had chosen meditation. He gives you the love for meditation, no other love. He teaches you only to be alone, absolutely alone and nothing else. It is good, it is tremendously good for people who are tired and fed up with the world. He was tired and fed up with the world. He was a king, he was not a beggar. He was tired of women. His father had brought all the beautiful girls from the kingdom for him. He had one of the most beautiful harems. If you get all the beautiful women of the world in your house, how long will you be able to live there? Just think of it: one is more than enough. Now all the beautiful women of the kingdom were there. It must have been maddening. If he escaped, it is no wonder. All the pleasures were arranged for him, every kind of pleasure was arranged for him. If he became fed up, it is no wonder. He moved to the other pole. The other was too much. He escaped into the jungle, he became alone.There are religions which are religions of meditation – Buddhism, Jainism. There are religions which are of love – Christianity, Mohammedanism. And this has to be understood. Jesus is a poor man, so is Mohammed. This can’t be accidental. Mahavira is a king, so is Buddha. The two kings have given to the world the religion of meditation, and the two poor people have given the religion of love to the world.The poor cannot be fed up with the other. The poor man has not had that much of the other; the poor hankers for the other. The other may be the woman or money or power or prestige or God; it makes no difference – the other is needed.Christianity and Islam are both religions of prayer, love – love for God, prayer for God. In Buddhism, in Jainism, there is no place for God at all because there is no place for the other. Aloneness is enough. In Jainism and in Buddhism there is no existence of anything like prayer, the word has not been heard; they know only of meditation. Christianity knows nothing of meditation. These are not accidental things, they show something about the founders.I am giving you a total religion, a religion which allows both. When you are feeling tired with the other, move into meditation, swing into meditation. When you are feeling tired of aloneness, swing into love. Both are good. Both are contradictory, but through contradiction great joy arises. If you have only one you will not have that kind of richness. The one can give you silence or can give you great joy, but both can give you something infinitely precious, incomparable. Both together, they can give you a silent ecstasy, a peaceful joy. At the innermost core you remain utterly silent, and on the periphery, the dance. And when silence dances or silence sings, that is the richest, the peakest of peaks. Hence my insistence for both.Once George Bernard Shaw was sitting alone at the edge of the room at a party. His hostess came over to him and inquired solicitously, “Aren’t you enjoying yourself?”Shaw replied, “That’s all I am enjoying.”He has hit upon a great truth, a great insight is there: one’s self is all anyone can enjoy. Life starts taking the quality of silence. But if you can enjoy only yourself and never the other then you will miss the other dimension. One should be capable of enjoying oneself and the other too. That’s what I call the whole man, the holy man.The third question:Osho,When I hear your discourses and at other times, I know that I know all that is needed to be enlightened. At those times am I enlightened? Please comment on how this obviously superficial “knowing” can penetrate and become beingness. It seems that this knowing is robbing me of innocence and more complete experiential realization, that knowledge has far outpaced the growth of my being, and yet, knowing there is no such thing as my being, I don't feel wholly motivated towards growing one.The first thing: you say, “When I hear your discourses and at other times, I know that I know all that is needed to be enlightened.” Nothing is needed to be enlightened, so how can you know all that is needed to be enlightened? Nothing is needed to be enlightened. Enlightenment is your natural state; it is not something that has to be produced, manufactured, created. If you are manufacturing something new, then many things will be needed. If you are not manufacturing anything new, what is needed? You are enlightened. How can anything be needed? Nothing is needed.So your idea that you think “I know that I know all that is needed to be enlightened” is barring your way. Nothing is needed to be enlightened, and nothing is needed to be known to be enlightened. Enlightenment is already there, is already the case. It is not a realization, it is only a recognition. It is not that you have to make efforts to bring it; all that you need is not to make any effort. Drop all efforts – and suddenly it is there. You cannot see it because you are continuously making efforts to see it. Your very effort to see it is functioning as a barrier.And you say: “At those times am I enlightened?” You are enlightened all the time, not when you hear me, not when you read something from The Diamond Sutra – not only in those moments. You are all the time enlightened. From the very beginning to the very end, you remain enlightened. You can go on deceiving yourself that you are not enlightened as long as you want, but all the same you are enlightened.It is like a man who is pretending to be a woman in a drama. He is all the time a man. He can go on pretending, sometimes even he may forget. If he is a good actor, a really good actor, he may get into the idea and forget about it. For a few moments he may think that he is a woman, but again and again he will know that he is a man.It is a miracle that you forget that you are enlightened, that you go on forgetting it, but you are enlightened. Remember, enlightenment is not a quality that is going to happen to you in some future. You have brought it from the very beginning. It is in your breathing, it is in your heartbeat. It is the stuff you are made of.“At those times am I enlightened?” No, if you think that sometimes you are enlightened and sometimes not, then you are not enlightened. The day you know, the moment you know you are always enlightened, then you are enlightened. Once you have felt enlightenment, it is always there surrounding you like an aroma.Still you can go on playing a thousand and one games. I am playing, Buddha is playing, but that doesn’t make any difference. Then it is with full awareness that the game is played. It does not entangle, it does not imprison.Once you play a game knowing that it is a game, then there is no problem. Then you can be in the world, then you can be whatsoever you enjoy to be, but deep down you know you are not that. Deep down you remain far away. You become a lotus flower – in the water and yet the water touches you not.“At those times am I enlightened?” you ask. “Please comment on how this obviously superficial knowing can penetrate and become beingness.”Superficial knowing can never become beingness. Even deep and profound knowing can never become beingness. Knowledge itself is the obstacle. Knowing can never become being – superficial or profound. Don’t make these distinctions. These are tricks of the mind again. It is the knowledgeable mind.The knowledgeable mind can say to you, “It is right, superficial knowledge cannot give you enlightenment, but what about profound knowledge?”This is again a trick played upon you. Profound? Then certainly you are caught again in the same net. Profound or not profound, knowledge as such is superficial. The profoundest knowledge is superficial, to know is superficial. To be is to be in that profoundness you are talking about.You will have to be aware. Mind is very cunning. It can accept many things and again bring them back from the back door. It can say, “Right, I perfectly agree with you. How can superficial knowledge give you enlightenment? That is not possible. I will show you the way to get profound knowledge.”What will you do to get profound knowledge? It will be superficial knowledge again because knowledge is superficial. At the most you will have more superficial knowledge, the quantity will grow, and through the quantity you will have the illusion that you are becoming profound.You may go into deeper details, but details don’t lead you to depth. You can know one thing about one thing or a thousand things about that one thing; it makes no difference – knowledge is about and about. It never hits the point, it never reaches the target. The target is reached only by being, and to be, knowledge has to be dropped absolutely, totally, with no conditions, with no choice that “This is good, keep it, and that is bad, drop it. This is profound, keep it, and that is not profound, drop it.” If you keep anything of knowledge, you will remain unenlightened. And the wonder of wonders is that you are enlightened and you go on remaining unenlightened.The question is from Chipper Roth. He must be a newcomer to this place, he must be an outsider. Be here. We will take away your knowledge slowly slowly. My whole work consists of making people ignorant. Ignorance has depth, ignorance has innocence, ignorance is profound – not knowing has no limits to it. Knowing is always limited. How can it be profound? Howsoever great your knowledge, it will have a limit, a boundary to it. Only ignorance has no boundary.They say that science is an effort to know more about less and less. If you go on and on with this approach – to know more and more about less and less – what will be the end? The end will be that you know all about nothing. That will be the logical conclusion.I would like to say that religion is just the opposite approach: to know less and less about more and more. And what will be the ultimate result? One day…you go on knowing less and less about more and more; one day you know nothing about all. And that is the experience – to know nothing about all. That’s what I call ignorance.Roth, please be here a little longer, hang around.The fourth question:Osho,I am enjoying the play very much these days. A very masterful performance this morning. Every morning I wait eagerly wondering what the curtain's rise will bring. I overflow with you but it brings laughter, not tears. Where are the tears?Sucheta, they are in your laughter. Laughter and tears are not different. There are two types of people, the tear people and the laughter people. There are always two kinds everywhere; the whole existence is divided into duality – man and woman, yin and yang, positive/negative, day/night, life/death. So there is this division, the laughter people and the tear people.The tear people are introverts, they are easily ingoing. And when you go in, the deeper you go in the more and more your eyes will be filled with tears. Sucheta is an extrovert, she is a laughing buddha; Geet Govind is a tearful buddha. She is an extrovert, outgoing, a real American, so when something overwhelms her she will laugh.And remember always, never imitate anybody. If Geet Govind tries to imitate Sucheta he will be in difficulty, his laughter will be very poor and it will look phony. If Sucheta tries to imitate Geet Govind it will be very difficult to bring tears, and even if she can manage with some artificial aid they will not be true, they will be false.Extroverts should follow their way. In their life, laughter will be their overflowing energy. Love will be easier for them, meditation will be a little difficult. For the introverts, meditation will be easier, love will be a little difficult; tears will be easier, laughter will be a little difficult.Never imitate anybody, just go on your own way, and by and by you will see a transformation coming when you have touched the extreme. For example, if you go on laughing…for example, if Sucheta goes on laughing to the utter extreme, tears will come. There will come a moment in laughter when the laughter will start disappearing and tears will come. If Geet Govind goes on crying and crying and crying, in tears and tears and tears to the very end, suddenly he will find a change happening: laughter will arise. The revolution is only from the extreme.Once I was talking to a council of Buddhists. Now to say to Buddhists that the revolution is from the extreme, or that truth is only at the extreme, is very difficult because they believe in the middle way, the golden mean. Buddha’s path is known as majjhim nikaya, the middle way.I forgot that they were Buddhists. I talked about the extreme and I told them that the revolution happens only from the extreme, from the utter extreme. Unless you reach to the utter extreme there is no truth. Truth is at the extreme, this or that – but at the extreme. Either love at the extreme or meditation at the extreme.They were patient – Buddhists are patient; they are not like Mohammedans, they will not start fighting – but still, patience has a boundary. One Buddhist could not tolerate it – although Buddha has said to tolerate. He stood up. He said, “This is too much. Have you forgotten completely that Buddha’s path is known as the middle path?”Then I remembered and I said, “True, I know, but unless you are at the extreme middle there is no truth.” I was talking about the extreme, it had nothing to do with the middle. “If you are at the extreme middle, exactly the middle, then again, truth. Truth happens only with the extreme.”From the extreme the pendulum swings towards the other polarity. So, good, Sucheta, laugh – laugh to the extreme. One day you will see your laughter is bringing beautiful tears.The fifth question:Osho,Cannot one declare that one has experienced God?If you have experienced, your very existence will be the declaration, you need not declare. At least you need not ask. If the declaration comes it comes, what can you do? One who has experienced God will not decide anything, not even this – whether he has to declare or not. One who has experienced God has dropped the mind. Now whatsoever happens he will be into it, he will be totally into it. If declaration comes it comes.It came to Mansoor. He declared, “Ana’l haq, I am God.” His master, Junnaid, told him, “Mansoor, this is not right. You will get into trouble. I also know, but I have never declared because you know these Mohammedans who are all around – they will kill you.”But Mansoor said, “What can I do? When he declares what can I do? Suddenly he catches hold of me and declares.”Junnaid was so afraid that he expelled Mansoor from his school. He said, “You go away, go somewhere else. You will get into trouble, and you will also get me into trouble.”But Mansoor said, “What can I do? If he wants to get into trouble himself, what can I do?” And he got into trouble. But it was true that he could not do anything. He declared at the last moment also from the cross, “Ana’l haq, I am God” – and laughed.Somebody asked from the crowd, “If you can still deny, if you can still say that you were wrong in declaring yourself God, there is still hope that you can be forgiven.”He laughed and he said, “But what can I do? He declares.”And you are asking me: “Cannot one declare that one has experienced God?” If God declares, good. If God is not declaring, you please keep quiet. Leave it to him.J. Donald Walters writes:A few years ago I met a man who was holding forth, somewhat drunkenly, and with massive self-importance, on his version of how the universe ought to be run. I forget how it came about, but I happened to mention that I thought I had met perhaps six people in my life who knew God. My companion held out a huge, hairy paw. “Shake!” he cried hoarsely. “Ya just met the seventh.”Donald Walters writes that he could not believe that this man had experienced God, because he thinks how, if you have experienced God, will you declare so blatantly, “Shake! Ya just met the seventh.”?But that is not my opinion. It is possible…because sometimes God is hoarse; sometimes very polite and sometimes very hoarse. God comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes his hands are very very smooth and sometimes very hairy. He comes in all the ways. His ways are mysterious.So if he wants to declare through you, go to the housetops and let him declare. But if he does not want to declare and you declare on your own, you will get into trouble. If he wants to get into trouble that is his business, but don’t decide on your own, otherwise it will be just an ego trip.Reading this story of Donald Walters, I felt very much for the man who said, “Shake! Ya just met the seventh.”Walters writes condemningly. He thinks this is not the way. Who will decide what is the way? No one should decide. Who am I to tell you that you should not declare? If he wants to declare, who am I to tell you? Let his will be done.But remember always, it should not be your decision. If you decide to declare, that simply means you have not known. Then the mind is playing the greatest megalomaniac trick. Then the mind is going mad.The sixth question:Osho,A dear friend of mine sent a letter to you from the West asking for a sannyas name and then came here before she received an answer and took sannyas here. The name she was given by letter was a totally different kind of name from the one you gave her here. I was very disturbed when I heard about this because I have always thought of my name as my path. I have used it to direct me when I have been confused. What really is the significance of the name you give to us?All holy cow dung! Don’t be deceived by the names. You are always hankering to catch hold of something, to make something big out of nothings. The names I give you are just like lovers’ sweet nothings. Don’t make much fuss about them.In fact, once I have given you the name, never come and ask me about its meaning again because I forget. It is in that moment that I create the meaning around it. Then how am I supposed to remember? I must have given thirty thousand names or more.A name is just a name; you are nameless. No name confines you, no name can confine you. They are just labels to be used – utilitarian, nothing spiritual in it. But because I pay so much attention to your name and I explain it to you, you get hooked with it. That is just my way of showering my attention on you, nothing else; just my way of showing my love to you, nothing else.The seventh question:Osho,Why do I always fall asleep in discourse? Sometimes I can't help comparing myself to those people who sit absolutely still, just imbibing you, and that makes me feel like I have so far to go, especially every time when people come up to me after the lecture and say, “Wasn't it amazing today?” Maybe more would come through to me if I just accept that discourse is a good place for me to sleep.It is the perfect place. Don’t be worried about those people who come and tell you, they must be joking. Sleep well. They must be trying to disturb you, they must be trying to create some jealousy in you. They must be really jealous of you – that you are sleeping so well and snoring, and those poor people are just sitting. They want to disturb you. Don’t be worried. Go on sleeping. You have to go far, but in sleep, nowhere else.The game was drifting off into total boredom when a man in the crowd suddenly burst into a round of applause. The man next to him said, “Why did you do that?”“Sorry,” he replied. “I was trying to keep myself awake.”You don’t know how much difficulty people are having in keeping themselves awake. You just go into your sleep, relax into it. If you can accept it totally, that will become a great experience.The mind always creates conflict. If you don’t sleep, the mind says, “I am feeling like it would be good if I could sleep.” If you sleep, the mind says, “You have missed something, you should not do this.” The mind always creates conflict, friction. It is never happy with anything. Drop that mind. If sleep comes naturally, then allow it. In that very acceptance and the disappearance of the mind, you will be hearing The Diamond Sutra.Patanjali says sleep is just next to samadhi. A good sleep, a deep sleep and samadhi are different only in one sense: samadhi has awareness, sleep has no awareness. But awareness can happen in sleep. Don’t make trouble for yourself, don’t divide yourself. If sleep is not coming, perfectly good, keep awake, but then it will not be an effort. If sleep is coming then fall asleep, then don’t try to keep yourself awake. And I am not saying that if sleep is not coming you have to try to go to sleep. Accept whatsoever is the case. Accept reality as it happens in a certain moment. Be totally in the moment.That’s my whole message, to be utterly with the moment. This is desire: “I should not be asleep.” Why? “This is not spiritual,” to sit in a discourse and fall asleep. Why? Sleep is a perfectly spiritual activity, a great spiritual activity. It is as good as sitting there and thinking; dreaming is as good. Dreaming is just a primitive form of thinking, more colorful. Others are thinking, you are dreaming. What is the difference? Dream well, sleep well, relax.One day, out of this relaxation you will start becoming aware and alert, but that alertness will have a different quality to it. It will not be forced, it will not be manipulated by you, it will come. One day suddenly in the middle of the discourse you will open your eyes, fresh, young, from the deep sleep, and something, just a word, may go into your being and will transform you.The whole Diamond Sutra was not needed when Hui Neng heard four lines – that was enough. Sometimes a single word from a buddha is enough; it just goes like an arrow and pierces your heart and you are no longer the same.So don’t be worried. Relax well. And if you have relaxed well and you open your eyes, some time it is possible – there may happen the meeting between you and me. And you will be so fresh from sleep, unthinking, not knowing who you are….Don’t you know? – sometimes it happens in the morning when you wake, it takes a few seconds for you to recognize who you are, the mind takes time to come back. Sometimes you cannot even recognize where you are. Suddenly awakened in the middle of the night, everybody will wonder who he is, where he is. He will take a little time to gather himself together.So it is possible, sleeping, one day in the middle you hear my shouting. Suddenly you wake up and you don’t know who you are and you don’t know where you are. That is the right moment I can enter in you.So don’t be worried, whatsoever happens is good. All is accepted here. I accept you as you are, I have no “shoulds” for you.The last question:Osho,Why can't people understand each other's religions? Why is there always so much conflict?The ego. It has nothing to do with religions, just the ego. Whatsoever is yours has to be the best in the world. Whatsoever is others’ cannot be the best, cannot be allowed to be the best in the world.Your wife is the most beautiful woman, your husband is the most beautiful person; you are the greatest man in the world. You may not say so, but you say it in a thousand and one ways. And whatsoever belongs to you has to be the best. People are just like small children. Small children go on fighting: “My daddy can lick your daddy anytime.”A small boy was telling another boy, “My mother is a great orator. She can speak on any subject for hours.”The other said, “That’s nothing. My mother is such a great orator she can speak without any subject for hours. Nobody knows what she is speaking about.”People go on bragging about their things, about everything, about religion too.Mulla Nasruddin’s son asked him, “Pop, if a Mohammedan leaves his religion and becomes a Hindu or a Christian, what would you call him?”The Mulla became very angry and he said, “He is a traitor! He should be shot. This is the greatest sin in the world – to change your religion, to betray your religion. He is namak haram – he has betrayed his salt.”Then the boy asked, “Then Pop, if a Hindu or a Christian becomes a Mohammedan?”Mulla was all smiles, Jimmy Carter smiles. He said, “That is great. That man is wise. That man should be welcomed and respected and honored. He knows what truth is and he is courageous. He is a convert, my son!”Now the thing has changed. If a Mohammedan becomes a Hindu or a Christian he is a traitor; if a Hindu or a Christian becomes a Mohammedan he is a convert and he is a great man and he should be honored and respected. He is wise, because he has recognized what is the real religion.That’s how our egos function. That’s why religions, rather than bringing peace to the world, have been the cause of bloody wars. Many more people have been killed in the name of religion than in any other name. Not even politicians have been able to surpass the so-called religious people in murder. The greatest murderers have been the churches and the mosques and the temples.In the future this ugliness has to be dropped; it should be immediately dropped. A religion is a personal choice. If somebody does not like the roseflower, you don’t kill him and you don’t say that he is ugly, you don’t say that he is wrong. You say that that is his liking. He does not like the roseflower, it is finished. I like the roseflower. But it is a question of liking, there is no question of truth in it, there is no question of arguing about it and there is no reason to prove why I don’t like the rose. If I don’t like, I don’t like. If you like, you like. There is no conflict. Religion should be like that.Somebody likes Jesus – perfectly beautiful. Somebody likes Buddha, somebody likes Krishna – likings. A religion should not have anything to do with birth, it should be a pure liking. Then there will be no conflict, then there will be no unnecessary arguing which goes on and on down the centuries. Rather than praying, people have been arguing. The whole energy that they have put to argument, if it would have been put into prayer they would have known what the divine is. But they go on arguing, great debates continue, and nothing is ever proved because nothing can ever be proved.If you like Jesus, it is just like when you fall in love with a woman. You cannot prove anything. Why?…And whatsoever you prove will look foolish to others. If you say, “Look at her nose – how long, how beautiful,” people will say, “That looks ugly, it is out of shape, it is too big, the face is not in proportion.” If you say, “Look at the eyes – so big, so beautiful,” then somebody will say, “They look frightening. I cannot stay with that woman in the night. Those two big eyes…I am scared…and they are too big and not symmetrical!”There is no way to prove your liking. Somebody likes Jesus and somebody likes Buddha: this is falling in love – you need not prove it. And if you prove it you will look a fool to others. That’s how it looks. Hindus think people who are in love with Jesus are foolish: What is there in this man? You ask the Hindus – they have a beautiful theory of karma. They say you suffer only if you have done wrong in your past lives. Why was Jesus crucified? He must have done great sins; otherwise why? Krishna is not crucified, Rama is not crucified – why is Jesus crucified? He must have been a sinner.Now the whole perspective changes. Now you ask a Christian about Krishna playing upon the flute – it looks so beautiful, and Jesus on the cross looks so sad – and he will say, “What are you talking about? This world is in such misery this man Krishna must have been of a very stony heart. He is playing on the flute, and people are dying and people are in misery and there is death and disease, and this man is playing on the flute? He must have a very very rocklike heart. He has no heart. If he had any heart he would have sacrificed himself for the downtrodden, for the oppressed, for those who are in misery. Look at Jesus – he is the savior. He died for us so that we can be redeemed. This Krishna looks shallow.”But ask the Hindu who follows Krishna. He will say, “What are you talking about? There is no misery. All misery is illusion. And if people are suffering they are suffering for their sins. Nobody else can redeem them. And the only redeemer that can be of any help is one who brings joy into the world. Only joy is the healing force. How can you redeem?”Hindus say if somebody is crying and you sit by the side and you also cry, can you redeem him? Crying is doubled. Somebody is ill and you fall ill in sympathy and lie down by their side – how are you helping? To help you have to be healthy. You need not fall ill. Krishna is healthy, Krishna is joy. The world is so in misery, that’s why he brings his flute. Everybody is carrying crosses already – what is there in carrying a cross? Everybody is carrying a cross; a flute is needed. Now these are two ways and everybody can go on arguing for and against.To me, religion is a love affair. It has nothing to do with intellect, it has nothing to do with reason. It is falling in love. With whomsoever you have fallen in love, that is your way. Go through it – that is your door.Love is the door, it is irrelevant with whom you have fallen in love. Love redeems – neither Jesus nor Krishna. Love redeems. Fall in love. Love is the only redeeming force. Love is the savior, but your egos….Meditate over this beautiful story:Patrick the First, the Irish pope, was sitting in his office in the Vatican one day reading the Catholic Herald, when a small article in the Irish section entitled “Record Births” caught his attention.“Holy Mary, Michael!” said the pope to his secretary, Cardinal Fitz-Michael. “Do you see this, bejaisus?”“And what is that, Monsignor?” said Michael, jumping up from his paperwork.“It says the wife of Paddy O’Flynn from Dublin has just presented him with his fifty-sixth child,” said the pope.“The saints be praised, sir,” said Michael. “Some miracle indeed, is it not?”“The Lord’s work, to be sure,” cried the pope, “and should be commemorated in some way for the unity of the Catholic church, world faith in general, and the Emerald Isle in particular.”“Indeed sir, what exactly do you have in mind?”“No mind, Michael,” replied the pope excitedly, “action! Go this very moment to the workshop, have a golden madonna struck up, top priority job, then run around to the travel agents and book me a first class return flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus. I myself will personally take the madonna as a little gift and present it to the O’Flynns. I could do with a little holiday in the old country.”The next morning sharp, Pope Pat, clutching the madonna, the Herald, and a bottle of Irish whiskey for the flight, boarded the plane for Dublin. On arrival he went straight to O’Flynn’s home, whereupon he was taken to the local pub by one of the family to where the main celebrations were taking place.“Someone to see you, Dad,” yelled the kid to the roomful of drinkers.“Tell him to grab a Guinness and come over!” a voice replied.The pope grabbed a Guinness and pushed his way, madonna first, into the center of the high-spirited group of inebriates. Some hours and many Guinnesses later, the pope finally staggered up to Paddy and, thrusting the madonna at him, slurred, “I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to you.”“And who do I have the honor of addressing, sir?’ said Paddy, beholding the drunken cleric, Guinness in one hand, madonna in the other.“Well, you don’t know me personally, Paddy, but in fact I am the pope.”“The pope!” exclaimed Paddy. “And you are in a dangerous place to be sure. Will you have another little Guinness?”“I will indeed,” said the pope, “if you will just promise me one thing before I do.”“For a drinking man,” said Paddy, “it will be hard to refuse.”“I would like you to accept this madonna as a little gift from us all at the Vatican and take it and put it on the altar of your local Catholic church.”“Ah now, sir,” said Paddy. “I will take the madonna, sir, to be sure, and very grateful I am, but put it on the altar of me local Catholic church I cannot do.”“And why ever not,” said the pope in amazement, “as a gift to Mother Mary?”“Well, the truth is, sir,” said Paddy, “I am not a Catholic, I am a Protestant.”“What!” screamed the pope. “You mean to say I have come all this way to present me golden madonna to a fucking sex maniac?”Enough for today.

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The Diamond Sutra 01-11Category: BUDDHA AND BUDDHIST MASTERS

The Diamond Sutra 11 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the Tathagata, “By me has dharma been demonstrated”? Whosoever, Subhuti, would say, “The Tathagata has demonstrated dharma,” he would speak falsely, he would misrepresent me by seizing on what is not there.And why?…Because not even the least dharma is there found or got at. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.”Furthermore, Subhuti, self-identical is that dharma, and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.” Self-identical through the absence of a self, a being, a soul, or a person, the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment is fully known as the totality of all the wholesome dharmas….What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to a tathagata, “by me have beings been set free”?Not thus should you see it, Subhuti! And why? There is not any being whom the Tathagata has set free…Further the Lord taught on that occasion the following stanzas:Those who by my form did see me,And those who followed me by voiceWrong the efforts they engaged in,Me those people will not see.From the dharma should one see the buddhas,From the dharma-bodies comes their guidance.Yet dharma’s true nature cannot be discerned.And no one can be conscious of it as an object….Whosoever says that the Tathagata goes or comes, stands, sits or lies down, he does not understand the meaning of my teaching.And why? “Tathagata” is called one who has not gone anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Therefore is he called “the Tathagata, the arhat, the fully enlightened one.”To recapitulate: The Lord said: The Tathagata speaks in accordance with reality, speaks the truth, speaks of what is, not otherwise…. “Tathagata,” Subhuti, is synonymous with true suchness.The word suchness is of immense importance in Buddha’s approach towards reality. The word suchness is as important in Buddhism as God is in other religions.The Buddhist word for suchness is tathata. It means, “Seeing things are such, don’t take any attitude, don’t make any opinion, don’t judge or condemn.” The Buddhist meditation consists of suchness. The method is very practical and very deep going. Buddha has said to his disciples, “Just watch things as they are, without interfering.” For example, you have a headache. The moment you note it, immediately the opinion enters that this is not good: “Why should I have a headache? What should I do not to have it?” You are immediately worried, you have taken an opinion, you are against it, you have started repressing it. Either you have to repress it chemically, through an Aspro or Novalgin, or you have to repress it in the consciousness – you don’t look at it, you put it aside. You get involved in something else, you want to be distracted in something else so you can forget it. But in both ways you have missed suchness.What will Buddha suggest? Buddha says take note twice, “Headache, headache.” Don’t feel inimical towards it, neither friendly nor antagonistic. Just take simple note, as if it has nothing to do with you: “Headache, headache.” And remain undisturbed, undistracted, uninfluenced by it, without any opinion.See the point. Immediately, ninety percent of the headache is gone…because a headache is not a real headache, ninety percent arises out of the antagonistic opinion. Immediately you will see that the greater part of it is no longer there. And another thing will be noted: sooner or later you will see that the headache is disappearing in something else – maybe you are now feeling anger. What happened? If you repress the headache you will never come to know what its real message was. The headache was there just as an indicator that you are full of anger in this moment and the anger is creating a tension in the head, hence the headache. But you watched, you simply took note of it – “Headache, headache” – you remained impartial, objective.Then the headache disappears. And the headache gives you the message that “I am not a headache, I am anger.” Now, Buddha says, take note again: “Anger, anger.” Now don’t become angry with anger, otherwise again you are trapped and you have missed suchness. If you say, “Anger, anger,” ninety percent of the anger will be gone immediately. This is a very practical method. And the ten percent that will be left will release its message. You may come to see that it is not anger, it is ego. Take note again: “Ego, ego.” And so on and so forth. One thing is connected with another, and the deeper you move the closer you come to the original cause. And once you have come to the original cause the chain is broken – there is nothing beyond it.A moment will come when you will take note of the last link in the chain, and then nothingness. Then you are released from the whole chain, and there will arise great purity, great silence. That silence is called suchness.This has to be practiced continuously. Sometimes it may happen that you forget, and you have made an opinion unconsciously, mechanically. Then Buddha says remember again: “Opinion, opinion.” Now don’t get distracted by this – that you have made an opinion. Don’t get depressed that you have missed. Just take note, “Opinion, opinion,” and suddenly you will see – ninety percent of the opinion is gone, ten percent remains, and that releases its message to you. What is its message? The message is that there is some inhibition, some taboo; out of that taboo the opinion has arisen.A sex desire comes in the mind and immediately you say, “This is bad.” This is opinion. Why is it bad? – because you have been taught it is bad, it is a taboo. Take note, “Taboo, taboo,” and go on.Sometimes it will also happen that you have judged – not only judged, you have made an opinion; not only made an opinion, you have become depressed that you have missed. Then take note again, “Depression, depression,” and go on.Whenever you become conscious, at whatsoever point, from there take note – just a simple note – and leave the whole thing. And soon you will see the entangled mind is no longer as entangled as it has always been. Things start disappearing, and there will be moments of suchness, tathata, when you will be simply there and the existence is there and there is no opinion between you and existence. All is undisturbed by thought, unpolluted by thought. Existence is, but mind has disappeared. That state of no-mind is called suchness.Buddha says: A tathagata is synonymous with suchness. Synonymous – not that he has the quality of suchness, he is suchness.And Buddha says: A tathagata speaks in accordance with reality. He cannot do otherwise. It is not that he chooses to speak in accordance with reality – there is no choice. Whatsoever is real is spoken through him. It is not that he chooses, “This is real and I should speak this, and that is unreal and I will not speak that.” If that choice has arisen, you are not a buddha yet.A tathagata speaks out of choicelessness. So it is not that the tathagata speaks truth; in fact it should be said in this way, that whatsoever is spoken by a tathagata is truth. He speaks in accordance with reality. In fact, reality speaks through him. He is just a medium, a hollow bamboo. The reality sings its song through him, he has no song of his own. All his opinions have disappeared and he himself has disappeared. He is pure space. Truth can pass through him into the world, truth can descend through him into the world. He…speaks the truth, he speaks of what is….Yatha bhutam – whatsoever is the case, he speaks. He has no mind about it, he never interferes. He does not drop a thing, he does not add a thing. He is a mirror: whatsoever comes in front of the mirror the mirror reflects. This reflectiveness is suchness.“Tathagata,” Subhuti, is synonymous with true suchness. And why does he say true suchness? Is there some untrue suchness too? Yes. You can practice. You can practice, you can cultivate a certain quality called suchness, but that will not be true. The true suchness has not to be cultivated, it comes.For example, what do I mean when I say you can cultivate? You can decide, “I will only speak the truth, whatsoever the consequence. Even if I have to lose my life I will speak the truth.” And you speak the truth – but this is not true suchness, it is your decision. The untruth arises in you. You go on pushing down the untruth. You say, “I have decided that even if my life is at stake I am going to be true.” It is effort. Truth has become your prestige. Deep down you are longing to be a martyr. Deep down you want to let the whole world know that you are a truthful man, that you are ready to sacrifice your life also for it; you are a great man, a mahatma. And you may sacrifice your life, but it is not true suchness.True suchness knows nothing of choice. You are simply an instrument of reality. You don’t come in, you don’t stand in between, you have simply withdrawn yourself. The mirror does not decide, “This man is standing in front of me. I am going to show him his real face, whatsoever the consequence. Even if he throws a stone at me – because he is so ugly, he may get angry – but I am going to show him his real face.”If a mirror thinks that way then the mirror is no longer a mirror – mind has come in. It is not mirroring, it is his decision. The purity is lost. But a mirror is simply there, it has no mind; so is a buddha. That’s why Buddha uses the word true suchness.This Buddhist meditation of taking note – try it, play with it. I cannot say practice it, I can only say play with it. Sitting, walking, sometimes remember it – just play with it. And you will be surprised that Buddha has given to the world one of the greatest techniques to penetrate into your innermost core.Psychoanalysis does not go that deep. It also depends on something like this – free association of thoughts – but it remains superficial, because the other’s presence is a hindrance. The psychoanalyst is sitting there; even if he is sitting behind a screen, but you know he is there. That very knowledge that somebody is there hinders. You cannot be a real mirror, because the presence of the other cannot allow you to open totally. You can open totally only to your own self.Buddha’s method is far more deep going because it is not to be told to anybody else. You have just to take note inside. It is subjective and yet objective. The phenomenon has to happen in your subjectivity, but you have to remain objective.Just take note, and go on taking note as if it is none of your business, as if it is not happening to you, as if you have been appointed to do some job: “Stand on this corner of the road and just take note of whosoever passes by. A woman, a woman. A dog, a dog. A car, a car.” You have nothing to do, you are not involved. You are absolutely aloof, distant.It can take you from one thing to another, and a moment comes when you have reached to the very cause of a certain chain. And there are many chains in your being, thousands of threads have got intertwined into each other. You have become a mess. You will have to follow each thread, slowly slowly, and you will have to come to the end of each thread. Once the end is reached, that chain disappears from your being. You are less burdened.Slowly slowly, one day it happens – all threads have disappeared, because you have looked into all causes that were causing them. They were effects. One day, when all causes have been looked into, you have observed everything – all the games of the mind that it goes on playing with you, all the tricks and cunningnesses of it, all the deceptions and mischiefs – the whole mind disappears, as if it has never been there.There is a famous sutra which Buddha has said about the mind, about life, about existence. The sutra is one of the most golden ones. He says:“Think about the mind as stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp, a mock show, dewdrops, or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash, or a cloud. So should one view what is conditioned.”Mind is a conditioned phenomenon. It is the effect of some causes. You cannot destroy the effects directly, you will have to go to the causes. You cannot destroy a tree just by cutting its branches and leaves and foliage; you will have to go to the roots – and roots are hidden underneath. So are the roots in you. These things have to be understood. Buddha says: “Think of your mind as stars.” Why? Stars exist only in darkness. When the morning comes and the sun rises they disappear.So is your mind; it exists only in unconsciousness. When the sun of consciousness rises it disappears – just like stars. Don’t fight with the stars. You will not be able to destroy them, they are millions. Just become more aware and they will disappear on their own accord.A fault of vision…. Your eye is ill, it has some fault. Then you see things which are not there. For example, you may be seeing double or you may be seeing patterns, because your eye is not as it should be. If your liver is not good your eyes will start seeing things which are not there; a weak liver, and eyes will see patterns in the air, bubbles, designs, patterns. They are not really there, they are caused by your eye itself. You cannot fight with them, you cannot destroy them, because they don’t exist. All that is needed is that you will have to go to a physician. Your eye needs treatment, your eye needs to be cured.Buddha used to say, “I am not a philosopher, I am a physician. I don’t give you a doctrine, I doctor you. I don’t give you a theory, I simply give you a medicine. I don’t talk about what light is, I only help you open your eyes so you yourself can see it.”The blind man cannot be helped by definitions of light and color and rainbows. The only help possible is that his eyes have to be brought back. You cannot explain to a deaf person what music is. Only when he can hear will he know. The experience is the only explanation.Third, Buddha says think of the mind as a lamp. Why as a lamp? The lamp burns only while the oil in it lasts. Once the oil is finished the flame disappears. So is the mind – and the oil is the desire. While there are desires in the mind, the mind will remain alive. Don’t fight with the flame, just don’t go on pouring fuel on it. Desire is the fuel.Desire means, that which is, you are not satisfied with it, you want something else. You are not living in suchness – that’s what desire means. Desire means you want things to be other than they are. You don’t want them the way they are. You have your own ideas, you have your private dreams to impose upon reality. You are not contented with reality as such, you want to change it according to your heart’s desire. Then mind will remain. Mind exists because you are not contented with reality.So many people come to me and they ask, “How to stop the thoughts?” They want to stop the thoughts directly. They cannot be stopped. Thoughts exist because desires exist. Unless you understand desire and drop desire, you will not be able to drop thoughts – because thoughts are by-products.First the desire comes in. You see a beautiful car passing by and a desire arises. Buddha will say, “Say, ‘Car, car.’ Finished. If a desire has arisen in you, say again, ‘Desire, desire,’ and be finished.” But you have seen a beautiful car and a dream, a desire, takes possession of you.Now so many thoughts will arise: “How can I manage to purchase this car? Should I sell my house? Should I go to the bank? Should I earn more money, legal/illegal? What should I do? This car has to be possessed.” Now how can you stop thoughts?A politician used to come to me and he wanted to stop thoughts, he wanted to meditate. I said, “First you drop your politics, otherwise how can you stop? You are so ambitious.”First he was an MLA. He was very ambitious, he became a deputy minister. But he was again ambitious, he became a minister. Now he was trying to become the chief minister of a state. And he said, “But I have come only for this, that if you can help me to relax, to meditate, I will be more capable of fighting, of giving a good fight to my competitors. And you are saying drop politics? That I cannot do.”But if you don’t drop desire, how can you stop thinking? Thinking comes as a help. You want to be the chief minister, the mind starts spinning and weaving. The mind says, “Now I have to look into things, into how it should be managed.” Now there are a thousand and one problems to be solved, only then can your desire be fulfilled. Thinking is a device of desire to fulfill itself. You cannot stop thinking directly.Buddha says desire is like oil in a lamp: if the oil is no more, the flame will disappear on its own.Think of mind as a lamp, think of mind as a mock show, a magic show. Nothing is substantial there, it is a kind of hypnotic state. The hypnotist has hypnotized you and he says, “Look – the animal, the camel is coming.” And there arises a form of a camel in your mind, and you start looking at the camel and the camel is there – for you. Everybody is laughing, because nobody is seeing the camel, but you are seeing it.Your mind is a magic-box, that’s what Buddha has said again and again. It goes on creating phantoms, imaginations, which have no substance in them – but if you want to believe in them they will become real. Your mind is a great mock show. In fact the English word magic comes from the Indian word maya. “Maya” means illusion.Illusions can be created, and you all create illusions. You see a woman, but you never see yatha bhutam – as she is. That’s why there is so much frustration afterwards. You start seeing things which are not there, which are only projections of your mind. You project beauty, you project a thousand and one things on the poor woman. When you come closer, when you are able to live with the woman, those phantoms will start wearing out. Those imaginations cannot persist against reality for long; the woman’s reality will assert, and then you will feel cheated and you will think as if she has cheated you.She has not done a thing. She herself is feeling cheated by you, because she has also projected something on you. She was thinking you are a hero, an Alexander or something, a great man, and now you are just a mouse and nothing else. And she was thinking you are a mountain – you are not even a molehill! She feels cheated. You both feel cheated, you both feel frustrated.I have heard:A woman walked into the Missing Persons Bureau. “My husband disappeared last night,” she reported.“We’ll do our best to find him,” the officers assured her. “Kindly give us a description of the man.”“Well,” she waited a little and then said, “he’s about five feet tall, wears thick glasses, has a bald head, drinks a lot, has a red nose, has a high squeaky voice….” And then she stopped and thought for a moment, and said, “Oh, just forget the whole thing!”If you see the reality, that is how it is. You will say, “Oh, forget the whole thing.” But you don’t see, you go on projecting.One day Mulla Nasruddin said to me, “My uncle lived in Italy for years. He died from wine, women and song.”I said to him, “Nasruddin, I had never thought that your uncle was so Omar Khayyamic. Tell me something more about your uncle. I am interested.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “Actually it is not as romantic as it sounds. And I will not hide the real thing from you, I will tell you the truth, Osho. He was singing this rude song under a married bird’s window and her husband came out and brained him with a Chianti bottle. He died of wine, women and song.”That’s how we go on and on.Reality is never frustrating, reality is always fulfilling. Frustrations come because we impose our illusions on reality.Buddha says it is a mock show. Be aware – your mind is a magician. It shows you things which are not there, which have never been there. It deludes you, it creates an unreal world around you, and then you live in that unreal world. This world of trees and birds and animals and mountains is not unreal, but the world that your mind creates is unreal.When you hear people like Buddha talking about the unreality of the world, don’t misunderstand them. They don’t mean that the trees are unreal, they don’t mean that the people are unreal. They mean that whatsoever you have been thinking about reality is unreal – your mind is unreal. Once mind is dropped, all is real. Then you live in suchness, then you become tathata – then you are suchness.The professor was telling his 8 a.m. class, “I have found that the best way to start the day is to exercise for five minutes, take a deep breath of air and then finish with a cold shower. Then I feel rosy all over.”A sleepy voice from the back of the room responded, “Tell us more about Rosy!”The mind is ready to jump upon anything, to project. Be very careful with the mind. That’s what meditation is all about – being careful, not being deceived by the mind.The fifth thing: Think of the mind as dewdrops, very fragile…. Just for the moment the dewdrops exist. Comes the morning sun and they evaporate. Comes a little breeze and they slip and are gone. So is the mind. It knows nothing of reality, knows nothing of eternity, it is a time-phenomenon. Think of it as dewdrops. But you think of it as pearls, diamonds – as if it is going to stay.And you need not believe in Buddha, you just watch your mind. It is not the same even for two consecutive moments. It goes on changing, it is a flux. One moment it is this, another moment it is that. One moment you are in deep love, another moment you are in deep hate. One moment you are so happy, and another moment you are so unhappy. Just watch your mind!If you cling with this mind you will always remain in a turmoil, because you will never be able to remain in silence – something or other will go on happening. You will never be able to have any taste of eternity, and only that taste fulfills. Time is constant change.And sixth: Think of your mind as a bubble. Like bubbles, all mind experiences burst sooner or later and then nothingness is left in the hands. Go after the mind – it is a bubble. And sometimes the bubble looks very beautiful. In the sunrays it may look like a rainbow, it may have all the colors of the rainbow, and it looks really enchanting, majestic. But go rushing for it, catch hold of it, and the moment you catch hold of it, it is no longer there.And that’s what happens every day in your life. You go on rushing after this and that, and the moment you catch hold of something it is no longer the same. Then all beauty is gone – that beauty was only in your imagination. Then all joy is gone – that joy was only in your hope. Then all those ecstasies that you were thinking were going to happen, do not happen – they were only in your imagination, they were only in the waiting.Reality is totally different from these bubbles of your imagination – and they all burst. Failure frustrates, so does success. Success also frustrates – ask the successful people. Poverty is frustrating, so is richness – ask the rich people. Everything, good or bad, is frustrating because all are mind-bubbles. But we go on chasing the bubbles – not only chasing, we want to make them bigger and bigger and bigger. There is a great mania in the world to make every experience bigger.There is a story to the effect that a group of students from different nations were asked to write individual essays on the elephant. A German student wrote on the uses of the elephant in warfare. An English student, on the elephant’s aristocratic character. A French student, on lovemaking among the elephants. An Indian, on the elephant’s philosophical attitude. And an American chose for his subject, how to make bigger and better elephants.The mind is continuously thinking – the mind is American – how to make things bigger…a bigger house, a bigger car, everything has to be bigger. And naturally, the bigger the bubble becomes the closer it comes to bursting. Small bubbles may float a little longer on the surface of the water; bigger bubbles cannot even float that much. Hence the American frustration. Nobody is as frustrated as the American.The American mind has succeeded in making the bubble very big; now it is bursting from everywhere. Now there seems to be no possibility to protect it, to save it; it is exploding. And nobody is at fault, because nobody thinks, “It is our deepest desire and we have succeeded in it.” Nothing fails like success.Seventh: Buddha says think of the mind as a dream. It is imagination, subjective, one’s own creation. You are the director, you are the actor and you are the audience. All that goes on in your mind is a private imagination; the world has nothing to do with it, the existence has no obligation to fulfill it.A doctor had just finished giving a patient, who was quite a bit more than middle-aged, a thorough physical examination. “I can’t find a thing wrong with you, sir,” the doctor said, “but I recommend you give up about half of your love life.”The old man stared at the doctor for a moment and then said, “Which half – thinking about it or talking about it?”Mind is insubstantial – thinking or talking; it knows nothing of the real. The more mind you have the less reality you will have; the less mind you have the more reality. The no-mind knows what reality is, tathata. Then you become a tathagata – one who has known suchness.Or think of the mind as a lightning flash, says Buddha. Don’t cling to it, because the moment you cling to it you will create suffering for yourself. The lightning is only there for the moment, and it is gone. Everything comes and goes, nothing remains, and we go on clinging. And by clinging we go on creating misery.Watch your mind, how ready it is to cling to anything, how afraid the mind is of the future, of change. It wants to make everything stable, it wants to cling to everything that happens. You are happy, you want this happiness to remain. You will cling with it. And the moment you cling you have crushed it already, it is no longer there.You have met a man, a woman, you are in love, and you cling and you want this love to stay forever. In that very moment – when you desire that the love should stay forever – it has disappeared. It is no longer there. All mind experiences are like lightning: they come and they go.Buddha says: You simply watch. There is not time enough to cling! You simply watch, take note: “Headache, headache”; “Love, love”; “Beauty, beauty.” Just take note, that is enough. It is such a small moment that nothing more can be done. Take note and become aware.Awareness can become your eternity – nothing else.And the last thing, the ninth: Buddha says, think about mind experiences as clouds, changing forms, fluxes. You look at the cloud; sometimes the cloud is like an elephant, and immediately it starts changing and becomes a camel or a horse, and so many things. It goes on changing, it is never static; so many forms arise and disappear. But you are not worried – what does it matter to you whether the cloud looks like an elephant or it looks like a camel? It does not matter, it is just a cloud.So is the mind a cloud around your consciousness. Your consciousness is the sky and the mind is the cloud. Sometimes it is an anger cloud, sometimes it is a love cloud, sometimes it is a greed cloud – but these are forms of the same energy. Don’t choose, don’t become attached. If you become attached with the elephant in the cloud you will be miserable. Next time you will see that the elephant is gone and you will cry and you will weep. But who is responsible? Is the cloud responsible? The cloud is simply following its nature. You just remember – a cloud is there to change, so is the mind.Watch from your inner sky and let the clouds float. Become just a watcher. And remember, clouds will come and go, you can remain indifferent.Buddha has given indifference very great value. He calls it upeksha. Remain indifferent: “It doesn’t matter….”Two astronauts, a man and a woman, were visiting the planet Mars, where they found the Martians very hospitable and eager to show them around. After a few days the astronauts decided to pose a pressing question to their hosts: “How is life reproduced on Mars?”The Martian leader proceeded to take the astronauts to a laboratory where he showed them how it was done. First he measured some white liquid into a tube, and then carefully sprinkled a brown powder on top, stirred the mixture and set it aside. In nine months, the astronauts were told, this mixture would develop into a new Martian.Then it was the turn of the Martians to ask how life was reproduced on Earth. The astronauts, a bit embarrassed, eventually gathered courage to give a demonstration, and began to make love. They were interrupted, however, by the hysterical laughter of the Martians.“What is so funny?” the astronauts asked.“That,” replied the Martian leader, “is how we make Nescafé.”All forms…one need not be worried about these forms. Just watch. Think of mind…as stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp, a mock show, dewdrops, or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash, or cloud. So should one view what is conditioned.And then the conditioning disappears and you come to the unconditioned. That unconditioned is suchness, truth, reality – yatha bhutam.Now the sutras.The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the Tathagata, “by me has dharma been demonstrated”? Whosoever, Subhuti, would say, “The Tathagata has demonstrated dharma,” he would speak falsely, he would misrepresent me by seizing on what is not there.And why?…Because not even the least dharma is there found or got at. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.”Furthermore, Subhuti, self-identical is that dharma, and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.” Self-identical through the absence of a self, a being, a soul, or a person, the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment is fully known as the totality of all the wholesome dharmas….Buddha says:What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the Tathagata, “by me has dharma been demonstrated”?It cannot occur to a tathagata, because there is no longer a person inside. Personality is a form of the mind, the idea of “I” is a form in the clouds. To a tathagata, clouds have disappeared, there is only pure sky – indefinable, infinite. There arises no idea of “I.”So a tathagata cannot say, “I have demonstrated the dharma.” In the first place, he is not. In the second place, because he has disappeared, now he knows nobody is.For example, you all fall asleep tonight and you all start dreaming. Somebody starts saying something, and somebody starts groaning and somebody is shouting, and a man who is awake, what will he think? He will laugh at you – because he knows dreams are just dreams, they are not realities.One is groaning, one is crying, one is shouting, or one is very ecstatic and one is laughing – and he knows all is false. Neither is there any cause to laugh, nor is there any cause to weep. All is false. People are asleep. He will not go to the person who is crying and console him, “Don’t cry,” and he will not feel happy because somebody is laughing. He knows that they are dreaming.That is the situation of a tathagata, of a buddha. One who has known his inner sky now knows that everybody is that sky, but everybody is clouded. And those clouds are false, imaginary. And if those clouds are false and imaginary then there are no beings. To whom can the tathagata demonstrate the dharma? There is nobody, there is pure sky. The moment you disappear, all beings disappear. Then there are no longer separate beings, it is all one. There is nobody like a master and nobody like a disciple.That’s why I said to you the other day that this is a game, a great drama that we are enacting here. It is the ancient drama, enacted many times – enacted with Buddha and his disciples, Christ and his disciples, Krishna and his disciples. The same drama is being enacted. From your side it is a very real thing, from my side it is just a drama. From your side it is a serious thing to be a disciple; from my side it is neither serious nor nonserious, it is simply a cloud. And my whole effort here will be to help you to see that it is just a cloud, a formation in the clouds.And the day you become awakened you will laugh, because there is nothing to be achieved – nothing to lose, nothing to achieve. All is as it has always been since the very beginning; to the very end, it remains the same. Do you think the sky changes when clouds gather in the rainy season? Do you think the sky changes when it is summer and the clouds disappear? Do you think there is any change in the sky? The sky remains the same, clouds come and go.So is sansara – so is the world, the mind.Buddha says:What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to the Tathagata, “by me has dharma been demonstrated”? Whosoever, Subhuti, would say, “The Tathagata has demonstrated dharma,” he would speak falsely, he would misrepresent me by seizing on what is not there.There is neither I nor you, there is neither the master nor the disciple. And there is nothing to demonstrate, all is as it is. There is nothing to teach, there is nothing to learn.Because not even the least dharma is there found or got at. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.”Buddha says: That’s why we call it perfect enlightenment. There are other religions in the world whose idea of enlightenment cannot be called perfect. For example, the Christian idea of trinity – God, the Son and the Holy Ghost. It means that at the very ultimate end also there remain three distinctions, divisions. That means some cloud has been retained, some form has been retained, some formality has been retained. The world continues a little bit still, mind has not been dropped utterly.The Hindu idea is a little better. Only two remain: the God and the soul. Better than three, but still the two, the duality. All duality is of mind. It is mind that separates things, it is mind that defines. So this too cannot be perfect enlightenment.In the Jaina concept only one remains: the soul. This is far better – better than Christianity, better than Hinduism. Only one remains: the soul. But Buddha says that too is not perfect enlightenment, because to think of one it will be necessary to think of two, and three and four and five. Just to say “one” is enough to bring in the whole train. The one cannot be defined without bringing the two in.What will you mean by “one”? You will have to say not-two. So the one will need the other at least for its definition. The other will remain somewhere hidden, it has not disappeared completely. If I am there, then you will be there. It cannot disappear completely. The “I” will need the “you”; just for its own sheer existence the “you” will be needed. “I” exists only in the pair with “thou.” They are together; I-thou is one reality.So Buddha says “I” has also to disappear. Then the whole trinity is gone. In the ultimate experience there are neither three nor two nor one. It is pure sky – nothingness, no being, no entity. It is zero, shunyata.That’s why Buddha says this is……“utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.”Furthermore, Subhuti, self-identical is that dharma, and nothing is therein at variance. Therefore is it called “utmost, right and perfect enlightenment.” Self-identical through the absence of a self, a being, a soul, or a person…All forms have disappeared. That’s why the sky remains identical with itself. There are no longer any forms arising, disappearing, no longer any change, no movement. All dreams have disappeared. It is morning and the sun has risen and one is awake. There is awareness, but there is nobody who can say, “I am aware.” There is teaching, but nobody can say, “I am the teacher.” There is a path, but almost pathless. Methods – but they cannot be called methods. The master and the disciple – but only from the side of the disciple; from the side of the master all has disappeared.What do you think, Subhuti, does it occur to a tathagata, “by me have beings been set free”?Not thus should you see it, Subhuti!And why? There is not any being whom the Tathagata has set free….How can that idea arise in a tathagata – that “I have set many beings free”? In the first place, nobody is unfree. So if you ask, “Is Buddha a savior?” Buddha will say, “No, I am not a savior – because nobody needs to be saved. There is nobody to be saved.” And freedom is everybody’s nature. Freedom is there, it need not be brought. One has to just become alert of what is already there. So Buddha says:There is not any being whom the Tathagata has set free….Further the Lord taught on that occasion the following stanzas:Those who by my form did see me,And those who followed me by voice Wrong the efforts they engaged in,Me those people will not see.If you see Buddha as the form, as the body, then you miss. If you only hear the words of the Buddha and don’t hear his silence, you miss. If you see only his face and you don’t see his inner sky, you miss.Buddha speaks only to utter silence. Buddha is there in the form only to express the formless. Remember this stanza. I can also say the same to you:Those who by my form did see me,And those who followed me by voiceWrong the efforts they engaged in,Me those people will not see.From the dharma should one see the buddhas…From the standpoint of the sky, not from the standpoint of the cloud.From the dharma should one see the buddhas.From the dharma-bodies comes their guidance.Yet dharma’s true nature cannot be discerned.And no one can be conscious of it as an object….This is saying in words that which cannot be said – avachya, unspeakable. Buddha is saying: From where comes the Buddha’s guidance? Not from himself but from the eternal, from the sky. Buddha is just a passage, the eternal floats through him. Don’t be too much obsessed by the words that he uses, listen to his silence. Don’t be too much concerned by the body he lives in, don’t be concerned with the house in which he resides. Think of the inner presence, think of his being. See deep.And how to see deep in a buddha? The only way to see deep in a buddha is not with open eyes but with closed eyes. To see deep into yourself is the only way to see deep into a buddha. If you become acquainted with your own inner sky you will be acquainted with the buddha’s – all the buddhas of all the ages, past, present and future too. Descend into your own being.Whosoever says that the Tathagata goes or comes, stands, sits or lies down, he does not understand the meaning of my teaching.And why? “Tathagata” is called one who has not gone anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Therefore is he called “the Tathagata, the arhat, the fully enlightened one.”When clouds come, do you think the sky has gone somewhere? When the clouds go, do you think the sky has come back? The sky remains, your innermost nature remains.Once you were a rock. That was a cloud that had taken the form of a rock; you lived in the mineral world. Then you became a tree; you changed your form; you became a rosebush or a pine or a cedar of Lebanon. But the inner nature remained the same. Now the form of the cloud changed, you lived in the vegetable kingdom. Then you became an animal – maybe a lion, a tiger, a crocodile, a deer, a dog. Only the form changed, but the inner sky remains the same. Then you became a man or a woman – again the form is changing. You can become an angel in the heaven – only the form will change.You can go on moving from one form to another, you can go on dying in one form and being born into another form. This is called sansara: getting caught in one form, then getting caught in another, moving from one form to another form, from one prison to another prison.What is buddhahood? Becoming aware of the inner sky that was in the rock, in the animals, in the trees, in man and in woman. Once you become aware of that inner sky you are released from all forms. That is freedom. Not that you become free…because in that freedom you don’t exist, you can’t exist.“You become free” simply means you become free from yourself. All selves are forms. The rock has a self, a soul. The tree has a self, the animal has a self. The Buddha has no self – he is utter freedom. That’s why Buddha says:Whosoever says that the Tathagata goes or comes…Certainly he goes and comes – this Diamond Sutra started with that. See the beauty of it: The Diamond Sutra started with it – that Buddha goes to beg, then he comes back, puts down his bowl, cleanses his feet, sits, looks in front of him, and Subhuti asks. The sutra started with the form and the sutra is ending on the formless.That is the beginning. You cannot listen to my silence first; first you will have to listen to my words. You cannot see my inner sky directly; first you will have to see this cloud that surrounds me. Only then, slowly slowly, will you start falling in tune with the innermost. First, naturally, you come to the outer. First you see the house and then you will see the dweller.It is natural, nothing is wrong in it, but don’t cling to the house. Move from the house, from the dwelling to the dweller. This is the beauty of this sutra: it starts with Buddha’s body – how he walks, how he sits, how he looks, what he does. And now it ends on this strange sentence:Whosoever says that the Tathagata goes or comes, stands, sits or lies down, he does not understand the meaning of my teaching.And why? “Tathagata” is called one who has not gone anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Therefore is he called “the Tathagata, the arhat, the fully enlightened one.”Who is called “the fully enlightened one”? One who has come to know the sky that never moves, one who has come to know the eternal which is beyond time, one who has come to know truth.Truth is always the same – dreams change, truth is always the same. Be acquainted with Buddha’s words but don’t remain there. That is just an introduction – move from there.What I say to you, listen to it but don’t become obsessed with it – move from there. By and by, fall in tune with my silence. By and by, forget me – forget the cloud and enter the sky. Then you are really in tune. Then you have started moving into truth itself.Words are about truth, they are not truth themselves. The word God is just a word, it is not God. The word love is just a word, it is not love. Use the word, then throw it away. It is the container, not the content.With the master, don’t become too much attached with his body. That attachment will become a barrier. Love the master, but go deeper. Slowly slowly, step by step, penetrate his innermost core. And you will be surprised – because the innermost is the same. In the innermost, the disciple and the master meet. In the innermost there is no distinction.Kabir has said a very strange sentence: “The moment has come when the master touches the feet of the disciple.” Then there is no distinction. Who is the master and who is the disciple – there is no distinction.When Rinzai was with his master – the master was a very very hard master, as Zen masters are – Rinzai was beaten so many times, was thrown, and the master would jump on him and beat him. Then one day Rinzai was going on a journey, a pilgrimage, and the master called him and started beating him. Rinzai said, “But I have not even said a single word! And I have not done anything.”The master said, “I know, but you are going on this pilgrimage and my feeling is that when you come back you will be enlightened and I will never have any chance to beat you again. That’s why – this is the last chance.”And when Rinzai came back, yes, it had happened. The master bowed his head and said, “Now you can beat me.” Not that Rinzai has beaten the master, but the master says, “Now you can beat me. Now you enjoy – I have enjoyed beating you so much. You have arrived home.”At the innermost core there is no distinction.Buddha is saying don’t be too much concerned with the words. Use them as steps, stepping stones. Don’t be too much concerned with Buddha’s movements, bodily movements. People are there, imitative people, who will start walking like the Buddha, who will start talking like the Buddha, who will start using the same words, the same gestures. Buddha is saying those are not the real things; the real thing is beyond forms, it cannot be imitated.Don’t imitate the master. Only then one day will you be able to become the master. Love, listen, but always remember that you have to go far in. You have to transcend all clouds.Enough for today.

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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01-10Category: Kabir

Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01 (Read, Listen & Download)

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I. 13. Mo ko kahan dhunro bandeO friend, where dost thou seek me?Lo! I am beside thee.I am neither in temple nor in mosque:I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:Neither am I in rites and ceremonies,nor in yoga and renunciation.If thou art a true seeker,thou shalt at once see me:thou shalt meet me in a moment of time.Kabir says: “O friend!God is the breath of all breath.”I. 57. Sadho bhai, jivat hi karo asaO friend! Hope for him whilst you live,know whilst you live,understand whilst you live:for in life deliverance abides.If your bonds be not broken whilst living,what hope of deliverance in death?It is but an empty dream,that the soul shall have union with himbecause it has passed from the body.If he is found now, he is found then,if not, we do but go to dwellin the city of death.If you have union now,you shall have it hereafter.Bathe in the truth, know the true guru,have faith in the true name!Kabir says: “It is the spirit of the quest which helps:I am the slave of this spirit of the quest.Here I go again – I will sing the same old song. Yet it is not the same old song. It cannot be. Manu says there is nothing new under the sun and he is right. And Heraclitus says you cannot step in the same river twice, and he is right too. Existence is old and new, both together, and my song is that of existence itself. I am just a vehicle to sing it to you, to spread it to you. But I am not the singer; I am just a passage. Remember it: it may look the same, yet it is not the same. Words may be the same, the appearance may be the same, but something vital goes on continuously changing. Have you ever come across the same morning again? Have you ever seen the same sky again? And yet the sky is the same and the sun is the same.Both Manu and Heraclitus are true together; taken separately they both are false. Life is a contradiction. Life is paradoxical. That’s why it is so charming and so beautiful. It exists through opposites. It is vast, it contains contradictions. It is new and old both. It is life and death both, together. So I say to you I will sing the same old song and yet it is not going to be the same. Listen attentively.Before we enter into the words of the mystic poet Kabir, it will be good to know something about Kabir. Much is not known, fortunately, because when you know too much about the person, it creates more complexities in understanding him. When you don’t know anything about the person himself, then there is less complexity. That’s why in the East it has been one of the most cherished old traditions not to say much about the mystics, so that it never hinders people. We don’t know much about Krishna and we don’t know much about Buddha; or all that we know about them is more mythological than historical – not true, fictitious. But about Kabir, even fiction does not exist. And he is not very ancient, yet he lived in such a way that he has effaced himself completely. He has not left any marks.Only politicians leave marks on time, only politicians are that foolish. The mystics live in the timeless. They don’t leave any marks in time, they don’t leave any signatures on time. They don’t believe in signing on the sands of time. They know it will be effaced so there is no point in it.Kabir has not said much about himself, nothing much is known about him. Not even this much is known – whether he was a Hindu or a Mohammedan. The story goes that he was born a Mohammedan but was brought up by a Hindu. And this is beautiful, this is how it should be. Hence his richness. He has the heritage of two rich traditions: Hindu and Mohammedan. If you are just a Hindu, of course, you are poor. If you are just a Mohammedan you are poor.Look at my richness. I am a Hindu and a Mohammedan and a Christian and a Sikh and a Parsi. Not only that, I am theist and I am atheist too. I claim the whole heritage of humanity, I claim all. I don’t reject anything. From charvakas to buddhas, I claim all. The whole of humanity is yours, the whole evolution of human consciousness is yours. But you are so miserly. Somebody has become a Hindu; he claims only a corner – and lives in that corner, crippled and paralyzed. In fact, the corner is so narrow you cannot move. It is not spacious enough. A religious person will claim all – Buddha, Mahavira, Christ, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Nanak, Kabir, etcetera, etcetera. He will claim all. They are all part of me, they are all part of you. Whatsoever has happened to human consciousness, you carry the seeds of it in you.This is the one thing to be understood about Kabir: that he was born as a Mohammedan and brought up by a Hindu. And it never became conclusive to whom he had really belonged. Even at the time when he was dying it was disputed amongst his disciples. The Hindus were claiming his body, the Mohammedans were claiming his body…and a beautiful parable:Kabir had left a message that “When I am dead…” He knew it was going to happen – people are foolish, they will claim the body and there is going to be conflict – so he had left a message: “If there is any conflict, just cover my body with a sheet and wait, and the decision will come.”And the story says that the body was covered and the Hindus started praying and the Mohammedans started praying and then the cover was removed, and Kabir had disappeared, only a few flowers were there.Those flowers were divided. Even disciples are stupid.This parable is beautiful. I call it a parable, I don’t say it really happened, but it shows something. A man like Kabir has already disappeared. He is not in his body. He is in his inner flowering. His sahasrar, his one-thousand-petaled lotus, has flowered. You are in the body only to a certain extent. The body has a certain function to fulfill; the function is that of consciousness flowering. Once the consciousness has flowered, the body is non-existential: it does not matter whether it exists or not. It is simply irrelevant.The parable is beautiful. When they removed the cover there were only a few flowers left: Kabir is a flowering. Only a few flowers, and the stupid disciples, even then they couldn’t understand. They divided the flowers.Remember one thing: all ideologies are dangerous. They divide people. You become a Hindu, you become a Mohammedan, you become a Jaina, a Christian: you are divided. All ideologies create conflict. All ideologies are violent. A real man of understanding has no ideology. Then, he is undivided; then, he is one with the whole of humanity. Not only that, he is one with the whole of existence. A real man of understanding is a flowering. This flowering, we will be discussing.These songs of Kabir are tremendously beautiful. He is a poet, he is not a philosopher. He has not created a system, he is not a theoretician or a theologian. He is not interested in doctrines, in scriptures. His whole interest is in how to flower and become godly. His whole effort is how to make you more loving, more alert.It is not a question of learning much; on the contrary, it is a question of unlearning much. In that way he is very rare. Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Ram: they are very special people. They were all kings, and they were well educated, well cultured. Kabir is a nobody, a man of the masses, very poor, very ordinary, with no education at all, with no culture – and that is his rarity.Why do I call it his rarity? – because to be ordinary in the world is the most extraordinary thing. He was very ordinary, and he remained ordinary.The natural desire of the human mind is to become special, to become special in the ways of the world: to have many degrees, to have much political power, to have money, wealth – to be special. The mind is always ready to go on some ego trip. And if you are fed up with the world, then again the ego starts finding new ways and new means to enhance itself: it becomes spiritual. You become a great mahatma, a great sage, a great scholar, a man of knowledge, a man of renunciation; again you are special.Unless the desire to be special disappears, you will never be special. Unless you relax into your ordinariness, you will never relax.The really spiritual person is one who is absolutely ordinary. Kabir is very normal. You would not have been able to find him in a crowd. His specialty is not outward. You cannot just find him by looking at his face. It is difficult. Buddha was special, a very beautiful man, a charismatic personality. Jesus is very special, throbbing with revolution, rebellion. But Kabir? Kabir is absolutely ordinary, a normal person.Remember, when I say normal, I don’t mean the average. The average is not the normal. The average is only normally abnormal; he is as mad as all others are. In fact, in the world normal persons don’t exist.I have heard:A famous psychiatrist conducting a university course in psychopathology was asked by a student, “Doctor, you have told us about the abnormal person and his behavior, but what about the normal person?”The doctor was a little puzzled, and then he said, “In my whole life I have never come across a normal person. But if we ever find him, we will cure him!”Kabir is really that normal person that you never come across in life – with no desire to be special. When he became enlightened, then too he remained in his ordinary life: he was a weaver; he continued to weave.His disciples started growing in numbers – hundreds, and then thousands, and then many more thousands were coming to him. And they would always ask him to stop weaving clothes: “There is no need. We will take care of you.” But he would laugh and he would say, “It is better to continue as God has willed me. I have no desire to be anything else. Let me be whatsoever I am, whatsoever God wants me to be. He wants me to be a weaver, that’s why I am a weaver. I was born a weaver and I will die as a weaver.”He continued in his ordinary way. He would go to the marketplace to sell his goods. He would carry water from the well. He lived very, very ordinarily. That is one of the most significant things to be understood. He never claimed that he was a man of knowledge – because no man of knowledge ever claims. To know is to know that to know is not to know, and that not to know is to know. A real man of understanding knows that he does not know at all. His ignorance is profound. And out of this ignorance arises innocence. When you know, you become cunning. When you know, you become clever. When you know, you lose that innocence of childhood.Kabir says he is ignorant, he does not know anything. And this has to be understood, because this will make the background in your mind for his poetry. From where is this poetry coming? It is coming out of his innocence, flowering out of his innocence. He says he does not know.Have you ever observed the fact that in life we go on claiming that we know, but we don’t know? What do you know? Have you known anything, ever? If I ask why the trees are green, will you be able to answer it? Yes, the best answer that I have heard is from D.H. Lawrence.A small child was walking with him in a garden and the child asked – as children are prone to ask – “Why are the trees green?”D.H. Lawrence looked at the trees, looked into the eyes of the child, and said, “They are green because they are green.”That’s the truest answer ever given. What else can you say? Whatsoever else you say will be foolish; it will not make any sense. You can say trees are green because of chlorophyll, but why is chlorophyll green? The question remains the same. I ask you one question, you give me an answer – but the question is not really answered.You have lived with a woman for thirty years, and you call her your wife, or with a man, for fifty years. Do you know the man or the woman? A child is born to you: do you know him? Have you looked into his eyes? Can you claim that you know him? What do you know? Do you know a piece of rock? Yes, scientists will give many explanations, but they don’t become knowledge. They will say electrons and protons and neutrons. But what is an electron? And they shrug their shoulders; they say, “We don’t know.” They say, “We don’t know yet,” in the hope that someday they will be able to know. No, they will never be able to know, because first they said, “The rock is made of atoms,” and when it was asked what an atom is, they said, “We don’t know yet.” Then they said, “The atom consists of electrons.” Now we ask what an electron is; they say, “We don’t know yet.” Someday they will say the electron consists of this and that, x, y, z, but that doesn’t make any difference.The ultimate remains irreducible to knowledge. The ultimate remains a mystery.If the ultimate is a mystery, then life becomes a life of wonder. If the ultimate is not known, then poetry arises. If the ultimate is known – or you think that it is known – then philosophy arises. That is the difference between philosophy and poetry.And Kabir’s approach is that of a poet, of a lover, of one who is absolutely wondering what it is all about. Not knowing it, he sings a song. Not knowing it, he becomes prayerful. Not knowing it, he bows down. The poet’s approach is not that of explanation. It is that of exclamation. He says, “Aha! So here is the mystery!”And wherever you find mystery there is existence. The more you know, the less you will be aware of it; the less you know, the closer existence will be to you. If you don’t know anything, if you can say with absolute confidence, “I don’t know”; if this “I don’t know” comes from the deepest core of your being, then existence will be in your very core, in the very beat of your heart. And then poetry arises. Then, you fall in love with this tremendous mystery that surrounds you.That love is religion. Religion is not after any explanations. Religion is not a quest for the explanation. Rather, it is an exploration of love, a non-ending journey into love.I invite you to come with me into the innermost realm of this madman Kabir. Yes, he was a madman – all religious people are. Mad, because they don’t trust reason. Mad, because they love life. Mad, because they can dance and they can sing. Mad, because to them life is not a question, not a problem to be solved but a mystery into which one has to dissolve oneself.One thing more about Kabir’s approach. He is life-affirmative. That too is an indication of a real man of understanding. There are two types of people in the world: the people who indulge and the people who renounce. They look opposite to each other but they are not. They are two aspects of the same coin.The people who indulge are continuously frustrated because no indulgence brings you joy. You can indulge – you can waste your life, you can waste your opportunity, your energy – but no enjoyment ever comes out of indulgence. If indulgence could have given joy, then nobody would ever have renounced.People renounce because indulgence fails – but then they move to the other extreme. Thinking that indulgence has not helped, they move to the opposite: they become against life, they become anti-life, they become life-negative. They start destroying their being; they become suicidal. These are the two types of people you will find: in the market you will find the people who indulge, and in the monasteries you will find the people who renounce.Kabir belongs to neither. A real man of understanding is a great synthesis. He knows that it is not a question of indulgence or renunciation; it is a question of awareness. Be in the world, but be with awareness. Don’t go anywhere, don’t have antagonistic attitudes toward life. Kabir is tremendously life-affirmative. He loved, he had a wife, he had two children, and he lived the life of a householder, and yet was one of the greatest seers of the world – lived in the world and remained untouched. That’s his beauty. He is a lotus flower.If you go to your so-called mahatmas, they create antagonism toward life; they make you life-negative. They teach you that life is the enemy, it is evil. They make you feel as if God and life are contraries: you can’t have both. Kabir says you can have both, because life and God are not enemies. Life is God manifest; God is life unmanifest. God and life are one force, one energy, one movement. When God is not visible he is God; when he becomes visible he is life. And this goes on continuously – he becomes visible, he becomes invisible. It is like breathing: you breathe out, you breathe in.The old Indian scriptures say that existence is when God breathes out, and when God breathes in there is nonexistence. The whole of existence disappears when he breathes in; when he breathes out, the whole of existence appears. It is one breath going in and out. When God breathes out, you are born; when he breathes in, you disappear in death.But you never leave God. The outgoing breath is as much his as the ingoing breath. And one has to understand this dynamism, this dialectic. Kabir is neither for the world nor for renunciation.And his assertions are very simple, down-to-earth. He is not dramatic. He is not a preacher, and he is not worried whether you are impressed by him or not. He simply relates whatsoever he has experienced. He never exaggerates. He never proves his assertions through any logic. He simply asserts. They are pure statements.I have heard a beautiful story concerning a young pastor who had dabbled with the theater before entering divinity school, and wanted to give his first sermon in a new church a dramatic send-off. Noticing that there was a scuttle in the roof above the pulpit, he deliberately chose as his text “The Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove,” then arranged to have the sexton open the scuttle at just the right moment, releasing a white dove which the pastor had trained to alight on his shoulder.On the evening of the service, he led carefully up to his climax, intoning, “And the Holy Ghost descended in the form of a dove” but nothing happened. Louder, and angrily, he repeated his text, upon which the scuttle door opened slightly and the voice of the sexton was heard by the whole congregation, wheezing, “Your Reverence, the cat ate up the Holy Ghost. Shall I let down the cat?”Kabir is not dramatic at all. His assertions are simple. His assertions are just from his heart. He is not scholarly either. His poetry is pure, uncontaminated by scripture. His poetry can be understood by anyone who is innocent enough.So in the beginning of the journey I would like to say to you, be innocent; only then will you be able to understand Kabir. Don’t bring your mind in, don’t start arguing with him, because he is not a logician. When you go to see a painting, you don’t argue with the painting. You enjoy it. When you go to listen to a musician playing on his guitar, you don’t argue. When you go to a poet, you don’t argue. You listen to the poetry. There is no argument in your head.But about religion, there is difficulty. When you come to listen to a religious person you argue. And the responsibility lies with the so-called religious people themselves because they have been arguing. There have been foolish people who have even tried to prove God through argument, as if God depends on your argument; as if, if you cannot argue, he will not be able to be there – he will become nonexistent; as if God were a syllogism.Kabir is not going to give you any argument. His assertions are just like the Upanishads, or Mohammed’s assertions in the Koran, or Jesus’ assertions in the Bible – just statements. He feels, he sings about his feeling. Please feel him. There is no question of using your head. Put your heads aside.There are people for whom it is very difficult to put their heads aside. They have completely forgotten how to put it aside. The head is always on top of them – chattering, arguing, choosing, rejecting, accepting, valuing, judging, condemning – “Yes, according to me it is like this, and according to me not like this.”There is no need for God to be according to you. He is not obliged to be according to you. If you want to understand, you will have to silence your mind. Listen to Kabir as one listens to poetry. He is a poet.I have heard about a lad who was such a mathematical wizard that at the age of twelve he could do calculations in his head that had stumped Albert Einstein when he was forty. Unfortunately, this prodigy was so involved in equations that he had no time for anything else. By and by, he was becoming crazy. The family was very concerned. In an attempt to divert him, his parents took him to an all-star revival of Peter Pan, and were delighted to note that he was utterly engrossed throughout the first act.At the intermission, his father said cheerfully, “Well, son, I see you are enjoying the play.”“Do you know,” answered the son, “there were 71,832 words in that act?”Now this is no way to enjoy….So don’t listen to the words. Listen to the silence that surrounds the words. Don’t listen to the words. Listen to the poetry that surrounds the words, listen to the rhythm, the song; listen to Kabir’s celebration. He is not here to preach anything to you. He is like a cherry tree – in the full moon night the cherry tree has blossomed. Flowers have no arguments; they are simply there. This is an explosion. Kabir has burst into song.And these are the two possibilities: whenever enlightenment happens, either a person becomes absolutely silent or he bursts into song. These are the two possibilities. When Meher Baba attained he became silent. Then, his whole life he remained silent. When Meera attained she started dancing and singing. These are the two possibilities: either one becomes absolutely silent or one’s whole life becomes a song. Kabir’s life is that of song.But remember, in his song there is silence. And always remember also, in Meher Baba or people like that there is song in their silence. If you listen attentively to Meher Baba’s silence, you will be full of a song, you will feel it showering on you. And if you listen to Kabir silently, you will see that his song is nothing but a message for silence.O friend, where dost thou seek me?Lo! I am beside thee.Kabir says don’t seek God somewhere else; he is just beside you. Don’t look for him far away – that will be the way, a sure way, to miss him. He is very close by. In fact to say he is close is not right, because “closeness” also shows distance. He is just within you – he is you! You have never departed from him, you cannot depart from him. He is your nature. Right this moment he is inside you. Looking at me, he is looking at me. Listening to me, he is listening to me.Once you relax you will know. Tense, you become an ego; relaxed, the ego disappears. Tense, you become cut off; relaxed again, you are no longer frozen – melting, you dissolve into the ocean.Right now, these are the two possibilities: either you can be an iceberg, frozen, floating in the ocean, feeling that you are separate; or you can melt and become one with the ocean. That’s all. When you think you are, you become frozen, blocked, your energy stops moving – you demarcate yourself, you create a definition for yourself. That very definition becomes your barrier.O friend, where dost thou seek me? Lo! I am beside thee.I am neither in temple nor in mosque:I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash.So don’t go away for long pilgrimages. God has already happened. You have been carrying him from the very beginning; you have never lost track of him. You may have forgotten, you may have become completely oblivious, you may not be able to remember who you are, but still you are God.I am neither in temple nor in mosque:I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:Neither am I in rites and ceremonies,nor in yoga and renunciation.Neither in rites and ceremonies… Religion deteriorates into rituals. When a religion is dead, it becomes ritualistic. When a religion is alive, it remains spontaneous. If you want to pray, let it be spontaneous. Don’t repeat rituals otherwise it is futile, it is meaningless, you are wasting time. If you get up every day – a particular time, a particular prayer, a particular way to do it – and you repeat it in a mechanical way, you will never come to know what prayerfulness is.It has not to be done really; it has only to be allowed. Sitting silently, looking at the trees, suddenly it is there. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it does not come. It is not within your power to drag it out: a prayer dragged out is no longer prayer.Prayerfulness is like love. Sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not there. And you are helpless, you cannot do anything about it when it is not there. Or can you do something? You can pretend. You can show that you are very loving – and you know deep down there is no love. You will be false, you will not be authentic. And if you get accustomed to this, by and by, you will forget what real love is. You will become accustomed to the pseudo, to the pretended, to the false.If you watch you will see sometimes it comes like a breeze. Right now there is no breeze and the trees are silent. What can they do? They wait. When the breeze comes they will dance. They don’t have a ritual. They don’t say, “Now it is morning and it is time to dance, and where is the breeze?” and if it does not come, “Then we will try on our own, we will do some yoga posture, we will perform some ritual, we will do some exercises and somehow sway.” No, they don’t bother. They wait. Look, they are waiting! When the breeze comes they will dance.Prayerfulness is like that: it comes. It comes without ever giving you any indication that it is coming.So remain available. Sometimes, sitting in your bed at night, suddenly it is there – the whole room becomes full of some unknown presence. Not that you can do anything about it. It is there. You can enjoy, you can be joyful, you can delight in it. You can dance; the breeze has come. You can sway, you can sing a song…And let that song also be of the heart, of this moment. There is no need to repeat anything from somebody else, there is no need to cram. There is no need to repeat the Christian or the Hindu prayer. They are all false. The real prayer simply arises. Sometimes it may be silent. You may not say anything, not even a thank you. And sometimes you may like to talk to God. You may even like to fight with him sometimes. Sometimes one is angry; then what to do? And sometimes one is very, very worshipful, and one bows down. And sometimes one says to God, “Okay, you are here, but I am not in a mood to talk to you. So as I wait for you, you will have to wait for me.” The ways of love are very mysterious – and God will understand.Let your prayerfulness be very spontaneous, very real. If anger is there, what else can you offer to him? Offer anger. If love is there, offer love. But whatsoever is there, offer, and never pretend something which is not there – and God will understand. God is nothing but the tremendous understanding that existence shows towards you. But if you are false, then you are trying to deceive. And you cannot deceive existence. That is not possible. You can deceive only yourself, and you will go on piling up deceptions upon deceptions around you, and you will be choked, suffocated in your own deceptions. You will die under the burden of your own deceptions.I am neither in temple nor in mosque:I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash.Neither am I in rites and ceremonies,nor in yoga and renunciation.So don’t go anywhere. Just be wherever you are, and be true and be authentic and be spontaneous.If thou art a true seeker,thou shalt at once see me:If thou art a true seeker… If the passion is there, if the intensity is there, if the urgency is there, then there is no problem. Try to understand this.The emphasis of Kabir is on the urgency, on the tremendous desire. It is not a question of rituals. You can be a perfect ritualist, but you will miss. It is a question of intensity, passion. If you cry passionately for him, immediately you will know he is there. If your passion is fiery, you will never miss him. If you miss him then know only one thing: your passion is not yet enough. You are calling him halfheartedly.People come to me and they say, “Where is God? We cannot see him.” I look at them and I inquire, “Do you really want to seek him, really? Close your eyes,” I say to them, “and look into your heart. Are you really in passionate love with God? Do you really want to see him?” And they say, “Not really.” Then how do you suppose you will know him?God – I have seen so many people’s hearts – is the last item on their list. There are other things to do first. When all is done, then comes God. He is always the last in the queue. And, of course, the queue is never going to end. God will never be the first this way, because in the world nothing is ever completed. You do one thing – a thousand and one things arise out of it. And you go on getting more and more entangled in the world, and the queue becomes bigger and bigger and God is forced farther back, farther back. And then you want to see him! No, it is not possible.Only the eyes of tremendous intensity can see him. The third eye is not really a third eye, it is just a passionate desire – so passionate that you are ready to sacrifice your life. If God says, “I can be seen if you sacrifice yourself,” you will not think even for a single moment. You will drop dead. You will say, “Okay, I am ready to die but I am not ready to lose you.” This urgency is what makes a religious person.If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see me – at once, immediately, in a split second.…thou shalt meet me in a moment of time.Kabir says: “O friend!God is the breath of all breath.”God is life itself, God is not some faraway goal. God is like the ocean and we are like the fish. And Kabir has said in another reference, “I laugh when I see the fish thirsty in the ocean. I laugh. I cannot believe it, I cannot trust that it is possible. The fish is in the ocean – and thirsty? And asking where the ocean is?” We live in the ocean of godliness – God is life energy. He surrounds you, he surrounds everything. Everything exists in him – exists like him. To exist, there is no other possibility.But there have been many people who have talked about God without knowing anything about him. They have created many problems. They have created unnecessary anxieties. There are people who talk about God as an inference, not as an experience. They have not known him; they infer: they think about it, they feel that God is needed. It is a necessary hypothesis. Without it they find it difficult. How to explain existence? – so they accept it.But God is not a hypothesis. Please, it is good to be an atheist, not to believe in God, but never believe in the hypothesis of God, because an atheist someday may turn into a theist, but a man who believes in the necessity of God, as a hypothesis, will never become religious. From the very beginning he has taken a wrong step. An atheist who says there is no God is at least interested in God – and he cannot rest, because nobody can rest in a no. Nobody can rest in a negative. That’s why an atheist continuously thinks, continuously thinks.I came across an old man – he is an atheist – and he said, “I am eighty years old, and for at least sixty years, consciously, I have been an atheist and I have been denying, saying that there is no God.”I said, “This is foolish – to waste sixty years in denying God. If he is not, he is not. Be finished with it.” Sixty years of wasting! And he is a very militant atheist. He goes around the country telling people that there is no God. I said, “Are you mad? If he is not, why are you so worried? Be finished with him. Sixty years continuously – your whole life. Now you are eighty years old, any day death will come. You have wasted your whole life for something which is not.”He became a little worried about it. He said, “Yes, but nobody told me…you make me very afraid. Yes, that’s true – sixty years.”I told him, “Even six minutes of so much intensity would have been enough to know whether God really is or not. You have tried for eighty years! And you are very argumentative, and I am not going to argue with you. There is no point in it. I would like to say only one thing: one thing is certain about you, that deep in the unconscious you are still seeking and you are not satisfied with your no. If you were satisfied, you would have enjoyed, you would have lived your life. Why bother about a nonentity? But you are not satisfied, because nobody can be satisfied with a no.”This has to be understood: satisfaction comes only out of yes, satisfaction comes only out of tremendous positivity. God is nothing but a deep yes toward existence.But there are people who have logically concluded either God is or God is not. Both are useless. They don’t have any experience.I have heard about a lecturer who built up a great reputation as an expert on child education, though he had never married himself. The title of his lecture was “Ten Commandments for Parents.”Then he met the girl of his dreams, married her, and became a father. Shortly thereafter he changed the title of his talk to “Ten Hints for Parents.”He was blessed with a second offspring – and his talk was relabeled “A Few Tentative Suggestions for Parents.”When his third child arrived, he quit lecturing altogether.Only experience can be decisive. It is very easy to talk to others about how to be a good parent. It is very difficult to become a good parent. It is very easy to counsel other people in how they should manage their marriage.One day a man came to me from America – he was a marriage counselor – and he said, “I am a marriage counselor, and I have come here because there are many problems in my married life.”I said, “You are a marriage counselor?”He said, “Yes, I am. That’s why I have come here, because in America I am very well-known and I cannot go to any other marriage counselor.”You will find many psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, amongst my sannyasins. They have been helping other people, not knowing what is what. They have helped too many people. And when I look into them, they are in tremendous need of help. Then I become worried about the people they have been helping.Remember, only experience can be decisive.Have you heard the famous anecdote about Jalaluddin Rumi, a Sufi mystic?A woman came with a child, and the woman said, “Maulana, master, I have tried every way and this child won’t listen. He eats too much sugar. And I know now only one way is possible. If you say something to him, he will listen, because he respects you. He does not understand what you are and who you are, but he respects you. And when I told him, ‘Come with me to Maulana,’ he said, ‘Okay, if he says so, I will stop.’”Maulana looked at the child, at his trust. He said, “Wait, come after three weeks.” The woman was puzzled. Such a simple thing, and Maulana is known all over the world. People come from faraway countries to tell him great problems, and he solves them immediately – and such a silly thing. He could have said, “Yes, don’t eat sugar,” and the thing would have been closed. Three weeks?After three weeks the mother came with the child, and Maulana said, “Wait three weeks more.”The mother said, “What is the matter?”He said, “Wait. Come after three weeks.”When the mother came he said, “Okay, listen.” He said to the child. “Stop eating sugar.”The child said, “Okay, I will stop.”The mother said, “Now one question arises in my heart – and I will not be at rest. Why did you take six weeks for this?”And Maulana said, “I like sugar myself. So how can I advise this child? That would have been untrue. So for three weeks I tried, and I failed! Then for three weeks I tried again, and now I have succeeded. Now I can say, ‘Please, you can also stop. Look, I am an old man – even I can stop. You are a child, a young child; you can do anything.’ Now I can say.”This is the way of the mystics; this has always been their way. They believe in experience. Whatsoever Kabir says is based, rooted, in his experience.There are people who go on arguing, debating whether God is or not, whether the soul exists after death or not, whether there is heaven or hell or not. These are foolish things, stupid, a wastage of time. Kabir is not interested in such concepts.I have heard a beautiful story. Cleveland Amory tells it:He tells about the time when Newport, Rhode Island, was a summer Mecca of high society. An elegant gentleman and his wife were lounging on the beach when an unfortunate who had ventured too far out in the surf suddenly began to shout “Sauvez-moi! Sauvez-moi!”“That fellow,” pronounced the elegant gentleman, “is either a Frenchman or a snob.”While the two of them debated the proposition, the shouts ceased, for the swimmer obligingly drowned.Now the two, the couple, debated whether he was a snob or a Frenchman, because only two types of people speak French – the French or the snob – and rather than simply saying “Save me!” he says “Sauvez-moi!” So who is he? Nobody is bothered about saving him, because this can be decided on later.Buddha used to say to his disciples, “I have heard about a man who was shot with an arrow and he was dying, but he was a philosopher. A physician came, and the physician wanted to pull the arrow out, but the philosopher said, ‘Wait! First things first! Who has tried to kill me? I must know whether he is a friend or an enemy, whether the arrow has been deliberately used against me or just by accident, whether the arrow is poisoned or not poisoned.’“The physician said, ‘I know you are a great philosopher, but please keep your philosophy away from yourself right now. Let me pull out the arrow first; otherwise you are creating such problems, they will not be decided, and the arrow will kill you.’“And the philosopher said, ‘Do you believe in the soul? Does the soul survive after the man dies? First things first!’“The physician said, ‘You are a fool! These are not first things! Now the first thing is how to pull out this arrow. You can decide on these other things later on.’”Kabir is not interested in doctrines, philosophies. He says this life is divine – don’t bother about heaven and hell. Don’t think about faraway subjects. Be realistic. Be existential.O friend! Hope for him whilst you live;know whilst you live,understand whilst you live:for in life deliverance abides.Don’t talk about what happens after death and don’t think about a God who sits somewhere on a high throne in the skies: …for in life deliverance abides. In life there is liberation. Life itself is a liberating experience. If you live totally, it liberates.If your bonds be not broken whilst living,what hope of deliverance in death?So be herenow! Do something right now.It is but an empty dream,that the soul shall have union with himbecause it has passed from the body.If he is found now, he is found then, if not, we do but go to dwellin the city of death.If he is found now, he is found then… Now or never. Let this message get roots into your hearts. Now or never. God is now-here. Your clever mind tries to postpone. You say, “We will see. When death comes, and when we go and encounter God, we will see. Right now there is no problem.” No, the problem is right now.Are you living God right now or not? – that is the problem. If you are not living right now, you will never be able to live him, because he is here. He is always in the present – never in the past, never in the future. This moment is his abode. Enjoy him, delight in him this moment. So whatsoever you are doing, let it be worship. Whatsoever you are doing, let it be prayerful. Whatsoever you are doing, do it lovingly.If you have union now,you shall have it hereafter.So Kabir believes in life, not in God. Life is God. And let me say: life with a small l not a capital L. Life is God, with a lowercase l, the very ordinary life – sleeping, waking, eating, walking, loving, serving people. This ordinary life, with a lowercase l is God. If you cannot find him in this ordinary life you will never find him anywhere else.Love, and love so deeply that you can find God in your lover. Be a friend, and be so friendly that you can find him in your friend. Wherever you can be totally, he will be there. Your being totally in something is the door.But the mind is ambitious; it lives in the future. The mind is egoistic; it does not relax in the present. It has great plans for the future. The mind always thinks of how to become somebody, and the problem is that you are already that which can satisfy you. You need not become it. You are it – godliness is your being. It is not a question of becoming. But the mind is political and is interested only in becoming – become this, become that.I have heard:Once Adolf Hitler went to a very wise old rabbi, and he said to the rabbi, “I have heard that you are a great mystic. I don’t believe in such nonsense, and I am going to kill you – unless you can help me to have a revelation from God. If you are really a mystic, then do the miracle. Can you help me to have a revelation from God?”The rabbi said, “Done and done! This very moment it can be done. Just go outside, stand on the street.”Hitler said, “But it is raining.”The rabbi said, “Don’t be worried. Stand in the rain for fifteen minutes and look at the sky, and there will be a revelation.”Unwillingly…but Adolf Hitler thought, “What is dangerous in this? Let us try. At the most, I may get a cold, that’s all. Let us try.” So Hitler said, “Remember, if no revelation happens I am going to kill you.”The rabbi said, “Go. It always happens. It has never failed me.”Hitler did as bidden, and came back soaked through to the skin.“Look at me,” he wailed. “I didn’t get any revelation. I only felt like a blithering idiot.”“Not bad,” chuckled the old rabbi. “Don’t you think that was quite a revelation for a first try?”The mind is stupid because the mind is a politician. All politics is stupid because the whole of politics consists of one thing: to become somebody. And the revelation of religion is that you need not become anybody. You are already that – you are the suprememost, you are God himself. What more can you have? What more is possible? You cannot be improved upon.Just the other night a woman was saying to me, “If somebody falls in life, what has to be done?”I told her, “Nobody can fall.”She could not understand it; she thought I had not understood her problem. She said, “If somebody falls in life and has committed some sin, then how can he be helped?”I said, “Nobody can commit a sin.” Sin is not possible. To fall is impossible. Deep down you remain the suprememost. Only on the periphery is there sin and virtue, good and bad, moral and immoral.Mystics like Kabir don’t come to teach you morality. They teach you religion. And the difference? – morality is again politics. You try to improve yourself – in moral ways. Your whole society is immoral, and in an immoral society you follow the society, and you try whatsoever the society says is moral. The immoral society teaches you what morality is. In fact to fit into an immoral society is the greatest immorality possible. A really moral person will be an “unfit”; it will be very difficult for him to fit in the society. So if you see your so-called moral people, respectable people, fitting in with society, know well, they are in deep immorality. They are tricky: pretenders, hypocrites.But one thing: moral or immoral, they are all on the surface. Deep down you remain always in your suprememost state. You are gods and goddesses. To recognize this fact and to start living it is what religion is.I am not saying to you become immoral. I am saying if you become religious, morality follows like a shadow – and that will be true morality. It will not be just a morality imposed on you by the immoral society. It will be true morality that flows out of your innermost core; it will not be a character, it will be an overflowing of your being. It will not be a dead structure around you. You will be flowing, you will live moment to moment with awareness, spontaneity. You will be response-able.Ordinarily, whatsoever you call moral is just repression and nothing else.I have heard about a lady who was a paragon of virtue on earth, but upon her death was dismayed to find herself in hell. She phoned Saint Peter, who begged her to be patient, because heaven was temporarily so overbooked he could not make room for her.Two weeks later she buzzed Saint Peter again, warning him that they were teaching her to drink and smoke, “…and these people here are very dangerous and the temptation is great and I am afraid.”“Patience and fortitude!” counseled Saint Peter. He would soon be able to accommodate her – but not just yet.A fortnight later, the paragon of virtue made a final call: “Hi there, Pete? Forget all about it! And if you really want to enjoy yourself, come here. This is the place!”The people you think are moral are just repressed people, egoistic, carrying all sorts of repressed desires in them. Once an opportunity is given to them, they will explode. Out of fear and out of greed they have repressed themselves. They are not really moral. Only a religious person is moral.Ordinarily you have been told: “Become moral if you want to become religious.” I tell you just the contrary, “Be religious, and you will be moral.” If you try to be moral you may become moral, but you will never be religious – and your morality will be just pseudo. From where will you learn this morality? – from the immoral society. From where will it come to you? – from the same rotten structure. No, it cannot be moral. First become religious.Says Jesus, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and then all else will be added unto you.” The same I say to you, and the same is the teaching of Kabir. Live herenow as totally as possible, as fully alert as possible, and as lovingly as possible; and all else will be added unto you.If he is found now, he is found then,if not, we do but go to dwellin the city of death.If you have union now,you shall have it hereafter.Bathe in the truth…Now! Bathe in the truth – now. It is showering.A handsome but bashful young man from the Bible Belt was recently hired by a firm of certified accountants. Shortly thereafter, he reported to the office manager, “I must tell you that some of the young ladies in your employ are tempting me sorely.”“Stand firm, young man,” the startled manager told him, resisting a smile, “and you will get your reward in heaven.”A week later the young man came back. “It is that beautiful redhead, sir. She is pursuing me relentlessly. I don’t think I can resist her – but if I do, what do you think my reward will be in heaven?”The office manager informed him: “A bale of hay, you jackass!”Don’t avoid life. Otherwise in heaven suddenly you will be surprised when you find a bale of hay as your reward. The reward is here, the reward is love, the reward is in totality, the reward is being one with life. Each moment is so precious and each moment brings such precious rewards. Just enjoy it. Get lost in it. Be drunk with life, and there is reward. Bathe in the truth – now.…know the true guru,What does he mean by the true guru? Kabir means life itself is the guru, existence itself is the guru. When life calls you, don’t remain frozen. Listen to the call, be adventurous. And go on the unknown, uncharted ways of life.…have faith in the true name!What is the true name of God? Nobody knows. The true name cannot be known – and all the names that are known are coined by man. If you really want to understand, then this whole existence that surrounds you is his true name, his true address. He is spread all over.Listen to life, listen to its call, listen to its great temptation, listen to its invocation, listen to its challenge and be courageous, and each moment God will be revealed to you. In intense passion, in intense love, in intense awareness, he is always revealed.Kabir says, “It is the spirit of the quest which helps…”Nothing else – neither the mosque nor the temple nor the Koran nor the Bible nor the Veda. It is the spirit of the quest which helps. If you are really searching, you will find him. If you are not finding him, don’t blame him. Just look within yourself – you don’t want to seek him. You are playing with the name of God; you are afraid, you are a coward.Unless a man is religious he remains a coward. Only a religious man is courageous because he goes on the most uncharted journey, without any maps and without any paths. And with nobody to lead you: nobody is there in front of you to lead you, only life. And life never shouts, it only whispers. Unless you are very attentive, tuned in and turned on, you will not be able to understand the little, small, still voice. It is the guru, it is the master.If you find a man and you feel that you have found your master, that simply shows that in his voice, in his being, there is a reflection of that still, small voice of God. The guru outside you is but a mirror. He reflects you, reflects God. And the real master will throw you back to yourself. The real guru will not bind you to himself, because the real guru is life itself, the real guru is God himself.…I am the slave of this spirit of the quest.And Kabir says, “I worship the man who has this spirit of quest, who is intensely in love with truth and who is ready to sacrifice everything for it.”A little story about a Zen master:A disciple asked the master, “What is Buddha’s truth?”The master said, “Why not ask about your own mind or self instead of somebody else’s?”“What then is my self, O master?” asked the disciple.“You have to see what is known as ‘the secret act.’”“What is ‘the secret act’? Tell me, master,” asked the disciple.The master opened his eyes and closed them.This is the secret act. Open your eyes and see him, and close your eyes and see him. He is within and without. Don’t make a distinction between the inner and the outer, because in him there are no distinctions. He is the inner and he is the outer. The master opened his eyes – very indicative, very Zen-like. Kabir would have liked the story himself. The master opened his eyes, looked at the world, he said, “Life,” and closed his eyes and said, “Look within” – the innermost and the outer.If you can love the inner and the outer, if you can be aware of the outer and the inner, you have arrived. And this arrival can happen only now. Don’t postpone it. Don’t say tomorrow, because the tomorrow never comes.Enough for today.

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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01-10Category: Kabir

Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 02 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline, so that one becomes a religious person. But it is not happening to me. What to do?My sannyas is not a discipline. My sannyas is freedom, freedom from all control – even from self-control. A controlled man is a dead man. Whether you are controlled by others or by yourself does not make much difference.My sannyas is spontaneity, living moment to moment without any prefabricated discipline, living with the unknown, not exactly knowing where you are going – because if you know already where you are going you are dead. Then life runs in a mechanical way. A life should be a flow from the known toward the unknown. One should be dying each moment to the known so the unknown can penetrate you. And only the unknown liberates.Discipline can never be of the unknown. Discipline has to be of the mind. The mind is your past. All that you have learned, all that you have been conditioned for, all that you have experienced, all that you have thought about – this is your mind. Out of this mind comes planning for the future. That planning for the future will be nothing but a repetition of the past. It comes out of the past; it cannot be anything else. Maybe a little modified here and there, decorated here and there, but there will be no radical revolution in it.My sannyas is a radical revolution. By giving you sannyas, I give you freedom. I give you courage to live without any planning, to live without mind, to live without past. Of course it is dangerous, but life is dangerous. Only when you are dead, then there is no danger, then you are safe – safe in your grave. Safety never exists before that. If you want to be safe and secure and perfectly protected, insured against all dangers, then don’t enter into sannyas. Enter into your grave. Then don’t breathe, because breathing is dangerous. One day breathing is going to bring death to you. Breathing is dangerous.Life exists in danger, pulsates in danger. Life exists in the ocean of death. It has to be dangerous; it cannot be safe and secure. You are not a rock. You are a flower; fragile, you are – in the morning laughing with the sun; by the evening, you are gone. How can life be secure? In its frailty, in its fragility, how can you even conceive of insurance? No, there is no insurance, there cannot be.And one should not live by the philosophy the insurance companies go on propagating. One should live with the danger, with death hand in hand. Then tremendous dimensions open before you. Then God is revealed.God is very dangerous. There exists no other dangerous word comparable to God. God means to live a life of spontaneity, of nature. Don’t try to corrupt your future. Let it be. Don’t try to corrupt it, don’t try to manage it. Don’t give it a mold and a form and a pattern.Of course, if you live the way I teach, many things will disappear from your life. The first thing will be the security – and it is a false thing. Only the false disappears with sannyas, not the real. The real starts appearing. Security will disappear, marriage will disappear. Love will remain; love is real.Let it be more clear: love can exist with sannyas, but not marriage, because marriage is an effort to give a pattern to love, to give a discipline to love, to give it a legal, social form. But what are you doing? How can you manage that which has not come yet? You can love a woman or a man, and you can feel in this moment that you will love her always and always, but this is just a feeling of this moment. How can you promise?An authentic man will never promise. How can you promise for the future? How can you say really you will be able to love tomorrow too? If love disappears what will you do? And it appeared on its own accord – you have not brought it in – so when it disappears what will you do? It comes and goes, it happens and disappears. It is not within your power. It is bigger than you.So when you say, “I will love you tomorrow too,” what are you going to do? If love disappears you will pretend, you will substitute. That’s what happens in a marriage. Then two dead persons living in a dead relationship go on quarreling, fighting, nagging each other, trying to dominate, manipulate, exploit, destroy. Marriage is an ugly thing. Love is tremendously beautiful.My sannyas is like love; the older sannyas was more like marriage. My sannyas is simply a courage to face whatsoever is going to happen, without any rehearsal for it.How can you prepare? The tomorrow is not known at all. Whatsoever you prepare is going to hinder. It will become a screen on your eyes and you will not be able to see what is. All preparation is dangerous. Remain unprepared. Then you will be excited, then each moment will be a joy and a wonder, and each moment will bring something new to you which has never happened, and you will never be bored.The life of marriage, the life of all discipline, is the life of boredom – monotonous. Monogamy is monotony. You have to repeat the same. You are not free to explore new ways of being. You are not free to see new things. You are not free to experience new beauty, new truth. If you are disciplined, what does it mean? It simply means now you have a particular standpoint, your eyes are no longer open. You are a Christian; then you have a discipline. You are a Hindu; then you have a discipline and a dogma, and your eyes are completely full of that dogma. Then you cannot see that which is.I would like you to be totally uncontrolled. I would like you to be absolutely a chaos, with no order whatsoever.And please don’t misunderstand me. There is every possibility because when I say something I have to use words, and words have been very corrupted – corrupted by you, corrupted by usage – for centuries. When I say chaos, you become afraid. But you don’t know the beauty of chaos, and you don’t know the spontaneous order of a chaos. You don’t know the order that comes out of freedom. Not enforced by your mind, not by your past, but just by your being aware, alert, free, responsive, an order arises. I don’t call it order, because it goes on changing every moment. I don’t call it a discipline, because it has nothing to do with you. In the chaos you are no more, the ego has disappeared.Who is going to discipline? The ego. The ego says, “Become a better man, improve yourself! You are a sinner, become a saint; you are violent, become nonviolent; you are angry, become more loving.” But who is going to do it, and who is this who is hankering for improvement? The ego wants a few more decorations, wants to become more respectable, wants to become more certain, wants to have a better grounding in the world, wants to feel more solid, wants to become somebody in particular, wants to become special.No, my sannyas is not going to give you anything of this sort. I don’t deal in dead things. That is not my business. My whole effort here is to give you a taste of freedom. Once you have known the taste, you will never settle for anything else. If it is a question of settling somewhere, you are wrong. My sannyas is a wandering; it is not a settlement. In my sannyas you can rest, but in the morning you have to go. It is a constant flow, river-like unless the ocean is achieved. But the ocean comes naturally out of the flowing of the river: there is no plan to reach the ocean, the river does not know. Maps of where the ocean is don’t exist for a river.And the river has no discipline. Sometimes it goes to the south and sometimes it starts moving to the north, and sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another direction. Have you ever seen the zigzag path of a river? It is not straight. It is not economical. It is not mathematical. It is not the shortest cut at all, but very zigzag. It just goes on, not knowing where it is going. It just goes on because the energy is there to go. And one day the river reaches. If the river were planning, then it would find the shortest route, then it would move in a straight line, then it would never deviate, then it would be very consistent. But then it would not be a river – maybe a canal, a manmade canal, but it would not be a river. It wouldn’t have any freedom.I don’t want you to be canals. Canals are ugly. I want you to be rivers.And life is a hilly track. Move in freedom, move in total freedom, and each moment remember to drop the past. It accumulates like dust. Each moment you have experienced something, and then it goes on accumulating. Don’t accumulate it. Just go on ceasing as far as the past is concerned, dying as far as the past is concerned, so you are totally alive, throbbing, pulsating, streaming, and, whatsoever comes, you face it with awareness.You must have a wrong notion about my sannyas. You say, “What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline…” Then your meaning is different from my meaning. No, it has nothing to do with discipline, and it has nothing to do with spirituality.When Bodhidharma reached China and the emperor received him, the emperor asked one thing: “I have done many meritorious acts. I have made many Buddhist monasteries, thousands of Buddhist monks are fed from my treasure, millions of Chinese have been converted to Buddhism, thousands of temples have been raised for Buddha. What is going to be my merit for all this doing?”Bodhidharma was very ferocious and he looked into the emperor’s eyes and said, “Your Majesty, there is no merit in it.”The emperor was very shocked, because many Buddhists had come before – monks and missionaries – and they had all said to him, “This will be your merit: you will reach to the seventh paradise. Do more virtuous acts, donate more, make more monasteries, temples, Buddha statues; convert the whole country to Buddhism. Your merit is going to be great, Your Majesty.” And now here comes this Bodhidharma and he says no merit at all!But the emperor was a very cultured man. He changed the subject, he dropped the subject before so many people. And this man looked dangerous. The emperor said, “Then tell me something about the holy truth of Buddha.”And Bodhidharma said, “Nothing can be said about it because it is vast and, remember, there is nothing holy in it. Holy, unholy, is part of a dual mind. There is nothing holy, nothing unholy. It simply is.”Now this was too much. The emperor was very offended. Bodhidarma is denying even Buddha’s truth and saying nothing is holy in it. The emperor became angry. For a moment he forgot all his courteous manner, courtly manner and politeness, and he said, “Then who is this fellow who is standing before me?”And Bodhidharma bowed down and said, “Your Majesty, I don’t know.”My sannyas is not spiritual, because I don’t divide the world into the material and the spiritual. It is nothing holy, because I don’t divide the world into the unholy and the holy. By becoming a sannyasin you have not become a saint, because I don’t divide people into sinners and saints. People are people. All are beautiful – sinners and saints and all.In fact, if there are only saints in the world and no sinners, the world would not be worth living in. Just think of a world which consists only of holy saints. Can you conceive of any worse world than that? No, it cannot be of much value. The sinner and the saint, they are the warp and woof, they are together, they are one – the dark and the light. Death and life are meeting every moment.So I don’t call it spiritual, because I have no condemnation for matter. In the very word spiritual you have denied something, you have condemned something, you have judged. You have already declared that “The material is wrong and I want to be spiritual.”Can’t you see a simple fact that you exist in the body as the body? Have you ever seen any soul without a body, unembodied? Or have you seen any body alive without a soul? The bifurcation is stupid. The soul is nothing but the dynamism of your body and the body is nothing but the materialization of your soul. The body is your visible soul and the soul is your invisible body.And I would like you to be as much a materialist as a spiritualist. I don’t make the division. I don’t want to create any split in you. You are already split. Your so-called religions have already done much damage to you. They have created a schizophrenic world in which everybody is split. And of course then there is tension, anxiety, anguish, because you become two. By just calling yourself a spiritual being, you are condemning your body and you are creating a rift between the body and the soul, between God and the world.You say God created the world? You state it in a very wrong way. I say God is the world. God has not created it, because he has never been able to become separate from it. It is not like a painter, that he paints something and then he is free of the painting and the painting becomes separate – the painter can die but the painting will live. No, God is not like that. God is more like a dancer. Hence I have so much love for dance. God is more like a dancer. You cannot separate the dancer from the dance. He is Nataraj: the dancer of all the dancers, the master of all the dancers. He is dancing in the leaf, in the flower, in the raindrops, in the river, in the peacock. All over is his dance.He has not created the world; he is the world. The world is his dance, and the separation does not exist. If the world were not there, he would not be a dancer at all. If the dancer were not there, the world could not exist. They are not separate, they are inseparably together. In fact to say “together” is not right, because they are not two; how can they be together? They are one.And I would like you to remember this unity always and always because you are prone to forget it. Your minds have been conditioned by dualists: matter and mind, body and soul, God and the world, samsara and nirvana.My sannyasin is the unity, is the bridge between all duality. That’s why I have not told you to renounce the world, because it is God’s dance. Where are you going to renounce it? Have you gone mad? It is his market, it is his world. The noise is his. Once you recognize it, the noise turns into beautiful music. In all these relationships only he is there. In your wife he is, in you he is, in your children too. In your friends he is, in your enemies too. Only he is.So don’t go anywhere, don’t renounce. Live it as totally as possible – and live it as an integrated being. My emphasis is for an integrated being. You are not in the body: you are the body. Drop that nonsense of “I am in the body.” From the very beginning that nonsense makes a distinction, and then you are very far away from the body and a conflict arises. You start manipulating your body, you start controlling your body, you start doing things to your body. You become destructive, you become violent.Your so-called saints are all violent. Howsoever they talk about nonviolence, howsoever much, it makes no difference. They are violent people.There are two types of violent people. The first type is violent with others; the other type is violent with himself. There are sadists and masochists. The sadists torture others; they become Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao. Then there are masochists, they torture themselves; they become Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Lanza del Vasto, and so on, so forth. But both are violent people. One tortures himself, another tortures others.My sannyasin has to drop torturing. So it is not a discipline and it has nothing to do with spirituality: “Yes, Your Majesty, there is nothing holy in it!” And don’t get angry with me, and don’t ask who is this fellow sitting here and talking with you. I don’t know.You say, “What I mean by sannyas is a spiritual discipline, and through this discipline one becomes a religious man.” If you become a religious man by discipline, you will be a bogus religious man. What does discipline have to do with religion? If you practice religion you will be false. Ordinarily it has been told to you, whatsoever you preach, practice it. And I say to you, if you practice it, you will become false, because practice means you are creating character armor around you. Now you will be living according to a certain ideology, and that ideology will function as a barrier. It will become your prejudice.A religious man is absolutely unprejudiced. He has no outlook, he has no philosophy, he has no ideology. He is very, very natural. He is more like animals, more like small babies, more like trees and rocks – and yet, very, very different from them. But the difference comes from his awareness.You say if we practice a certain discipline we will become religious, as if religiousness is something like a goal in the future: you have to practice today so tomorrow you become religious. No, religiousness is your nature. You are already that. No practice is needed for it.The Indian term for religion is very, very beautiful. The Indian term is dharma. Dharma means your intrinsic nature. Whatsoever you want to become, in fact, you are already. It is already the case. It is not a question that you have to practice something and then as a result, as a reward, you become religious. No, you become religious if you just become aware. This very moment you become religious.Sometimes, even without knowing it, you become religious. Whenever you are alert, silent, peaceful, you are religious. Whenever you are unalert, tense, worried, you are irreligious. Religion and irreligion continuously change. Sometimes sitting with your friends, listening to music, you are so quiet and so happy, for no reason at all, just feeling joyful. You are religious; you are in tune with your nature. You may not even be conscious of the fact that in this moment you are religious.You have gone for a morning walk, the sun is rising and it is beautiful all around. The air is cool and fragrant and the birds have started singing, and there are a few white clouds floating in the sky. Suddenly you are no longer the ordinary, miserable person. You feel good. Suddenly you feel turned on. The vast sky and the clouds and the birds and the morning breeze and the sun rising slowly – something rises in you too, something becomes alert. You have a dance to your feet and a song arises. You would like to sit under a tree and sing a song. You are religious.When you are in love you are religious. Holding the hand of your friend or your woman or your man, not doing anything, just sitting silently, looking at the stars, you are religious.Religion is not a result of something that you practice. Religion enters in you any moment you relax. Religion is a flowering of relaxation, not a result of practicing. Remember the difference because when you practice you become more tense.You can see the people who practice. They are very tense because every moment they are fighting. How can they relax? Have you seen a saint relaxing? Impossible! A saint cannot relax, because if he relaxes he is afraid of becoming a sinner. He has to be constantly on guard. He sits upright because deep inside he is uptight. You can go and you can see these saints in India. They are on exhibition everywhere. Upright they sit, with their backbone straight, in a dead yoga posture like statues. They can’t relax.Saints cannot laugh, because if they laugh there is danger. If you laugh you become ordinary, just an ordinary human being. They have to remain serious, and they have to be continuously on guard. You don’t understand their misery. They are imprisoned, and their imprisonment is such that they are the prisoner and they are the jailer too. So a prisoner can escape from the prison, there is a possibility, because the jailer is a different person; you can deceive him. But a saint cannot, because he himself is the jailer. He goes on whipping himself, torturing, starving himself. He is very nasty with his body. But you say, “He is a great ascetic” – these nasty people, horrible and hideous! But then they are also waiting: in some future there is going to be a result.No, I don’t teach you result-oriented life at all. I teach you the relaxed way of life. Here and now you can be religious. You are, this moment, if you are relaxing with me.Those who have come to feel me, understand me. Those who have come to have a taste of my presence, relax. They are not here for any gain, they are not here for any greed, they are not here to attain something in future life. They are just here to be with me – to laugh a little with me, to have a little fun, to joke a little. Then you are religious. In that moment, if you allow a little relaxation, you are religious, because religion is your innermost nature. Whenever you are not tense, it is there. When you become tense, you lose contact with it.And now you ask, “But it is not happening to me. What to do?” If it had happened it would have surprised me. That’s what I am saying: it cannot happen that way. If you want to become a pseudo-religious person, then it is okay, that’s your choice. But never blame me. That is your responsibility. If you want to be a pseudo-religious person, you can become one – you can practice.Truth cannot be practiced. You have to dissolve yourself into it. Truth can never become something that you can hold in your hand. It is vast. How can you hold it in your hand? It can never become your property. You have to relax into it, dissolve into it.When you dissolve into it, it is there, and it takes and possesses your whole being. And then it lives through you. That is what I call a religious life: when truth starts living through you, when God starts dancing through you and you don’t create any barrier for him and you don’t say no. You become a yea-sayer and you say yes, and your yes is total and your yes is unconditional; then God is very happy in you. And when God is happy in you, suddenly you will find he is happy all around you. Then you are blessed. And then you can bless the whole of existence.The second question:Osho,Sometimes listening to you, an overwhelming feeling comes over me of how absurd and ridiculous we all are and yet at the same time how incredibly beautiful life is. I feel there is so much I want to say to you, but it can't be put into words, and I would like to just run up and hug you.Good idea – but don’t do it. Because even then you will not be able to say what you want to say, even by a hug. You will be able to show your helplessness, but nothing will be said.When something overwhelming is happening, it cannot be expressed. It is inexpressible by its very nature. It is intrinsically inexpressible, ineffable. So whenever it happens a very deep helplessness arises. Words seem to be futile, meaningless, trivial, and then one would like to say it in some other way. One would like to hug or kiss or hold the hand – but even then nothing is said. Only your helplessness is shown. One would like to cry or weep, but then too nothing is said. Only your helplessness is expressed.Rather than trying to express it, my suggestion is, when this happens, remain with it. Don’t make any effort to express or not to express – because if you become occupied with expression, you will miss it. You are already diverted, distracted. That’s why I say the idea is good but don’t try to do it.If you feel the benediction around you, the greater, the vaster surrounding you, the infinite just around you, rather than trying to express it, get lost in it – because now the ego is trying another way, now the ego wants to express it. And if you become too interested in expressing it, you may become a painter, because the painter is trying to express the inexpressible through colors on the canvas, but who has been able to express it? Or you may become a poet. The poet is trying to express the inexpressible in words, but who has ever been able to express it?This is the difference between art and religion. When the vast surrounds you, the artist starts making efforts to express it, and the mystic simply gets lost in it. And the mystic comes to know it. The artist misses at the very last moment.It will be happening to more and more people around here. This is a very crazy place to be. It is really far out. To more and more people it is going to happen, so keep it as a deep remembrance that whenever you feel that something unknown has knocked on your doors, don’t be worried about expression, don’t start thinking how to say it or how to write it. Let it be. Go into it. Be drowned in it. Be drunk with it. Don’t make any effort.These are the two efforts. First, people try – how to achieve it? They miss. I don’t teach you any “how.” Then when it happens they start thinking how to express it; again the “how” comes from the back door. Again I would like to remind you, don’t bring the “how.” It is good as it is. Unexpressed, what is wrong in it? Let it be so. Amen. Let it be so.“Sometimes listening to you, an overwhelming feeling comes over me of how absurd and ridiculous we all are, and yet at the same time how incredibly beautiful life is.” There is no contradiction in the absurd and the beautiful. In fact the absurd is the beautiful and the beautiful is always absurd. Don’t see any contradiction.The mind is always very tempted to see contradictions because the mind has been trained in a certain logic which does not allow contradictions to be together. The mind has been trained by Aristotelian philosophy, all over the world. Aristotle says A is A and never not A. This is the whole logic of the mind: A is A and never not A; A is A and never B. How can A be B? But in reality A is B and C and D – and the whole alphabet. In reality things have multidimensional qualities.You see a man is loving. When the man is loving you think, “Yes, how beautiful a man.” But the next moment he is angry; then there is a contradiction. You say, “This man deceived me. Has this man not heard of Aristotle yet? A is A and never B. You are a loving man. Don’t be angry!” But man is man. He is angry and loving and jealous and possessive, and sometimes so sharing, and sometimes so mean. Have you not watched it? Sometimes your friend is so sharing and sometimes so mean. This is how reality is. Reality contains all contradictions.You say, “…how absurd and ridiculous we all are and yet how incredibly beautiful life is.” Nothing is contradictory in it. If you were all very, very consistent, life would not be so rich. It would be stale and gray. Life is rich because it is a rainbow, it is psychedelic. It has so many colors and so many changing colors. And it is so unpredictable – that’s why it is absurd.Why do you call it absurd? – because you cannot contain it in your logic. Your logic falls short; it is bigger than your logic. It destroys your logic. Somehow you make a small part of your mind clear, and life comes and destroys everything.Have you not seen somebody who for forty years has been absolutely logical and has never allowed anything in his life which is illogical, has said God does not exist because he is not visible, has said prayer is foolish and love is not possible? Then one day he comes across a beautiful woman and falls in love. Forty years’ training and logic, and all gone to the dogs within a single moment! Life is absurd.But by absurd you simply say one thing: that it is not logical. But why should it be logical? It has no obligation to be logical. It has never pretended to be logical. It is man’s mediocre mind that has been trying to fix it somehow so you can be secure about it. No, it cannot be fixed. It is a constant flux.And it is ridiculous, yes, because it is not serious. It is ridiculous because it is a play. In India we call it leela; it is a play.God loves children. Can’t you see it? Every day old people are taken away, and he goes on sending babies. How absurd. A person has been trained his whole life, for seventy years. He has become a great philosopher, a professor, a scholar – so many PhDs and DLitts and the DD – and now suddenly this mad God takes him away. What type of economics is this? And instead sends a baby, crying and howling. Again train him, send him to the school and the college and the university. And by the time he is ready and looks of any use, here comes God and takes him away. It is absurd.God loves the absurdity. God is not a utilitarian. He does not believe in utility, he believes in play. The moment you become too serious, he says, “Now it is time. Please come back home. I will dismantle you and send you again. Now you need a mind wash: you have become too trained, too disciplined, too much of a commodity. You are no longer a freedom.” That’s why old people are taken away. He destroys them, again creates small babies, and sends them; and again they are there with all the nonsense. And again we are after them to teach them. Neither do we learn anything nor does God learn anything. It goes on.It is ridiculous, but that’s why it is so beautiful. If God was a mathematician as Vinoba Bhave says… He says that God is a mathematician. Now this seems to be the most sacrilegious statement ever made. God a mathematician? No, he is not, not at all. The mathematician is an ugly thing. The mathematician is a computer. The mathematician is clever and cunning, but mechanical. Mathematics has no poetry in it. Mathematics is the only absolutely fictitious science created by man. In the room you say there are six chairs. There are chairs – but not six. Six is man’s concept. If you go out of the room, chairs will be there, but six has disappeared. Mathematical concepts are human creations. God is not a mathematician, otherwise such beautiful play will become impossible.Don’t you see, sometimes there are many things man is destroying, thinking that by destroying them the world will be better? God has never destroyed them. Trees have existed. Sometimes you think what is the point of a tree? You make furniture, cut it; make doors and furniture and then it is useful. Hills are there, the Himalayas are there, and the virgin snow on their tops, which nobody has walked on it. For what? What is the point of them? Why are the Himalayas needed? Make them a plain so people can live there and townships can grow. That’s how man has destroyed the whole of nature.God is very playful. There are many absurd things. So many stars – for what? They go on moving. It is not a mathematical arrangement. God is very luxurious. He does not believe in necessity. He is a spendthrift; he is not a miser. He goes on throwing his energy – it is playful energy, it is just like a child splashing in water. Don’t ask why. He will not be able to answer. But he is enjoying it. It has no economical value, but life is not economics, nor is it politics. It is poetry, and poetry is by its very nature, by its very definition, illogical. Poetry is beautiful because there are sudden leaps and jumps. Prose is not so beautiful, because there are no sudden jumps and leaps. Prose moves on plain ground, in a logical sequence.Sooner or later, when you are ready, I am going to drop talking in a sequential way. Sooner or later, when my sannyasins are ready, my talks will be more like a collage. You will have to find out what I mean. You will have to find out your own meaning. I will say a few things, but I will go on jumping and I will not connect as I connect right now. Once you are ready – more attentive, more aware, more alert – I will not connect with logic, I will drop the logic. The unity will be there, but not on the surface. The unity will be there because they will all be my statements – the unity will consist in me. And the unity will be there because they are to be understood by your awareness – the unity will come in your awareness. But taken directly, if a visitor comes, he will think this man is mad. Right now I connect, I connect because I know you will not be able to understand the absurd yet. I am waiting for the day you are ready, so I can be as absurd as God is.Have you seen anywhere any symmetry in nature? It is not. Man makes things in a symmetrical way. If he makes a house he makes it symmetrical. But in nature there is no symmetry. A great pine tree, and just by the side a small rosebush. And you cannot ask what the connection is between the rosebush and the pine tree. God will laugh. He will say, “Who said that there is any need for a connection? The rosebush is a rosebush and the pine is a pine – and both are happy. There is no need to bridge them.”Sooner or later I am going to become just like God. I will say something and then I will forget about it and I will tell a joke which is completely unrelated. Then it is for you to work it out. Then it will be more beautiful, certainly more beautiful, because it will be more playful. That is the meaning of a collage – so many fragments from so many dimensions together. On the surface, no unity, but if you look deep there is an organic unity. That unity exists in the painter, not in the painting.If you really want to know the meaning of poetry, you will have to go deep into the heart of the poet. For prose you need not go into the heart. Prose is plain, prose is worldly, prose is of the marketplace, prose is human. Poetry is divine. That’s why all the great scriptures of the world are in poetry – the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Koran, the Dhammapada. They are all poetry, beautiful poetry, outpourings of a singing heart. Logic, there is none. Love, there is much.The third question:Osho,What is the meaning of surrender? How is surrender?There are a few things – you have to do them if you want to know them. There is no way to tell anything about them. And surrender is one of those things. It is a dimension of love, let-go.If you ask me what is surrender and what is the meaning of surrender, yes, something can be told to you, but that won’t carry any meaning. You have to taste it. It is a taste. If you taste it you know it. If you don’t taste it, I can talk about it, but you will not know it. Without your own experience, whatsoever I say will be a tautology. You ask, “What is surrender?” I say surrender is a let-go. But what am I saying? You will ask, “What is a let-go?” It is a tautology; I have not answered you. I say a let-go is falling in love. It is a tautology again. I am not saying anything. You will say, “What is falling in love then?” The question remains the same, and all answers will go round and round and round.I have heard about a prudish, tight-lipped old maid who would not even allow her pet cat out of the house after dark. Headed for New York on one of her infrequent outings, she paused to remind the maid about locking up that cat each evening.This time in New York, however, the old maid encountered a handsome old rogue who swept her off her feet. After four nights of blissful romancing she wired her maid, “Having the time of my life. Let the cat out too! Let the cat out!”Let the cat out! When you know what love is, only then you know. There is no other way to know it.I am creating a situation here for you to surrender. Don’t ask for the meaning. Do it. Be courageous. Let it be an experience. Accept my invitation. My doors are open; enter and be my guest. Surrender.By surrender, in the West, a very wrong idea arises – as if you will be dominated by somebody – because surrender has a very wrong association. It has become almost a political word in the West. The Nazis surrendered: that’s how it has become associated with politics. A surrendered one is the one who is defeated. In the East we have a totally different meaning for the term. It has nothing to do with war and nothing to do with defeat. Have you not heard the proverb that in love defeat is the only victory? If you are defeated in love you have become victorious. Yes, that’s how it is in surrender. It has nothing to do with defeat. It is not that you are being dominated by somebody. It is not that now somebody else is going to oppress you, exploit you; that you are becoming a slave. No, it is nothing of the sort. Surrender in the East is used as a technique.And the surrender has to be made only to a person who is no more, so he cannot dominate you. So this has to be remembered: don’t surrender to a person who is still there, otherwise he will dominate you and he will give you a discipline and he will start forcing you to do this and not to do that and he will create a prison around you.That’s why I don’t give you any discipline. Even if you ask, I don’t give. You ask continuously because you want to depend, because you want to be a slave, because you don’t want to take your own responsibility. You want to throw the responsibility on somebody else. You are in search of a father figure. You want somebody to lead you. But I am not going to give you any discipline and I am not going to give you any clear-cut direction to do this and don’t do that. All that I am going to do is to share my awareness with you so you can become a little more aware, to share my love with you so you can become a little more loving. It has nothing to do with any discipline.Coming closer to me, you will be able to imbibe my spirit. That is the meaning of surrender: that you are ready to come close to me, that you are not afraid, that you will not protect yourself against me, that you will not be defensive, that simply you are ready to come closer to me, that you are attracted, that you have listened to my call, that something has clicked in your heart and you will try to know who this man really is, what manner of man. You would like to enter into my emptiness and be surrounded by my emptiness.Sannyas is the visible effort of surrender. Many people come to me and they say, “We don’t take sannyas. Can’t you help us?” I say, “I will try my best, but it won’t be of much help because you will continuously protect yourself. You will be defensive.” Sannyas is just a gesture, that “Now I drop my defenses and I am ready to go with you.”Of course, it is risky. You don’t know me yet. How can you know? If you surrender you will know; you cannot know beforehand. So it is only for very courageous people. The daredevils – it is only for them. And I exist for daredevils, those who are ready to risk their lives and to go into the unknown and to see if something happens.If you are ready to go, it is going to happen; and then you will know the meaning. Then too you will not be able to tell somebody else what the meaning is. The meaning is in the taste, in the experience.And you ask, “How is surrender?” Apparently, sannyas is the “how,” obviously. The deeper “how” will open its doors when you have entered the porch. Sannyas is the porch; once you enter the porch – you have accepted me and I have accepted you – then there is a deep agreement, that you trust me. Now I can invite you to deeper realms of my being. You become an initiate.The second thing happens someday. Sometimes it happens with the sannyas itself. If you are totally surrendered, then the first moment of contact with me and it happens – you become an initiate. Sometimes it takes time. The outward sannyas happens first; then you wait, then you watch, then you see things, then slowly, slowly you relax, inch by inch, you drop your ego, and more and more I penetrate in you. Then one day, without any warning, suddenly it has happened – you suddenly become aware it has happened. Now my light exists in you and my heart beats in you. Sometimes it takes years, sometimes days, sometimes minutes, sometimes not a single minute. It depends on you, how much courage you have.And of course, Westerners are gaining much more from me than the Easterners, because the East has become very cowardly. So by and by you will see more and more Western people around here. The East is very cowardly. They have become almost corpses. They don’t have the spirit – the spirit that Kabir calls the spirit for the quest of truth – they don’t have it. Either they believe they already know what truth is or they think there is enough time and there is no hurry – if not in this life, then in the next life.And for them, to be religious has become more a way of being respectable, and of course my sannyas will not appeal to them because if they are respectable, by becoming my sannyasin they will lose all respect. They will not become respectable through my sannyas. Through my sannyas they will become rebellious; they will start falling out of society. People will start avoiding them. People will start feeling they are dangerous and infectious, and people will think that they have gone mad or something.But in the West something new is happening – a new courage, a new spirit of inquiry. It always comes whenever a country becomes materially rich. It always happens. When a country becomes materially poor, it loses spirit. It becomes very poor, not only outwardly. It becomes inwardly poor. It loses confidence, it loses courage, it loses potentiality. It starts dragging. In the West people have become materially rich: they are well-fed, science has come to a certain point from where religion can be contacted, and people have seen material affluence. Now they would like to see something beyond it. It is not enough.So if you are ready, don’t ask how is surrender? Surrender.Once it happened, Jesus was staying with his friends in a house, and the friends said, “Tell us how to pray.”Jesus said, “But how to say how to pray? I will pray, and if you are ready you can participate.”And Jesus started praying. Now the others were standing there and they couldn’t see what to do. He started moving into some unknown realm. They watched and he prayed; and when he came back from the world of his prayer, they said again, “But tell us how to pray.”He said, “I showed you how to pray, and you ask how to pray!”Remember, maybe the question arises out of your cowardliness. Maybe you want to be certain about everything, what it is, whether it is worth it or not.I am here, surrendered. I am here in prayerfulness. I am here in godliness. Come closer to me.And I have made it easier than it has ever been, because I am not putting any conditions on you. I accept you as you are. It has never been done before. I accept you as you are – I have no condemnation, no evaluation, no judgment. If you are a drunkard, good. If you are a gambler, good, exactly right – because this is a sort of gamble and this is a way of becoming drunk. Whatsoever you are, you are accepted.Come closer.Sannyas will be a visible thing for you to do, and leave the next thing to me. I will do it. You do one thing, I will do the other. There is a saying in Arabian countries, “If you walk one foot towards God, he walks one thousand one feet towards you.” You walk one foot towards me; I will walk one thousand and one feet towards you. You do the first, the second I will do.But you come and ask, “But sannyas…just by changing the clothes… It is too outward. Tell us something inward.” You are not even ready to do the outward and you ask for the inward. And you are an outwardly-oriented man. That’s why I am talking about the outward sannyas – that’s where you are. That’s from where the journey has to start. You are yet outside yourself; from there the journey has to start. The inward can happen only later on, not right now.The last question:Osho,Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other? Does it happen that two people's energy just does not mix? How to know the difference between the thorns of a healthy relationship and an unhealthy relationship?I have never come across a single individual who is bad, but I have come across couples – thousands and thousands of couples – who are bad. In fact I have never come across a couple who is not bad. Persons are beautiful and couples are ugly. Something goes wrong somewhere. It should not be so but it is so.The way love has been understood has been wrong. What you call love is not love; it is something else. Sometimes you are alone and you cannot tolerate your loneliness, and just to fill the gap, the inner hole, you find somebody. It is not love. And of course things are going to be bad. From the very beginning the very basis is wrong. Love is a sharing of two individuals. And I call a person individual when he is happy with his aloneness. Otherwise he is not an individual, if he cannot be happy alone. Just think. If you cannot be happy alone, how can you be happy together? Two persons are unhappy separately, and you think there is going to be a miracle? – two unhappy persons together and suddenly happiness arises? Unhappiness is doubled – not only doubled, multiplied.Out of your unhappiness you seek the other; then the relationship is going to be wrong. Seek the other out of happiness, and then the relationship will never be wrong. Seek out of happiness.First meditate, first feel your own being, first pray. First grow into love; otherwise what are you going to do when you have found the lover? Then you don’t know what to do.An anecdote:His friend was a shy one, but after being told that if he went to the dance all he would have to do would be stand in the corner, he went. The friend shoved him immediately into the arms of a pretty girl on the dance floor.For an hour or so he lost track of his shy friend, but then spotted him standing happily next to the girl he had been shoved upon. What is more, he had his arm around her waist and she was looking up at him with adoring eyes.“We are engaged,” the shy one told his friend.“Good heavens!” said the friend. “How did that happen?”“Well,” said the shy one, “I danced with her six times and I just could not think of anything else to ask her.”Your love affairs are so stupid. And then you are waiting for something great to happen out of them. In the first place you don’t have any love in your heart. That’s why everybody wants to be loved. You want to be loved; your woman also wants to be loved. Naturally there is conflict: both are ready to take and nobody is ready to give. And how to give? You don’t have it in the first place. Only a loving person – one who is already loving – can find the right partner.This is my observation. If you are unhappy you will find somebody who is unhappy. Unhappy people are attracted toward unhappy people. And it is good, it is natural. It is good that the unhappy people are not attracted towards happy people, otherwise they will destroy their happiness. It is perfectly okay. Only happy people are attracted towards happy people. The same attracts the same. Intelligent people are attracted towards intelligent people, stupid people are attracted towards stupid people.You can watch it. In Pune there are thousands of people, but only a few people will be attracted toward me – only those who are really concerned with knowing who they are. Others won’t be attracted. Even my neighbors, just the next-door neighbors… They have not come to listen. In fact they are very worried.It happened…I lived in one town for ten years, and a person used to live just over my head, but he never came to see me. Thousands of people would come and go, but he never came. He was simply puzzled as to why people came to me.Then he was transferred – he was a principal in a college – he was transferred to another town. I visited the other town. I was invited to his college to speak to the students; then he heard me for the first time. He had to because he was the principal. Then he became more puzzled. He said, “For ten years I lived just on top of you, and I missed, I never came. And I never knew that you had something to share, that you had something to give to us.” He started crying.I said, “Don’t be worried. Just tell me, during these two years you have not been in that town, what has happened?”He said, “My wife died and I became very miserable. Then I started meditating, thinking maybe it will help. Then something really started happening in me and I started feeling very happy. I was worried I would not be able to be alone without my wife, but now I am so happy that I don’t want to get entangled with anybody.”I told him, “Maybe that’s why you could understand me. The meditation that you tried, the happiness that you are feeling – then there is a possibility to have contact with me. Before you were on a different plane.”You meet people of the same plane. So the first thing to remember is: a relationship is bound to be bitter if it has grown out of unhappiness. First be happy, be joyful, be celebrating, and then you will find some other soul celebrating and there will be a meeting of two dancing souls and a great dance will arise out of it.Don’t ask for a relationship out of loneliness, no. Then you are moving in a wrong direction, then the other will be used as a means and the other will use you as a means. And nobody wants to be used as a means. Every single individual is an end unto himself. It is immoral to use anybody as a means. First learn how to be alone. Meditation is a way of being alone.And if you can be happy when you are alone, you have learned the secret of being happy. Now you can be happy together. If you are happy, then you have something to share, to give. And when you give you get; it is not the other way. Then a need arises to love somebody. Ordinarily the need is to be loved by somebody. It is a wrong need. It is a childish need; you are not mature. It is a child’s attitude.A child is born. Of course, the child cannot love the mother; he does not know what love is and he does not know who the mother is and who the father is. He is totally helpless. His being has still to be integrated; he is not one piece, he is not together yet. He is just a possibility. The mother has to love, the father has to love, the family has to shower love on the child. Now he learns one thing: that everybody has to love him. And he never learns that he has to love. Now the child will grow, and if he remains stuck with this attitude that everybody has to love him, he will suffer his whole life. His body has grown, but his mind has remained immature.A mature person is one who comes to know the other need: that now I have to love somebody. The need to be loved is childish, immature. The need to love is mature. And when you are ready to love somebody, a beautiful relationship will arise; otherwise not.“Is it possible for two people in a relationship to be bad for each other?” Yes, that’s what is happening all over the world. To be good is very difficult. You are not good even to yourself. How can you be good to somebody else? You don’t even love yourself – how can you love somebody else? Love yourself, be good to yourself.And your so-called religious saints have been teaching you never to love yourself, never to be good to yourself – be hard on yourself! They have been teaching you to be soft toward others and hard toward yourself. This is absurd.I teach you the first and foremost thing is to be loving toward yourself. Don’t be hard, be soft. Care about yourself. Learn how to forgive yourself again and again and again – seven times, seventy-seven times, seven hundred and seventy-seven times. Learn how to forgive yourself. Don’t be hard, don’t be antagonistic toward yourself. Then you will flower.And in that flowering you will attract some other flower. It is natural. Stones attract stones, flowers attract flowers. And then there is a relationship which has grace, which has beauty, which has a benediction in it. And if you can find such a relationship, your relationship will grow into prayerfulness, your love will become an ecstasy, and through love you will know what God is.Enough for today.

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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01-10Category: Kabir

Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 03 (Read, Listen & Download)

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I. 63. Avadhu, maya, taji na jayTell me, brother, how can I renounce maya?When I gave up the tying of ribbons,still I tied my garment about me.When I gave up tying my garment,still I covered my body in its folds.So, when I give up passion,l see that anger remainsand when I renounce anger,greed is with me still;and when greed is vanquished,pride and vainglory remain.When the mind is detachedand casts maya away,still it clings to the letter.Kabir says. “Listen to me, dear friend!The true path is rarely found.”I. 83. Canda jhalkai yahi ghat mahinThe moon shines in my body,but my blind eyes cannot see it.The moon is within me,and so is the sun.The unstruck drum of eternityis sounded within me;but my deaf ears cannot hear it.Life is dialectical. It is more Hegelian than Aristotelian, because it consists of the opposites. Without the opposites existence is impossible – day and night, life and death, summer and winter. Life is so vast it can contain contradictions, and yet life in itself is not contradictory. There is harmony in the contradictions, the contradictions are complementary.This is one of the most fundamental things to be understood. If you miss it you will miss the whole message of Kabir, and you will miss the whole message of religion. And it is very difficult to understand it because our minds have been trained in a simple logic: non-dialectical logic. We have been told, we have been taught, that opposites never meet. We have been taught and told that opposites are really opposites. That is not true. Can you think of love existing without hate? And can you think there is any possibility for life without death? It is not even conceivable that good can exist without the bad. God needs the Devil – without the Devil, God cannot be.Opposites only appear to be opposites because our understanding is not very deep yet. You inhale and exhale, and there is a rhythm and a harmony. Your inhalation is not against exhalation, neither is your exhalation against your inhalation. They are both part of one process; the pendulum swings from inhalation to exhalation, and you exist just between the two – in the balance, in the harmony.A rich life is the life of harmony, a rich life is the life of a subtle synthesis.There are two types of poor people in the world. People who know only indulgence are poor because they have not known renunciation. And people who know only renunciation, they are poor because they have not known indulgence. If there is a subtle balance between indulgence and renunciation, in that very balance there is a transcendence: you go beyond the dual.That’s why I say life is more Hegelian. Hegel’s understanding is truer, closer to life than Aristotle’s. Hegel says life moves from thesis to antithesis to synthesis; then the synthesis too becomes a thesis again. Once the thesis is there, antithesis is created. Again they start creating a new balance, a higher synthesis arrives. That’s how life moves. In each single detail life moves through contradictions, just as the bird has two wings and you have two legs, in your head there are two brains contradicting each other and complementing each other: the left brain and the right brain, reason and intuition, the feminine and the masculine. And there is a possibility of a synthesis. This synthesis is the goal of all religion, of all mysticism, of all yoga. Yoga means meeting, meeting of the opposites. It is a union.We call the world the universe; we don’t call it the multiverse. We call it the universe because it is one. Still the oneness has multiplicity in it, variety, distinctions, differences. The oneness is not a monotonous oneness, the oneness is not dead; it is alive. And the oneness is not static; it is dynamic.Today’s sayings of Kabir have to be understood with this background. They are of tremendous import.Tell me, brother, how can I renounce maya?He asks one of the most significant question: How can I renounce the world? How can I renounce? The question is very significant because every seeker, one day or other, comes across it. You have lived in the world – you have known the misery of it, the agony of it, the frustration of it, the anxiety, the anguish. You are torn apart by it, you are fragmented by it, you are no longer a whole. You have lost all your peace. Naturally, renunciation becomes very, very attractive: renounce the world, there is misery, conflict, agony.But Kabir asks, “How is it possible to renounce? Who will renounce it?” The renouncer will remain there, and the renouncer is the world, because the ego is the world. You can go away, but you will still be there and you will create your world again and again. You are the world. You can move from the marketplace to the monastery, but in the monastery the same politics will enter: in the monastery the same hierarchy, and in the monastery the same conflict and the same ambition – and you will create the marketplace again!It is natural, because you can renounce the world, but how can you renounce yourself? You will carry all the seeds of your mind within you. All your ambition, competition, comparison, all your ego trips, you will carry with yourself. You were trying to become richer in the world, you wanted to show the world that “I am the topmost rich man”; or you were trying to achieve a political post and you wanted to prove to the world that “I am something.”All inferior people go on trying to prove that they are something. All ambition arises out of an inferiority complex. It is very rare to come across a politician who is intelligent. It is very rare to come across a rich person who is intelligent, very, very difficult – because an intelligent person, by his very intelligence, becomes noncompetitive. Intelligence is noncompetitive, intelligence can see the whole absurdity of it. Intelligence can see “I am myself and there is no need to compare myself with anybody else. I am neither higher nor lower. Not that I am just like the others. I am different, but there is no higher and lower.”We are all different and unique human beings, but nobody is lower and nobody is higher – and the whole effort to become higher is stupid.But a man can go to the monastery. Now, he cannot earn money there, but he can earn virtue. He can become more and more religious: he can meditate more than others, he can become the greatest meditator. He can repress himself more than the others and can become the greatest saint. Now again an attitude is bound to arise: the attitude of “holier-than-thou.” It is the same politics, the same competition, the same ego. Nothing has changed. Only the object of competition has changed, the subject remains the same. Now there will be politics again.You can see it: from the lowest priest to the pope, a continuous hierarchy. And the lowest priest is trying to reach the higher post. Every bishop is trying to become the archbishop, and they are moving in a hierarchy – the same world. One day they were trying to rise in political power, now they are trying to rise in religious power, but the whole effort is the same.Kabir says:Tell me, brother, how can I renounce maya?“How can I renounce this illusion?” is the root cause of all illusion. This “I” is my world, so wherever I will go, whatsoever I will do, this “I” will come again from the back door.The world cannot be renounced. Renunciation is a desperate effort of a person who has indulged too much, but it is not very wise. Indulgence is foolish, renunciation too. The wise man finds the harmony. He neither indulges nor renounces. He simply becomes aware of the whole situation. He does not bother to escape from the world; he starts becoming aware of his ego which projects the world. And just by becoming aware of all the hidden desires of the ego, those desires disappear. The more light enters in your being, the more aware you become, the less and less competition there is. Not that you renounce, not that you make any effort to renounce, just the very understanding becomes a subtle light in your being and you start laughing at all the foolish competitions, comparisons, evaluations that you have been doing and you have been suffering for.Remember, renunciation is of the same stupid mind. Nothing has changed. One day you were just seeking more and more indulgence – more and more money, more and more women and men. Now you have become afraid and you start escaping, running away from the world, but your stupidity has not changed. Your inner being remains the same: you are trying to do the impossible.Unless your innermost core changes, is transformed, becomes luminous with a new light and new awareness, it is impossible. The change cannot happen. The change does not happen from the outside; the change has to happen somewhere in the inside. Then the glow spreads all over.I have heard about a despondent fellow who sought the advice of the city’s most fashionable, and expensive, analyst. “You have acute melancholia,” the analyst informed him. “The circus is in town this week. Go to it! It may give you some laughs.”“Your advice is worthless,” mourned the despondent one. “I am the top clown there.”Now, you can even make others laugh and you may be crying within yourself. You can be the topmost clown in the circus and yet you can be absolutely depressed.You can look like something which you are not. It is very easy. You can pretend to be a saint and you can remain the same miserable self inside. You can even pretend that you are very happy – in fact that’s what everybody is doing. You can go on pretending, others may be befooled, but how can you befool yourself?Changing outward things won’t be of much help, and by and by you will become more and more pseudo and you will lose contact with your real feelings. For example, an angry man can repress his anger; he can even pretend to become passionate. A man who has no love in his being can show and act and exhibit that he is a very loving person. Maybe somebody else is deceived for the time being – not for long – but how can you deceive yourself? You will know all the time meanwhile, that there is anger, there is fire in you – and poison. And that poison will go on destroying your peace, destroying your being. That poison will go on killing you.Your smiles which are painted on the surface are of no help – unless a laughter arises from your heart.Kabir says renunciation will be of the outside. How can you change the inside through a change of the outside? It is not so easy. You will become a false holy man.I have heard:An actress who had received a magnificent diamond necklace as a gift from her admirer – one of those Greek shipping magnates – hit upon what she thought was a foolproof device for safeguarding it. She simply left it conspicuously open on her dressing table when she went out, with a note nearby reading, “This is just an imitation, dear burglar. The original is stashed carefully away in my safe-deposit box.”One night, however, she returned to find the necklace gone. In its place was this penciled message: “Thanks, lady – the substitute is just what I wanted. I am a substitute myself. The burglar who usually cases this hotel is away on vacation.”The people you see in the marketplace are substitutes, and the people you see in your monasteries and ashrams and temples are also substitutes. Nobody seems to be real and authentic. It is very difficult to come across a real man. The world has become so false. And why has it become so false? – because we are trying to do something which is not possible. What we are trying to do is to be happy by pretending happiness; we are trying to be loving by pretending lovingness; we are trying to be holy by pretending holiness. We are trying to paint our faces and wear masks to know our original face. This is impossible. This is more impossible than this story I have heard:A very ugly girl was sitting at the beach, when the waves washed a bottle at her feet. She opened it – and out blew a huge genie in a billow of smoke.“I have been a prisoner in this bottle for five thousand years,” cried the genie, “and now you have freed me. As a reward, I will fulfill any wish you make.”Ecstatic, the ugly girl announced, “I want a figure like Sophia Loren, a face like Elizabeth Taylor, and legs like Ginger Rogers.”The genie looked her over carefully, then sighed, “Baby, just put me back in the bottle.”But I say to you, this may be impossible, but humanity has been trying to do something even more impossible. The most impossible thing is to come to the real by and through the false; to come to the authentic through the pseudo. It is impossible. It cannot be done. Down through the centuries humanity has tried to do it, and your so-called religions have been helping people to become more and more false. The whole world is full of false people.Hence you are missing the ecstasy that life can give to you, that life is meant to give to you. You are missing all that is beautiful, true, all that is good, and all that is constantly showering on you.But you don’t have your own face on. It is somebody else’s face. And not only one false face, you have many false faces – on top of one, the other, and on top of that, another. And you are completely lost. You don’t know who you are.The Zen people say, “Look for your original face; find it.”When somebody asked Bokuju, “What do you mean by ‘the original face’?” he said, “The face that you had before you were born – and the face that you will have again when you have died.” Find that original face. That is truth, or call it God.Kabir says this is not possible – this whole effort to renounce has not helped.When I gave up the tying of ribbons,still I tied my garment about me:In some other way – if not valuable ribbons, then valueless, cheap ropes – but one has to tie.When I gave up tying my garment,still I covered my body in its folds.One has to find some way or other.So, when I give up passion,I see that anger remains:Try to give up passion, and you will become angry. And Kabir’s insight is tremendous. That’s what the whole of modern psychology says: if you give up passion, you will become angry. Hence your saints are so angry. Their anger simply shows that all the energy that was being released through sexuality, passion, is no longer finding any outlet. It is getting stuck inside, and they become more and more angry. It is very difficult to find a saint who is not angry, because where will the energy go? You have stopped one outlet. Now it is natural for it to find another outlet.Have you watched it – whenever you are sexually fulfilled you feel less angry, whenever you are sexually unfulfilled you feel more angry? It is the same energy. Unless you have found a new way in your being to absorb this energy, just taking a vow of brahmacharya, of celibacy, is not going to help. Just deciding “Now, from now on, I am going to renounce sex” is not going to help. First create a new passage for the energy to move in.Renunciation is not going to help. It will make you more angry. And if there is a choice between anger and sex, sex is better. At least you will feel more calm and quiet.Down through the centuries two types of people have not been allowed sex. One is the saint, another is the soldier. The soldier is not allowed sex because the politicians came to know that if he is allowed sex he loses the urge to fight, he becomes less angry. It is difficult to fight when you are sexually satisfied. So many wars are possible because people are very unsatisfied sexually. And politicians are very afraid; they are afraid of what is going to happen to their politics if people become sexually satisfied.The whole of their politics depends on war. If war disappears, politics disappears. Then the government will be just an organization like the post office and the railway. It has some utility, but no power.War gives power, and the politician cannot allow war to disappear. The politician goes on talking about peace and goes on preparing for the war, talks about peace, prepares for the war. And sometimes things move to absurd extremes: he prepares for war so that there should be peace in the world. For peace, to protect peace, he prepares for war.Politicians cannot allow you to be satisfied in your love. Once you are satisfied in your love you are useless as a soldier. You have to be kept unsatisfied so anger remains burning in you and you are ready to fight for any excuse, foolish things. People can fight for a piece of cloth they call their national flag. Have you watched this? These national flags seem to be more a symbol of death than of life. When somebody dies they lower it down. And millions of people have died because of national flags. In a better world they should be completely burned and they should disappear. They are ugly.You have been taught that you belong to this country and you have to die for this country. Nobody belongs to any country. The whole earth is ours and the earth is undivided. It is only divided on the political maps. The earth is undivided. Where do you suppose India ends and Pakistan begins? Where do you suppose India ends and China begins? The earth is one.But politics will not allow you to have that feeling of oneness, otherwise politics will disappear. Politics are needed, the politician is needed, only because there is war. Now this is a vicious circle. And if war is to continue, people have to be starved; they should not become sexually satisfied. They should remain angry, boiling within, ready to burst any moment.Watch people. They are ready to fight. Just anything will do – politics, religion. Any nonsense will do and they are ready to kill each other.Politics is in the service of death, and your so-called religions are also in the service of death. Kabir wants you to love life. All the great mystics want you to love life.So, when I give up passion,I see that anger remains…So nothing has changed. The energy has moved from one corner to another corner. You remain the same. The total result is the same. In fact it is worse.And when I renounce anger,greed is with me still;If you renounce anger you will become very, very greedy. In India this has happened. Mahavira taught nonviolence, non-anger; and his followers became very greedy. This is something to be understood: why it happened. Jainas are the richest people in India, and Mahavira taught no anger, no violence, no fight. Why did his followers turn out to be so greedy? Kabir seems to be right. If you drop anger, then what will you do? Then the energy that was moving in anger will start moving into greed.You will always find miserly people not very angry, no. They are using their anger, their energy, for greed. Miserly people are not very angry; they are very humble. Even if you hit them they will not hit back. They say, “We believe in peace.” They say, “We believe in Jesus’ saying. If somebody slaps us on one side of the face, we give him the other.” Greedy people are less angry.Rich people are less angry. Watch it. As a person becomes richer, he becomes less and less angry. Anger remains in the poor people, hence all the revolutionaries depend on the poor people, they cannot depend on the rich. Marx declared, predicted, that the richest country will become communist first. But it didn’t happen. He was wrong. He may have been right about his economic analysis, but he did not know the human mind. A rich person is never angry and cannot become a revolutionary. Only a poor person can be angry, because he has no way to be greedy, he has nothing to be greedy about.America should have become communist if Marx’s prediction was right, but there is no possibility of any revolution in America. People have enough; they are greedy. Russia became communist, a very poor country, then China became communist, a very poor country. And now there is every possibility of India becoming communist, it is on the way.A poor country is very angry. When you have something to be greedy about, your anger takes the form of greed, then you are not angry; then you are not interested in fighting, because in fighting you may lose. A poor person has nothing to lose. That’s exactly what Marx says in his Communist Manifesto: “Proletariat of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” He is right. When you don’t have anything to lose, why not fight? Either you gain something or you don’t lose anything. In every way you are going to be the gainer.Down through history you can watch it happening, that same drama again and again. Poor countries are ready to fight, rich countries become afraid of fighting. Anger disappears and becomes greed: rich countries are not ready to fight. It has happened again and again in world history that poor countries have defeated rich countries. What happened in Vietnam? There seems to be no possibility, logically, why Americans should not win there. They have everything to win with – better technology, better scientific instruments for killing. They had everything good, and still they could not defeat Vietnam, a very poor country. No, it is very difficult to defeat a poor country.When India was very rich, it was defeated again and again. For two thousand years India was defeated again and again – a rich country! And those people who were coming as invaders were just starving, barbarians – very poor. Mohammedans, Moguls, Turks – they were all poor people, desperately in need of fighting. And India was rich and desperately in need of being greedy about something it had. It was afraid to fight.I have heard one story that once a donkey challenged a lion, “Stop saying about yourself that you are the king of the forest. I am the king! And if you don’t believe it, we can have a fight and prove it.”It is said the lion simply disappeared into the forest. A fox was watching. She could not believe what had happened. She went to the lion and asked, “What is the matter?”He said, “Have you gone crazy? If I fight with the donkey, and if the donkey is defeated, he loses nothing. But donkeys are donkeys – one cannot say anything. If I am defeated I have something to lose. He has nothing to lose; he can challenge.”A poor person is always angry and ready to fight. The richer you get, the milder you become, the softer you become. Your energy starts moving into greed.Kabir’s analysis is perfect.…when I give up passion, I see that anger remains, and when I renounce anger, greed is with me still;and when greed is vanquished,pride and vainglory remain.And if greed is vanquished – if you renounce your riches, your palaces, your kingdoms – then vainglory, ego, remains. But nothing changes radically. You simply go on changing the paint of your house, the color. Everything remains the same, only the color changes from one to another.When the mind is detachedand casts maya away,still it clings to the letter.And finally, even if you drop everything, then you start clinging to the Vedas, to the Koran, to the Bible: I am a Hindu, I am a Christian, I am a Mohammedan. You start clinging to the temple, to the mosque, to the gurudwara. Now there is nothing visible to cling to, now you create something invisible. You create gods, theologies, scriptures, and you cling to these verbal things.The word God is not God, but people have been fighting about it. All that you say about God has nothing to do with godliness,, because those who have known, they have all said nothing can be said about God. Says Lao Tzu, “If you say something about truth, it becomes untrue.” The moment you assert, you falsify; truth cannot be said. But people go on discussing, arguing, “My God is right and your God is wrong.”One of my friends renounced the world and he became a Jaina monk. After many years I came across him and I asked, “Have you really renounced the world?”He said, “I have renounced everything. Can’t you see? I am sitting naked. I have renounced the society, I have renounced the world, I have renounced everything.”I asked him, “But you still think you are a Jaina?”He said, “Certainly I am a Jaina.”Now it is very subtle. The society has taught you that you are a Jaina. You were born in a certain society – Jaina, Mohammedan, Christian – and the society has taught you that you are a Jaina. It has conditioned your mind. You have left everything, but you cling to the conditioning. You have not left anything at all, you are the same person.Real renunciation means unconditioning the mind. Real renunciation means you don’t belong to any society, you don’t belong to any religion, you don’t belong to any country. You don’t belong, you are alone: you belong to the whole in your aloneness. But that is possible only by tremendous understanding, intelligence, awareness, not by playing this game of renunciation: renouncing one thing, creating another, then renouncing that, still creating another.And remember, when you renounce one thing and something else is created, the second is more subtle than the first and will be more difficult to conquer. You renounce passion; anger remains. Anger is more subtle than sex. You renounce anger; greed remains. Greed is more subtle than anger. And you renounce greed; then vainglory, ego, remains. Ego is very, very subtle now. And you even try to drop that; but now the theories, the philosophies, the doctrines, remain – something or other remains. You go on changing your prison, but you never become a free man.I have heard:From the giant redwoods sector of California comes the yarn of a truck farmer who decided to buy a power saw. A logging foreman sold him one that he guaranteed would cut down fifteen trees in a single day.A week later a very unhappy farmer came back to report that the power saw must be a faulty one – it averaged only three trees a day. The foreman grabbed the power saw and plugged it into the nearest outlet. The saw promptly went “bzzzzzz.”“Hey!” demanded the startled farmer, “what is that noise?”He was using the power saw without connecting it to any electricity! Then of course a power saw is not a power saw; then it is an ordinary thing.You can renounce, you can go on renouncing, without plugging into your innermost core, into the powerhouse, into your inner power of understanding. If it is not plugged in there, then you will be tired and nothing much is going to happen out of it. It is understanding that makes the difference, all the difference. Rather than renouncing, Kabir would like you to understand how the radical change happens.Kabir says: “Listen to me, dear friend!The true path is rarely found.”What is the true path? If renunciation is not the true path, then what is the true path?Awareness is the true path. Neither indulge nor renounce, but be aware. Do whatsoever you are doing – do it with full awareness. If you move into passion, move with awareness; and passion becomes prayerfulness, and passion has a totally different quality to it. In the East we have called that quality tantra. The same sex is no longer sex – it is no longer sexual at all. Once you move into your passion with awareness, you have changed the very quality of it. It is no longer just physical, it is no longer just a physical release, it is a very deep experience of life, it is a tremendous experience of no-mind. It is a door toward the greatest space possible.In deep orgasm, if you are aware, you will know for the first time what ecstasy is. Otherwise you have only heard the word, you have not known its meaning. Only in deep orgasm, if you are aware, if your flame of awareness is burning bright, will you be able to know that sex is not just sex. Sex is the outermost layer. Deep inside is love, and even deeper then is prayerfulness, and deepest is godliness itself. Sex can become a cosmic experience, then it is tantra. Sex plus awareness, and something tremendous starts changing.And the change comes on its own accord. You are not to force it. If you are angry, be alert, and you will be surprised that with alertness anger disappears, it is not possible. And the same energy that was going to be thrown into anger spreads all over your being like a radiance. It becomes your aura, it becomes a light around you – the same energy. It is no longer heat now. It has become light.Can’t you see it? Heat and light are not two things. Heat becomes light, light can become heat. Anger is heat. Bring awareness to it and it becomes light. And you will be happy that you could become aware, and you will wait for the next opportunity. When anger arises you can again use the opportunity to create more light around you. Once you have known it you will never be angry, because now you know how to use the energy in a far more creative way, a far more creative way. And this is how it happens: with greed, with ego, just one formula – awareness has to be added to it.Nothing else is needed to change the outside, only an inner awareness brought to every situation. This is the rarely found truth, the rarely found way.The moon shines in my body,but my blind eyes cannot see it.Godliness is within you, but you are not aware.The moon shines in my body – your body is the temple – but my blind eyes cannot see it. Don’t escape anywhere. Just open your eyes, become more aware, start seeing, have more clarity of vision.The moon is within me, and so is the sun.The unstruck drum of eternityis sounded within me,but my deaf ears cannot hear it.This has to be understood very carefully. This is the inner chemistry. The moon and the sun are symbols of the inner alchemy. The moon means the feminine inside you, and the sun means the masculine inside you. Moon is intuition, sun is reason. Moon is yin, sun is yang. This is the Indian terminology for yin and yang. Moon is peace, silence; sun is energy, vitality. Moon is death, sleep, dream, imagination; sun is awakening, life, logic.When moon and sun meet within you, there is a great experience. That experience is of unity of oneness – unio mystica. That is the goal of all the mystics – when the sun and the moon meet within you. This is the real meeting of man and woman.And once this meeting has happened, then there is brahmacharya, then there is celibacy, not before it. If your inner woman has not met with your inner man, you will need some outer woman, or outer man. That’s just a substitute. Hence it is never totally satisfying, something always seems to be missing. You can find the most beautiful woman of the world, or the most beautiful man of the world, and still you will feel something does not fit, something goes on missing. Nothing is wrong with the man or the woman, nothing is wrong. That feeling that something is missing is coming from somewhere else, and you have not been able to understand from where.When you fall in love with a woman, what actually happens is that you have an inner woman, and the outer woman somehow reflects the inner woman. That’s what falling in love means. For no reason at all…you shrug your shoulders. If somebody asks, “Why have you fallen in love with this woman?” you find rationalizations, that her nose is such, or her hair, or the way she walks – all foolish things. What does a nose have to do with love, or the color of the hair or the way she walks? No, these are nothing. But something with your inner woman, with your inner moon, fits. She somehow reflects your inner moon, in some way. It can never be a hundred percent, it cannot be. Because your inner woman is your inner woman, it cannot be found in the outside.Only, when you fall in love with a woman or with a man, you have fallen in love with a mirror. Sooner or later you will be frustrated.You must have heard the story of Narcissus. He looked in a silent pool and he saw his own reflection, and he fell in love with it – and he became so mad. Whenever he entered the pool, the reflection would disappear. He would search and search and he would not find anybody. He would come to the bank, sit silently, ripples would disappear and the pool would become silent again; and there again, the object of his love, infatuation. Again he would jump.He went mad, and he died on the bank. In his memory we have the plant narcissus. It grows just by the side of a pond and goes on looking in. You will find the narcissus plant always leaning and looking in the pond. We call it narcissus in memory of that old story. Still the plant goes on looking into its own reflection.Of course, when you see a beautiful woman from far away, the reflection is perfect. You come closer, you jump into the pool…everything is disturbed and you don’t find anything. And you are worried, very worried. Everything was going so well. What happened? Now you have disturbed the placid surface of the pool. And the same has happened to the woman. She had fallen in love with you because her own inner man somehow coincided. Only a few aspects can coincide.And it is good that no outer woman can fulfill you totally, otherwise you will never go withinward. It is good and a blessing that no outer man can ever satisfy you totally. It can only give glimpses of satisfaction, a taste, but you become more and more hungry. This is good. That may be the whole purpose of it, so one day you are thrown back into your own self and one day you start looking.If you ask the brain surgeons, they say there are two brains in your head: the left and the right. The right side brain is feminine; the left side brain is masculine. That’s why the left hand has become condemned, because the world, this world at least, up to now, has been dominated by men. The left hand is joined to the right side brain, the right side brain is feminine, so the left hand has become the symbol of the woman. The right side hand is joined to the left side brain, the left side brain is male, so the right side hand has become the symbol of man. They say the right is right and, of course, the left is wrong.One part of your mind functions as reason, intellect, logic, philosophy, science – the left side brain. The right side brain functions as intuition, poetry, imagination, reverie, religion. And both are separate, just bridged by a very small bridge. Sometimes it happens that the bridge can be broken by some accident; then the person becomes split, then he is two persons.In the unio mystica, the bridge becomes broader and broader and broader, and a moment comes when the right is no longer right and the left is no longer left. They have come into a deep embrace. They have become one. This is the inner intercourse the tantrikas talk about: the inner woman has fallen in love with the inner man. And then there is tremendous grace. Such a man is no longer a man, such a woman is no longer a woman. The transcendence has happened. This man becomes mysterious, this woman becomes mysterious, who have come to the inner meeting, to the inner union.Human history can be divided into two trends: the moon trend and the sun trend. The politicians, the soldiers, the warriors, they all belong to the sun; and the poets and the mystics and the lotus-eaters, they all belong to the moon.In Sanskrit, the moon is called soma. It is your moon side which is psychedelic. And Aldous Huxley was right; he has named the ultimate drug soma. In the Vedas they talk much about soma. Nobody has yet been able to find exactly what it is. Many people have tried. Somebody tries to prove something, that this is soma. Somebody tries to prove something else: this is soma. Many mushrooms have been tried in the past, but in fact soma is not a mushroom, it is not marijuana, it is not hash. It is some inner psychedelic. It has nothing to do with outer chemistry; it is inner alchemy. And the Vedas talk about soma as God.Something outer, something injected from the outside or swallowed from the outside, may create an illusion, but it is an illusion. It is the same thing: the outer woman can only reflect the inner woman; the outer drug, LSD or psilocybin, can only reflect the inner drug. The inner drug is the real thing. And what Allen Ginsberg is doing is absolutely wrong. He is trying to prove that the outer drug is the inner drug. It is not so.Just a few days before, a young man asked me, “What do you think, Osho, about hash?” I said, “First thing, don’t be so disrespectful about hash. Show a little respect. To rhyme with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi you can call it Maharishi Hashish Yogi, but be respectful! And if you are not a follower of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, then to rhyme with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh you can call it Bhagwan Shree Hashish – but be respectful!”In the Vedas they call soma God, but they are talking about the inner hash. I am also talking about the inner hash. That which is manufactured outside in a factory may have some reflections of it, but it is not the true thing. The outer is a substitute. When you start moving inside and when the meeting of the sun and moon happens, soma is released. Then a very great change happens in your being. You become absolutely calm and quiet – and of course you become tremendously sensitive. Then for the first time your ears become able to hear and your eyes become able to see and your hands become able to touch. For the first time you become capable of feeling.The moon shines in my body,but my blind eyes cannot see it:The moon is within me, and so is the sun.The unstruck drum of eternityis sounded within me;but my deaf ears cannot hear it.We are deaf, blind. That is the real problem, the very crux. It is not a question of renouncing anything or escaping from anything. It is a question of becoming more sensitive, more aware, more full of understanding, more of a witness. Then your witnessing starts flowing into your eyes and into your ears, into your body. So what is needed according to Kabir – and according to me also only one thing is needed – and that is stop being sleepy. Don’t live in a slumber-like state. Shake yourself and bring yourself to a little more awareness. Otherwise you are continuously sleepy – sometimes with open eyes, sometimes with closed eyes, but you are sleepy, and you go on finding rationalizations for your sleep.I have heard:Young Rabbi Shmool finally summoned courage to complain to the richest member of his congregation: “I hesitate to bring this up, but do you always fall asleep while I am preaching?”“Look,” was the consoling reply, “would I sleep if I did not trust you?”There are many people around here also who trust me so much that they sleep. They trust: “Osho must be saying the right thing, so why bother? He always says the right thing, so we can sleep.”You are moving like a somnambulist. Just because your eyes are blinking, don’t think you are aware. Awareness is an intensity. Sometimes you can feel it, sometimes in great danger you become aware. Sometimes, if you are driving a car and suddenly you feel an accident is going to happen, you become aware. Then you know intensity. In that moment all thinking stops, you are simply alert. You are no longer functioning as a mind; you function as a consciousness.One Sufi mystic, Bayazid, used to talk to his disciples about awareness, and they would ask, “But what is awareness? You go on talking about it.”One day he took them to the river. On this side there was a small hill, on the other side there was a small hill, and he said, “We are going to put up a long wooden bridge – just one foot wide – from this hill to the other, and you will have to walk on it. And then you will know what awareness is.”They said, “But we have been walking our whole life, and we have never come to know.”He said, “Wait,” and he did the experiment.Many of them started feeling very afraid, and they said, “We cannot walk. Just one foot wide?”But how much do you need to walk on? When you are walking on the earth, you can walk on a one foot wide strip easily. Why, why can’t you walk on a one foot wide strip hanging between two hills? Why can’t you walk on it?A few people tried. Just two, three feet they went, and they came back, and they said, “It is dangerous.”Then Bayazid walked and a few followed, and when they reached the other shore, those few who had followed, fell at his feet and they said, “Master, now we know what awareness is. The danger was so great that we could not afford to walk in slumber. We had to be alert. Any moment and we would have been gone forever, so we had to keep alert.”In some rare, dangerous moments you become aware; otherwise not. Awareness means an intensity, such an intensity of wakefulness that no thought interferes. You are simply conscious without any thought. Try it. You can try it anywhere. Walking on the road, walk as if each moment there is danger – and there is danger because any moment you can die, any moment death is there. If you become a little more understanding you will understand. It is impossible not to be aware if you see that death is possible any moment. Tthen you cannot live like drunkards.An exhausted businessman gratefully climbed into his bed in a Washington hotel at midnight, looking forward to a solid nine hour sleep. At 2 a.m., however, a loud banging on his door awakened him. It was a semi-coherent drunk, angrily declaring, “This is my room. Get out!”It took the executive twenty minutes to get back to sleep. Once more he was awakened by the same drunk an hour later, who still claimed the room was his.When the drunk woke him up a third time, the executive literally blew his top – but this time the drunk got in the first words. “So it is you again!” he screamed. “Damn it, are you occupying every room in this hotel?”People are moving drunkenly, not knowing where they are going, for what they are going – not even knowing whether they are going.I have heard:A philosopher was met by a friend at the door of a psychiatrist’s office. The friend asked, “Are you coming or going?”The philosopher answered, “If I knew that, I would not be here. Why should I be here at a psychiatrist’s office? What would I be doing here if I knew whether I am coming or going?”Nobody knows really. We are so fast asleep.Kabir says become more alert. Walking, walk with awareness. Eating, eat with awareness. Talking, talk with awareness. Listening, listen with awareness. Be more and more attentive. The more attentive you are, the more intensely attentive you are, your life will start changing. And this will be a change that you are not bringing to it. It will happen on its own accord. It will be a natural growth, spontaneous.Kabir’s path is called Sahaj Samadhi Yoga – the path of spontaneous ecstasy. Sahaj means spontaneity. Kabir is not in favor of any cultivated life pattern. Become aware, and out of that awareness whatsoever form your life takes, let it take it. Just be aware, then you have changed the very roots. And by changing the very roots you have changed the whole tree. It is futile to go on changing a single leaf each time, and changing branches – sometimes anger, sometimes sex, sometimes greed. And then there are a thousand and one leaves. Why not change the roots? The root problem is that you are living an unconscious life, and the root change will be that you start living a conscious life.Kabir is not in favor of any repression. Renunciation will be repressive.I have heard:The demonstration turned into a riot. One priest staggered out of the crowd carrying the limp form of a girl. “Here,” said a cop, “hand her to me, Father – I will get her out of this.”“The hell with you,” said the priest. “Go and get one of your own.”The priest, the celibate, the brahmachari, deep down they are in a mess. You are far better off. At least you are natural; they are perverted. Repression will bring perversion. It will not bring transformation. And renunciation cannot mean anything else other than repression.No, Kabir is not in favor of any repression. Kabir says live a natural life. Just one thing: make it more alert. And changes will happen – millions of changes will happen – and you will not have to do them; they will happen. And when change happens on its own accord, it has a beauty to it, it has grace, elegance. When you force it upon yourself it is ugly, it cripples, it paralyzes. You can change one thing but sooner or later something else will be there. Only the name of the problem will be changed.Once I was wandering through a toy department of a big store during the holiday rush when the loudspeaker announced: “Mrs. Arthur Jones reports that her seven-year-old son, Spike, has been lost. Will Spike Jones please come immediately to the manager’s office?”A small boy inspecting an electric train display alongside me was visibly depressed by this announcement. “Damn it,” he grumbled, “I am lost again!”You can repress one thing. You will be lost again in something else. You can repress that; you will be lost again in something else. This is no way to come home. The only way to come home is that of awareness.Natural, spontaneous, aware – let these three words become key words and you will be surrounded with a great revolution, and you will be a witness to it.Kabir is not giving you any program to improve yourself. All improvement is silly in a way because you remain the same – modified a little here and there, decorated here or there, but you remain the same. Clothes change, ornaments change; you remain the same. Kabir is not giving you any program to improve yourself. Kabir is giving you a radical approach: how to be transformed, transfigured; how to die to the old and be born again totally new, absolutely new, fresh and virgin.Be natural, be spontaneous, be aware. Let these three words become your very key. And this is a master key: it can unlock all the doors, all the locks.Once you have become natural, spontaneous, and aware, the unstruck drum of eternity will be heard. The unstruck drum of eternity, that’s what in Zen they call the sound of one hand clapping. In India they call it the anahat nad – the unstruck drum. It is sounding from the very beginning, endlessly sounding. It is eternally there. The world is full of music, melody, harmony, ecstasy. Just if you become natural you will fall in tune with it. If you become spontaneous you will become sensitive and responsive to it. If you become aware you will be able to hear it.Godliness is all around – only that you are not sensitive enough to feel it. Godliness is within and without – you just have to shake yourself and come to your senses. You are in your head too much. Come down to your senses, become more sensitive. When you become more sensitive you are bridged with reality, you start dancing with reality, you start singing with reality; a great benediction arises in you. And only then can you say a thank you to existence, never before it. Only then do you feel how grateful you are, how much has been given to you and you have not even appreciated it.This existence is fantastic, it is marvelous, it is incredibly beautiful.Enough for today.

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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01-10Category: Kabir

Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 04 (Read, Listen & Download)

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The first question:Osho,What is the difference between a crystallized self and a big, strong ego?They look alike, but they are as different as two things can be. Not only different, they are diametrically opposite. The crystallized self is not a self at all. It is called a crystallized “self,” but it is not a self at all. And the big, strong ego is neither big nor strong. It is very hollow – how can it be strong? It is very empty – how can it be strong, and how can it be big? It is neither big nor strong, but it has the “selfhood” in it, the “I-amness,” the feeling that “I am.”The ego is the self. The real self is not a self at all. We develop the ego just to hide the fact that we don’t know who we are. It is very hard to see that we are so ignorant about ourselves, that we don’t know. To hide this ignorance, we create the ego. Ego is a deception, it is a deception that you are giving to yourself. It is really difficult to live without self-knowing, so we create a false ego. It gives a little consolation. One starts feeling that one knows who one is.It simply hides ignorance; that’s why all the religions insist on dropping the ego. Unless you drop the ego and you face your inner being…the vastness of it is such that you cannot define it as “I am.” The vastness is so much that it cannot be contained by any concept, within any concept. You cannot call it “I.” It is all – how can you call it “I”? The real self, the real inner being, is existence itself. It is all.But one has to face it. In the beginning, when you face it, it looks as if it is nothing. That is the fear. “The all” looks like nothing in the first encounter. If you get in tune with it, by and by, the negativity disappears and you start feeling its positive existence. Then it becomes your soul. Call it God, being, or any word that you want to choose; call it enlightenment, awareness. But one thing is certain: you are not there. Something is there, tremendously vital, infinite, but you are not there.This will look like a paradox: when you come to know yourself you are not there; when you don’t know yourself you are there. You exist only in your ignorance. When knowledge has happened – when knowing has happened – you disappear. You disappear like darkness – just as the sun rises and the darkness disappears, you disappear like darkness when awareness arises. The awareness does not belong to you, it has nothing to do with you. In fact you are the barrier for it. It is because of you that it is not arising.People come to me and they say, “Osho, I would like to become enlightened.” I say to them, “It is very difficult, it is impossible. I cannot help you.” They say, “Why? Why can’t you help?” I say, “From the very beginning you are putting such a condition. You are saying, ‘I want to become enlightened.’ This ‘I’ is the barrier. This ‘I’ is not allowing you to know your enlightenment – which is already there. The ‘I’ never becomes enlightened, the ‘I’ is the unenlightened state, the ‘I’ is the darkness.”Enlightenment is possible, but it will be possible only when you are ready to lose yourself. That is the meaning of Jesus’ saying when he says, “If you lose, you will gain. If you don’t lose, you will lose.” In losing is the gain. In forgetting is the remembrance. In dissolving, you become crystallized.The crystallized self is a no-self – it is all – and the big, strong ego is very tiny, not big at all. The tiniest thing in the world is the ego, and the hollowest thing in the world is the ego, and the weakest thing in the world is the ego – because it is the falsest thing possible. It exists not. It is a pretension.The second question:Osho,Please will you explain to me what “the way of religion” means? I have always been so strongly against religion that I cannot imagine what it means. But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness – and this makes me a little uneasy.Since you gave me sannyas, I feel like I am in an abyss. Other people are not reachable for me; I am only fixed to the fire of your eyes – a tremendous Pune fiction story.Right, I am creating a fiction here: the fiction of the master and the disciple, the fiction of God and the devotee. It is really a myth, but very alive. And there is no way to come to the truth unless you pass through a great mythology. Man is lost in lies. From the lies there is no direct way to truth. Myth is a bridge between the lie and the truth. A myth partakes of something of the lie and something of the truth; it is a bridge.Yes, you are right. This is a tremendous Pune fiction story. Whatsoever is happening here is very fictitious: these people in orange, and so many crazy things going on, and I am supporting you and leading you toward nowhere and promising you things which cannot be promised.Man lives in lies, God lives in the truth – but how to bridge both? Man is a lie, godliness is a truth – how to bridge both? It is quite impossible! Myth is the way: fiction, yes, a spiritual fiction. All the religions are fictitious, all mythologies are fictitious, but they are of tremendous help. A mythology has something of the truth in it – maybe just a reflection – and something of the lie in it. You can move through the myth toward truth.And if a living myth is available, don’t miss it, because a dead myth loses all contact with truth. It becomes a lie. That’s why religion has to be born again and again. When Jesus was alive, the Christian myth was alive. Then people traveled through that myth and reached to truth. Jesus gone, the myth is there but the truth is gone. When the myth is there but Jesus is no longer there, the other shore is missing. Then it is again just a lie, just a fiction with no grounding in the truth.Christianity is a lie, Jesus is a myth; Krishna is a myth, Hinduism is a lie. That’s why down through the centuries it has always been emphasized that if you can find a living master, don’t miss the opportunity. A living master is a myth: something of the untrue and something of the true – both. Something of the untrue means something of the human, and something of the true means something of the divine. That’s why the Gospel says Jesus is the son of man and the son of God. This is a myth: the son of man and the son of God is an impossibility, but that’s what a myth is. God and man meeting, son of God and son of man – something of the lie and something of the truth…But Jesus gone, then only lies remain. The Pope is not a myth, neither is the shankaracharya of Puri. Dead! They don’t speak from their own experience; they speak from tradition.A myth is a very fragile flower, like a roseflower. In the morning it is there in all its glory – even Solomon will feel jealous – and by the evening it is gone. How fragile and how strong! In the morning breeze how strong it was, and how beautiful. Even the vast sky must have felt jealous, and even the sun himself must have felt jealous. A roseflower is a roseflower – so small and yet so beautiful, so fragile and so vital and so alive, so fragrant. By the evening, the petals have fallen to the earth and the flower is gone.A Jesus is also fragile, a Buddha is also fragile.While I am here, it is a myth – an living myth with a beating heart. Use this opportunity. When I am gone, it will be a lie.And this is the misery, that by the time people come to know, the flower is gone. When the flower is gone, they will worship for centuries and centuries. They will worship the past, the dead, the grave. When the flower is alive, they will deny it, they will escape, they will protect and defend themselves against it. They may even destroy the flower because the very existence of the flower makes them feel very sad. The very existence of the flower makes them aware of their smallness, their ugliness. The flower creates a contrast.Hence they crucify Jesus and poison Socrates and kill Mansoor. And then they worship them. The same people who kill Jesus will worship him. They will even worship the cross, because Jesus died on the cross. And these are the same people: the murderers and the worshipers are not different, the enemies and the believers are not different. These are the same people – the same human mind and the same human stupidity.Yes, it is a fiction that I am creating here, but it is alive. That is the difference. While I am here, the myth is an alive bridge; you can pass through it toward the unknown.The questioner has asked: “What do you mean by ‘the way of religion’? I have always been so strongly against religion that I cannot imagine what it means.” True. If you are against religion, how can you understand it? If you are for religion, then too you cannot understand it. The people who are for and against can never understand because they have decided a priori – without experiencing, they have decided! They are prejudiced.If you have decided God exists, you will never be able to know him. If you have decided God does not exist, how can you know him?Be more vulnerable. Don’t be so prejudiced, don’t decide. Experience, and let experience be decisive. Never decide before the experience – never, never. Otherwise you will always be surrounded by your prejudice and your prejudice will become a screen. And that won’t allow you to see that which is.“The way of religion” is the way of truth, the way of nature. The word religion comes from a root which means “to tie you together” – religare. Ordinarily you have fallen apart from existence, you have forgotten that you are not in rhythm with existence. You have started moving on your own. You have lost contact with the real, you have started living in your imagination. That is what I call the lie. You have started living a private life; you are no longer living an existential life. You have become idiots. The word idiot is beautiful, it comes from a root which means one who lives a private life. One who has his own idiom of life – that is the idiot. The world is going one way and you are going another – then you are an idiot. The whole existence is moving in one way and you have your own private goal!A man who is after money is an idiot, because the sun is not after money, the moon is not after money, trees are not after money, animals are not after money; rivers, mountains, they are not so idiotic. The whole of existence lives without money and a man is mad after money. He suffers from idiocy, the greatest disease there is. He has a private goal. If some day he comes face to face with God and God asks him, “What were you seeking?” and he says, “Money,” God will not be able to understand what he means by “money.” He may not have ever heard the word money. It will be very difficult to explain it to him. Some great economist – Adam Smith, Ricardo, Galbraith or somebody – may be able to explain, but I’m suspicious. God will not be able to understand what money is – the whole of existence lives without money. Man has created an idiocy.Or you say, “I was after political power.” God will not be able to understand. It will be very difficult to explain it to him, that you wanted to become a minister or a prime minister or a president. He will ask, “For what? Why should one ever be mad after power in the first place? And I have given you all the power that you need. And I have given you all the possibilities to be blissful that you need. For what were you wasting these opportunities, this life, and sacrificing everything for some foolish, stupid thing – that you would like to sit on a throne?” Just think of your great emperors. How stupid and foolish. But man has created his idiocies.“The way of religion” means not to be idiotic. Don’t have any private goal. The universal goal is enough. Be in tune with it, be together with it. Don’t fight it, flow with it. Wherever the whole is going, move with it and you will not have any worry, you will not have any anguish, and you will not be split, and you will not be torn apart. Religion means that which puts you together – you are not torn apart, you are not falling in fragments; you become integrated.Religion is the science of how to find the forgotten language of ecstasy. Whenever you are in tune with existence, there is ecstasy, there is bliss, there is benediction.It happens to you too – you may not be aware. Sometimes, looking at the trees, the greenery fills you. Suddenly you are in tune with the trees: you are no longer the observer and the trees are no longer the observed. You are not separate, something bridges you. Suddenly there is a contact, a connectedness, a link. Your mind stops chattering, you are as silent as the tree. You start feeling. Your heart throbs with a new vitality and a new vibe – and there is bliss. And you are so fulfilled and so contented.The tree has not given you anything. The tree is very poor in that way. What can a tree give to a human being? It cannot give you money, it cannot give you power. It cannot give anything that you would like to have, but suddenly, just sitting by the side of the tree, leaning against it, feeling it, feeling its shape arising in it, the fragrance that subtly surrounds it – and you were lost, you were ecstatic, you were in tune. By being in tune with the tree, you became in tune with the universe.Sometimes sitting by the side of a river and watching it, everything becomes quiet and calm. Not that you do something to become quiet and calm; nobody can do anything, and if you do, it is absurd. You can sit still like a Buddha statue but that is not going to help.A disciple came to Bokuju, and to impress him, he sat like Buddha. Bokuju came and the disciple was absolutely still, with closed eyes. Bokuju laughed loudly and hit him hard on the head, and he said, “Get up, you fool! We already have too many buddhas in this temple! Get out from here! Can’t you see?”Bokuju used to live in a temple which had one thousand Buddha statues.He said, “Can’t you see? One thousand buddhas are here, and you also want to become a buddha?”The disciple was very worried. He wanted to impress the master, that “I am a great meditator.” And Bokuju said, “Drop all this rubbish. Be alive. Don’t pretend, and don’t enforce.”Yes, one day one sits like Buddha, but that is nothing of your doing. It comes, it happens. It is not a doing at all.Listening to the sound of water or looking at the floating clouds in the sky, suddenly it is there. It envelops you. You have fallen in tune with existence.By and by, these rare moments make you aware of why you are miserable. You are miserable because you are not with existence. Somehow you are struggling against it. You are miserable because you are not surrendered to the whole. The part is trying to conquer the whole. See the foolishness of it.Even a man like Bertrand Russell has written about “the conquest of nature.” Conquest? You are trying to conquer nature? Who are you? It is as if one of my fingers tries to conquer me. We are part of nature. We are nature, expressions of the same nature, of the same vastness. How can we conquer it? How can the part conquer the whole? The part will only be unhappy if it tries to conquer the whole, because defeat is certain – absolutely certain. Frustration is certain – absolutely certain. The part will be miserable. You are miserable, in anguish, in anxiety, in tension, getting almost neurotic because you are trying to conquer nature.The East has a totally different message. Religion is the Eastern message. All the great religions were born in the East. The West has not given birth to a single religion; it has given birth to great science, great scientific endeavor, but not to religion. Science is a human, idiotic effort to conquer nature. Religion is fall in tune with nature. Call it religion, call it tao, call it dharma, it means the same: to fall in tune with nature.But it will be difficult if you have certain ideas implanted in you for or against. A Christian cannot be a religious man, neither can a Hindu, nor a communist. A theist cannot be religious, an atheist cannot be religious. They are already full of ideas. They have already decided, without experiencing anything.Here I am not trying to convince you about any ideology. I am trying to help you to drop all ideology so you become empty, pure, virgin; so your eyes become unclouded and you attain to a clarity. In that clarity you will understand what religion is. Not through books, not through the Bible, the Koran and the Vedas, no, but through clarity. When the part looks at the whole and understands “I am part of this whole” and feels happy – “This vastness is my vastness; I am not separate from it; I am one with it” – and starts dancing in that oneness, religion is born. Religion is not an ideology. It is an experience.“But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness.” Please, don’t start supposing. Religion is not a supposition. It is not “if,” “but.” No. Either you know it or you don’t know it. Please, don’t suppose. How can you suppose? “But, anyhow I suppose…” Why? How can you suppose? If you don’t know, you don’t know. Supposition gives you a notion of false knowledge – as if you know.Stop supposing. Just know that you don’t know, and remain in that pure ignorance. If you can stay in your ignorance, which needs great courage – knowledge is cheap. To remain in ignorance is a very courageous act. There are very rare people who can remain ignorant, without supposing anything, because the mind hankers to cling to something, to suppose something. “There is God.” Okay. If it supposes there is not God, then it insists that “There is no God.” Then you cling to the “no God.” Even a negative concept will do, but no concept? Then you feel empty, so you fill up, you stuff yourself with suppositions.No, then you will never know what truth is. Truth is not a supposition. When you don’t suppose anything, truth arises.Whatsoever you suppose will be your supposition. It will reflect your mind – and you don’t know. Can’t you see the simple fact of it that your supposition will become the Great Wall of China? How can you suppose? Just see the fact that “I don’t know.”Be an agnostic. That is the sure step toward religion. Agnosticism is the base of all religion. A religious person is always agnostic. He says, “I don’t know, this way or that, and I am not so stupid as to suppose anything. I will remain in my ignorance and I will look around. If I come across an experience, I should like to remain open, vulnerable, so nothing is distorted.”“But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness…” Whatsoever you suppose will be wrong. Even the word aloneness will be wrong because in fact you mean loneliness. You don’t mean aloneness, you cannot. Aloneness is a totally different thing from loneliness. Loneliness is when you miss the other; aloneness is when you enjoy yourself. These are totally different things.Loneliness is a misery; aloneness is ecstatic. When you are so happy with yourself, when you are in love with yourself, when your own aloneness fills you tremendously like a presence, then, then it is aloneness. When you are empty, blank, dark, and you are missing the other and you want somehow to stuff yourself with something…When people are left alone, they will go to the fridge and start eating something, or they will put on the TV or the radio, or they will start reading the same newspaper that they have read three times since the morning – again they will start looking at it. Or they will start thinking about where to go – to go to see a movie, a concert, or just go shopping; but do something.Loneliness is intolerable – it is a suffering, it is a hell. Aloneness is a beauty. It is such a pristine moment of tremendous happiness that nothing is comparable to it. In this whole life, there is nothing comparable to the beauty and blessedness of aloneness.When you are alone you are a god. When you are lonely you are just nothing, just empty, hollow, a black hole.That’s why you say, “But, anyhow, I suppose it is the way of total aloneness…” You don’t know what aloneness is, and you don’t know what totality is – because if you know totality, you have known godliness.Totality is what godliness is all about. The sum total of existence is what God is. We can drop the word God. Call it totality, that will do – and it will do even better than the word God, because God has been used so much by the wrong people. Politicians, priests, they all talk about God.God has passed through so many wrong lips, it is almost a dirty word. Totality is better – the total. But you don’t know what total is. You know only yourself – the ego. The ego is against the total, afraid of the total. Surrender brings you to totality, to an experience.And remember: “…and this makes me a little uneasy.” That’s why I say you cannot suppose aloneness, because aloneness never makes anybody uneasy. It makes you so ecstatically happy that you cannot imagine it, you have not even dreamed about it. A Buddha is alone, a Mahavira is alone, a Kabir is alone – and they are alone even when they are in the crowd. You cannot destroy their aloneness. Their aloneness is a crystallized phenomenon.Try to understand this. You are born alone; you die alone. These two are the greatest moments in life: birth and death. You are born alone; you die alone. The greatest moments of life – the beginning and the end – are in aloneness. When you meditate you again become alone. That’s why meditation is both – a death and a birth. You die to the past and you are born to the new, to the unknown.Even in love, when you think you are together, you are not together. There are two alonenesses. In real love nothing is lost. When two lovers are sitting – if they are really lovers and they don’t try to possess each other and they don’t try to dominate each other… because that is not love; that is the way of hatred, the way of violence. If they love and if the love is coming out of their aloneness, you will see two beautiful alonenesses together. They are like two Himalayan peaks, high in the sky, but separate. They don’t interfere. In fact deep love only reveals your pure aloneness to you.All that is true and all that is real will always bring you to aloneness. But you are afraid and you say it makes you a little uneasy.There are a few things which can only be done alone. Love, prayer, life, death, aesthetic experiences, blissful moments – they all come when you are alone. When you are in love you think you are with somebody – maybe the somebody is just reflecting your aloneness, the somebody is just a mirror in which your aloneness is reflected. But the deeper you move in love, the deeper you know that even your lover cannot penetrate there. Your aloneness is absolute – and it is good that it is so; otherwise you would be a public thing. Then you would not have any innermost core where you can be alone. Then you could be violated. But your aloneness is absolute; nobody can violate it.You could kill me, but you cannot destroy my aloneness. That is my freedom. You could put me in bondage, but you cannot put my aloneness in bondage. Even in your jail I would be alone. Aloneness is my intrinsic nature. It cannot be destroyed; nobody can take it away.Let me tell you one anecdote so that it doesn’t become too serious.Sue met her friend Alice on the street one afternoon and noticed that Alice was well along the road of pregnancy.“You know,” Sue said, “I would have given anything to have a baby, but I guess it is hopeless.”“I know just how you feel,” Alice said. “My husband was that way too. But everything is fine now; in fact I am eight months pregnant.”“What did you do?”“I went to a faith healer.”“Oh, we tried that,” Sue said. “My husband and I went there for six months.”“Don’t be silly,” Alice told her. “Go alone.”There are a few things for which one should go alone. Meditation is one of those things, God is one of those things, death is one of those things; one should go alone.But the questioner is uneasy because it is only a supposition. A supposition is a supposition; it doesn’t help to understand. It hinders.“Since you gave me sannyas, I feel like I am in an abyss.” Exactly right. That’s what sannyas is. Sannyas is nothing but throwing you into your inner abyss, taking away everything that you cling to, taking away all that you possess, taking away your very possessiveness. Sannyas is a via negativa. I go on taking things away from you – your thinking, your ideology, your religion, your church, your Bible, your Koran. I go on taking away. By and by I will leave you alone. Everything is taken away from you; now you will feel you are in an abyss, but this abyss is just a transitory period.You feel in an abyss because now you cannot cling to anything. Relax, rest in this abyss, and suddenly the whole gestalt changes. Then you know that this abyss is your nature and there is no need to cling to anything. This is how you are. This inner silence is your nature. This inner thoughtlessness is your nature. This aloneness is nothing to be afraid of; this aloneness has to be tasted, chewed well, digested. And you will see, out of this aloneness bliss arises, bliss flowers.But there will be a transitory period when you will not be able to cling and you will not be able to know what is going to happen: you will be just in between. Those days, the Christian mystics have named rightly; they call them “the dark night of the soul.” The old light has disappeared and the new has not arisen yet. It is almost like you come in from outside – it is hot, burning sun and your eyes are dazzled. You come into your room and you cannot see anything – it seems almost dark – and you sit and you rest for a while; and by and by it is no longer dark. Your eyes become settled. Your focus changes and you can see now; you are no longer dazzled by the hot sun.For lives together you have been outside in the hot sun. You have lived a miserable life – again and again the same miserable life. You have become attuned to it. When you come to your inner being, you see only darkness, abyss, emptiness. You don’t see anything. You become afraid.Rest a little while, let your eyes be settled, and you will be able to see a light arising – a light with no heat, a flame without heat, a light which is cool. When you have started feeling it, then you know that sannyas throws you into an abyss just to bring you to an enlightened state of being. That abyss is the price we pay.The third question:Osho,In your lectures you talk about Gurdjieff, Raman, Ramakrishna, Basho, and others who are physically not alive, but why don't you talk about the enlightened persons who are physically alive today?The question is from Yoga Chinmaya. He has the knack of asking foolish questions.Now, if there is some enlightened person alive, he can talk for himself. Why should I talk for him? So I talk about the dead people because they cannot talk themselves. This is so simple.The fourth question:Osho,There was a little polar bear who asked his mother, “Was my daddy also a polar bear?” “Of course your daddy was a polar bear.”“But,” goes on the little one after a while, “Mommy, just tell me, was my grandfather also a polar bear?”“Yes, he was also a polar bear.”Time goes by and the little one keeps asking his mother, “But what about my great-grandfather? Was he a polar bear as well?”“Yes, he was. But why are you asking?”“Because I am freezing.”I was told my father was a polar bear, I was told my grandfather was a polar bear, I was told my great-grandfather was a polar bear; but I am freezing. How can I change this, Osho?I happen to know your father, and I happen to know your grandfather, and I happen to know your great-grandfather too; and they were also freezing. And their mothers told the same story to them – that your father was a polar bear and your grandfather was a polar bear and your great-grandfather was a polar bear.If you are freezing, you are freezing; these stories won’t help. This simply proves that even polar bears freeze. Look at the reality and don’t move into traditions and don’t go into the past. If you are freezing, you are freezing. And this is not a consolation at all – that you are a polar bear.These consolations have been given to humanity. When you are dying, you are dying. Somebody comes and says, “Don’t be afraid; the soul is immortal.” Now, you are dying…I have heard about a Jew who fell down on a road and was dying; it was a heart attack. A crowd gathered, and they looked for some religious people, some religious person, some priest, because the man was dying. A Catholic priest came forward, not knowing who the person was. He went close to the dying man and said, “Do you believe? Do you declare that you believe in the Trinity – God the Father, the Holy Ghost and the Son Jesus Christ?”The dying Jew opened his eyes and he said, “I am dying, and he is talking in riddles. Now what am I to do with this trinity? I am dying. What nonsense are you talking about?”A man is dying and you console him by telling him that the soul is immortal. These consolations are of no help. Somebody is in misery and you tell him, “Don’t be miserable. It is just psychological.” How does it help? You make him even more miserable! These theories are not of much help. They have been invented to console, to deceive.If you are freezing, you are freezing. Rather than asking whether your father was a polar bear, do some exercise. Jump, jog, or do Dynamic Meditation, and you won’t freeze, I promise you. Forget all about your father and grandfather and great-grandfather. Just listen to your reality. If you are freezing, then do something. And something can always be done. But this is no way; you are on a wrong track. You can go on asking and asking, and of course your poor mother goes on consoling you.The question is beautiful, very meaningful, has tremendous import. This is how humanity is suffering. Listen to suffering; look into the problem and don’t try to find any solutions outside the problem. Look directly into the problem and you will always find the solution there. Look into the question; don’t ask for the answer.For example, you can go on asking, “Who am I?” You can go to the Christian and he will say, “You are a son of God, and God loves you very much.” And you will be puzzled, because how can God love you?A priest told Mulla Nasruddin, “God loves you very much.”Mulla Nasruddin said, “How can he love me? He does not even know me.”And the priest said, “That’s why he can love you! We know you! We cannot love you – it is too difficult.”Or you go to the Hindus and ask, and they say, “You are God himself.” Not the son of God, you are God himself. But still you have your headache and your migraine and you are very puzzled at how God can have a migraine…and it doesn’t solve the problem.If you want to ask, “Who am I?” don’t go to anybody. Sit silently and ask deeper into your own being. Let the question resound – not verbally, existentially. Let the question be there like an arrow piercing your heart: “Who am I?” And go with the question.And don’t be in a hurry to answer it, because if you answer it, that answer will have come from somebody else – some priest, some politician, some tradition. Don’t answer from your memory, because your memory is all borrowed. Your memory is just like a computer, very dead! Your memory has nothing to do with knowing. It has been fed into you.So when you ask, “Who am I?” and your memory says, “You are a great soul,” watch out. Don’t fall into the trap. Just discard all this rubbish; it is all rot. Just go on asking, “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” and one day you will see, the question too has disappeared. There is only a thirst left – “Who am I?” Not the question, really, but a thirst – your whole being throbbing with the thirst – “Who am I?”And one day you will see you are not even there, there is only thirst. And in that intense, passionate state of your being, suddenly you will realize something has exploded. Suddenly you have come face to face with yourself and you know who you are.There is no way to ask your father, “Who am I?” He does not know himself who he is. There is no way to ask your grandfather or great-grandfather. Don’t ask! Don’t ask your mother, don’t ask society, don’t ask culture, don’t ask civilization. Ask your own innermost core. If you really want to come to know the answer, go inward. And from that inward experience, change happens.You ask, “How can I change this?” You cannot change it. First you have to face your reality, and that very encounter will change you.A reporter was trying to get a human-interest story out of an old, old man at a state-supported home for the aged.“Pop,” asked the brash reporter, “how would you feel if you suddenly got a letter telling you that a forgotten relative had left you five million dollars?”“Son,” came the answer slowly, “I would still be ninety-four years old.”Do you get it? The old man is saying, “I am ninety-four years old. Even if I get five million dollars, what am I supposed to do with it? I will still be ninety-four years old.”What Buddha says, what Mahavira says, what Christ says, is of no help to you. You are freezing – you are still ninety-four years old. Even if the whole knowledge of the world is poured into your head, it is not going to help: you are still freezing, you are still ninety-four years old. Unless some experience arises in you, some vital experience that transforms your being and you become young again, alive again, nothing is of any value.So don’t ask others. That is the first lesson to be learned. Ask yourself. And then too remember – because others have put answers there already, so those answers will be coming – avoid those answers. The question is yours, so nobody else’s answer can be of any help. The question is yours; the answer has to be yours too.Buddha has drunk and he is satisfied. Jesus has drunk and he is ecstatic. I have drunk, but how is that going to help your thirst? You will have to drink yourself.It happened:A great Sufi mystic was asked by an emperor to come to his court and pray for them. The mystic came, but he refused to pray. He said, “It is impossible. How can I pray for you?” Said the mystic, “There are a few things one has to do oneself. For example, if you want to make love to a woman, you have to make it yourself. I cannot do it for you on your behalf. Or if you have to blow your nose, you have to blow it yourself. I cannot blow my nose on your behalf; that won’t be of any help. And so it is with prayer. How can I pray for you? You pray. I can only pray for myself.”And he closed his eyes and moved into great prayer.That’s what I can do. For me the problem has disappeared, but it has not disappeared through anybody else’s answer. I have not asked anybody. In fact, the whole effort has been to drop all the answers that others have given – very generously.People go on giving you advice. Very generous they are in their advice! They may not be generous in anything else, but in advice they are very generous, great people. Whether you ask or not they go on giving advice. Advice is the only thing that is given so much and that is never taken. Nobody takes it.I have heard about two bums sitting under a tree, and one was saying, “I landed into this state because I never listened to anybody’s advice.”And the other said, “Brother, I landed here because I followed everybody’s advice.”The journey has to be your own.You are freezing, I know. You are miserable, I know. Life is hard, I know. And I have no consolation for you. And I don’t believe in consoling you, because all consolation becomes a postponement. The mother says to the child bear, “Yes, your father was a polar bear,” and for a little while he tries not to freeze because polar bears are not supposed to freeze. But it doesn’t help. Again he asks, “Mother, was my grandfather also a polar bear?” He is trying to know, “Was there something in my heritage that had gone wrong; that’s why I am freezing?” And the mother says, “Yes, your grandfather was also a polar bear.” Again he tries to postpone freezing, but you cannot postpone it. You can delay a little; but again it is there.Reality cannot be avoided. Theorizations are of no help at all. Forget theories and listen to the fact. You are miserable? Then misery has to be looked into. You are angry? That anger has to be looked into. You feel sexual? Then forget what others say about it; just look into it yourself. It is your life, and you have to live it. Don’t borrow. Never be secondhand. God loves people who are firsthand. He has never been known to love carbon copies. Just be firsthand, be original, be unique, be individual, be yourself, and look into your problems.And I can say only one thing to you: that in your problem, there is hidden the solution. The problem is just a seed. If you go into it deeply, the solution will sprout out of it. Your ignorance is the seed. If you go deep into it, knowledge will flower out of it. Your shivering, your freezing, is the problem. Go into it, and warmth will arise out of it.In fact all is given to you – question and answer both, the problem and the solution both, ignorance and knowledge both. Just, you have to look inward.The fifth question:Osho,I have heard, a man in an orange robe entered the Vrindavan juice bar, barged up to the front of the line, and demanded tea and cake. He paid with a hundred-rupee note and complained about the cost and the long lineup. After choosing the biggest piece of cake and the biggest cup, he took over an old lady's seat and proceeded to gobble the food. A bystander, puzzled by his behavior, asked the meaning of it.“Why,” he explained,” Osho said that only a crystallized ego can be dropped.”There is more possibility to misunderstand me than to understand me. And in misunderstanding, you will find much solace, much consolation.Just the other day, Mulla Nasruddin came to me, and he said, “Enough is enough – I cannot trust you anymore.”I said, “What happened, Nasruddin? You have been such a longtime obedient disciple to me.”He said, “Now it is too much! Just the other day I was at the racetrack. Somebody’s change had fallen, so I was picking it up, and there comes a blind, or mad, or drunk guy, and he saddles me as if I were a horse.”So I said, “Why didn’t you stand up to him?”Nasruddin said, “But you have said to accept everything, so I said, ‘Osho says, “Accept totally,” so I will accept it and I try to see now what happens’ – and the madman jumped on me.”I was intrigued. I said, “Then what did you do?”He said, “What could I do? I had to run – and I came third in the race! Now this is too much! I cannot trust you anymore!”There is every possibility to misunderstand me and there is every possibility to find rationalizations. This is how the mind goes on being foolish, the mind goes on playing around, fooling around. It always finds ways to protect itself. If I say drop the ego, you say okay, and you try to drop it; and then the ego becomes your humbleness and you start moving around with your nose up, looking at everybody as if everybody is condemned to hell. And you have that look of “holier than thou” and “I am the most humble man around here.” If I say the ego has to become big, only then it bursts, then you say, “Okay. That’s what we have been always trying. Now you are also supporting it – so far so good.”When are you going to understand me? When you listen to me, always remember, your mind is there to corrupt it. Unless you are very, very watchful, your mind will pollute it. And mind is so cunning, it can always find a way out. And it is so clever, it can always make rationalizations look like reasons.The last question:Osho,There are more and more non-moments, periods of no time, especially when talking with others, when suddenly I am not talking anymore, talking is just happening: there is a flow, a sense of power and wholeness, hands move in perfect synchronization with thought feelings, space expands, and there is openness with no sense of separation – and no “I” that is separate.The front of the body seems to be nonexistent and I am talking with myself.Are these the here-and-now moments you are talking about, or is there more, or is it a matter of more, more frequently?These are the moments I am talking about, but Amit Prem is not yet certain; hence the question. There is still a little doubt, and because of that doubt, those moments are not penetrating deep enough to reach to his very core of being. He is still suspicious, still thinking whether they are or not. That too is natural. The whole conditioning of the mind will stand like a barrier. Even at the last moment it will try to create suspicion, to make you ambiguous, to make you unclear, confused. The mind follows you to the very last moment, and it goes on dragging you backward. It is its old habit; it is what the mind has been trained for. I am not condemning it. I am just stating a fact.It happened:An inveterate pickpocket finally breathed his last and prostrated himself before St. Peter, craving admission through the Pearly Gates.St. Peter heard him through courteously, but then decreed, “It is hell for you, my boy. And meanwhile, kindly give me back my watch.”Now, a pickpocket is a pickpocket! Even at the gates of heaven, while Peter is talking, why not snatch away his watch?Mind is a habit because mind is a mechanism. So when these moments of herenow start penetrating your being, the mind stands on guard and it says, “Watch, you may be in a delusion. Or you may be hallucinating. Or maybe this guy Osho has hypnotized you” – or something. Suspicion.Now Amit Prem has to drop this doubting. Nothing else is needed.He asks, “Are these the here-and-now moments?” Yes, they are. And that’s what a master exists for: to help you in those moments when you become suspicious, when you lose clarity, to give you support.I say to you, yes, these are the moments; but if you become entangled with your suspicion, you will lose them. They are just happening. It is just the beginning. If suspicion comes in, that will be the end of the beginning; then they will die. They are very fragile right now. You should water them with trust, not with doubt – doubt will prove a poison.So don’t listen to the mind. That is what sannyas is all about. Why do I insist so much for sannyas? So that when these moments start happening, you can trust me. You have always trusted your mind. It is not worth it, but you have trusted it. The master is a device, so there is an alternative: when there is any problem with the mind, you can choose the master or the mind. These are the moments when the master has to be listened to.Yes, I repeat it again: these are the right moments. But if you get suspicious, if you think about them, you will miss them.You are saying: “Are these the here-and-now moments, or is there more?” That again is the mind. The whole trick of the mind is the technique of “more.” The mind always says, “There must be more.” If you have money, the mind says, “Have more money.” If you have power, the mind says, “Have more power.” If you are getting moments of meditation, the mind says, “There must be more.” “More” is the technique of the mind to confuse you, to never allow you a moment of happiness. The “more” brings misery: “So there is more? So I am not getting enough.” And misery enters. You have compared.Forget all about the “more.” “More” is a trick of the mind; “more” is the agent of the mind.These are the moments. Don’t think about the future, don’t think about the past. If you think about the past, the mind will create doubt. If you think about the future, the mind will create ambition. These are the two tricks of the mind. Look at the past, it creates doubt. It says, “There have been other moments like this also, but where are they now?” Once you had fallen in love with a woman, and how beautiful it was – and then? Then all disappeared. Maybe these moments are also like that. You have fallen in love with this man and something is happening. It is the honeymoon. The honeymoon cannot be permanent; the honeymoon will disappear.Amit Prem is a new sannyasin; not yet settled in sannyas, still escaping but cannot escape, still trying hard to figure out what is what and not able to figure it out. It is very difficult.You cannot figure out what I am doing here. My ways are so contradictory, it is impossible to figure it out. My ways are paradoxical. So I say one thing one moment and I contradict it immediately.He’s still not settled. He has taken sannyas, but hypothetically: “Let us see what happens. Maybe there is something, maybe there is not. If there is not, then who can prevent you? You can move back.” That’s why this suspicion and unclarity and confusion.If you settle with me, then the past is dropped. It is difficult and hard to drop the past, but unless you drop the past, the mind will never allow you freedom. The mind is your past; the whole accumulated past is your mind. Drop the past, and these moments will penetrate to the very core. And you will not think about “more,” because you think about more only when these moments have not penetrated to the core. When they have penetrated to the core, there is nothing more. And when there is nothing more, there is bliss and benediction.And now the really, really last question:Osho,What is enlightenment? Please explain.I will not, because I cannot. And I cannot because nobody can. You have come a little late. Had you asked me the same question before I became enlightened, I would have had many answers. Now I have none, now I am absolutely dumb about it.I can show you the path, how to become enlightened, but I cannot say what it is. I can hold your hand to the very door and push you in, but I don’t know what is “in.”If you are courageous, come, follow me. If you are not courageous, escape as soon as possible, because if you hang around a little longer, it is dangerous. And I am telling you beforehand, so you can never make me responsible for it. Either escape as fast as possible and as far away as possible – to be here is dangerous – or take courage and hold my hand. I can take you into that state of enlightenment, but nothing can be said about it.It is indefinable, it is ineffable. It is – in fact only it is; nothing else exists. But it is so vast, it cannot be confined to any explanation.Enough for today.

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Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 01-10Category: Kabir

Ecstasy The Forgotten Language 05 (Read, Listen & Download)

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I. 104. Aisa lo nahin tai sa, loO how may I ever express that secret word?O how can I say he is not like this,and he is like that?If I say that he is within me,the universe is ashamed.If I say that he is without me,it is falsehood.He makes the inner and the outer worldsto be indivisibly one;the conscious and the unconscious,both are his footstools.He is neither manifest nor hidden,he is neither revealed nor unrevealed:there are no words to tell that which he is.II. 56. Dariya ki lahar dariyao hai jiThe river and its waves are one surf. Where is the difference between the river and its waves?When the wave rises, it is the water;and when it falls, it is the same water again.Tell me, sir, where is the distinction?Because it has been named a wave,shall it no longer be considered as water?Within the absolute,the worlds are being told like beads.Look upon that rosarywith the eyes of wisdom.The truth is known and yet not known – known in a sense and not known in another; known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate, and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic problem that faces the seeker of truth. We are one with it, there is no space between us and the truth, so we cannot become the knower. We cannot separate the known from the knower – there is no way to separate them – and knowledge exists only when the knower and known are separate.Knowledge is a bridge between the object and the subject. If they are not separate, the bridge cannot exist. So the first thing to be remembered: truth is not known in the ordinary sense, cannot be known in the ordinary sense.Yet there is a knowing of sorts – a totally different type of knowing, of a totally different quality. The knowing is more like love than knowledge. You know a woman or a man when you are deep in love. When your boundaries meet and mingle and merge, when you are no longer separate, when you cannot say where you end and where your woman starts, when there are no fences and no defenses, when you are simply overlapping, overflowing into each other – the division has disappeared and you have become indivisible – there is a sort of knowing. You know. Before it, all that you used to think of as knowledge was just illusory.But can you say now that you know? Now there is no one separate who can claim to be the knower. This is the problem. Truth is known, but in such a way that you cannot claim knowledge. Truth is known in such a way that by knowing it the mystery does not disappear; in fact it becomes very, very deep, infinitely deep, ultimately deep. By knowing the truth, nothing is solved. In fact for the first time you are facing the insoluble. This is the paradox, the dilemma.If you understand this dilemma, then you will be able to follow what Kabir is trying to say.Let us go into it a little more. All knowledge is illusory; we only think that we know. What do we mean when we say we know? When you say, “I know this tree,” what do you mean? It is a pine tree or an old oak or something else. What do you know? You know a label: it is a “pine” or an “oak” or an “ashoka.” You know a name. All that your knowledge consists of is that you know the label. Forget the label and the unknown is there. All knowledge consists only of names – drop the label and suddenly the unknown is there.But we live by naming things. It gives us a false sense of security. Otherwise everybody is a stranger and it will be too difficult to live with strangers, it will be so difficult to trust strangers. Mind immediately jumps upon anything that comes, labels it, and feels good. Finished. This man is a “good” man, and this man is a “sinner” – you have labeled.But can’t you observe a simple reality that the saint can become the sinner the next moment, and the sinner can become the saint? So what do you know? The murderer can become a mahatma and the mahatma can become a murderer. So when you say this man is “good,” what are you saying? Do you know this man, because this good man can prove bad any moment? And you say another man is “bad,” and he can prove to be the holiest of men any moment. So what do you know? By labeling, by naming, you have not known anything. The reality remains unexplained, mysterious.You say, “This woman is my wife,” or “This man is my husband.” What do you know? Just labeling a person “my husband,” have you known something? You are just in a deception. You have created an illusion of knowledge.But the mind wants this illusion very much. It feels at ease. With this illusory knowledge surrounding you, you feel at home. Mind lives in lies – old or new, but mind lives in lies.I have heard:When Herbert Wise, the chess champion, returned to the freshwater college he had attended in his youth, the prexi suggested that he have a look at the dormitory room he had occupied as a student. The lad who was living there at the time unfortunately had chosen this evening to smuggle in a beautiful young coed to help him with his history – a gross infraction of rules. When he heard the president and Mr. Wise in the hall, he hid the girl hastily in the clothes closet.Wise looked at the familiar old room, sighed, and remarked, “Same old desk, same old chairs.” Then when he opened the closet door, saw the flustered coed, added softly, “And the same old girl.”“It is my sister, sir,” stammered the young man.“And the same old lie!” chortled Wise.It continues that way – the same old lies. Mind lives through lies, mind feeds on lies. Mind cannot encounter truth. All knowledge is of the mind, so all knowledge is bound to be illusory. All knowledge is maya, it is not real. It is a pseudo coin invented by the mind to fill the gap; otherwise you will feel very, very ignorant and stupid, otherwise you will feel you don’t know anything. It will be difficult for you to stand, struggle in life. Mind says, “Forget all about ignorance. Knowledge is possible. It is simple: you just cram in a few facts – labels, names. Get acquainted with more information, accumulate information, go to the library, and become knowledgeable.”Knowledgeableness is not knowledge, and all your knowledge is nothing but knowledgeableness. You have gathered information from without – from tradition, from the university, from the society, civilization. You say somebody is a Mohammedan, and you say somebody is a Christian, and then you have figured out who he is? Just by calling a man Christian or calling him a communist, have you known him? Have you known anything about him? But you have a feeling that you know now: this man is a communist – dangerous, and this man is a Christian – very good.This stupid effort to drown your ignorance by a false knowledge is the only barrier between you and reality, between you and the truth. And if you go on with these lies, believing in them, you will never come across truth – these lies won’t allow you. These lies will function as barriers.I have heard:Once Mulla Nasruddin lived next to a lunatic asylum. One of his regular afternoon naps on the lawn was rudely interrupted when a beautiful young lady, completely without clothes, came bursting through the hedge, hotly pursued by three interns dressed in white. The old Mulla was just recovering from his astonishment when a fourth intern dashed into view carrying in each hand a heavy pail full of sand.The Mulla noticed that a considerable gallery was watching from the other side of the hedge, so he called out, “What is the idea of the fourth intern with the pails of sand?”“That is his handicap,” was the explanation. “He caught her the last time.”And even when I look at you, I see you with pails of lies – searching for truth. You are never going to catch it; your handicap is going to be too much. It is impossible. You have to drop all handicaps. Your mind is the root cause of all your handicaps – your mind is a deceiver. It creates a magical world, a false world of knowledge.That is the meaning of the biblical story: Adam is turned out of the Garden of Eden because he has eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It is a very significant parable. Because of knowledge Adam is turned out of heaven, loses all his blessedness, loses all his innocence, happiness, loses immortality, becomes a mortal, becomes miserable. This is the original sin: knowledge is the original sin. Meditate on this parable as much as possible, again and again, from different angles. There is no other parable so significant in the whole history of religion.Adam’s sin is knowledge. Then what is Jesus’ virtue? It must be ignorance. Christians don’t talk about it. It must be ignorance. That’s what Jesus says when he says, “Unless you are like children you will not enter into the kingdom of my God.” “Unless you are like children”? means unless you are innocent, ignorant like children, unless you drop all your knowledge, you will not enter, you will not be received back. Knowledge is the sin and ignorance is the virtue.To be ignorant and to know that all knowledge is false, is a radical revolution. Then you remain virgin, then knowledge never corrupts you. Yes, knowledge is a corruption, it is a poison.All meditative techniques developed anywhere in the world are nothing but efforts to make you free of your knowledge, efforts to make you free of your mind. Meditation means to create a state of no-mind. A state of no-mind will be a state of no-knowledge. A state of no-mind will be a state of tremendous ignorance – primal ignorance. And ignorance is beautiful.When you don’t know, you are not; when you know, you are – knowledge begins to function as the ego. No-knowledge, and the ego cannot exist; it has no props, no support. It falls, collapses, disappears. And in that state of no-mind, no-ego – no-you – something happens, which is more like love. You flow into existence and existence starts flowing in you. You are no longer separate from existence. The drop has fallen into the ocean, and the ocean has fallen into the drop.This is what is called wisdom. Knowledge is not wisdom. To know “I don’t know anything” is wisdom.That is the meaning of the oracle of Delphi’s declaration. Somebody asked, “Who is the greatest wise man of the world?” and the oracle said, “Socrates.” And the person went to Socrates and told him, “Have you heard it or not? The oracle of the temple has said that you are the wisest man in the world.”Socrates is reported to have laughed and said, “Go back. There must have been some mistake because just today, this morning, it has happened to me that I don’t know anything. How can it be? If you had come yesterday I would have believed you, because I used to think that I know, but not now. This morning – this very morning – something tremendous has happened to me: all knowledge has appeared as futile. I am awakened. The sleep of knowledge is no longer there; I am no longer dreaming. And now I know only one thing for certain: that I don’t know anything.“Go back and tell the oracle that something must have gone wrong. The oracle has always been right and true, I know, but this time the oracle has committed an error. Go and put things right. And it is me, Socrates himself, saying that I am the most ignorant man of the world. How can the oracle say I am the most wise? No, it is not possible.”The man was puzzled, he could not believe it, but he went to the oracle and said, “There must have been some mistake, sir, because Socrates denies it. He says, ‘I know only one thing: that I don’t know anything.’”And the oracle said, “That’s why we have declared that he is the greatest wise man of the world. That’s why! That is precisely why we have declared it! Go and tell him. If you had asked yesterday, we would not have said so – he was as foolish as anybody else. Now he is not a fool at all – he is not fooled by knowledge. He has awakened.”Knowing that you don’t know, you really become a knower. That is wisdom. Wisdom is not knowledge. Wisdom is awareness.O how may I ever express that secret word?And when you have known in this way, not the way of knowledge but the way of wisdom, the way of love; not as a spectator, not as an observer from the outside but as a participant of existence – you have danced with God hand in hand, step by step, and you have come to feel something…Yes, it is better to use the word feeling than knowing. It is closer to reality. Knowing is cerebral, feeling is total. When you feel, you don’t feel only from the head, you don’t feel only from your heart, you don’t feel only from your guts; you feel from every fiber of your being. Feeling is total, feeling is orgasmic, feeling is organic.In a moment of feeling, you function as a totality. When you think, you function only as the head. When you are sentimental, you function only as the heart. Remember: sentimentality is not feeling, emotionalism is not feeling. Thinking, you are a head – just a part pretending to be the whole. Of course it is false. This perspective is false. Emotional, sentimental, you are the heart – again another part pretending to be the whole, another servant pretending to be the master. Again it is false.Feeling is of the total – of the body, of the mind, of the soul. Feeling knows no divisions; feeling is indivisible. When you feel, you function as a totality. When you function as a totality you function in tune with the totality. Let me repeat it: when you function as a totality you function in tune with the totality. When you function as a part you have fallen apart; you are no longer in tune with the total. When you are no longer in tune with the total, whatsoever you think you know is false, illusory. When you are in tune with the total, you know that you don’t know anything. But even this “not knowing” is a knowing – it is a feeling, it is a love affair with the whole.O how may I ever express that secret word?And when you come to know in this way, it is a secret knowing – secret because it cannot be expressed, secret because language is inadequate for it, secret because it cannot be taught.Let me tell you one thing: in the East we have been making a distinction between a teacher and a master. The teacher is one who teaches, of course, and the master is one who does not teach. Then what does a master do? A teacher teaches; he believes in teaching – he believes that truth can be taught. Of course this is basically wrong. Truth cannot be reduced to language, truth cannot be reduced to concepts, so how can it be taught? Truth cannot be expressed. Nobody has ever been able to express it, so how can it be taught? The teacher himself has not known it yet. The teacher is as unaware as the taught. With the teacher, you become a student, so whatsoever he has accumulated, he goes on transferring it to you – it is a transference of information.A master never teaches, but you can catch something from the master. Truth cannot be taught but can be caught. The master, his very being, his very presence, his every gesture, the way he looks at you, the way he walks, the way he talks – not what he says, not the content – but the way he talks; the way he keeps quiet, the way sometimes he falls silent… Something between the words and something between the lines…The teacher exists in the words; the master exists between the words – the gaps, the intervals. The teacher has something to teach you; the master has something which if you want you can take but he cannot teach. If you are ready you can partake of it. If you are thirsty you can quench your thirst. It is not a communication. It is a communion. Between a teacher and a student there is communication; between a master and the disciple there is a communion, a transference of energy. Something mysterious passes, and the disciple becomes pregnant with the unknown.O how may I ever express that secret word?Kabir is a master, and he says, “How can I express, however can I express, that secret word? That which has happened in the innermost recesses of my being, how can I bring it to the surface? That which has happened in the silence of my soul, how can I reduce it and convert it and translate it into language?” Language is very inadequate. Truth is vast, and language is very, very narrow. Truth is like the sky, and language is like a closed fist.Let me tell you:An elephant was frolicking happily in a swimming pool one day, when a mouse came along and implored him to come out of the water. The elephant ignored the mouse for a while, but it became so insistent that the elephant finally lumbered out of the pool to demand, “What on earth do you want?”The mouse squeaked, “I just wanted to see if you were wearing my bathing suit.”Yes, to bring truth into words is as impossible – more so! Words are very small, trivial, mundane, material, worldly. Words are invented by man. Truth is discovered – never invented. It is already there. And truth is discovered when somebody becomes courageous enough to lose himself, to relax into a nonbeing, into a no-mind. Then truth is known. It is known only when you are so utterly silent that not even a ripple of thought arises in you.So how to reduce it into language, into words, into thoughts? It happens only when thought is not present. Thought cannot convey it, and whatsoever thought conveys is a distortion. That’s why those who have known have always been in great inner difficulty. How to express it? How to say it? When Buddha became enlightened, for seven days he remained silent. He would not utter a single word. It was so difficult. It is so easy to talk when you don’t know; it is so difficult to talk when you know. It is so easy to talk when you don’t know, because you can say anything. When you know, it is almost impossible to talk. You can go around and around.That’s what I go on doing. I go around and around, just in the hope that someday, by chance, by accident, you may become aware that whatsoever I want to convey to you cannot be conveyed in words. Listening to my words, you may fall silent. Listening to my music, you may become so attentive, so alert, that in that alertness truth may be able to penetrate you.But I don’t believe that through my words you are going to know anything. It is not possible.That’s why trust has been emphasized so much. If you listen to my words you will be listening to my logic, and truth cannot be put into words, so it cannot be made a logical proposition. No, it is not a syllogism. If you are in deep love with me, then there is a possibility. Then you will not be looking for the logic, then you will be looking for something else. Then you will be looking sideways, then you will be looking and waiting for silences.Truth is available here in my presence, but not in my words. If you listen only to my words, you have not listened to me at all. You have been deaf. If you have listened to my silence, maybe my words can be helpful as a contrast to my silence. When you write on a blackboard with white chalk it comes out clear and loud, because the blackboard gives the contrast. If you write on a white wall with white chalk it will not be clear and loud. It will be lost. I can keep quiet here, I can sit silently here, but then you will not be able to understand my silence at all. It will be writing with white chalk on a white wall.I talk to you – I create a blackboard of words, of language, concept, logic, philosophy, religion – and then I leave just a few small gaps, silent gaps, intervals. Those gaps come very loudly. Against the black background of language, silence comes very clearly.Hence I speak. Hence Kabir speaks. Hence Buddha has to concede to speak after seven days.There was a Zen student under a master to whom he was very devoted. Each time he approached the master, the latter waved his hand, saying, “Not yet, not yet.” Some time passed. One evening he became desperate: “How can this be? I have no word of instruction which will lead me to the realization. The master simply chases me, saying, ‘Not yet, not yet.’ What can I do? What do I have to think about it all?”He went on like this – thinking, brooding, meditating – in utter desperation, but tenaciously clinging to his object of inquiry and pondering it from every possible point of view, when all of a sudden something flashed on his mind and he realized at once what the master wanted him to discover. The following morning he visited the master, wishing to let him know what had happened to him. But the master seeing him come, burst out, “You have it now, you have it now!”What happened? For years he was saying, “Not yet, not yet.” Then one day the disciple comes, and he has not even said a single word to the master, and the master says, “You have it now, you have it now.”The day you understand my silence and not my words, there will be no need for you to tell me that you have attained it. I will know it immediately; even before you have known it, I will know it. There is a very subtle relationship between the master and the disciple. It is almost like a spiritual umbilical cord. The master knows, and goes on saying, “Not yet, not yet. Don’t say a single word. It is all foolish, whatsoever you have brought. It is all mind stuff, whatsoever you have brought. It has nothing to do with truth; it is still knowledge. Wait, not yet, don’t say anything.”In Zen the disciple meditates on a koan, on a Zen puzzle, and comes to the master, brings a reply of what he has come to understand. The “not yet, not yet” is for that, that you have not yet understood: “Go back, meditate again.” For example, the Zen master will say, “Go and listen to one hand clapping, listen to the sound of one hand clapping.” and the disciple listens, and tries, and finds out, figures out what to answer, how to find the answer to this puzzle; and then he brings an answer. But the way you come, the quality of consciousness that you bring, the mind full of ideas and conclusions that you bring, is enough. Your presence is enough for the master to feel, and he says, “Not yet, not yet.” Then one day, suddenly, it has happened. It happens out of the blue, all of a sudden.In fact spiritual explosion is exactly an explosion. It is not a gradual process. You don’t grow inch by inch. Either you are there or you are not there. Either you have known or you have not known. There is no in-between, it is a sudden flash. One meditates and meditates and meditates and one goes on penetrating into one’s own mind, looking into one’s own nature. By this very looking, one day, the look is so penetrating that the mind simply stops; awareness is so total that the mind is no longer being created; attention is so perfect that the mind dissolves, and there is a lightning and suddenly you know. You know that nothing can be known, you know that ignorance is primordial, you know that life is a mystery and is going to remain a mystery, you know that truth is not only unknown but unknowable. You are freed from the illusion of knowledge.The disciple rushed toward the master to tell him what had happened – because when something of such a tremendous import happens, you would like to share it. And with whom to share? Who will understand you? Only the master can understand. You would like to share it. And when the disciple reached the master, the master said, “You have it now, you have it now.” He never allowed him to say a single word before, and he is not even allowing him now. First he was saying, “Not yet, not yet. Keep quiet. Go back.” Now he says, “No need to come. You have known. Keep quiet.”When truth is known, you cannot say it. That’s why the master says, “I know that you have known it – now keep quiet. Now sit silently in front of me. Now let us be together, really together. Now let me overflow in you and you overflow in me. Now let there be a communion, let soul meet with soul. Now there is no need for one mind to communicate with the other mind.”You hold the hand of your friend – that’s a communication on the physical level. You say something to your friend – that is a communication on the mental level. Then you just remain in the presence of your friend saying nothing, gesturing nothing, having nothing to say, just pure presences – then it is a spiritual communication. That communication is called communion.I am trying to create a community here, a community of sannyasins. Community means people who are waiting for or trying to have communion. Community means people who are being together to dissolve into each other. So whosoever is here with some egoist idea is not here at all. He will miss me, and he will miss this community that exists here.Some people come to me and they say, “In this ashram, people don’t seem to be much interested in others. They don’t take much interest.” This person is on some ego trip. He wants people to take an interest in him. Why should they take an interest in him? Here we are creating a situation in which nobody is going to help your ego, nobody is going to give you importance. If you are seeking importance, then there is the big world….In my small world, if you come, don’t seek importance, don’t seek attention. Rather become attentive, rather become aware, and try to dissolve into the community that is getting ready here. And it is easier for you to dissolve into it right now because it is in the beginning of the process. Once it has gone far deeper it will be more difficult for you to take the jump because there will be a great gap. Right now there is not much of a gap – a very small gap. You can take the jump very easily.O how may I ever express that secret word?O how can I say he is not like this, and he is like that?How to say God is like this or God is like that? There are many problems. First, language is not adequate. Second, the listener is not ready. You appear to be listening, but you don’t listen, because listening needs a tremendous sensitivity. Your whole being should become your hearing. You should hear from every cell of your body, from every hair of your body. You should hear from the eyes and from the hands and from the soles of your feet. You should hear with your totality. You should just become ears.I have heard:An attendant at the London Zoo was intrigued by two Beatle-haired youths strumming guitars earnestly outside the lions’ cage. “My brother is the cool one,” announced one of the boys modestly. “You put him in that empty cage over there and let one lion at a time into it and you will see how even the wild beasts fall for his music.”So the zoo attendant led the brother into the empty cage, then shoved the first lion in with him. Almost at once the lion seemed to smile and began dancing daintily to the music. A second lion was produced and proceeded to execute a cross between the twist and a gavotte.Then a third lion entered the cage. In less time than it takes to tell, he had pounced upon the poor guitarist and eaten him up. The zoo attendant patted the surviving brother sympathetically on the back. “I was afraid that would happen,” he said sadly, “when I let that deaf lion in there.”You are deaf. You appear to be hearing and you appear to be seeing, but you are blind. You appear to be alive, but you are dead. Your aliveness depends on your sensitivity. If you are sensitive, only then can truth be in some indirect way hinted at. Only hints are possible, and hints are so indirect that if you listen very attentively, only then will you catch them.O how can I say he is not like this, and he is like that?If I say that he is within me, the universe is ashamed.How to say God is within, because then who is without? He is without too.If I say he is within me, the universe is ashamed.There have been a few mystics who have decided to say he is within. Mahavira decided that he is within. It is a partial statement of truth, it is not total. Or, Mohammed decided the other way: he said he is without. That too is a partial truth, not the total truth. Kabir is trying to move in a deeper realm. Mohammed says, “He is without”; hence Mohammedans killed Mansoor because Mansoor declared, “He is within me. I am God – anal haq – I am the truth.” Mohammedans could not tolerate it because they always say, “God is there above in heaven. How can you, a mortal, declare that he is within you or you are him? This is sacrilege!”Mahavira decided just the opposite. He said, “He is within you, so don’t worship him anywhere else. Don’t go to worship him in the river or in the sun or in the tree or in the moon or in the stars. Don’t go to worship him anywhere. He is not in the temples; he is within you.” This too is a partial truth because he is within and without.Kabir says:If I say that he is within me, the universe is ashamed.If l say that he is without me, it is falsehood.He makes the inner and the outer worlds to be indivisibly one;The inner and the outer is the division of the mind. The inner and outer do not exist in reality. What is inner? Have you pondered over it, ever? What is inner and what is outer? You say, “This is the inside of my house.” And there is a door and you pass through the door and you say, “This is the outside of my house.” But the same sky exists outside and the same sky exists inside. The inside and the outside are not two. You inhale and you exhale. When you exhale, the breath goes out; when you inhale, the breath goes in. The within is joined with the without – the inhalation is part of exhalation; the exhalation is part of inhalation. The breath that was mine just a moment before is no longer mine; it has become yours. And the breath that was yours is no longer yours; it has become mine. So you are not so without and I am not so within. We are joined together.There is an apple on the tree; it is outside. You eat it, you digest it; within a few hours it becomes part of you. It is in your bloodstream. After a few months a part of it will have moved to your bones and a part of it will have become your consciousness, your mind, your awareness, your thinking. A part of the apple will become your meditation. And then one day you will die and your body will be buried under the earth, and the apple tree will take food from it. Again…your body will feed the apple tree and again you will circulate in the sap of the tree, and you will become the leaf of the tree and the fruit of the tree, and so on, and so forth.Nothing is within, nothing is without. We are joined together. The universe is one. Yes, that’s why we don’t call it a multiverse, we call it a universe – because it is one. It is uni. It is a unity.The conscious and the unconscious, both are his footstools.He is neither manifest nor hidden, he is neither revealed nor unrevealed:there are no words to tell that which he is.Then how to tell? If we say “within,” it is half; if we say “without,” it is half. If we say, “He is within and without,” it is confusing – then our distinctions, our categories, dissolve. Then it becomes very difficult to know who is who, it becomes very difficult to live. If you are me and I am you, then it will become very, very difficult to live. If you put your hand into my pocket, I cannot say, “What are you doing? Are you a thief or a kleptomaniac or something?” I cannot say anything, because you are me and I am you. That’s why, you see, I don’t have any pockets! It will be difficult to decide!Ordinary life will become very, very complicated. I don’t know my name, you don’t know your name; it will become very difficult.I have heard:The wealthy and aged society leader stepped out in the garden of his home during a party he was giving and discovered his young wife in the arms of another man. “What is the meaning of this?” shouted the outraged millionaire. “Who is this man?”After a moment’s embarrassing silence the young wife spoke up and said, “I believe my husband is perfectly within his rights. What is your name?”It is happening more and more. In a way nothing is wrong in it: nobody has any name. And what is the point of knowing the name of the other person, because all names are false? All names are arbitrary, they don’t say anything, but they are needed. Ordinary life, the practical life, will become impossible.So Kabir says: “If we say he is within, that is half – and the world is ashamed, and the whole is ashamed. If we say he is without, that is not true, because he is within too. And if we say he is both and indivisibly one, then all distinctions drop and it becomes very impractical. So how to say it?There are no words to tell that which he is.He can be felt only in silence, and he can be shown only in silence. Yes, nothing can be said about him, but he can be shown to you – and that is the meaning of the relationship between a master and a disciple. The master leads you somewhere, to some vision that has become part of his being. He takes you to his inner world so that you can see a little through his eyes, so that you can hear a little through his ears, so that you can touch reality a little through his hands. Once a glimpse is there, then things will become very easy.And there is no need to disturb the practical world. Let it continue as it is. That’s why I don’t say renounce the world, I say be part of it. It is good. Just know that it is all arbitrary, that all the distinctions are only useful, not true. They have a utility but no truth in them. Use the distinctions, but never be lost in them.Once when a government dignitary called O Wang was late in coming to Bokuju, a Zen master, Bokuju asked the officer why he had been delayed. O Wang said that he had attended a polo game.The master asked, “Who strikes the ball, the rider or the horse?”The officer replied, “The rider.”“Was he tired?”“Yes, he was tired.”“Was the horse tired?”“It too was tired.”Bokuju then asked, “Was the goalpost tired?”The officer was at a loss as to how to answer such a question – the goal post?After returning home, he spent his evening thinking of the master’s strange question. In the middle of the night the solution dawned on him unexpectedly.The officer called on the master next day and reported that he understood the master’s question.Bokuju asked, “Was the post tired?”“Yes, tired!” said the officer.Bokuju laughed and he said, “You are right.”Now this is a tremendous experience – because the universe is one. The rider is tired, the horse is tired, what about the goal post? The ordinary mind will say, “What nonsense. A goal post is dead.” But if the universe is one and indivisibly one, nothing can be dead or nothing can be alive. Either everything is alive or everything is dead. If the universe is one, how can anything be dead? If God is life then nothing can be dead. And that is what dawned upon the officer, that when the master says everything is one, then of course the goal post must be tired.Now scientists say that trees feel tired. Just within twenty years the fact has become known that trees feel tired, that trees feel happy, that trees feel sad, that trees feel angry, that trees feel loving. Someday it is possible some scientist will stumble upon this fact too: that the goal post is tired, feels tired, happy, sad, angry. If the universe is one, this is how it has to be so.When you come home tired, have you ever thought your shoes must be tired? It will be very confusing and you will get very worried, hence we don’t allow such disturbing truths into our consciousness. Scientists say we allow only two percent of all facts to enter into our consciousness; ninety-eight percent is denied entry. Otherwise life will become very, very difficult.Unless you become very, very aware, life will become very, very difficult. If you become aware, you can tackle more facts, you can allow more facts into your consciousness. When your awareness is perfect, you can allow a hundred percent of life to enter into you and it will not be confusing. When you have grown into consciousness, you can take the totality in. Then you will see the saint is the sinner and the sinner is the saint. Then you will see God is the Devil and the Devil is God. Then you will see matter is mind and mind is material.That totality can be realized only when you have become so tremendously aware that your awareness is not disturbed by it. Ordinarily we need distinctions to keep things clear-cut: this man is bad, avoid him; this man is good, follow him; this man is good, imitate him; this man is bad, don’t come in contact with him, don’t become friendly with him, there is danger. This is poison and this is nectar: drink the nectar and avoid the poison.I have heard a very beautiful story. Listen to it attentively.Once there were two men who ate exactly the same food, but one had two bowls while the other had only one. The man with two bowls divided his food into bitter and sweet, and put only the bitter in one bowl and the sweet only in the other. The man with one bowl naturally mixed the bitter and the sweet together. As time passed, the first man grew thinner and thinner, and gradually wasted away, while the second, who ate just the same food, grew healthier and healthier daily. At last, the first saw his approaching death, and in desperation asked the second the secret of his vitality and vigor.“You, having two bowls,” the second replied, “divided the bitter from the sweet, and so believed in the importance of taste that you did not allow the food you took to sustain you with its own inner life. But I had only one bowl, and so mixing the bitter and the sweet together have not been fooled by the matter of taste. For whatever I have been given to eat I have taken simply as food, and it has yielded its nourishment to me, praise God.”The first man rose from his deathbed and with a great effort picked up one of his bowls and dashed it to pieces; and in the one bowl that remained he ate gratefully of the food his friend offered him and was whole again.This is a beautiful story, a Sufi story.If you divide, you will be divided within too. If you divide existence into good and bad, God and the Devil, consciousness and unconsciousness, heaven and hell, this division is bound to create a division in you. You will be split in two; you will become a schizophrenic. You will lose your togetherness; you will start falling into parts; you will no longer be integrated. Your perception, your vision, is divided – how can you be undivided? Your vision is your being. If you drop dividing and you start looking for one, you will become one too – because whatsoever you see you become. Once you start eating in one bowl, the sweet and bitter both, you are nourished, because the contradictions are not contradictory. They are complementary.Alan Watts has written about George Gurdjieff, that he was a “rascal saint.” That’s perfectly true. A real saint is bound to be a rascal saint because he will be bitter and sweet both. If he is just a saint – just sweet and sweet and sweet – avoid him, otherwise you will get diabetes. A sweet saint is very dangerous. Just sweet? – it will nauseate you, you will feel sick. The bitter is also needed.When you feed on totality – indivisible totality – you are nourished. This is the meaning of this story: don’t divide.But language divides – that’s why truth cannot be expressed. If you say, “God is good,” it has become a false statement, because then who will be bad? If you say, “God is light,” then who will be darkness?To many sannyasins I have given names which mean darkness, night, or things like that, and I have always been watching whenever I give this name. To one sannyasin I gave the name Nisha, night. Immediately, within two, three days, she wrote a letter, “Osho, this name disturbs me very much.” Just two, three days ago, to another sannyasin I gave the name Yamini, that means night. Her letter has come – she must be here. Her letter has come, “Osho, can’t you change my name? Yamini? Night? I love light.”We have a very dualistic ideology. God is light; then who is darkness? Then there must be two Gods – the god of the darkness also. Then, not only are you schizophrenic, your whole existence is schizophrenic: not only are you divided, you have divided existence itself.No, day is beautiful, so is night. Day is godly, divine, so is night. You may be surprised to know the word day comes the from the same root as “divine.” They both come from the same root. So day is divine, and night? – nobody says night is divine. Night too is divine. And it will be better if you eat of both, day and night. It will be good if you have one bowl.I give one bowl to my sannyasins. Eat sweet and bitter, good and bad, consciousness and unconsciousness. Enjoy both and you will be nourished, and you will become very, very strong. And your strength will not be opposite to softness, no. The stronger you will be, the more fragile too. And this is the beauty, when a strong man is fragile like a flower – strong like a sword and fragile like a flower – then you are total, then you are undivided, then you are indivisible, then you are really an individual. Individual means that which cannot be divided. You have come home, you have become one. Now you can relax and rest.But language by its very nature divides. If I say to you, “You are my friend,” I have divided. Then I have said that in my eyes somebody is my enemy: “You are my friend.”I say, “I love you.” that means I hate somebody. I say, “I am happy.” That means unhappiness is not welcome. Language divides; language is based in schizophrenia, based in a deep split.There are no words to tell that which he is.The river and its waves are one surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?When the wave rises, it is the water; and when it falls, it is the same water again. Tell me, sir, where is the distinction?Attain to a perception which has no distinctions – of the lower and the higher, of the material and the spiritual. Attain to a perception which is transcendental, because the wave is the ocean and the ocean is the wave. They are together. Have you ever seen the ocean without the waves, and have you ever seen a wave without the ocean? They are together, they are two polarities of one. Oneness exists between the two. There are so many colors, seven colors, but they are all part of one light. The whole spectrum belongs to one ray of light. From the darkest black to the whitest white, the whole spectrum belongs to one, to the light.Tell me, sir, where is the distinction?Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be considered as water?These are just names – utilitarian, good – but never be deceived by the utility. Remember the truth. Utility is practical, truth is real. Utility is needed but is not the nature of things. When you are not there to name things and the ocean is left alone, which is the wave and which is the ocean? There is nobody to make the distinction. The ocean is the wave and the wave is the ocean. When you have gone home and the ocean is left alone, there are no waves and no ocean: it is all oneness. You come and you bring your distinction. Nothing is wrong in it if your remember that just by naming a wave as a wave you have not created any distinction, but we become very, very deceived by our names.An embarrassing moment ensued on upper Broadway the day the Queen of Greece came up to Barnard College to receive an honorary degree. One of the guests at the ceremony was a crusty old psychiatrist from Columbia University across the avenue.“Come over and meet the Queen of Greece,” smiled the dean of Barnard. The old psychiatrist shook hands graciously, then cackled to the dean – loud enough for Her Majesty to overhear – “She seems harmless enough. How long has she thought she is the Queen?”Now a psychiatrist always lives with people amongst whom somebody thinks he is a king, and somebody a queen; somebody is Adolf Hitler, and somebody is Napoleon – mad people. The psychiatrist says, “She seems harmless enough. How long has she thought she is the Queen?” But in fact whether you only think you are a queen or a king or you really are, what is the difference?It happened in a madhouse in India that when Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister, he went to see a madhouse. A man was being released that day and the superintendent thought it would be good if the prime minister released him personally. So the man was brought out.Jawaharlal asked him, “How long have you been here?”The man said, “I have been here for three years, and these people are very good. They have cured me absolutely.” Then suddenly he asked, “But who are you, sir?”So Jawaharlal said, “You don’t know me? I am Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India.”The man said, “Don’t be worried. These people will cure you within three years. That’s what I used to think when I came here! I also suffered from the same trouble.”But is there really any difference? If you ask the mystics, they say there is none. A madman, in his madness, thinks he is the prime minister – and somebody else is the prime minister and becomes mad! It is not very much of a difference. They may have traveled different routes: one is mad, that’s why he thinks he is the prime minister; another is the prime minister, that’s why he is mad. Maybe there is a practical distinction, but in reality there is none.Because it has been named as wave, shall it no longer be considered as water?Within the absolute, the worlds are being told like beads:look upon that rosary with the eyes of wisdom.What are the eyes of wisdom? With knowledge dropped, you attain to the eyes of wisdom. With ignorance covered up, you become knowledgeable. Knowledge dropped, ignorance accepted as ultimate, you become wise.So these are the three types of people in the world: the ignorant who is trying to become knowledgeable, the knowledgeable who has forgotten his ignorance, and the wise who has dropped knowledge and has come to accept his ignorance as ultimate and is no longer making any effort to know anything whatsoever. He has come to know that nothing can be known, that knowledge is impossible, that ignorance is the very nature of existence because it is a mystery. In his ignorance he has become relaxed. He rests in his ignorance. He has become innocent like a child.Then one becomes wise – not by knowing, but by knowing that nothing can be known, by knowing that all knowledge is illusion, by knowing that the very effort is doomed to fail, by knowing that existence is mysterious and it is not available for those people who are ready to analyze, dissect.It is available for those people who are ready to fall in love with it, for those people who can sing a song with it, dance a dance with it. God is available to singers and dancers and people who are innocent.Enough for today.