Osho - Walk
Without Feet, Fly Without Wings and Think Without Mind
Chapter 9. This
Very Ancientmost New Commune
Question 1:
Why can't I know God?
For you are it! Knowledge is
not possible. Knowledge pre-supposes division, split. The knower has to be
separate from the known. That's why God cannot be known. You can be God - you
are - but you cannot know Him. The very effort to know Him is based on
separation. Knowledge separates, divides; it never bridges you. That's why I
insist again and again: Be innocent, not knowledgeable - then you will be in
harmony with existence. Then you will be existence! Be ignorant.
Blessed are the ignorant.
Why? Because when there is no
knowledge, no effort to know, divisions disappear. You merge... you meet... you
become one.
You cannot know God because God
is hiding in you. God cannot be reduced to an object. God cannot become the
known. God is the knower; God is your subjectivity. It is not the goal, it is
the seeker. It is not at the end of the journey, it is in the beginning - in
the very beginning. It is the don't try to know God, otherwise you will fail
and there will be great frustration.
Become God! Be God! And when I
say become God, I am using language which is not adequate.
You are god! Recognize it -
that's all that I mean by becoming it. Look within yourself. Don't seek God - Find
Him! Without seeking He has to be found. All search leads astray, because the
search starts from the very false idea that He is separate, that He is far
away, that He is somebody else.
He is in the seeker - He is the
search!
Question 2:
Please explain 'right-mindfulness'. If not
a goal or something to practise, what is it?
Sambuddha, right-mindfulness is
a strange word. First: there is no mind in it - hence it is called
'right-mindfulness'. Secondly, there is nothing right and wrong in it - hence
it is called right-mindfulness. This is a Buddhist way of saying things.
It can't be a goal, because
when there is a goal you are always in the wrong. Why are you in the wrong when
there is a goal? because when there is a goal there is desire, when there is
desire you are unhappy, discontented. When there is desire, there is anxiety -
whether you will be able to make it or not? Will it be possible or not?
When there is desire there is
future, and with the future anxiety enters into your being. With the desire you
have lost contact with the present.
Right-mindfulness is not a
goal, cannot be a goal - because when all desires disappear and all goals
disappear and you are herenow... that is the moment of right-mindfulness.
Why is it called 'right'? It is
called right be-cause it knows no division between right and wrong.
Nothing is wrong! and nothing
is right. All judgements have disappeared. One is utterly innocent.
When you see a roseflower, does
the idea arise in you: 'It is right, it is wrong'? When you see the morning
star disappearing, does the idea arise in you: 'Is it right or is it wrong?'
When you start looking at life with no judgement, with no prejudice, then you
are in the state of right-mindfulness.
Jesus has said: Judge ye not.
Jesus has also said: Resist not evil - not even evil has to be resisted, then
arises right-mindfulness. When you are neither moral nor immoral, when you are
amoral like trees and animals and birds and beasts, when you are like a small
innocent child who has just opened his eyes, with no ideas... then, in that
silence, in that purity, it is right-mindfulness.
Why is it called right? It is
called right be-cause now it knows nothing as right and wrong - it knows no
division, it is indivisible. The acceptance is total! - that's why it is called
right. You have fallen into the suchness of existence. You are no longer
standing there like a judge.
Judging is wrong. To be in a
state of non-judgement is right. Right, not against wrong right because all
wrong and right have disappeared. You have no opinion. You don't carry a
philosophy in the mind.
You are simply a mirror!
When you come before the
mirror, the mirror does not say, 'You are beautiful, you are ugly' - it simply
reflects. It reflects without condemnation, without appreciation - it reflects
choicelessly. It just reflects.
When your consciousness has
become a mirror and simply reflects whatsoever is the case, it is
right-mindfulness. That mirrorlike quality...
And it is not a goal, because every
goal will bring dust on the mirror. Every goal will stir desires, and desires
surround your mirror like mist - then reflection is not true, then suchness is
not reflected.
When you have some idea, you
cannot be true to reality. You distort reality according to your idea.
You try to mould reality
according to your idea. You are to modify reality. You go on looking for your
idea. You are searching for support: you would like reality to support your
idea, you would like reality to agree with you - and then you distort. Then you
start seeing things which are not there, and you stop seeing things which ere there. Then you start living in a
mind-world.
To live in the mind is wrong.
To live without mind is right, because without mind, the consciousness exists
in its purity, mirror-like - it simply reflects. It says nothing! It has no
interpretation.
It interprets not.
And why is it called
mindfulness? This is the translation of a Buddhist term sammasati. Samma means
right - the translation is not very correct, cannot be. Samma is a very strange word, very significant, has many meanings;
'right' is only one of its meanings. Samma
is the root from where Samadhi
arises; the word samadhi comes from samma.
Samma means many things. One: tranquillity, silence, equanimity,
balance, undisturbedness, undistractedness, centredness, groundedness - they
are all aspects of samma. 'Right' is
a very poor translation of samma.
And Sati - Sammasati. Sati can mean mindfulness, can mean remembrance,
can mean reflection, can mean recollectedness, can mean presence. All those
meanings are involved in it.
Mindfulness is only one of the
meanings. It is a very potential and pregnant word - sammasati.
It is the seventh step in
Buddha's eight steps - you are very close to reality. The eighth is samadhi.
The seventh is sammasati. You have come very very
close; you are just on the threshold of reality - it has to be very very
significant. When you are utterly present in the presence, when you don't have
any past and don't have any future... when this cuckoo calling, this train
passing, this dog barking, is all... when this is all and there is no that,
when the word 'here' is your whole reality and there is no there, when now
contains all time and there is no then... then you are in the state of sammasati.
That's what I go on calling
'herenow' - that is sammasati. Then
you are utterly present, absolutely present. When something is going on in your
mind about the past, you are not here; a part of you is travelling towards the
past, and a part of you is travelling towards the future - only a small
fragment is here.
When all the parts of your
being are here, when you are totally at home, nothing is missing, when you are
integratedly here, then it is right-mindfulness. In that moment you will
reflect reality - as it is, without any distraction, without any distortion.
Because you don't have any thought in the mind, how can you distort it? Thought
distorts, thinking is destructive. It goes on imposing - it does not allow you
to see that which is.
Right-mindfulness is a state of
no-mind, no-thought!
And remember: it is also a
state of no-feeling - otherwise, you may think it is a state of feeling. No, it
is not - because feeling again creates ripples and the surface of the lake is
disturbed, and again the moon is not reflected as it is.
Neither thought disturbs you,
nor feeling.
These are the three states: one
is thinking - the most disturbed state; second is feeling - less disturbed than
thinking, but still disturbed; third is being - no disturbance at all. One is
in the head, second is in the heart, third is in your guts. Right-mindfulness
is a gut-state: no head, no heart. You are simply there undefined, undefinable.
Sambuddha, you ask me:
Please explain what 'right-mindfulness' is.
If not a goal or something to practise, what is it?
And, yes, it is not a practice.
You cannot practise it, because practice brings goal! Practice is desire,
practice is mind. And remember: whenever you practise something, you are
imposing something against yourself, otherwise why practise it? against whom
are you practising? When you practise truth, what will you do? You will repress
the untruth - but the untruth will remain there, deep inside you, ready to
explode any moment. It will go on accu-mulating.
When you practise love, what
will you do? You will repress hatred. When you practise com-passion, what will
you do? You will repress anger. And all that is repressed will go on remaining
in you, and all that is practised will remain on the surface, and all that is
rejected will go deep into your being.
The rejected will become part
of your being and the practised will remain just a coating, a painting on the
surface.
And remember: whenever you
practise anything, you are angry at it. Naturally so - because all practising
divides you, makes you schizophrenic.
One part of you is trying to
manipulate the other part. One part of you is trying to enforce some ideas on
the other part. And the part that is trying to enforce is a very impotent part,
but articulate - your head. It has no power, but it is very articulate, very
clever, very cunning, very argumentative.
And the head goes on imposing
on your body, on your heart, which are far more potential, far more powerful;
they have energy sources, but they are not articulate, they are not
argumentative - they are silent. And the head goes on pretending that it has
practised... and then a situation arises and all practice is thrown away -
because the head has no energy.
You think for years that you
will never be angry, then one day somebody insults you and in a single moment
you have forgotten all that practice. And you are angry! By the time you come
to know that you are angry, anger has already happened. You are burning, you
are fire. From where does this fire come? And years of practice! That practice
was just on the surface. Mind was pretending; because there was no situation
provoking you, mind was able to pretend. Now the situation has arisen and mind
is not able to pretend. The reality asserts itself.
That's why down the ages,
through the ages, the so-called religious people have been escaping from
society, from life. Why? They are escaping from situations where their practice
can be proved wrong; nothing else are they doing. Going to the Himalayas they
are simply escaping from the world - because the world brings situations! And
their so-called practice and their religion and their discipline is broken
again and again. Somebody insults, or a beautiful woman passes by, and all
their celibacy and all their brahmacharya and all their ideas are gone. A
single beautiful woman is enough to destroy all their years of celibacy.
They escape from women, they
escape from the world, they escape from money and the market - they know that
they can be moral and religious and saintly only when there is no situation
which provokes their reality. Then the mind can go on playing the game in a
monastery. When there is no challenge, mind seems to be the master. When there
is challenge, mind is no more a master.
Whatsoever you practise remains
false. Never out of practice has anything real happened. Beware of this. The
real happens only through understanding, not through practice. And what is the
difference?
Understanding will say: Remain
where situations arise, remain where challenges surround you.
Be there where provocations and
temptations exist. Test yourself there. Go into situations!
Understanding will say: If
anger comes, then go into anger and see what it is. See yourself - don't trust
anybody else's judgement about it. Go into it! Be burnt by it. Let it leave
scars on your being - because one learns only through the hard way. Only your
experience will tell you again and again and again that anger is stupid - not
that it is a sin! it is simply stupid. And as the understanding grows deeper,
anger will be coming less and less. One day... the understanding has touched
your very core of being, the light has penetrated you. You have seen through
and through that anger is futile: in that very moment anger has disappeared and
there has not been any repression.
Remember this: repression is
the pitfall for all those people who want to transform their lives - they have
to avoid repression. Indulgence is not so bad, because indulgence can one day
bring understanding, but repression can never bring understanding. How can you
understand something which you go on repressing and you don't look into? - you
go on covering it, go on throwing it in the basement of your being.
And remember: the more you
practise, the more you pretend, the more you are angry at your own practice.
Your real parts, your guts are angry.
The intellectual young man was
telling off his girlfriend. 'Jane,' he remonstrated, 'I don't think you are the
girl for me. My interests are in art, literature and in music. You are only
concerned with sports, with gambling and with common activities that are
altogether alien to me. In fact, to be blunt about it - you are downright
uncouth!'
'Uncouth!' she exploded. 'Me?! What
are you talking about? Uncouth? Didn't I go along with you to them operas, them
concerts, them lectures, and all that sort of shit?!'
That's what will happen. You
can go on practising, but deep down you know that you are repressing, that you
are rejecting, that you are denying some essential parts of your being.
Right-mindfulness is the
flavour of understanding, not the outcome of practice. Right-mindfulness is the
fragrance - the fragrance of seeing into things deeply, the fragrance of
insight.
Question 3:
Is there any pain worse than this? You have
touched my secret: all my sources are poisoned and yet I manage to go on living
and it is not possible - that is what I want to hide from everyone. You put the
finger on my deepest wounds, and make me scream out in pain and then you lead
me to the only life-giving source - acceptance. No words any more. Only tears...
Neerjo, ecstasy is only out of
agony - and the deeper the agony, the deeper the ecstasy will be; total the
agony, total will be the ecstasy. Everything has to be paid for. For ecstasy,
we have to pay in agony. One has to go through deep pain to get rid of pain.
Pain is cleansing. Pain is a fire; it burns the rubbish in you, it destroys the
unessential. Just as we purify gold through fire, consciousness is purified
through pain. Pain has something to deliver to you.
Don't avoid pain! If you avoid
pain, you are avoiding pleasure. Don't avoid the world! If you avoid the world,
you have avoided God. Don't avoid darkness. If you avoid darkness, dawn will
never come.
It is out of the dark night
that the morning is born. And when the night is darkest, the sunrise is
closest.
Remember this fundamental law
of life, this paradox.
If I have to cleanse you,
purify you, I have to become a fire to you. Jesus has said: I am fire and I
have come to burn you! Every Master is a fire. If you come across a Master who
is not a fire, but just a kind of ointment, escape from there! He will give you
consolations, but he will not be able to transmute your life-energies. He may
be able to make you comfortable in life, but he will not be able to help you to
transcend life.
The real Master is always a
fire. A real Master is always there to destroy.
Yes, I will touch your wounds
again and again, Neerjo. You are hiding them. You are hiding them, That's why
they are not healing. They have to be brought to sunlight, to fresh air. They
have to be exposed. Only in that exposure will they start healing. And, yes,
when I touch your wound it hurts.
The more you want to be healed,
the more it will hurt, because much pus is there. You have been hiding the
wounds for so long - much pus has gathered there. The pus has to be thrown out
of your system, the poison has to be thrown out of your system.
This agony is not a curse, it
is a blessing - because out of this agony, slowly slowly you will arise in a
totally different dimension. Acceptance is the bridge. Accept the pain, accept
the wounds, accept yourself as you are! Don't try to pretend to be somebody
else, don't try to show that you are not this. Don't be egoistic, and don't go
on pre-tending and laughing while your heart is crying. Don't smile if your
eyes are full of tears. Don't be inauthentic, because by being inauthentic you
are simply protecting your wounds from being healed. Your whole being will
become rotten.
That's how people are! Pus and
pus and pus... And they are somehow managing so that nobody should know how
much it stinks inside them. They don't go inside themselves because it stinks
too much, it is horrible. And they don't allow anybody to enter their being -
that's why they don't love, because love will need exposure. They don't make
contact, because if you contact somebody he may smell things that you are
hiding. You know. You keep aloof, you go only so far.
You don't go inside yourself,
you don't allow anybody else to go inside you. But, Neerjo, when you have come
to me you have to allow me to come inside you. That's what sannyas is all
about. A declaration that for me your doors are open. By becoming a sannyasin,
you have handed the key to me. Now, pain is going to be there, because sannyas
is a surgery. Many rotten parts have to be cut and much poison has to be taken
out of your system - it is going to be painful. But be courageous.
Go through it and great will be
your joy.
Question 4:
Why should one search for god? Is not life
enough?
Life is god! God is life! those
two words are synonymous, synonyms. Forget about God!
Search for life - it is the
same search.
Using the word 'God' does not
change anything. But I know why the question has arisen. The question has
arisen because the priests have been telling you that life and God are not only
separate but opposite. They have been telling you that if you want to search
and seek God, you will have to renounce life - hence the question. They have
been telling you that God is very angry at you because you are living, God is
very angry at you because you are loving, God is very angry at you that you are
happy here on this earth. Be sad! be miserable! and pray and ask for the other
world. Feel yourself a stranger here; feel as if you have been thrown into a
prison. This is a kind of punishment, this life.
That's what your priests have
been telling you down the ages. They have created the idea, a very false idea
and a very irreligious idea, that God and life are not only separate but antagonistic.
If you search for life, you will be against God. If you want to search for God,
you have to be against life.
Now this is utter stupidity!
God is life, God is the very centre of life. Life is the circumference of God's
centre. Life is the cyclone and God is the centre of the cyclone.
Searching for God you will come
to know the deepest meaning of life. Searching for life you will start falling
into God unawares. If you go deep into life, you will find God. If y you go
deep into God, you will find life abundant.
But the religious people have
destroyed a beautiful word - 'God' is a beautiful word, but it has been used by
wrong people. It has become asso-ciated with wrong meanings. When I use the
word 'God', I mean the innermost core of life - not that you have to renounce
life, but that you have to love life, that you have to dive deep into life.
Why do I use the word 'God'?
Why can't drop it and simply use 'life'? The problem is that with life you have
the idea that life finishes in the mundane - the market, the money, the power,
the prestige, the politics, the family, and the rut and the routine. You think
this is life. This is just the very periphery of life. You are standing in the
porch and you think this is the palace. It is part of the palace, but it is
just the entrance. There are great treasures in the palace.
That's why I don't use just the
word 'life', because that will give you again a wrong notion. So I have to go
on using both the words: life and God - and go on insisting that they are
synonyms.
Search for the centre of life
and you will be searching for God.
Jesus has said: Seek ye first
the Kingdom of God, then all else shall be added unto you. Life comes on its
own - all else shall be added unto you. If you seek the centre, then the
periphery follows, the circumference follows. When you are standing at the
centre, the whole life is available to you. But it is not so if you are
standing on the circumference. You may not be even aware of the centre.
From the centre, the circumference
remains available; but from the circumference you may not even become alert,
you may not be even conscious that there is a centre also.
I have heard a beautiful story:
Once Haroun-Al Rashid, the
Caliph of Baghdad, was celebrating a royal occasion. He ordered a grand display
of all manner of jewellery and artwork for the occasion, and invited not only
courtiers and nobles but many commoners also.
At the height of the
celebrations, the Sultan developed a magnanimous mood and all of a sudden he
ordered every person present to touch any article they liked, and that article,
no matter how precious, would belong to that person. No sooner was the royal
command given than a rush was made to possess the costliest thing within reach.
A beautiful slave girl, remaining
composed and serene by the side of the throne asked the Sultan to reaffirm his
command. On receiving affirmation, the slave girl immediately touched the
Caliph himself on the arm saying, 'Why should I run after those things when the
master of them all is here?'
The Sultan, in admiration of
the insight shown by the girl, complimented her and said, 'Now that you possess
me, the whole of my kingdom is yours.'
Life is the circumference: God
is the centre. If you touch God, all is yours; if you have arrived at the
centre, then the whole belongs to you.
You ask: why should one search for god? Is not life
enough?
You will know life only when
you have touched God. By being divine, life will be revealed to you in all its
dimensions. It has multi-facets to it, it is multi-dimensional. Just eating,
drinking and merrying is not all. And I am not against it, remember! It is
perfectly good as it is. It is beautiful as it is, but it is not all.
I am a spiritual hedonist. I am
a synthesis of Buddha and Epicurus. Nobody has tried that yet. There have been
people who are absolutely concerned with eating, drinking and merrying, and
they don't bother a bit about God and all that nonsense. There are people who
are absolutely concerned with God and don't bother about eating, drinking and
merrying and all that nonsense. I love both. I am totally in love with both.
And I don't see any contradiction between the two.
Eating, drinking, merrying, is
the circumference. It is good! God is there too, but very dilute. When you start
moving towards the centre, God becomes more concentrated. When you drink, you
attain to a forgetfulness which is momentary. When you drink out of God, you
attain to a forgetfulness which is eternal. When you fall in love with
somebody's body, it is going to be a very temporary affair. When you fall in
love with somebody's spirit, it is going to be an eternal phenomenon. Loving
the body is good, but nothing compared with the love of the soul. Loving the
visible is good, but don't get caught there - there is more to it. Hiding
behind it is the invisible.
Eating is joyful, but when you
start eating consciousness... that is what meditation is. When you start
nourishing consciousness, then you know what real eating is. That's what Jesus
said to his disciples when he was departing: Eat me, drink me - -let me be your
food. Each disciple has to become a cannibal because he has to eat the Master.
And each Master is already a skilled cannibal - he goes on eating his
disciples.
There are things on the
periphery, and there are things at the centre. The circumference cannot exist
without the centre and the centre cannot exist without the circumference.
That's why I say they both are together, they are part of each other.
Epicurus lives on the
circumference. Buddha lives at the centre. I live together in both the spaces.
And that is my message to you:
Be available to the circumference as much as to the centre; and go on moving in
and out. Fall in love and meditate! Be in the body and be the soul! Be the
visible and be the invisible! And you will be the richest sannyasins that have
ever existed on this earth.
Epicurus' followers were rich -
they knew how to eat and drink and be merry; but they were a little poor in the
sense that they didn't know how to meditate. They knew how to love, how to
relate, but they were not aware at all that there exists something like
meditation. And they were beautiful people! Their dance was something of the
eternal, but they were not awake of the eternal. Their joy was a reflection of something
very deep, but they were not *awar e of the depth. They lived on the waves - although
the waves were living on the ocean, in the ocean, but they lived on the waves.
They sailed in small boats, and
they were happy with the sun and the sea, and their joy was great, and I am all
for it - but there are deeper treasures also. There are pearls which can only
be found by diving. Buddha's followers dived deep into the sea and forgot all
about the sun and the waves and the joy and surfing - they forgot all about
that. They were rich; they attained to the centre - but they were poor also.
My own approach is that there
is no need to choose - be choicelessly available to all. Sometimes it is good
to be on the waves, in the sun, and sometimes it is good to go to the depth, to
the pacific depth of life, to those dark silences where the sun has never
penetrated. To be available to both the world and God, life and God, is
freedom. To me, the Epicureans are not free because they cannot go into the
depth; and Buddhists are not free either because they cannot go back to the
surface.
Their freedom has limitations.
I give you absolute freedom
without any limitations; I make available to you all that God has made
available to you. You are the most courageous experiment on the earth hitherto!
It needs guts to be available to these two places together - it needs guts to
be in love and still be in meditation, to meditate and yet to love. It is very
easy, comfortable, to be in love and forget about meditation; it is simple, it
has no complexity in it - because when you love, you forget yourself, you
remember the other, you become other-oriented. It is a simple process to forget
yourself and to become other- oriented. To love and to meditate is difficult,
complex, because to meditate means to forget the other and become
self-oriented. Now you will be moving between pola-rities - you will have to
become a swinger. But out of complexity is richness.
Question 5:
Osho,
Whenever I am with somebody funny, I become
funny.
With somebody sad, I feel sad,
Somebody ecstatic, I feel blissful,
And with a real schmuck,
I become a schmuck too.
And sitting with you in lecture,
Enlightenment.
What is happening?
And where is me?
Chaitanya Hari, I must make you
aware that you are very close to enlightenment. If you want to escape, escape
now - otherwise it will be too late!
It is beautiful... the ego is
disappearing. That's how it should be! You are melting; you are no more an
iceberg. You are becoming a mirror! - so somebody is sad, you reflect sadness;
and somebody is ecstatic and you express ecstasy. And somebody is dancing and a
dance arises in you. And somebody sings a song and you echo it. You are
becoming a mirror!
Don't be afraid, don't be
worried, don't create a problem out of it. Relax into it... this is how it
should be.
Forget about yourself. Don't
ask: and where is me? 'Me' is a false
entity, it is a shadow, it is illusion... it is disappearing. You are becoming
a hollow bamboo. It will be frightening, because to you it will look as if you
are dying. In fact, it is true that you are dying - the ego is dying. It is
true that you will not be able to feel your personality. How can you feel your
personality? - when somebody laughs, there is laughter in you, and somebody
cries and tears come to you. How can you feel your personality?
A personality means resistance:
somebody is crying and you are still happy - that is personality.
Somebody is laughing and you
are still crying that is personality. You are separate, that is personality -
you resist. You demark yourself. You say, 'I am THIS, and I will remain this.
You can go on laughing - I don't care. I am sad and I won't allow you to
disturb my sadness. I will persist. This is me!'
The ego is like ice, frozen. It
is a resistance, a continuous resistance.
Now that is dissolving - you
are blessed, Chaitanya Hari. Help it to go. Soon greater things will happen.
Looking at a tree you will become a tree; you will forget to go back to your
room and Krishna will have to come and find you.
It happened to Socrates: one
night he went outside and he started looking at the stars and he became a star.
He was looking at a star and it was fascinating. It was so beautiful that he
could not look away from it. He became one with it. And the snow started
falling and he was frozen - he was almost dead by the morning when he was
found. His disciples searched for him the whole night; only in the morning was
he found, covered with snow... but still his eyes were looking at the sky.
He was not there! They had to
shake him and shock him and warm him and massage him to come back. Slowly,
slowly, he came back and they asked, 'What has happened?'
And he laughed. He said, 'This
is strange! I became the star.'
That used to happen to Ramakrishna
almost every day. Anywhere, any excuse, and he would fall into samadhi. For
hours. Walking on the road, his disciples were always in trouble. Even somebody
passing by, and in India just anybody can say, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama... just any word that reminded him of God.
People ordinarily salute in India: Jai
Ramji - hail God! Anybody. And Ramakrishna coming - anybody would say it.
Just hearing the word 'Ram' and he is gone! standing on the road, in the middle
of the traffic. And the crowd gathers, and the policeman comes and tells the
disciples: 'Take your Master away from here!'
And they have to carry his body
and he is just gone. Enough it was!
Once it happened that for six
days continuously he remained like a corpse. His disciples had to feed him, to
wash him, and cry and pray to God, 'Send our Master back!'
Yes, it is possible. Standing
by the side of a pine tree, you can become a pine. Touching a rock, you can
become a rock - because really there are no divisions. We are part of one
reality. we are not apart! - we are
one with the whole.
When somebody is crying, you
are crying. And when somebody is dancing, you are dancing. We are joined
together. We are interlinked. We are not independent, we are not dependent
either - we are interdependent. One consciousness, one life, sur-rounds you,
within and without. It is oneness.
Something beautiful is very
close by - if you can allow it, you will be gone and God will be there. But it
almost always happens that in such moments one becomes very frightened. One
starts asking: 'And where is me?' When resistance starts disappearing and
personality starts disappearing, naturally one becomes frightened: 'What is
happening to me? Am I going mad? Why should I cry if somebody else is crying?'
- because you have been taught that you are separate. But that teaching is
simply false; it is a make-believe.
And for one reason more there
will be fear: because now there are so many people - somebody is crying and
somebody is laughing, now what will you do? You will have to cry and laugh
together.
And then people will certainly
think you have gone mad! It is okay that somebody is crying and you feel
empathy and you cry, and somebody is laughing, naturally laughter is infectious
and you start laughing. But what will you do when one person is crying and
another person is laughing? And if you do both together you are very
contradictory - but that's what is possible. That is divine madness; that is
the greatest experience that is possible to man. Allow that too!
That is my purpose here. Why am
I creating this commune? Just to create a certain milieu where everything is
allowed, nobody interferes. If you are crying and laughing together, nobody
comes and condemns you; people respect you, they have reverence for you. They know
that something is happening to you; they will not interpret and they will not
condemn - not even in their eyes will there be any indication that this is not
good.
That is a spiritual community:
where all is allowed, unconditionally; where everybody is helped into
whatsoever space he is moving; where all kinds of spaces are respected; where
nobody enforces any particular pattern and particular character. And all kinds
of things are going to happen in my commune, because I am making available to
you all the paths that have happened in the past, and things which are going to
happen in the future too.
So, many things are going to
happen. Somebody may become a Socrates and somebody may become a Ramakrishna
and somebody may become a Mahavir and somebody may become a Buddha and somebody
a Meera and somebody a Jesus - all that is possible. You all are carrying seeds
for that. Just right soil is needed and you will start sprouting. You need
support.
So support! If something is
happening to somebody, even if your old mind brings interpretations, drop that
mind; be respectful to the person and the space that he is moving in.
Now, if you find Chaitanya Hari
somewhere crying and laughing together, help him, tickle him, make him cry, so
that he can go as deep as possible. All kinds of experiences have to be gone
through, only then one day does one transcend experiences. Then a day arrives
when you have passed through experiencing.
Then somebody cries and nothing
happens to you, and somebody laughs and nothing happens to you... then simply
nothing happens to you because you have become a nothing. But before that this
is going to happen, that you will be affected, that you will become very
vulnerable, that you will start soaking everything that is around you, that you
will start becoming all kinds of things. That you will be very much confused!
That there will be chaos in you - but remember, only out of chaos are stars
born. And one has to be ready to go into chaos.
When you come back, all will be
gone. Then nothingness pervades. Buddha has called that noth- ingness
'nirvana'. Then nothing affects, because there is nobody to he affected and
there is nobody to affect. Then all is a dream and you are just a witness to it...
Question 6:
Osho,
As more people come and take sannyas and
more days pass, it seems that many of us grow together - stronger and stronger
without even meeting much. It seemed to me when you spoke of the 'new
community' that somehow it is an old community of friends, reuniting again
through your love and grace. Thank you, Osho.
Yes, Prasad, that's how it is.
Many of you have been with me in the past. Many of you have been together with
each other in the past. It is a meeting of old friends. You have forgotten - I
have not forgotten. And sooner or later you will also start remembering.
This new commune is going to be
one of the oldest things on the earth, very ancientmost. And travellers from
different paths have come - travellers from different directions and
dimensions. Jews are here and Mohammedans are here and Hindus and Jains and
Buddhists and Christians and Taoists - all kinds of people are here. All
cultures are meeting here; all religions pouring into each other. And a natural
synthesis will arise. We are not creating any synthesis, but it is happening on
its own.
The universal man can be born
only out of such a commune - the man who will not be a Christian and will not
be a Jew and will not be a Hindu and will not be Indian and will not be Chinese
and will not be German. All boundaries are dissolving here.
And you are certainly not new.
You have been here long enough, you have lived long enough. Many many lives you
have been passing. And you have brought many riches; you have brought great
heritages with you. And once all those heritages are poured into one pool, it
will be one of the richest phenomena that has ever happened or can ever happen.
Question 7:
Sometimes I feel so jealous of all those
people who live close to you - the ones in Lao Tzu house and those who see you
every night in darshan. I tell myself that Lao Tzu house is in my own heart,
but this is just knowledge. Just going through the gates of your house is like
falling into another world - I can feel it. And to live there with you must be
like a miracle. Meanwhile, I eat my heart out.
Prem Garjan, you are fortunate
that you are not in the Lao Tzu house - for many reasons.
One is: those who are in the
Lao Tzu house, I torture them very much - you don't know about it outside. They
are continuously crucified. Sooner or later, I am going to make my whole campus
Lao Tzu house so everybody will be inside - and then you will know.
Meanwhile, enjoy as much as you
can.
And secondly, what almost
always happens is: when you are too close to me you start forgetting about me.
That too is a misfortune. When you are for twenty-four hours in the same place
where I am, naturally you start taking my presence for granted. You become
oblivious. That's how the human mind functions.
The gardener who lives the
whole day in the garden has stopped seeing the trees long ago. The man who
lives in the Himalayas knows nothing of the beauty of the Himalayas. When you
go to the Himalayas, you know the beauty of it. But if you start living there,
how long will you be able to know the beauty of it? After a few days the
honeymoon is over - and then those Himalayan peaks are taken for granted. Not
that they have become less beautiful - they are exactly the same - but you have
become insensitive.
The obvious is almost always
forgotten.
That's how we have forgotten
God! because we live in his house, and he is always around - and we have
forgotten about Him.
Go and ask the fish in the
ocean - the fish has forgotten about the ocean. The fish only knows, Garjan,
when it is thrown out of the ocean, when it is on the sands, in the sun - then
it knows what the ocean was, what the ocean is. Now it is thirsty for the
ocean. Now there is great longing for the ocean. But it has lived in the ocean
for years and it has not even thought for a single moment, it has not even
thanked God for the whole ocean that was given to her.
That's how it happens. It is
very natural to our minds because our minds are not very sensitive, they are
very dull.
You love a woman - there is
great joy; you feel so happy. And then the woman starts living with you and
after a few days you have forgotten about her! You don't even look at her!
Still you touch her hand, but nothing flows. She has forgotten you, you have
forgotten her. Familiarity makes people very unfamiliar. And the obvious
becomes non-existential.
I have heard:
In an anthropological institute
in Vienna, there used to be great interest in the various love postures of the
races. Two professors, one a Frenchman and the other a German, devoted most of
their waking hours to the matter, consulting such ancient texts as The Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden. When they finally conferred to compare notes,
they disagreed on only one point: the German said there were 138 postures; the
Frenchman claimed there were 139. A hot argument ensued. It was decided to
enumerate the positions.
'Well,' the Frenchman began, 'first,
of course, there is the good old way.'
'Ach!' exclaimed the German
professor disgustedly. 'You win - I forgot about that one.'
Question 8:
Osho,
You are here - then why do I still go on
doubting?
This anecdote:
Sinclair had been married for
ten years and had lived all of them in agony. He was unbelievably jealous of
his coquettish wife; for years he had suspected she was having an affair with
his business partner. Finally, he could stand the tension no longer and hired a
detective to trail her.
A few days later, the detective
reported to Sinclair.
'Well, did you follow them?'
'Oh, yes,' said the detective. 'I
have the report here. Last night she left your home about eight thirty, and
then she met a man on the corner of Reid Street and Montgomery Place. They
strolled around for about fifteen minutes, then they got into a car and went
down to Patmore Lane. There they parked for a half hour and he made advances to
her to which she ungrudgingly responded. Then they drove to the Franconia
Hotel; I checked at the desk and found out that they were occupying room 301.
Fortunately, room 301 faced the street, so I climbed a tree opposite their
window, peered in and saw them both standing there completely nude, fondling
each other...'
'And then?!' cried Mr.
Sinclair. 'What happened then?'
'Oh, well, then they pulled
down the shade.'
'Oh,' moaned Sinclair, 'what a
tragedy! Always to doubt, never to know...!'
I am here, but that will not
make much difference - you have learnt the habit of doubt. It has become
ingrained, it has become unconscious. It is not that you doubt - it is that you
have become doubt. So even if I am here confronting you, you go on missing me.
The doubt goes on arising. If one doubt disappears, you produce another. If
that disappears, you produce another. Doubts come to you just like leaves come
to a tree.
You will have to see the point.
You will have to see me without your doubting mind. What are you expecting?
Your expectation is that by and by I will argue against all your doubts, I will
prove things so that your doubts are dissolved - then you will be able to see
me. That is not going to happen. I can go on and on talking to you, I can go on
and on showering myself on you, but that will not help much - the doubting mind
will go on creating new doubts, fresh doubts.
If you are waiting for that
moment when all doubts are gone, then you will look at me, then that moment
will never come - I will be gone. That moment will never come. If you want that
moment, then you have to put your doubts aside.
Just once, look at me...
without any doubt, and that will suffice. That will trigger a process of trust
in you. Only through trust is the meeting with me possible. And only through
trust is transformation.
