FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
Everything beautiful is absurd
FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
Everything beautiful is absurd
BELOVED MASTER,
IF YOU ARE NOT OUR LEADER, WHY DO WE GET CLEAR MESSAGES FROM THE MASTER TO
DO THIS OR THAT?
I am certainly not your leader, and I never was before. The very word "leader"
stinks of politics. In the world of religiousness there are no leaders, no
followers, because to be led by someone is to remain blind. He knows -- you
do not know. You have simply to be his shadow, following his footprints
wherever he goes.
Religious experience is totally different. The function of the guide is
acceptable. The guide has not to be followed, but understood. The guide can
tell you about his experience, the path that leads to the peak of existence.
But he also knows that every individual is unique; hence, you cannot follow
the footprints of another person. You will have to find your own path. There
are not ready-made paths already available -- and that's the beauty, the
beauty of total freedom. As you walk you create the path. By your very
search you create the truth.
The guide is a friend; he is not a leader. A leader is ugly. He reduces you,
insults you, humiliates you, makes you puppets. He decides for you -- you
are not allowed to decide for yourself. For example, Jesus says to his
followers, "I am your shepherd, you are my sheep." And I am amazed that not
a single disciple stood up and said, "This is humiliating. You are degrading
us, putting us below human beings." Just to become a shepherd thousands of
people have to be reduced to sheep -- to fulfill one man's mad ego. How many
million people have been reduced to subhuman levels?
The leader becomes bigger as he manages to make the follower smaller. The
leader can never be your friend. And if he can never be your friend, then
who is he? He is your enemy! I repeat it: he is your enemy. He has kept you
retarded, blind, unevolved. He has really made you into sheep just to
fulfill his desire of being a shepherd, of being a savior. And for twenty
centuries not a single Christian has raised the question that this statement
of Jesus does not show compassion, love. The statement is fascist!
I am certainly not your leader. I do not want anybody to remain retarded,
to remain blind, to become dependent on me. I don't want to become your
father figure.
Have you ever thought why you call your priests, bishops, cardinals, "father"?
They don't have any children, they are unmarried people -- a very strange
kind of father! You are their children, and to remain your father they have
to keep you confined to your childhood consciousness. You should not be
allowed to grow.
Why do all the religions call God, the father? Why not God, the uncle? --
which seems more human, more soft, more intimate. But God has to be the
father for a certain reason. He helps you to remain a child, dependent,
always praying for help, always hoping for reward. But that never allows you
to stand on your own feet.
For thousands of years humanity has remained stuck. If Charles Darwin is
true, that one day, thousands of years ago, even monkeys managed to become
men, then what has man been doing for thousands of years? Is evolution
finished? Has man come to a full stop? It does not seem so. Looking at your
misery, your suffering, your anguish, you cannot be accepted as the end of
evolution.
Then what has gone wrong? Monkeys could become man because there was no
priest amongst them -- they were free. Man could not evolve higher
consciousness, for the simple reason that your higher consciousness will
take away the leadership of your priests, politicians, popes.
The word "pope" also means the father. Why so much desire for a father? You
must be feeling immensely helpless, must be feeling that you need somebody
to protect you, somebody who is all-knowing, all-powerful. But the very
dependence is your slavery.
Each leader -- political, religious, or of any other brand -- is against
the evolution of man.
I am not your leader. And I hate the very word from my guts, because I can
see the implications of it. To be a leader means to be a criminal! Of course,
the crime is so subtle that you don't see somebody being murdered. But the
whole humanity is being crushed, murdered under the weight of it.
You have been told for centuries just to follow: it is not your business to
think, to contemplate, to meditate, to decide for your own life. Somebody
else has to decide it. Somebody else has to give you ideals, values. Your
function is only to be faithful.
Faith is poison, and to be faithful means you have committed suicide. But
the leader needs faithful people, committed people, surrendered people.
These are good words for making people enslaved.
But the guide is a friend, he is not your leader. He has found something
which you can also find. His function is to make you aware of your
potentiality. His function is not to create a certain personality according
to his ideas but to give you freedom, to help you come out of all kinds of
conditionings so that you can become an individual.
Personality is borrowed. It is what others have made of you. Individuality
is your nature. It is what you have brought from your very birth with you.
The guide helps you to destroy the personality. The moment the personality
falls apart, suddenly you discover your original face. And your original
face is always a tremendous transformation. You have got hold of your
natural being, of your spontaneity, of your freedom. And these are the basic
elements which will help you on the way.
Now you can move on your own, without any leader, without any father
figure, without any pope, without any God. You feel a strange contentment
with yourself. You feel whole unto yourself.
So remember, whenever I say something or I give a message to you, it is
simply to destroy your bondage, your chains, your imprisonment. I am not
shaping your being, I am simply deprogramming you. Your being is already
there, covered under so many programs -- Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan,
communist.
You are almost like an onion, layers upon layers. My message is: start
peeling those layers. And when you come to the very center of the onion
there will be just nothingness in your hands, silence. From that silence,
from that nothingness, everything becomes possible -- and you need not do
anything.
Just as the seed, finding the right soil, starts changing into a sprout....
The seed dies -- its death is absolutely necessary for the birth of the
plant. And soon there will be a lush green bush full of flowers and
fragrance.
But your seed has been covered with so many layers of culture, etiquette,
education, religion, country, that you have completely forgotten that you
are here to grow, that you have to become a lush green bush full of flowers,
fragrance, dancing in the wind and in the rain and in the sun. To me, that
is religiousness.
The guide is only a friend, to help you discover yourself. I am certainly
not your leader. At the most, a friend, and that too, not against your will.
I have not come to you -- you have come to me. I am not going anywhere. The
thirsty have to come to the well. There is a saying of Mohammed, that if the
thirsty cannot come to the well, then Mohammed is going to the thirsty. That
is the language of the leader.
The well simply remains available. You have thirst -- the well has water.
You are always welcome, but the well is not going to force you, tell you, "You
have to drink." It is your freedom to drink or not to drink.
I have made myself available to the whole world. Now, those who feel some
kind of synchronicity with me, those in whose hearts bells start ringing...
I am not responsible for it. And if they start coming to me, I cannot refuse
them.
My message is to discover yourself.
I am not your ideal; you are not to become like me. You are not to have
faith in me -- that will not help. You will have to do hard work for
transformation, and each will have to do it according to his need. I can
help in many ways.
All my messages are letters from a friend. Accept them or not -- that is up
to you. There is no enforcement.
Question 2
BELOVED MASTER,
YOU ARE THE GREATEST. YOU ARE LIKE THE MUSIC OF MOZART, VIVALDI AND BACH
AND MORE.
YOU MAKE ME LAUGH, AND ALWAYS AT A TIME WHEN I NEED IT MOST.
YOU TELL US THAT YOU FELT HURT AT THE ENTHUSIASM WITH WHICH PEOPLE DROPPED
THE MALA, ETCETERA. THE RAJNEESH TIMES CALLED IT A STUNNING STATEMENT. THAT
MADE ME LAUGH EVEN MORE.
I HAVE NOT BEEN WITH A ZEN MASTER -- AT LEAST IN THIS LIFE. BUT I RECOGNIZE
ONE WHEN I SEE ONE, AND YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY THE TOP -- HITTING PEOPLE WHEN
THEY NEED IT, AND IN THE MANNER MOST APPROPRIATE. OF COURSE, I'M WAITING FOR
MY COMEUPPANCE -- IT'S BOUND TO HAPPEN. AND THAT TOO MAKES ME LAUGH. IS JOY
ALSO AN ABSURDITY?
Everything beautiful is absurd. Joy is one of those experiences which are
not utilitarian. Love, peace, enlightenment -- all are absurd, absurd in the
sense that there is no meaning beyond themselves. Their meaning is intrinsic.
I am reminded of Picasso. He was painting.... For almost two hours a man
was standing behind him, watching; he could not figure out what the painting
was, what the meaning was. Finally, he could not resist the temptation of
asking Picasso.
Picasso looked at him and said, "This is something! I was really going to
ask you, because you have been watching for two hours: perhaps you may have
found the meaning. I was so much engaged in painting, so much into it -- I
was not there, only painting was happening. So I was hoping that perhaps you
might be able to say to me what is the meaning of it all. As far as I am
concerned, just painting it has been such a joyous experience -- now no
other reward is needed."
And one thing more he said. "You ask me what is the meaning of this
painting, but you never ask these flowers what is their meaning. You never
ask the sun, you never ask the moon, you never ask the whole sky full of
stars what is the meaning. Why do you torture a poor painter? If the whole
existence can remain without explaining what its meaning is, can't my small
painting also remain without meaning? One thing I can say, it is
tremendously beautiful."
The man said, "That's right, it is attractive, it is beautiful; but a thing
without meaning is absurd."
Picasso said, "Exactly. It is not a commodity. In the marketplace
everything has a meaning. It is a commodity, it is for some utilitarian
purpose. But life is not just the marketplace, and it is good that it is not
so. In life there are a few things which are utterly meaningless, yet
absolutely fulfilling.
"This painting is absurd. It is so absurd that I cannot figure out how I am
going to hang it in my house -- which way is going to be up, which way is
going to be down. I cannot figure it out. If you can help -- because you
have been observing for two hours... how should I hang it?"
The man said, "You are mad! You are painting it, and you don't know how to
hang it?"
Picasso said, "I am mad, you are not -- that's why I am asking you."
The man tried in all possible ways -- there are only four possible ways to
hang it. It was beautiful each way. The man said to Picasso, "You and your
painting will drive me crazy! It was stupid of me to stand here and waste
time. And this is as crazy as you are, because you can hang it any way and
it looks right."
Picasso said, "That's the beauty of it!"
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But beauty is absurd. Joy is absurd. Laughter is absurd. Collect as many
absurdities in your life as possible. People collect strange things --
postal stamps.... Collect absurdities; and the more absurdities you have,
the richer you are. The world may think you are a little off the track, but
that is their problem; you are enjoying it.
In my postgraduate studies in the university, I used to go on a small
street which ended, just after two miles, in front of a deep valley; that
was the dead end. Only a few professors who loved silence had their
bungalows on that street; there was no traffic, because in those two miles
what traffic can exist?
I used to go there only when it would rain -- I loved to go into the rain.
The last house on the street belonged to the head of the department of
physics -- one of the very well-known scientists. He had been in America
before I came to the university, teaching physics.
His family, it became a routine thing -- whenever it would rain I would
appear drenched, without any umbrella, without any raincoat, enjoying the
natural shower.... The whole family would come onto their veranda -- the
wife, the children -- and they would all watch, thinking that I must be mad.
The professor was at the university. He heard one of my talks and he was
very interested. We became friends -- he was an old man -- and one day he
said, "Why don't you come for supper today? It happens to be my birthday."
I said, "I will come, certainly."
He had talked to his family about me many times, and the family was very
much excited: "Who is the guest?" They were all waiting outside in the
garden when I went in, and they all started laughing, looking at me. The
professor could not understand what the matter was, because I also started
laughing. The professor said, "I don't understand, but it seems you
understand why they are laughing, and they understand you. And I was
thinking I am going to introduce you to my family!"
I said, "I know your family, they know me. We are well acquainted, although
we have never spoken. I come here whenever it rains -- this street is so
silent. Your house is the last house before the road ends, and your family
rushes out to see me. I know they think I am crazy, but they don't know that
I think they are crazy! -- because what is the point of rushing out again
and again to see a crazy man? They wait for me. Whenever it rains, they stop
all other work; they are simply waiting for me! Sometimes I have to come
just for them. I may have some other work, but I think of these poor fellows
-- that they will be waiting, and they will be unnecessarily frustrated if I
don't come. They think I am mad, I think they are mad."
The professor said, "This is strange! You never told me about it."
I said, "You would not have understood the relationship that was growing
between me and your family. We have become very close, very intimate --
without speaking a single word."
The professor said to me, "Next time it rains, I am going to be with you if
it is so joyful. I have never done anything like that."
The next time he joined me, and he was really ecstatic. Just ordinary rain
on an empty street -- and we both laughed. He said, "But I have missed my
whole life! And how am I going to convince my family now? -- they are
watching both of us."
And now I was also acquainted, so we both went into the house. The wife
said, "This is the strangest thing that I have seen in my husband, that he
should do such a thing."
But the husband said, "You can think me crazy, there is no harm in it. But
at least once, you should join us. Now we both are going every time the rain
comes; you should, at least once, join us."
She said, "But what is the meaning of it?"
The professor said, "That is the difficulty. There is no meaning in it, but
there is great joy."
In small things you can find joy. But if you are looking for meaning, then
even in the greatest experiences you will not find meaning. Meaning is a
mind interpretation. And all that is beautiful, loving, ecstatic, is
something of the heart.
And the head can never understand the heart: there is no communication line
between the two. It is the head that asks the meaning. It is the heart that
asks for joyful experiences, for ecstatic experiences, but it never asks
about their meaning.
Put your head aside and try to look at life from the heart. You will find
it so glorious, so infinitely luminous that you will not be able to conceive
how you have been missing, how much you have been missing. And that will
explain why you are miserable, why you are in anxiety, why you are always
sad.
It is as if somebody is trying to listen to music through the eyes -- he
will not hear anything. He will say, "I want to see the music." But you
cannot see the music, you can only hear it. It is better if you close your
eyes and open your ears.
Meaning is of the head, and if you go on searching through the head you
will come to the same conclusions as Jean-Paul Sartre and other
existentialist philosophers. They say, "Life is meaningless. The only thing
worth doing is committing suicide, because why go on living a meaningless
life?"
Life is certainly meaningless, but tremendously joyful, hilarious... a
dance, a song, a beauty. But you will have to change your gears from the
head to the heart.
Look at small children -- how excited they are in your bored world! You are
sitting there completely bored, and your child is so excited. And you think
you are right and the child is a fool. He does not know anything about life,
that's why he is so excited about any absurd thing -- butterflies, flowers,
colored stones, seashells, anything! And you can't see any meaning in them.
But the child is right, you are wrong.
The criterion is boredom: who is bored? Whoever is bored is wrong. Whoever
is dancing, singing, having a good belly laughter is right! But one has to
change. It is not a very big change -- your heart and your head are not very
far away, maybe a few inches. And the heart is closer to you, closer to your
being; the head is the farthest from your being. But the whole programming
going on is to avoid the heart and join your being directly with the head.
That's what your schools, colleges, universities, are doing.
The heart has no function in your education -- naturally, your life is a
misery. A true education will be basically the education of the heart. It
will make you more innocent, more childlike, more excited and ecstatic about
small things. Then each moment becomes luminous.
And what are you going to do with meaning? Even if there is meaning in
something, what are you going to do with meaning? The real thing is
experiencing.
So it is perfectly good to accept joy, laughter, without any reason -- the
way you accept your health. Are you ever worried when you are healthy,
wondering: Why am I healthy? Do you go to the doctor, tremendously concerned
and worried, and say, "Doctor, for seven days I have been healthy; something
seems to be wrong"? No, health is natural; it need not be diagnosed,
analyzed, it has to be lived.
But when you are sick, you go to the doctor. You want to know the cause of
it, because sickness is not natural. When somebody is sad, he is sick; he
needs to find out why he is sick, why he is sad. But when somebody is
laughing, just dancing, it is natural. In a healthy society it should be
accepted without any questions.
But because the whole society is sick, and suddenly one person starts
laughing, naturally the whole society points to the person, that he is going
crackers. There is no reason why he is laughing. Nobody has told a joke,
nobody has slipped on a banana peel. Without any reason, he goes on
laughing. But if somebody is sad, nobody says, "Without any reason this man
is sad -- this cannot be accepted." This is a strange state.
We have to change it completely. We have to make laughter, rejoicing,
dancing, singing, part of a healthy being -- just overflowing well-being.
And anybody who is miserable, sad, long faced, has to be taken to the
psychologist. Something is wrong with the man. He is not overflowing with
energy; his energy has shrunk.
Question 3
BELOVED MASTER,
HAVE YOU EVER REGRETTED ANYTHING IN LIFE? -- BECAUSE I HAVE NEVER HEARD YOU
SAYING, "I'M SORRY." PLEASE SAY SOMETHING ON THIS.
I am sorry! -- but I have never regretted in my life, for the simple reason
that whatever I do, I do it wholeheartedly.
You regret because you never do things wholeheartedly, you are always
divided. Some part of you wants to do it, some part of you is against doing
it. If you do it, the part that was against is going to make you regret. If
you do not do it, the part that was for it is going to make you regret.
Anyway, you are in a fix.
A divided mind cannot avoid regret. He always looks backward, and he always
thinks perhaps the other alternative was better. But nothing can be done
about it now, except regretting.
I have never regretted in my life, because in the first place, I never do
much. To regret, first you have to do something. So, basically, I am a good
for nothing: why should I regret?
Secondly, if circumstances, situations, are such that I have to do
something, then I do it totally. And I never look back because there is
nothing to look back for. Whatever I did, I did totally; there is no part of
me which can say, "I was telling you, don't do it." So who is going to
regret? And whatever has been done cannot be undone. So what is the point of
crying and weeping over spilled milk?
So I can say to you I am really sorry -- but I am helpless: this is the way
I am. And I have enjoyed not doing; I have also enjoyed doing anything
totally. There is no reason to regret anything.
You regret only because you think that things could have been better. To
me, they have always been better. Whatever it was, to me it was the best. I
enjoyed it fully.
I am reminded.... I was traveling in a bus. I was going to a place where no
buses, no trains were going, so for eight miles I had to go by bullock cart.
But some misunderstanding happened. I had to get down at a place eight
miles from my destination. I asked the passenger sitting by my side, "Is
this the right place, the nearest?"
He said, "No. If you stop at the next stop, it will be easier. It will be
closer and you will be able to get a bullock cart. Here, you will not get a
bullock cart."
Thinking that he knew that area, I went to the next stop. When I got down
there, the bus left, and I inquired. People said, "You have missed. It was
the last place from where you could have got some vehicle to the place you
want to go. From here it will be very difficult, and it is long. And the bus
comes only once in twenty-four hours, so if you want to go back to that
place you will have to wait. The same bus will come tomorrow."
Seeing me in difficulty, a man offered me his hut, saying, "You can stay
here for the time being."
I have never been in such a poor place in my whole life. Not only poor, but
utterly dirty, stinking. The man used to sell kerosene oil, so it was really
awful. He offered me a bed for the night -- the bed was smelling of kerosene
oil and nothing else.
I could not turn over, because to keep my nose as far away from the bed as
possible, the only position was just to lie down straight and look up. But I
enjoyed it really -- remaining in the same position, looking at the roof,
the stink of the kerosene oil all around, bedbugs, mosquitoes... everything
that you could conceive to make a man suffer. I laughed.
The man was on the veranda. He said, "What is the matter? Why are you
laughing?"
I said, "I am laughing because of this little experience of hell. I have
always been intending to go to hell; this is a good training! And I promise
you that once in a while, whenever I pass through here, I will be your
guest."
He said, "I was afraid, because although I do this business, the stink is
so much that even after doing it for years I have not become accustomed to
it. The mosquitoes are so big, the bedbugs are there; and I can see you are
not even lying on your side. I know the reason," he said, "but I am sorry. I
don't have anything else to offer to you."
I said, "Don't be sorry. I am rejoicing in the whole experience. It is so
new to me, and everything that is new is a great adventure and excitement."
Next day, when I was leaving, he asked me, "Are you really thinking of
coming back again?"
I said, "Certainly." And I went to his hut at least four times. Whenever I
passed through there, I always stopped at the wrong stop, reached the hut.
And the man could not believe it: "Either you are crazy, or something...
because now you know where to get down. The first time it was a mistake, but
why are you doing it again and again?"
I said, "I am not making any mistake -- I enjoyed that night so much. I
could not sleep at all, and I had had no experience of bedbugs, mosquitoes.
It is always good to be acquainted with new people. One never knows where
one will end up.... New acquaintance is always good. And your kerosene oil
makes me feel I am in hell. I don't know whether there is any hell or not,
but I don't want to miss any experience. Perhaps there is no hell after
life; then I will have had this experience. And I am immensely grateful to
you."
Whatever happens, you can always look into it and find something really
precious. Now, once in a while sleeping on my back, looking up, I remember
and I laugh. That experience has made all my life's nights far more
beautiful. Now the comparison exists. Before it there was no comparison, it
was stale: no bedbugs, no mosquitoes, no kerosene.
I don't regret, I don't feel that it should have been otherwise. No,
whatever has been should have been exactly the same as it has been. And I am
perfectly happy with every act and with every consequence, because
everything has been a tremendous teaching. It is just that you have to
change your outlook, and the whole of life becomes a terrific drama.
And you are not victims, you are just actors in it. You can keep your
witness untouched by whatever happens. And the witness knows no regret, the
witness cannot say, "I am sorry."
Question 4
BELOVED MASTER,
CAN I DOUBT YOU?
Yes, absolutely yes -- including this statement!
Okay?
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