Hence
I don't see that with the coming age, with the new maturity that man is
attaining, marriage can exist anymore in the same old way. It has to become more
fluid; that means it can no longer be an institution. People will live together
-- they need each other... Men and women are halves of one whole; their need is
intrinsic. Together they become one whole, together they are complementary to
each other. But they will live together only because of love, not because of any
law. And they will live together out of freedom, not out of bondage.
The first question:
Question 1
OSHO,
WHAT IS THE SECRET OF REMAINING
HAPPY AND MARRIED?
SARJAN,
It is impossible! It has never
happened -- it cannot happen in the very nature of things. Marriage is something
against nature. Marriage is an imposition, an invention of man -- certainly out
of necessity, but now even that necessity is out of date. It was a necessary
evil in the past, but now it can be dropped. And it should be dropped: man has
suffered enough for it, more than enough. It is an ugly institution for the
simple reason that love cannot be legalized. Love and law are contradictory
phenomena.
Marriage is an effort to legalize
love. It is out of fear. It is thinking about the future, about the tomorrows.
Man always thinks of the past and the future, and because of this constant
thinking about past and future, he destroys the present. And the present is the
only reality there is. One has to live in the present. The past has to die and
has to be allowed to die.
The really intelligent person never
looks back; he never bothers about the past -- that which is finished is
finished forever. And he never thinks of the future either because that which
has not come yet has not come yet. And he knows that whenever it comes, he will
be capable of responding to it, so why ponder over it? Why make ready-made
answers to questions which have not even arisen? And all your ready-made answers
are going to be irrelevant because life goes on changing. Life remains always a
surprise; it is unpredictable.
But man thinks that he is being
very clever by preparing for the future. You love a woman, you love a man, but
what about the future? Tomorrow the woman may fall in love with somebody else.
If she can fall in love even with you, Sarjan, why can she not fall in love with
somebody else? You know it, you are aware of it: "She has fallen in love
even with me so there is every possibility she can fall in love with somebody
else." So something has to be done to prevent her from falling in love with
somebody else so that your tomorrow is safe and secure, so that you can use her
tomorrow, too. Whether love remains or not, at least you will have the
physiology of the woman. You are not much concerned with her soul -- because law
cannot restrain the soul, but law can create barriers for the body; the body is
not beyond its reach. Law can control her; law can condemn her, can punish her
in many ways.
And another thing: not only are you
afraid of the woman, you are afraid of yourself too. If you can fall in love
with this woman, you can fall in love with somebody else. You know that your
mind is constantly thinking of other women. You know there is every possibility
that tomorrow you may lose interest in this woman; in fact it is almost a
certainty, not just a possibility, not just a probability. And then you are
afraid of yourself. You may escape, you may run.
And you want to cling because this
woman is taking care of you. She has been a comfort to you, she has been a
consolation in your life, she has been in many ways a mother to you, a
nourishment. You are afraid to betray her. You are afraid of your own mind, of
your own unconscious; it can take you anywhere.
And you have promised her that you
will never leave her, that you will always love her, that you will love her
forever, life after life. You are afraid of breaking your promises. Your ego
feels that to break those promises will mean only one thing: that you will never
be able to forgive yourself. It will remain a heavy weight on you, it will
create guilt for you.
And the same is the situation from
the side of the woman. Hence it has been a necessary evil, and men and women
have agreed to plan for the future. Afraid of themselves they have taken support
from the law, from the society, from conventions, from respectability. They have
created a thousand and one barriers around themselves so that they remain
together.
But if -- and that "if"
is not a small "if", it is a big "if" -- something happens
tomorrow, then your life will become miserable. And something is going to happen
tomorrow; tomorrow is not going to remain the same. Life never remains the same,
not even for two consecutive moments. Nothing can be said about the future; it
remains unknown, unknowable, unpredictable. No astrology can help, no palmistry
can help, no tarot-card reading can help, no I-CHING can help -- nothing can
help. Man has tried every possible way to make something certain out of the
uncertain future, but nothing can be done. The nature of the future is unknown,
and it remains unknown and open.
So you close yourself to all
possibilities. You close all the doors, all the windows. But then you will feel
suffocated and you will feel angry and you will feel constantly in conflict.
With the woman you had loved once you will feel angry for the simple reason that
now it is difficult to get out of this prison. You have imprisoned yourself; now
the only way to go on living in it is to make yourself as insensitive as
possible, to become as unloving as possible, to become as false as possible, to
be as dead as possible.
Hence people die very soon. They
may be buried after forty years, fifty years, but they die nearabout thirty. By
the time their love starts dying they die, because life is love. But love is not
law, life is not law Life is not logic, love is not logic. Life is basically
insecure, and that is the beauty of it.
Hence I don't see that with the
coming age, with the new maturity that man is attaining, marriage can exist
anymore in the same old way. It has to become more fluid; that means it can no
longer be an institution. People will live together -- they need each other...
Men and women are halves of one whole; their need is intrinsic. Together they
become one whole, together they are complementary to each other. But they will
live together only because of love, not because of any law. And they will live
together out of freedom, not out of bondage.
And with the disappearance of the
institution of marriage the whole structure of society will change -- it cannot
change otherwise -- because once marriage disappears many things will disappear
automatically. The family will not be the same anymore; the family will be
replaced by communes -- that is inevitable. And children will not belong to
persons but to the commune. Hence they will not be much of a problem -- because
children have been a big problem: what to do with the children when people
separate? The children are left in a limbo; something has to be done about the
children. And marriage has persisted for the simple reason that children have to
be protected, they have to be helped; they are helpless. And it is your
responsibility.
Love becomes duty, responsibility.
And the moment it is duty and responsibility it loses all poetry, it becomes
pure calculation. Then it is a compromise, then you have somehow to pull it,
then you start dragging your life.
A great revolution is on the way,
and with the disappearance of marriage that revolution will become possible.
Once children no longer belong to persons they will have more generosity, they
will be more human. They will not be Hindus and Mohammedans and Christians
because they will not belong to certain parents and they will not be conditioned
by the parents; they will belong to the commune. And once children belong to the
commune they will have a larger experience of people. One child may come in
contact with many women as mothers, aunts, with many men as fathers, as uncles,
with many children as brothers, sisters.
Right now the experience of the
child is very limited. Each child is brought up by a certain woman. The impact
of that woman remains hanging on the child's consciousness for his whole life;
it becomes an imprint. And he is always searching for the same woman: in every
woman he falls in love with he is really looking for his mother, whom he cannot
find. Where can he find his mother? There are no two persons alike. He will
never find his mother anywhere, but he is looking for his mother in every wife,
in every beloved. And the same is the case with the woman: she is looking for
the father in every husband, in every lover. And they cannot find them, but that
is their IDEA.
The woman's idea of a man is
nothing but her idea of the father and the man's idea of a woman is nothing but
his idea of the mother. They will never find them, hence there will be
frustration, hence there will always be despair, misery, failure, anguish.
If a child is brought up by many
women in the commune and comes in contact with many men and many women he will
not have a certain idea, he will have a more vague vision. He will not have a
certainty how a man should be or a woman should be, his idea of a woman will
contain many pictures. And then there will be more possibility of finding a
woman who can fulfill him or a man with whom life can be a contentment, because
one of the greatest miseries is that you are looking for someone you cannot
find, hence everybody will seem to be falling short; nothing will ever satisfy
you.
And because you will not be
confined to one family you will not carry the rotten heritage of the family.
Otherwise the Hindu parents will make the child Hindu, and a Hindu child is
bound to be against the Mohammedans, against the Christians, against everybody
else. And so is the case with the Jews and with the Christians and the
Mohammedans. If the child moves with many people in a commune and feels attuned
with the whole commune...
For example, in this commune, you
can look at Siddhartha. He lives absolutely freely. Such a little child, with
such freedom! He has no attachment to the mother or to the father. He makes
friendships with grown-up people, then he starts living with them. He has so
many friends -- men and women, and all kinds of friends -- children, grown-ups.
He is really getting the idea of so many people that his vision of humanity is
bound to be vast.
He had asked me -- he was living in
a kids' house where only kids live -- he asked me, "Osho, I want to live
with real men, not with kids. Enough is enough! I have lived with kids long
enough." So I sent him to live with Govinddas and other sannyasins. And
they complained: "Sometimes he comes at twelve o'clock in the night and
sometimes at one o'clock, sometimes at two o'clock. This is too much! He goes to
parties and to dramas and to the disco and he is disturbing us continuously! And
he has possessed the whole room -- as if the room belongs to him and we are just
living in his room! He has put all his things all around the room -- all his
toys are everywhere! So please," they asked me, "remove him!"
I told him to go to his mother,
Neerja, to live with her. He said, "That is the last place I want to go!
But if you say so I will go." He has been forced to go and live with the
mother at least for a few days. And he has been living with many families, with
many couples. Wherever he goes he makes friendships, and there are so many
friends that he is never out of money -- he asks everybody!
Sattva was once Neerja's lover. Now
that love relationship is broken, but the love that has grown between Sattva and
Siddhartha has continued. They are still friends -- Sattva still has to give him
money! He comes every day: "Today I need five rupees, ten rupees."
One day Sattva said, "I don't
have any money." Then he said "You can ask me!" And he brought
five rupees from somewhere and gave it to Sattva! "Why don't you ask me? I
have so many friends, I can bring as much money as you want!"
Now, this child will be a totally
different child! He has lived with Jews and with Christians and with Hindus. He
will not be conditioned by anything, he will not have any conditioning. He will
have a vast territory of being available to him.
That's my idea how all children
should grow. then there will be no ugly religious conflicts, wars, bloodshed, no
ugly fanaticism, no fascist ideologies in the world. These are all byproducts of
the family, and the family depends on marriage. In fact, if the family
disappears, nations will have to disappear, religions will disappear, states
will disappear, churches will disappear. That's why nations, churches, everybody
is in favor of marriage and they all go on praising marriage as if it is
something holy, something divine. It is the ugliest thing on the earth! And they
go on telling people, "Without marriage, where will children get
love?" They will get more love; nobody is going to prevent their parents
from loving them, but they will be available to others, too. They will not be
dependent, they will start learning independence. From the very beginning they
will have a certain new feel of freedom. And that's what is needed.
The whole of human history has been
full of religious wars for the simple reason that everybody becomes conditioned,
and once you are conditioned it is very difficult to uncondition you. I know the
difficulty because that's my while work here -- to uncondition you. It takes
months, years; and you struggle hard, you resist in every possible way because
your conditioning means your ego.
You ask me, Sarjan: WHAT IS THE
SECRET OF REMAINING HAPPY AND MARRIED?
I don't know! Nobody has ever
known. Why would Jesus have remained unmarried if he had known the secret? He
knew the secret of the kingdom of God, but he did not know the secret of
remaining happy in marriage. He remained unmarried. Mahavira, Lao Tzu Chuang Tzu,
they all remained unmarried for the simple reason that there is no secret;
otherwise these people would have discovered it. They could discover the
ultimate -- marriage is not such a big thing, it is very shallow -- they even
fathomed God, but they could not fathom marriage.
Socrates got married and he
suffered his whole life. He did not discover through marriage the secret of
remaining happy; he simply discovered that it would have been better if he had
not got married. But in Greece there had never been such incidents as Jesus, Lao
Tzu -- Jesus had yet to come, five hundred years after Socrates. Socrates was a
contemporary of Lao Tzu, Mahavira, but he knew nothing about them because the
world in those days had no communication. So whatsoever was conventional
happened in his life.
Mohammed married not one woman, he
married nine women! Many times I have been asked, "What about
Mohammed?" I know the secret of Mohammed but I don't know the secret of
remaining happy in marriage. If you have nine women they will fight amongst
themselves and you will be free! Mohammed managed it and he has said to his
followers, "Marry at least four women." So Mohammedans are allowed to
marry four women. Four women are enough to fight amongst themselves and the
husband will be spared.
Krishna did the best: he married
sixteen thousand women! Now it is very easy to get lost. Sixteen thousand
women... who will notice Krishna, where he has gone, where he is? There will be
so much noise and fight, and in that cloudy, smokey atmosphere Krishna can
escape anywhere. He can even sit in the middle of it and meditate and nobody
will bother about him! They will all be concerned about each other's saris and
each other's ornaments.
Buddha got married, but then he
escaped. He had a beautiful wife, Yashodhara, but he escaped. He came back home
only when he became enlightened, after twelve years. Yes, if you are enlightened
then you can be happy anywhere, even in marriage, but no enlightened person has
been known to get married after enlightenment.
Two friends meet.
"Hello, Luisa, how is your
great love?"
"It's over," she replied
sadly.
"Over? How come?"
"We got married!"
Two friends were talking.
"I've placed an advertisement
in the newspaper, looking for a wife," says one.
"Did lots of women write
back?" asks the other.
"Just a few women... but lots
of husbands!"
The wife left home for the fifth
time and the husband rushed to place an advertisement in the newspaper.
It read: "Do not come back and
all will be forgiven."
It was a wise old woman who, when
people asked her why she never married, would answer: "Why marry? I have a
dog who snores, a parrot who speaks only dirty words and a cat who stays out all
night what do I need a husband for?"
The jealous husband hires a
detective to find out if his wife betrays him. After a few days the detective
comes back with a movie showing his wife and his best friend swimming, dancing,
making love, having fun.
While watching the movie the
husband keeps saying, "I can't believe it! I can't believe it!"
"But," says the
detective, annoyed, "I'm giving you proof of it!"
"No, it's not that,"
replies the husband, "I just can't believe someone can have so much fun
with my wife!"
In heaven everybody is quiet and
silent except for Paolo who keeps saying, "What peace here! What peace
here!"
Even St. Peter gets tired of him
and so one day he sends him to purgatory. Even there though Paolo keeps
muttering, "What peace here! What peace here!"
Everybody gets so tired that they decide to send him
down to hell. But even in hell, among the flames and the devils, he keeps
uttering, "What peace here! What peace here!"
So Beelzebub calls him and asks him
the reason for his behavior.
"Well, Beelzebub,"
replies Paolo, "you would say the same if you had lived for fifty years
with my wife!"
Love is enough. Live only out of
love. It may last long, it may not last, but don't be worried whether it lasts
long or does not last long. Even if it is there for a single moment it will give
you the taste of eternity.
And there is every possibility that
if you are not afraid it may last longer, because fear is poison; it poisons
everything. If you are not worried about tomorrow you may live today so totally
that out of that totality a beautiful tomorrow will arise. But if you are afraid
of tomorrow you may destroy today. And once today is destroyed, from where is
tomorrow going to come?
Live fearlessly -- that is one of
my fundamental messages to my sannyasins -- and live dangerously. Don't
compromise for conveniences, for comforts. It is better to live in discomfort
but to live rather than to be in comfort and dead. For that you can wait -- in
your grave you will be perfectly comfortable and out of danger. Nothing can
happen there; there is no danger. You cannot die again, no illness can happen,
nobody can leave you, you can't go bankrupt, nothing can be stolen from you. You
will be perfectly at peace.
You must have come across
gravestones -- and it is written on almost all graves: "Rest in
peace." What else is there?
One man died. He had made his own
gravestone, a beautiful, artistic thing, because he did not rely on his wife --
she was such a miser that she might put up some ordinary stone. So he had
purchased the most costly marble, asked the best artist to make rose flowers on
it, and he had written on it: "Rest in peace."
When he died his wife discovered
that he had not left any money for her. When the will was opened there was only
one sentence: "I was a wise man, hence I have spent all that I had. I have
not left anything to anybody."
The wife was furious. She went to
the grave with the artist and told the artist to add a few more words:
"Rest in peace til I come!"
But don't be worried: even wives
can't come in the same grave; they will have their own graves. And even if they
come they won't recognize you, and you won't recognize them either.
You can rest in peace in the grave,
in absolute security, but while you are alive BE alive. Accept all insecurity.
In that very acceptance, insecurity disappears, and without any compromise on
your part. Love totally, but don't ask for permanence. Only fools ask for
permanence. And remember one thing: if you ask for permanence you will get only
false things; only false things are permanent.
Real roses are bound to wither
sooner or later, but plastic roses are permanent; they don't wither away. But
they don't have any fragrance either, they don't have any life; they have only
the appearance of roses.
Marriage is a plastic rose; love is
a real rose. Grow real roses in your life. Of course they will wither -- so
what? You can grow them again, you can go on growing them. You can go on
creating more and more love, sharing more and more with more and more people.
And this is my experience -- and
whatsoever I am saying I am saying out of my own experience -- that if you love
totally without desiring any permanence, even the impossible is possible. Your
love may remain for a long period, maybe your whole life. But don't look
for permanence; in that very asking you have disturbed the whole thing: you have
moved from the real to the unreal. Live totally!
"Totality" is my keyword
-- and up to now "permanence" has been the keyword. You have been told
that your love should be permanent, only then it is real; if it is not permanent
it is not real. That is sheer bullshit! A real love has nothing to do with
permanence; there is no necessary relationship. It may happen only for a moment,
it may be just like lightning, but that does not mean that lightning is unreal
because it happens only for a moment. The rose flower opens in the morning; by
the evening the petals have dropped, withered away, gone back to rest in the
earth. That does not mean that the rose flower was unreal.
But you have been told again and
again by the priests that if you are really looking for reality then the
touchstone is permanence. They have moved your mind from reality to permanence,
and once you become attached to permanence you are bound to purchase something
false and you lose track of the real. The real is changing, constantly changing;
the unreal remains the same. And you have to be available to the constantly
changing.
Even if for a single moment love
happens, be total in it. If you are total in it, the next moment will come out
of this totality. It is possible -- I cannot tell you it is certain, I can only
tell you it is possible -- that the next moment will deepen your love. But it
will not be the same: either it will deepen or it will disappear, but it will
never be the same again. No two moments are the same, and they cannot be the
same.
And that is the beauty of life,
that is the incredible adventure of life: that it is always a surprise, it is
always unexpected. If you live totally things may deepen, but remember, when
things are deepening they are not the same. If you think of permanence you have
missed the target.
So don't ask me: WHAT IS THE SECRET
OF REMAINING, HAPPY AND MARRIED?
I can only tell you the secret of
being happy -- marriage is irrelevant. If you live together with somebody out of
love, out of gratitude, good; if it goes on happening your whole life, good. If
it disappears one day, depart from each other in deep gratitude, in the
remembrance of the love that was once there -- it has enriched you. Rather than
clinging to each other in anger, in frustration, in rage, and being violent to
each other and destructive, it is better to depart with grace. One should know
how to fall in love and one should also know how to fall out of it gracefully.
The second question:
Question 2
OSHO, MY JEWISH PARENTS ARE NOT
HAPPY THAT I HAVE BECOME A SANNYASIN. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Garimo,
JESUS HAS SAID Unless you hate your
parents you can not follow me. Now, the words are very strange -- and they come
from a man like Jesus. They are shocking. One cannot expect them, at least from
Jesus, because he says: Love your enemies as you love yourself. Not only that,
he even says: Love thy neighbor as thyself -- which is far more difficult than
loving your enemies! But when it comes to parents he is very clear. He says:
Unless you hate your parents you cannot follow me. Why is he so hard on parents?
But it is nothing if you think of
Gautam the Buddha. He used to ask his BHIKKHUS -- his sannyasins, his disciples:
Have you killed your parents yet or not? A man like Buddha, who is absolutely
non-violent! Jesus is not so non-violent, at least he eats meat, he is not
averse to eating fish. Buddha is a vegetarian, absolutely vegetarian; he is the
greatest propounder of non-violence on the earth. And he asks to his disciples
again and again: Have you killed your parents yet or not?
Of course they don't mean it
literally, neither Jesus nor Buddha, but their words are significant. What they
really mean is a great message; it is metaphoric. You will have to understand
the metaphor. They are not concerned with the OUTER parents, your father and
mother, they are concerned with the inner imprints that your mother and father
have created in you.
It is not the outer parents, Garimo,
who are dominating you. What can they do? You here and they may be thousands of
miles away somewhere in Germany. What can they do? They cannot dominate you. But
you have something inner: you have inner ideas, inner reflections, imprints,
impressions of your parents, and those ideas go on dominating you. If they don't
like your being a sannyasin, then your conscience will feel guilt. You will feel
that you are hurting your parents, that it is not good, that this should not be
so, that something has to be done.
But parents are always against
anything that is new.
Buddha's father was not happy with
him; he was very unhappy, he was angry at him. Buddha had to escape out of his
kingdom because he was afraid that he would be caught, because detectives were
sent to catch hold of him. He was the only son of his father and the father was
getting old; the father was seventy when Buddha escaped from his home. The
father was afraid -- who was going to possess his kingdom? And stories were
coming to him, rumors, gossip of all kinds: that he had become a monk, that he
was begging, that he had become a beggar. And, of course, the old king was
getting very angry: "What is this nonsense? The son of a king begging --
for what? He has everything -- why should he beg? And he is begging from house
to house, walking barefoot and surrounded by other beggars like him. What is he
doing? He has betrayed me in my old age!"
Naturally he was angry, but the
real anger is somewhere else. The anger is because he has gone against his
religion, his ideology. He has gone against all that the father represents -- he
has gone against the ego of the father.
Jesus' parents were not happy with
Jesus either. They were orthodox Jews, how could they be happy with a son who
was preaching strange things and who was talking in such a way as if he knew
more than Moses? -- because Jesus was saying again and again: "It has been
said to you in the past... but I say unto you that that is wrong. It has been
told to you that if somebody throws a brick at you, answer him by throwing a
rock at him. But I say to you, if somebody hits one of your cheeks, give him the
other cheek too."
Now this was absolutely against the
Jewish idea of justice; this seemed almost anti-Jewish -- because even the
Jewish God declares in the Talmud: I am a very jealous God. If you go against me
I will destroy you.
And he destroyed two cities
completely. What happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Jewish God had done
three thousand years before! He destroyed two cities for the simple reason that
people were not behaving according to his idea of morality, they were becoming
immoral. He destroyed two whole cities.
Now, all the people could not have
been immoral and even if all the people had been immoral, they could not have
been immoral to the same degree. There were small children also; they could not
have been immoral. They didn't know anything of morality or immorality. There
were very old people also; they could not have been immoral. There were ill
people who could not even get out of their beds. What immoral acts could they
have been doing? But he was so angry that he destroyed two whole cities just to
teach a lesson to humanity.
And this young man Jesus is saying:
Forgive... He was going against all the ideas of the Judaic religion completely.
He was teaching people new concepts, new visions, new ways of approaching God.
The parents were angry.
Once it happened Jesus was
teaching, surrounded by his disciples and a crowd also. His mother came and
somebody informed him from the crowd: "Your mother is waiting outside and
she wants to see you urgently." Jesus is reported to have said, "Tell
that woman" -- not "my mother" -- he says, "Tell that woman
that nobody is my father and nobody is my mother and nobody is my relative. All
my relatives are those who are with me; those who are not with me, I have
nothing to do with them. Tell her to go away."
It seems hard, it seems cruel, but
there is a reason in it. These are all symbolic stories, I don't think it really
happened. I don't think Jesus would say, "Tell that woman..." But it
says something. You have to drop the idea of your father, of your mother from
your innermost core; only then do you become mature. If you carry that idea you
remain childish, you never become mature. And no father, no mother ever wants
you to become really mature because maturity will mean that you will become
free.
All the religions have taught you
to respect your parents for the simple reason that if you respect your parents
you will respect the past, you will respect traditions, you will respect
conventions. If you respect your father you will respect God the Father. If you
don't respect your parents then naturally you are cut off from tradition, and no
church can afford it.
I will not say to you don't respect
your father and mother.
I will say to you that you can respect your father and mother only when you are
completely free of your inner impressions of father and mother; otherwise your
respect is false, pseudo. You can love your father and mother only when you are
completely free of them, otherwise you cannot love them; you will remain angry
with them. Nobody can love anybody unless one becomes free of that person. If
there is dependence of any kind, love remains only a facade; deep down there is
hatred. And every child hates his father and mother -- every child, without any
exception. But respect is imposed from the outside.
Just look within your unconscious,
look deep down within yourself, and you will find a great revengeful fire. You
want to take revenge on your parents. You are angry because they are responsible
for the way you are. It is the way they have brought you up that is making you
miserable. It is the way they have conditioned you that is making you crippled
and paralyzed. Hence, naturally, there is hatred.
I would like you to become aware of
it so that you can drop it, because whatsoever they have done they have done
unconsciously. They need to be forgiven. Forgive them.
Jesus says: Hate your father and
Mother; Buddha says: Kill them. I say to you: Forgive them -- which is far more
difficult. Forgive them because whatsoever they have done they have done
unknowingly; they were conditioned by THEIR parents and so on and so forth. Even
Adam and Eve were conditioned by their father, God; conditioning begins there.
God is responsible for conditioning Adam: "Don't eat the fruit from the
Tree of Knowledge." That "don't" became an attraction; that is a
negative way of conditioning. And if it is said emphatically that you shouldn't
do a certain thing, a great urge arises in you to experiment, to experience it.
Why? Why is God so interested? -- because the Tree of Knowledge cannot be a bad
thing, knowing cannot be bad. If you become wise, what is wrong? Wisdom is good,
knowledge is good.
Certainly Adam must have thought
with himself: "God is trying to keep me from becoming as knowing as he is
so that I always remain dependent on him, so that I always have go to for his
advice, so that I can never live on my own, so that I always have to be just a
shadow to him. He does not want me to be free and independent." That is a
simple logical conclusion.
And that's what the devil did -- he
argued the same thing. He told Eve... Why had he chosen Eve, not Adam? --
because if you persuade the wife, if the wife is convinced, then you need not
worry about the husband.
Every advertisement expert knows
it, hence all advertisements are meant for women. Once they are convinced then
nobody can unconvince them, at least not their husbands. They have to follow
suit, they have to do it, because the woman will become a continuous torture if
you don't do it.
The devil was the first
advertisement expert. He was the pioneer, he was the founder of the whole art.
He did not bother about Adam -- he must have known that all husbands are
henpecked, so why bother about them? Persuade the wife. He persuaded her, and of
course she was convinced because the logic was so clear. He said, "God has
prohibited it only because he does not want you to become like gods. Once you
eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge you will be like gods. And he is jealous,
he is afraid. And it will be foolish on your part if you don't eat. Be like
gods!"
And who would not like to be like
gods? Once the temptation was there it was impossible to resist. But the whole
conditioning came from God himself; it was a negative kind of conditioning.
Your parents are not responsible
really. An unconscious person cannot be held responsible: he functions
unconsciously, he does not know what he is doing.
Garimo, you have to go within
yourself and cleanse yourself of all the impressions that your parents have put
upon you, both negative and positive. Then there will arise great compassion in
you for your parents, great compassion and great gratitude also, because
whatsoever they have done they have done -- according to them at least --
thinking that it is good. They have not deliberately done anything wrong to you.
Even now, if they are against your sannyas, if they are not happy with your
sannyas, it is because they think you have fallen into wrong hands, that you
have fallen from their traditional heritage. They are afraid you may go astray,
you may suffer later on, you may repent one day. They feel for you.
Their love is unconscious, hence
you need not listen to them, but you are not to become angry with them; you have
to understand them.
You say: MY JEWISH PARENTS ARE NOT
HAPPY THAT I HAVE BECOME A SANNYASIN.
First, they are Jewish; that is one
of the oldest religions in the world. There are only two old religions in the
world, the Judaic religion and the Hindu. The older a tradition, the greater is
its weight; it crushes people more. Anything new is light.
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My sannyasins can walk
light-footedly, almost dancingly. But a five thousand year old tradition creates
a great weight; it is a long past. They could not forgive Jesus, how can they
forgive you? And Jesus has not become my sannyasin! If fact, he never went
outside the tradition; he remained a Jew. He was not a Christian, remember,
because there was no Christianity at that time. Christianity was born out of his
death, out of his crucifixion. Hence I always call Christianity "Crossianity";
it has nothing to do with Christ, it has something to do with the cross. That's
why the cross has become the symbol of Christianity -- far more important than
Christ.
They could not forgive Jesus, and
he never went outside the tradition. Of course he was saying things which looked
a little strange, a little new. He was bringing new light; he was clearing the
mirror of the Jewish consciousness from the old dust. But they have not been
able to forgive him, not even now. I have not come across a single book written
by a Jew in favor of Jesus. They still think he was wrong, they still think that
it was right to crucify him, they still think that he was a criminal.
And to become my sannyasin is
certainly far more dangerous because it is going totally out of all traditions.
It is not just changing one tradition for another, it is dropping the very
traditional mind itself. It is dropping being traditional as such; it is
becoming non-traditional, unconventional. It is pure revolution! And they are
afraid, naturally; for many reasons Jews are afraid.
And there is some attraction
between me and the Jews. I have attracted so many Jews here that sometimes I
myself wonder -- am I a Jew or what is the matter? -- because Jews are not so
easily attracted to anybody. They were not attracted to Jesus. They are not
attracted to anybody else. Why have they come to me? I have touched something
deep in them. In fact, they have suffered from tradition more than anybody else;
that's the reason why they have become so interested in my vision, because I am
anti-traditional. They would like to get rid of it.
A Jew and a black man are sitting
next to each other on the train. Suddenly the Jew realizes that the black is
reading a Hebrew magazine. He keeps silent for a while, then whispers to him:
"Listen, friend, is it not enough to be a black?"
Your parents, Garimo, may be
afraid: "Is it not enough to be a Jew? Now you want to suffer more?"
Because to be with me is going to be dangerous. Freedom is far more dangerous
than anything else in the world. Freedom is fire: it burns your ego, and because
it burns your ego it hurts many other people's egos and they all become enemies
to you.
And then Jews are very worldly
people. It is the only religion which is very worldly. There are two kinds of
religions: the worldly religions -- Jews represent the worldly religion -- and
there are the other-worldly religions, for example, Buddhism. Buddhists will be
against me because to them I will look a little worldly, and to Jews I will look
a little too other-worldly.
I am both: I am a bridge. My
sannyas is a synthesis because I don t divide "this world" and
"that world". To me both are beautiful. And one has to live in both
worlds together because they are not separate they are inseparable. The very
idea of dividing them has been a great calamity.
Jews are more interested in money
than in meditation. Now, thinking that you have become a meditator they will be
afraid. "What are you doing? This is the time to earn money. This is the
time to get rooted in the world. Don't waste this precious time!" According
to them, when you are young you can do something; as you become old you will be
less and less able to make money, to have power, prestige, to make a name in the
world. You are wasting your time here.
Even with those who are here, if
they are Jewish, the hangover continues. One of the sannyasins went to the
office a few days ago, in a euphoria -- must have touched something intangible
in meditation, may have been silent here in the discourse, may have had a
glimpse of something unknown. In those moments even if you are a Jew your
Jewishness disappears. She went to the office and said that she wanted to donate
one hundred thousand dollars to the new commune. After five minutes she went
back and said that she wanted to cancel it! She was asked, "What happened?
Yes, we will cancel it. It was you, nobody had asked you for anything. You came
on your own; now, just after five minutes... what has happened?"
She said, "I went to see
Amitabh, one of my friends, and he said, 'Are you a fool or something? Go
immediately and cancel it!' He scolded me!"
Now, Amitabh is a Polack Jew! That
is the most dangerous combination you can find -- Polack and Jew! Of course, he
loves me and loves me tremendously -- he is here, he is one of my topmost
therapists, he lives in my house, in Lao Tzu -- but hangovers are hangovers!
Very excited, Isaac calls David,
"Come immediately, David, I have an incredible bargain. Three hundred
trousers for only fifty dollars!"
David runs to Isaac, where he finds
the pile of three hundred trousers. He looks them over and then says to Isaac,
"But Isaac, these trousers have only one leg! No one can wear them!"
"Listen, David," replies
Isaac, "Besides the fact that there are people with only one leg, I already
told you -- we have to sell them, not to wear them!"
A Jew arrives in Chicago from
Israel; he is coming to America for the first time. It's raining, so he stops at
a shop to buy a pair of shoes. Mindful of his father's advice, when the clerk
asks twenty dollars for the shoes he starts bargaining: "Ten dollars!"
"That's impossible!"
replies the clerk.
"Ten or nothing!" is the
Jew's reply.
So the clerk consults the manager,
then says, "Okay, ten."
"No," replies the Jew,
"five!"
Again the clerk consults the
manager..."Okay, five."
"No, two!" replies the
Jew.
"Listen," says the clerk,
tired of him, "just take these shoes and get out!"
"No! " exclaims the Jew.
"No? You don't want
them?" asks the clerk incredulously.
Says the Jew: "I want two
pairs!"
Garimo, your parents must be
worried about what you are doing here. Such an intelligent guy like you wasting
his time meditating? Have you gone crazy or something, sitting silently doing
nothing? Is this a way a Jew is supposed to behave? Time is money -- don't waste
it!
And, moreover, whether your parents
are Jewish or not, parents are parents; they feel offended -- they feel offended
by the very idea that you think you know more than they know, that you are
trying new ways, that you are trying to be wiser than your parents.
A Jew arrives in heaven and God, in
a very compassionate voice, asks, "What happened to you?"
He says, "I was brokenhearted.
When my only son, my pride and my joy, announced that he had become Catholic, I
felt this terrible pain in my chest..."
"You should not have despaired
so much. Even my only son did the same!"
And what did you do, my Lord?"
"I made a new will and
testament!"
So, Garimo, what can they do? They
will make a new will and a new testament -- let them make it! Learn to forgive
them. I will not tell you to hate them, because hate is not freedom -- if you
hate somebody you remain attached. Hate is a relationship; Love is freedom. Love
is not a relationship; hate is a relationship. That's why those who live in
relationship live in hate, not in love. Love is freedom. Love them, then you are
free. But to love them you will have to cleanse yourself totally. I will not
tell you, like Gautam the Buddha, to kill them, because killing is not going to
help. Understand them. Be compassionate. Killing will be doing something in a
hurry; there is no need to be in a hurry. And parents have gone so deep in you;
they are not only in your blood and bones, they have entered in your very
marrow. You cannot kill them easily -- it is impossible. You will have to commit
suicide if you want to kill them because only then will they be killed. They
have entered your being: you are part of them, they are part of you. But through
deep understanding you can be free of them.
A lawyer has succeeded in
acquitting a Jew who has killed his mother, his wife and his sister. Before
separating he says to the man, "As you still have a father I'll just say
'See you soon!'"
I will not suggest that; my methods
are far more subtle. What Jesus said and what Buddha said are very primitive
methods; what I am saying is far more sophisticated -- it has to be, it is the
twentieth century! Forgive them. Understand them. And the whole question is
within you; it has nothing to do with the outer parents. If you can relax within
yourself and if you can feel compassion for them -- because they have suffered
in their own way... They have wasted their whole life, now they want to waste
your life, because that is the only way they know how to live. Great compassion
is bound to arise in you, and out of that compassion maybe you can be of some
help to them because compassion functions in a very subtle way. Love is the
greatest magic in the world.
I will not tell you to go and
listen to them and follow them to satisfy them; that will be wrong. That will be
destroying your life and it will not help them either. You have to remain
yourself and yet be compassionate and forgiving. And if you happen to go there
remain compassionate and forgiving. Let them feel your compassion, your love,
your joy. Let them feel your celebration. Let them feel what has happened to you
through sannyas. Let them see the difference .
Buddha's father remained angry till
he came to see him. Even when he saw him, for a few moments he was so angry, his
eyes were so full of anger, that he could not see. Buddha remained silent. The
father went on insulting him, saying, "You have been a deep wound to me --
you have almost killed me. Why have you come now after twelve years? I have
waited so long! You have not been a son to me, you have been an enemy!"
Buddha listened, did not utter a
single word. Then the father suddenly became aware that the son had not spoken
even a single word. He asked, "Why are you not speaking?"
Buddha said, "First say
everything that you have carried for all these twelve years. Cathart, unburden
yourself! Only when you are unburdened will you be able to see me. One thing I
would like to say to you: that you are talking to somebody else, not to your
son. The man who had left your palace has not come back -- he has died. I am a
totally new man. I have come with new consciousness, with new love, with new
compassion. But first you unburden yourself, otherwise your eyes are so full of
rage you cannot see me. Let your eyes be cleared."
The father was trembling with
anger. Slowly he cooled down; this very answer cooled him. Tears of anger were
coming to his eyes. He wiped his tears, looked again. "Yes, this is not the
same man who left my palace; this is a totally different person. Of course, the
face is the same, the figure is the same, but it is a totally new being -- the
vibe is new."
He fell at the feet of Buddha and
he said, "Initiate me too, because now I am very old; death is coming
closer. I would also like to taste something that you have tasted. And forgive
me and forgive all my anger. I have not known what is happening to you and what
has happened to you. It is good that you have come. It is good that you
remembered me, that you have not forgotten me."
So whenever you go back, Garimo,
let them first cathart. And remember, they are German parents so they will
cathart longer than Buddha's parent! Listen silently. Don't get angry. Remain
meditative, calm and quiet, and your coolness will transform them. If you really
want to help them...
And each sannyasin SHOULD want to
help his parents, because they have given you birth. They have brought you up in
some way, the way they could; it was not possible for them to do otherwise.
Whatsoever they could do they have done and they have done it for your good.
Whether it proved good or not is another matter, but their intentions were good.
So whenever you go back, remember to help them.
The last question:
Question 3
OSHO,
DON 'T YOU EVER GET TIRED OF US AND
OUR STUPIDITY?
GURUDAS,
I RATHER ENJOY IT! Moreover, I have
to do something and this is the only thing that one can go on doing forever and
forever.
Jesus was bored so he went to God
his father and asked him, "Dad, give me something to do -- I am bored!
"
"Take a file and smooth the
top of the Himalayas," said God.
After seven thousand years Jesus
came back again
"And now what can I do?"
he asked God again.
God gave him a spoon and told him
to empty the Indian Ocean. After seven thousand years, he was back again.
"It's done... and now?"
he asked God.
Tired, God looked at him and said,
"Listen, Jesus go down to earth and convince the men down there to love
each other -- that will keep you busy for eternity!"
I am not a priest; it is not my
duty. Otherwise one is bound to get bored and tired. It is my joy, it is my
love!
The Pope is redecorating his summer
residence of Castelgandolfo. When the work is finished he comes with the chief
decorator to see the results. Everything is perfect.
When he arrives at his bedroom, the
decorator, to give the final touch, hangs a beautiful antique twelfth-century
cross just over the bed.
"Oh, no, no, no, my son!"
exclaims the Pope. "I have already told you not to put anything here that
reminds me of my office!"
This is not my work, this is my
joy, this is my play. I am really enjoying it!
A Russian cosmonaut comes back from
his space travel. Brezhnev receives him: "Tell me the truth, comrade. Did
you meet God up there?"
"If you want the truth -- yes,
I found him!" replies the cosmonaut.
"I thought so," replies
Brezhnev. "Now promise me never to reveal this to anyone."
After a few months the same
cosmonaut is received by the Pope. When they are alone, the Pope whispers to
him, "Now, my dear son, please tell me -- did you meet God up there?"
Faithful to his promise, the
cosmonaut replies, "No, unfortunately not, Your Sanctity."
And the Pope sadly replies, "I
thought so. Now listen, promise me never to tell this to anyone!"
ON
LOVE AND MARRIAGE...