You
can do only one thing and that is to learn the art of watching, watching without
any judgment. Then one day you simply relax, and in that total relaxation there
is pure awareness. All thoughts disappear, all desires disappear; the mind is
found no more. When mind is not found, this is meditation. A state of no-mind is
meditation.
The first question:
Question 1
OSHO,
PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW I CAN MEDITATE
OVER SOMETHING WITHOUT USING MY MIND.
DINESH,
Meditation has nothing to do with
mind; meditation simply means a state of no-mind. The functioning of the mind is
the only disturbance in meditation. If you are trying to achieve meditation
THROUGH mind you are bound to fail, doomed to fail. You are trying to achieve
the impossible.
A Zen initiate was meditating for
years and whenever he would come to his Master, whatsoever experience he would
bring to the Master, the Master would simply reject: "It is all nonsense.
You go back and meditate again."
One day the Master came to the hut
of the disciple -- he was sitting in a Buddha posture. The Master shook him and
told him, "What are you doing here? If we needed stone Buddhas we have many
in the temple! Just by sitting like a stone Buddha you will not attain to
meditation. Do what I have been telling you to do. Just by stilling the body,
your mind is not going to disappear, because it is through the mind that you are
enforcing a certain discipline on the body. Anything done by the mind is going
to strengthen the mind. It is a nourishment for the mind."
A year passed. The Master came
again. The disciple was sitting almost in a kind of euphoria, enjoying the
morning breeze and sun with closed eyes, thinking that he was meditating. The
Master took a brick and started rubbing it on a stone in front of the disciple.
It was such a disturbance that finally the disciple had to shout, "What are
you doing? Are you trying to drive me crazy?"
The Master said, "I am trying
to make a mirror out of this brick. If one goes on rubbing it enough I think it
will become a mirror."
The disciple laughed. He said,
"I always suspected that you were a little mad -- now it is proved! The
brick can never become a mirror. You can go on rubbing it on the stone for lives
together; the brick will remain a brick."
The Master said, "That shows
some intelligence! Then what are you doing? For years you have been trying to
make meditation out of the mind; it is like trying to make a mirror out of a
brick."
And the Master threw the brick in
the pond at the side of the tree the disciple was sitting under. The brick made
a great splash in the pond, and the very sound of it was enough to do the
miracle. Something awakened in the disciple. A sleep was broken, a dream was
shattered: he became alert. For the first time he tasted something of
meditation.
And the Master immediately said,
" This is it!"
It happened so unexpectedly -- the
disciple was taken unawares. He was not waiting for this to happen, that the
Master would suddenly throw the brick into the pond, and the splash...
Basho has a beautiful haiku:
The ancient pond.
The frog jumps in.
The sound...
That's all. The sound can awaken
you.
Meditation is not a question of
effort because all effort is going to be through the mind, of the mind, by the
mind. How can it take you beyond the mind? You will go round and round IN the
mind. You have to wake up! Mind is sleep. Mind is a constant process of
dreaming, desiring, thoughts, memories.
Dinesh, you ask me: PLEASE EXPLAIN
HOW I CAN MEDITATE OVER SOMETHING WITHOUT USING MY MIND.
Can't you see something just with
your eyes? Can't you watch something without bringing your mind in? The birds
chirping, this silence... What need is there of the mind? It is a question of
watchfulness not of concentration.
But it is not only your problem, it
is the problem of millions of people who become interested in meditation all
over the world. They all mistake concentration for meditation. Concentration is
something of the mind. It is being taught in the schools, colleges,
universities. It has its uses -- I am not saying it is useless. It is focusing
on a certain object.
In science it is needed. You have
to focus your mind on a particular object totally so that you can observe
deeply. You have to exclude everything else, you have to break it out of
everything else. You have to narrow down your consciousness; you almost have to
make a pinpoint of it That's a scientific way as far as the objective world is
concerned.
But as far as the subjective world
is concerned it is of no help, not at all. There you are not to focus your mind
on anything -- on the idea of God or on some inner light, flame, love,
compassion -- you are not to concentrate at all; you have to be simply aware of
all that is.
The man of concentration can be
distracted easily; anything can become a distraction because he is trying to do
something unnatural. Just a child crying, and he will be distracted; the traffic
noise, and he will be distracted; an airplane passing by, and he will be
distracted; a dog starts barking, and he will be distracted. Anything can
distract him. And of course, when he is distracted he will feel miserable,
frustrated -- he has failed again. The man of meditation cannot be distracted
for the simple reason that he is not concentrating in the first place.
Existence is not linear, it is
simultaneous. For example, I am speaking here, the birds are chirping, the
traffic noise is there, the train is passing by -- all these things are
happening together. You have to be simple, silent, watchful, witnessing all that
is -- no need to exclude anything because the excluded thing will try to
distract you. If nothing is excluded, if your awareness is all-inclusive, then
what can distract you? Can this bird distract you? In fact, it will enhance your
silence. Nothing Can distract you because you are not in a tense state.
Concentration is tension, hence the
word "attention". It comes from the same root, "tension".
Awareness is not attention; awareness is relaxation, it is rest.
So rest silently. Thoughts will
pass; there is no need to he worried -- what can they do? Desires will come and
go. Watch them coming and going. Don't have any evaluation. Don't say,
"This is good; this is bad." Don't say, "Aha! This is something
great, spiritual, far out!" Some sensation in the spine -- it may be just
an ant crawling up and you start feeling your kundalini is rising, or just
imagination -- you see some light inside, which is not difficult... You can see
light, you can see colors, psychedelic colors. You can experience beautiful
things, but it is all imagination, howsoever colorful, howsoever beautiful.
Don't start saying that this is
good that Jesus is standing in front of you or Krishna or Buddha and that now
you are starting to feel you are coming closer and closer to the ultimate
realization. Buddha says, "If you meet me on the Way, kill me
immediately!" He means: If I come in your meditation, don't start feeling
very good about it, because if you start feeling good about it you will start
clinging to the idea -- and it is only an idea. Just watch it with no
preference, with no choice. If you can be choicelessly aware of everything
outside and inside, meditation will happen one day. It is nothing that you have
to do.
You can do only one thing and that
is to learn the art of watching, watching without any judgment. Then one day you
simply relax, and in that total relaxation there is pure awareness. All thoughts
disappear, all desires disappear; the mind is found no more. When mind is not
found, this is meditation. A state of no-mind is meditation.
So you have been misunderstanding
me. When I say "Meditate", I mean "Watch". If I say
"Meditate on the songs of the birds", I am simply saying
"Watch". I am not saying "Concentrate" -- I am against
concentration. And because I am for watchfulness you can watch anything. You can
sit in the marketplace and watch people and that will be meditation. You can sit
in the railway station and you can watch all kinds of noises: the trains coming
and the passengers getting down and the coolies shouting and the vendors, and
then the train goes away and a silence falls over the station. You simply watch,
you don't do anything.
And slowly slowly you start
relaxing, your tensions disappear. Then insight opens up like a bud opening and
becoming a flower. Great fragrance is released. In that silence is truth, is
bliss, is benediction.
The second question:
Question 2
OSHO,
IS KNOWLEDGE ABSOLUTELY USELESS?
DHARMA,
KNOWLEDGE HAS ITS USES, it is not
absolutely useless. But if you are going inwards it becomes more and more
useless; the deeper you go the more useless it is. If you are going outwards,
the farther you go into the world the more useful it becomes. The world respects
the knowledgeable person. It needs experts; it needs all kinds of people
carrying information, knowledge, expertise. But in the inner world the question
does not arise: in the inner world the same knowledge becomes a hindrance. That
which is useful in the outside world becomes a barrier to the inner. It is a
bridge to the world; it is a barrier to the inner exploration.
Whenever I say anything against
knowledge I simply mean that for those who are pilgrims, explorers of their
subjectivity, it is utterly useless. There, something else is needed: not
knowledge but wisdom. Knowledge is information; wisdom is transformation.
Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is your own. Knowledge is ego-fulfilling; wisdom
happens only when the ego is dropped, utterly dropped, totally dropped.
Knowledge gives you the feeling that you are higher than others; it is a certain
kind of power, just like money. Knowledge is power. So if you have a
postgraduate degree you feel better than those who don't have postgraduate
degrees. If you have a Ph.D. you feel a little more egoistic. If you carry a D.
Litt. of course you become very special. If you have many degrees, then you
start feeling that you are not an ordinary person.
Once in Varanasi a man came to see
me; he was known all over the world because he had twenty M.As. He was the only
person in the whole world who had twenty postgraduate degrees, but I have never
come across such a stupid man. He was utterly stupid, obviously; he had wasted
his whole life in acquiring knowledge. And he was moving from one subject to
another; his whole effort was to have as many M.As as possible. When he came to
see me he was almost sixty-five years old; he was preparing for still another
examination. When he died he had acquired thirty M.A.s. But when I talked to the
man he was very childish, very mediocre -- no sign of intelligence, but very
egoistic.
In fact, an intelligent person
cannot be egoistic; it is impossible. If your intelligence cannot show you the
simple thing that ego is a false phenomenon then you don't have intelligence at
all. But people love to brag about their knowledge.
In the inner world humbleness
helps, simplicity helps. In the outer world these certificates and degrees are
certainly of some use.
A distinguished man enters Harrod's
in London asks for a hippopotamus and insists that the animal should be
delivered that same afternoon.
"You see," he explains,
"I terribly need this animal... if I don't have it by this afternoon I'll
go crazy!"
Curious, the clerk asks, "And
where should we put it?"
"In my bathtub," replies
the man.
Even more curious, the clerk
exclaims, "You mean, sir, that you want a hippopotamus in your
bathtub?"
"Yes! You see, it's for my
wife. Whenever I say something she invariably replies, 'Yes, I know it already.'
And so tonight when she comes to me saying, 'There's a hippopotamus in the
bathtub!' I will finally be able to reply, 'Yes, I know it already!'"
Dharma, if you want that kind of
stupid ego to be fulfilled, knowledge has a use; otherwise it is useless. But
the outside knowledge has even corrupted religions. I can understand a scientist
acquiring knowledge, because he cannot function without it. Science depends on
tradition, remember. Religion does not depend on tradition, although people
think just the reverse. They think religion depends on tradition and science is
a rebellion against tradition. That is not so, not at all.
Science is traditional. Without
Newton there would have been no Edison. Without Edison there would have been no
Albert Einstein. That's what I mean when I say science depends on tradition: it
depends on the past, and you have to be well informed about the past, otherwise
no work is possible in scientific inquiry. First you have to know whatsoever is
known already, only then can you proceed to discover something which is not
known. If you don't know what is already known you may be trying to discover
something which has been already discovered and you may come to know it only
later on. Then all your effort has been a waste.
But religion is non-traditional. It
is rebellion, it is pure rebellion! There is no need for Krishna to be for
Buddha to happen; Buddha can happen without Krishna. Christ can happen without
Moses, Mohammed can happen without Christ, Ramakrishna can happen without
Buddha. Religion is individual; science is collective. Because science is
collective it has to depend on knowledge. Religion is individual; you have to
make the whole discovery again. You cannot depend on Buddha, you cannot depend
on Christ, you cannot depend on anybody else. You always have to start from abc;
you cannot take things for granted. You cannot say, "This has been
discovered by Buddha so what is the need for me to discover it again?" Yes,
Columbus discovered America, now there is no need for you to discover it. Even
if you go to America you cannot call it your discovery. People have reached the
moon; now even if you go to the moon it won't be of any great value -- you won't
be a pioneer. But the same is not true about your inner being.
Your inner being has not been
discovered yet. Buddha discovered HIS being; that is not YOUR being. If you
believe in him you will remain only knowledgeable, and the knowledgeable person
is always false as far as the inner is concerned.
And my whole concern is the inner.
I am not teaching you chemistry, physics or mathematics here, I am teaching you
only one single thing: how to discover yourself. That's why I condemn knowledge.
A rabbi and a cantor are praying
together in the synagogue, beating their breasts and crying, "O Lord, I am
nothing, nothing, nothing!"
The synagogue janitor, hearing
them, puts down his broom and joins them, beating his breast and crying, "O
Lord, I am nothing, nothing, nothing!"
The cantor turns to the rabbi and
says, "Look who thinks he's nothing!"
Just a janitor, just a nobody --
and thinking he is nothing? Even to be nothing you have to be somebody special.
You see the stupidity of it?
Borrowed knowledge is of no help at
all.
A thief and a theologian decided to
escape from the prison.
As the thief climbed over the wall,
the guard heard some rattling. "Who's there?"
"Meow," said the thief,
imitating a cat, and passed safely.
Up came the theologian and again
the guard heard some noise. "Who's there?"
"It's nothing," answered
the theologian. "Just another cat!"
Knowledge is of no help at all in
the inner world. You will have to know yourself. Unless you know yourself, all
your beliefs will create a burden; they will not help you to be unburdened, they
will not help you to be liberated. They will create new bondages, beautiful
bondages.
The bride-to-be is taken by
her mother to the chicken roost where she is shown the rooster "doing his
work".
"It is going to be something
more or less like that, my dear!" exclaims the mother.
On the wedding night the young
husband comes into the bedroom wearing pajamas, and is surprised by the scene he
sees: the young bride is lying on the bed naked, with a helmet on her head.
"What is this all about,
baby?" he asks.
"You can do whatever you like
with me, but you are not going to peck my head!" she answers.
Borrowed knowledge is always going
to create that kind of state in you. You can repeat Jesus, you can repeat
Krishna, you can repeat Moses, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, but repetitions won't help;
you have to learn on your own. Yes, imbibe the spirit of the Masters, of the
awakened ones, but remember it is not knowledge that is going to help you but
wisdom. And wisdom comes when all knowledge has been put aside. Call it
knowledge or call it mind, it is the same thing. Mind is knowledge. When you
have put aside all knowledge you have put aside the mind itself; you are in a
state of not-knowing. And to be in a state of not-knowing is the most beautiful
experience because it is innocence. You will be full of wonder and awe. You will
be a child again. This will be a rebirth. Only this rebirth can release the
hidden splendor of your being.
You are carrying within you a great
light, a great treasure, the very kingdom of God, but you are clinging to
borrowed things. Rather than clinging to borrowed things, Dharma, go in and
discover your own center. Knowledge keeps you on the circumference. Jump from
the circumference. Renouncing knowledge is the greatest renunciation.
I don't tell you to renounce your
money, your house, your family, because they are not the problem. Renounce your
knowledge, your mind; that is the real problem, because that is something that
is hindering the path. It is blocking your way in reaching your own center.
Renounce knowledge and rejoice in
the state of not-knowing, and great wisdom will be released in you. The Buddha
within you will be awakened. Only that can give you the taste of eternity -- not
words, not scriptures, not beliefs, not knowledge.
The third question:
Question 3
OSHO,
YOU HAVE SAID THAT TO BE TOGETHER
ONE MUST KNOW HOW TO BE ALONE. BUT I CAN BE ALONE: THE PROBLEM COMES WITH BEING
TOGETHER, BECAUSE THEN COMES THE WANTING AND THE EXPECTATION. IS IT THAT ONE
MUST KNOW HOW TO BE ALONE TOGETHER?
IT SEEMS THE PATH OF LOVE MUST BE
TAKEN WITH TREMENDOUS AWARENESS.
KRISHNA GOPA,
YES, I HAVE BEEN telling you again
and again that you can be together only when you know how to be alone, but by
"alone" I don't mean "lonely". You must have misunderstood
me. Everybody can be lonely, but to be alone is a tremendous achievement, it is
a great realization. Loneliness is very ordinary. People suffer from loneliness.
You can manage not to suffer: you can put up a face, a facade, you can cultivate
certain things so that you don't feel the pain of loneliness, but that is not
the art of being alone.
It is not just a question of
avoiding suffering while you are lonely. Aloneness means positively enjoying it,
being positively ecstatic about it, being positively blissful about it, so much
so that if you are never together with anybody again no question arises, no
problem arises, not even the desire, not even a lurking desire somewhere in the
unconscious. When you are so contented -- not just satisfied, remember... these
words are totally different. One can create satisfaction without being
contented.
Satisfaction is a kind of
"accepting the inevitable". What else can one do? If one is lonely one
is lonely; one has to live with it. And man is capable of adjusting to any
situation. Even if you are thrown alone somewhere in a desert or on an island
you will adjust to the life there; you will still survive. You may even create
certain satisfactions there.
I have heard about a man, a
Christian priest. His ship was drowned; somehow he survived. He reached a small
island -- there was nobody on the island. After twenty years another ship passed
by. He waved, shouted -- the captain heard. The captain saw the man; he stopped
the ship and made arrangements to bring the man on board. He himself came in a
small boat to take him to the ship.
The lonely priest told the captain,
"Before we leave this island I would like to show you my work of twenty
years."
He was also an architect; before he
had become a priest he had been an architect. He had planned almost a small
city, a miniature city.
The captain was delighted. He said,
"Wait! let all the passengers of my ship come and see. This is a miracle!
You have done something beautiful. Small houses, just like playthings, but
beautifully designed. How did you manage this?"
He said, "I had to do
something to keep myself engaged, occupied, to remain satisfied. And I was
really satisfied. After a few years I completely forgot about the world. Even
the desire to reach the world again left me -- at least I thought it had left
me. Seeing your ship, suddenly I realized that no, it had not left me; otherwise
I was very satisfied. This island has everything that I needed to create these
small houses." All kinds of houses...
And then he said, "The most
beautiful thing is... I will show you." He took him to a church, he showed
him the church, the Catholic church. He had made it a little bigger -- you could
enter it -- because he used to worship there. Of course, he was alone, but the
old habit...
When they came out the captain was
puzzled and all other passengers were also puzzled, because just in front of the
church there was another church, a Protestant church.
They asked the priest, "Isn't
one church enough for one man? Why did you make another church?"
He said, "That is the church I
don't go to, and this is the church I go to!"
Old habits... but he was perfectly
satisfied. He said, "Nobody goes there; it is always deserted. I have never
seen anybody go there."
There was nobody there in the first
place except him and he was going to the Catholic church because he was a
Catholic priest, but he was very happy and satisfied that the Protestant church
was almost deserted. He had made it very ugly too, but he had made it -- he
himself had made it.
One can be satisfied with any
situation. Man is immensely adaptable; that is one of the great qualities of
man. That's why man can survive any kind of climate, any kind of temperature:
extreme cold, extreme hot, too much rain, no rain. Man can survive everywhere,
anywhere. Why? -- because man is capable of it; he is liquid.
So you can be lonely and you can
think yourself satisfied, but when you are together that is the test whether you
were really contented. If you were contented in your loneliness it was not
loneliness, it was aloneness. If being together brings no disturbance, no
wanting, no desiring, no expectation, no jealousy, no possessiveness, no
unconscious hankering to dominate the other, then it was aloneness. Otherwise it
was only loneliness covered, disguised by a certain false sense of satisfaction.
Krishna Gopa, you have not yet been
able to be alone, because if you are alone then this question will not arise at
all. Then whether you are alone or together you are alone, and your aloneness is
so immensely beautiful that who bothers to dominate? Why? For what? You are so
full of joy that there is no need to possess anybody; it will be so ugly. You
will be able to see the ugliness of it.
But if when you are together all
these ugly desires start moving again, rising again, raising their heads again,
if all these snakes and these scorpions start crawling upwards towards the
conscious from the unconscious, that simply means they were waiting for the
right opportunity. Now the opportunity is there. Only the opportunity proves
where you are.
That's why I don't tell my
sannyasins to leave the world and go to the mountains, because there you will
simply be leaving the opportunities behind. You will start living in a cave, and
you can deceive yourself your whole life thinking that you have known what
aloneness is, what solitude is. You will only be lonely and solitary and you
will start thinking that you are contented and blissful. And you will only be
satisfied and not miserable, but not blissful. Just being not miserable is not
equivalent to being blissful.
Not being ill is not equivalent to
being healthy and whole. Health has something more to it than just not being
ill: it has a certain well-being. There are many people who are not ill, but
they are not healthy. Sometimes it can happen that a person may be ill and yet
healthy because health has a totally different connotation. Health is not only a
medical concept, it is something far bigger, far more comprehensive than medical
science.
For example, Prem Chinmaya was
utterly ill. What more illness can you have? He was suffering from cancer. The
cancer was spreading every day, but he was healthy; he had a certain well-being.
His illness was only in the body, it was not reaching to his consciousness; he
remained floating above it.
His nurse, Puja, wrote just the
other day: "Osho, I am immensely blessed that I served Chinmaya. I have
watched many people die in my life, but this death was totally different,
qualitatively different. I have never seen any man die with such beauty, with
such silence, with such meditativeness."
At the last moment, when he was
hearing my last discourse... Puja has written to me -- she was there: "He
was in deep pain as far as the body was concerned. The pain was so great that
even injections of morphia were not of any help. Even double, treble doses of
morphia were not helping at all. The pain was so great that nothing seemed to
help him. But when he heard the joke about Jesus and the cancer patient,"
Puja writes to me, "he smiled."
And she writes also: "I could
see that that smile was not only of the body, because the body was not in a
state at all to smile; it was coming from somewhere deep. And I could see and
feel that deep down he was laughing. That smile was just a little bit of that
laughter which had come up to the body."
He was healthy in a totally
different sense, in a non-medical sense. There are many people who are healthy
in a medical sense, perfectly fit medically, but utterly unhealthy. Deep down
there is nothing but turmoil, emptiness, anguish. One can hide it, one can
repress it, and one can not only deceive others, man is so capable of
cunningness that he can deceive himself.
Krishna Gopa, you say: YOU HAVE
SAID THAT TO BE TOGETHER ONE MUST KNOW HOW TO BE ALONE.
I repeat it again: yes, unless you
know how to be alone your togetherness will become troublesome, your
togetherness will create misery, because your togetherness will bring out
everything that remains asleep in you while you are lonely. When you are
together the other provokes it, the other becomes a challenge. You become a
challenge for the other, the other becomes a challenge for you.
A man/woman relationship brings
their unconscious to the surface; they come into their true colors. Of course,
in the beginning it is not so. In the beginning it cannot be so because in the
beginning you keep the facade. When you meet only for a few hours on the sea
beach or in the full-moon night you keep the facade because you still are not
certain, the other is also not yet certain whether he can expose his reality to
you. But once the honeymoon is over everything is over.
In fact, almost every marriage ends
with the end of the honeymoon; then the reality starts. Then the mirage of
marriage is over. Now both can take it for granted that the other cannot escape
easily. Now you need not be afraid; now you can come into your true colors. And
both start exploding. They have been repressive for so long that all their
repressions start coming up and togetherness becomes ugly.
That's why for centuries people
have escaped into the forests, into the monasteries, into the mountains, just to
escape from togetherness. But that is not the true way of spirituality, that is
not the true way of growth. That is escapist, that is out of fear, that is
cowardly.
I would like you to be in the
world. I insist: Be in the world and yet remain alert, aware, watchful. Don't be
repressive. If you are not repressive in your aloneness, your aloneness will
become a blissful, beautiful experience. Meet with the other person out of your
bliss, not out of your misery. And then togetherness does not only double your
bliss, it multiplies it. Togetherness always multiplies whatsoever you bring to
it. If you bring misery to it, it multiplies misery. Two miserable persons
together is not only a double misery, it is multiplied. Two persons blissfully
together, the bliss not only doubles, it multiplies. Then togetherness is
beautiful, but one should learn to be alone first.
And if you know how to be alone you
will know how to be alone together, because it is not a question of learning it
again in a different way; it is the same phenomenon. If you know how to be alone
you will know it everywhere, whether in relationship or not in relationship. To
be alone... Then togetherness helps spiritual growth, integrity, tremendously,
because it gives you an opportunity, a great challenge. It exposes you to the
full light and you can see yourself. The other becomes the mirror.
Relationship is a mirror. You
cannot see your face without a mirror. You cannot see your reality without the
other. The other becomes a mirror -- mirrors are good.
I have heard about an ugly woman
who was against mirrors -- naturally -- because her idea was that mirrors made
her look ugly, that mirrors were in a conspiracy against her. Because this was
her logic: "Whenever there is no mirror I don't feel any ugliness, I am
perfectly, okay. It is only when there is a mirror that I immediately become
ugly. The mirror must be doing something. "
She was so against the mirrors that
she used to break mirrors. Wherever she would come across a mirror she would
immediately destroy it because mirrors were enemies.
Her logic is not different from
your monks and nuns; they are doing the same. Going into a monastery means
escaping from the mirrors -- condemning relationship, condemning love,
condemning the world. All your saints are afraid of mirrors, that's all. But to
be afraid of mirrors simply shows you are afraid of your own ugliness; you don't
want to see it. And without mirrors of course you will not see it, but that does
not mean that it has disappeared -- it is there. Any time, anything... if not a
mirror then maybe just a silent lake, and you will see it. And whether YOU see
it or not, others will see it.
You can see your saints' faces,
your so-called mahatmas. They are all sad, they don't seem to be blissful. They
don't seem to be like lotus flowers, they look like rocks -- almost dead,
utterly dull, mediocre.
There seems to be no sharpness of
intelligence, because they have escaped from where they could sharpen their
intelligence. Their intelligence goes on gathering dust, but they think they
have achieved satisfaction, they have achieved what God meant them to achieve.
They have simply missed the opportunity.
God will ask them, "I had
given you life and you escaped from life. You rejected my life, you rejected my
gift. You were against me."
George Gurdjieff used to make a
very strange statement -- but only a man like Gurdjieff can tell the utterly
naked truth -- he used to say that "All your saints are against God."
When you come across such a statement for the first time you cannot believe it.
saints, and against God? But Gurdjieff is right. He really means it, he is not
joking! Your saints are against God because they are against life.
I am NOT against life. I am in
tremendous love with life.
Krishna Gopa, learn to be alone --
and that will happen only through meditation -- and then allow mirrors into your
life so that you can see where you are, what you are, how much you have grown.
In this commune we are doing
something new which has never happened ever before. There are growth centers in
the world, particularly in the West, where therapy groups are run. There are
meditation centers, particularly in the East, where people meditate. This is the
only place where people meditate and go through groups, go through groups and
meditate -- together. On the surface it will look contradictory because
meditation means learning how to be alone and group therapies mean learning how
to be together. But this is my fundamental approach; you have to learn both.
And you are right, Gopa, that: THE
PATH OF LOVE MUST BE TAKEN WITH TREMENDOUS AWARENESS.
And the same is true about the path
of awareness: it must be taken with tremendous love. In fact, love and awareness
are two aspects of the same coin.
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The fourth question:
Question 4
OSHO, INSTEAD OF GIVING
PHILOSOPHICAL LESSONS, WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL JOKES FOR A WHILE? I THINK YOUR
SANNYASINS WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
SWAMI BUDDHAPREM,
THE QUESTION SHOWS that you are not
my sannyasin.
You say: I THINK YOUR SANNYASINS
WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
You have fallen into wrong company,
it seems. You are not meant to be here. You must have come with a wrong notion.
You must have come here to learn philosophy. You must be a serious person -- and
seriousness is pathological.
Philosophy is all bullshit! I am
not interested in philosophy; of course my sannyasins are not interested in
philosophy either. Those who belong to me are interested in life, not in
philosophy. Life is the real thing; philosophy is the false thing. But
philosophy has been praised for centuries and we live with this conditioning.
Nobody tells you that philosophy is a false thing.
Buddha is not a philosopher: he
loved to tell parables. Jesus is not a philosopher: he used so many parables.
My jokes are New Age parables --
because to me laughter is one of the most significant things in life. People who
are not capable of laughing become incapable of living.
But it happens. Many times -- in
fact, more often than not -- you come here for the wrong reasons, thinking that
you are going to some oriental philosopher. I am neither oriental nor a
philosopher! I am not even religious in the old sense: I am not a saint nor a
mahatma. In fact, you can't put me in any category. You will have to create a
new category for me because no existing category will be adequate. I won't fit
in it, and I don't want to fit in any category. THINGS fit in categories, not
people, not REAL people.
A lady enters a clothing store and
asks if they have falsies.
"Certainly, lady,"
answers the formal salesman.
"What I want to know,"
she continues, "is if you have the best quality falsies."
"Of course!" exclaims the
salesman "in this store we don't sell imitations!"
All philosophies are false and all
philosophies are imitations. I am existential. But you are certainly in the
wrong place. Either you will have to change or you will have to leave -- I don't
leave any other alternative. If you want to be with me you have to understand
what is happening here and you have to become part of it. If you feel that that
is not possible, that you already know what is right, then this is not the place
for you, then this is not the right company for you.
Do you know about the two
scientists who first discovered the flying machine, the airplane, which could
not leave the ground? Do you know their name? Their name was the Wrong brothers.
And these are Wrong brothers, and
you seem to be a very right and righteous person. Either you have to become part
of this strange company... This is a Noah's Ark -- all kinds of animals are
here! In the new commune I am not going to call it Buddha Hall again, it will be
Noah's Ark!
But if you are interested in
philosophy you can go to any university; there are thousands of universities in
the world. If you are interested in something false it is very cheap. But
remember, all the time that you waste will simply be wasted and one day you will
repent.
A tourist threw a coin into the
wishing well at Disneyland. He had just expressed a sinful wish when a beautiful
girl tapped his shoulder and told him to follow her. She took him to a luxurious
flat, gave him silk pajamas, and after she put on some music and lit some
candles, she handed him a martini. Then she started undressing.
She took off her long blonde hair,
which was a wig, she took off her false eyelashes, and then her beautiful false
breasts. Then the tourist saw that she was not even a woman, and in despair he
exclaimed, "What does all this mean?"
And the boy replied, "Now you
will learn not to throw false coins in the wishing well, you darling little
cheater!"
Buddhaprem, you ask me: INSTEAD OF
GIVING PHILOSOPHICAL LESSONS, WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL JOKES FOR A WHILE?
And what have I been doing here all
along? Do you think I have been giving philosophical lessons? Then you have not
heard me at all. It is not the philosophical lessons that I am interested in, I
am interested in the jokes. It is not to illustrate philosophy that I use jokes,
just the contrary: to illustrate the jokes I use philosophy!
You think that I look at your
questions? Nonsense! First I look at my jokes and then at your questions. If
your question fits with my jokes, okay, otherwise it goes into the wastebasket.
Those who really want their questions to be answered, they have learned the
trick: first they send the jokes, then they send the question. Then they can be
certain their question will be answered. But first, the jokes!
I am much more interested in your
laughter...
You say: I THINK YOUR SANNYASINS
WOULD APPRECIATE IT.
They love it! But for that they
have to be my sannyasins. You are not yet a sannyasin, otherwise you would have
said, "We would appreciate it." You say "your sannyasins".
You are keeping yourself apart, you are excluding yourself from my sannyasins.
What, in fact, is philosophy? It is
thinking about things which are unthinkable. It is trying to comprehend
something which is incomprehensible. It is an absurd activity. The philosophers
know it, but they enjoy the activity. It is like a game, like chess. Just as
people enjoy chess there are people who enjoy philosophy.
A philosopher wanted to change the
world. He thought that God had made many mistakes and that he should have
thought a little longer before creating the world in seven days.
One day, as he was lying in the
grass contemplating, some birds flew overhead, while a grazing cow passed slowly
by his side.
"Look," he said to
himself, "another mistake of nature! Cows, which are very utilitarian to
humanity, must drag themselves down the road, while birds, which have no utility
at all, can fly and move very easily!"
At that very moment, one of the
birds overhead shat on his head.
The philosopher, stunned,
contemplated for a few moments and then said out loud, "Excuse me, God, I
really didn't mean that cows should fly!"
What is philosophy? It is just
contemplating about useless things. For example, just the other day I was saying
to you, "In the beginning was darkness and spaghetti." Now, if you are
a philosopher you will torture yourself with the question: Who made spaghetti?
From where did it come? And I know this is true because I know my Italian
sannyasins. I know my medium, Radha. Whenever I touch her third eye there is no
third eye... Layers and layers of spaghetti. I go on, go on... It has been years
now! But still I like and love to touch her third eye -- it is very soft! So I
know the story is true.
But philosophers have been asking
such questions: "God created the world. Then who created God?" And
whatsoever answer you give will create another question. If you say xyz, or
anybody, then they will ask, "Who created x? Who created y? Who created
z?" It will go on and on; somewhere it has to stop.
So when Kuthumi shouted at me and
said, "Shut up!" I immediately understood -- he is right, because
somewhere one has to shut up!
I am very existential. Rather than
bothering about who created spaghetti I looked into Radha and found that it is
true. The Akashic records are saying something absolutely right. And everybody
should be jealous of it because to be full of spaghetti is far better than being
full of cow dung. Indians are full of holy cow dung! They used to drink cow's
urine, and now much progress has happened: Morarji Desai drinks his own urine.
This is progress! This is evolution! Nobody can deny this is evolution, moving
from cow's urine to your own urine. It is a lesson in independence.
Buddhaprem, formally you are my
sannyasin -- REALLY become my sannyasin. Enjoy this great opportunity of being
non-serious, of taking life as fun, of enjoying it. Life consists of small
things, but if you learn how to enjoy those small things the ordinary becomes
extraordinary, the mundane becomes sacred, the profane becomes profound.
Religion is not something that
disconnects you from life and its joys, it deepens your joys. In fact, only a
really religious person can eat, drink and be merry. It has been said AGAINST
the irreligious; it has been said that it is the materialist philosophy, to eat,
drink and be merry. But I tell you that the materialist cannot eat, drink and be
merry, only the spiritualist, because he can think deeper. Then spaghetti
becomes spiritual. Who bothers about the third eye? What is the need for the
third eye? Even the two are creating so much trouble! And three eyes will create
more trouble; they will create a triangle in you!
But you must be here almost
unconscious.
A philosopher enters a bar and asks
for ten glasses of whisky.
"Ten?" exclaims the
surprised bartender.
"Ten!" answers the
philosopher.
So the bartender brings him all ten
drinks, and to his surprise the philosopher drinks them all.
Next he asks for nine glasses of
whisky. After drinking them he asks for eight, then seven, and so forth, until
he finally asks for just one glass of whisky.
After finishing the last glass he
somehow manages to mumble to the bartender, "T-t-tell me, br-bro-brother,
w-why is it th-th-that the l-l-less I dr-dr-drink, the mo-more dr-dr-drunk I
g-g-get?"
The last question:
Question 5
OSHO,
WHEN MORE OF THE EXISTENTIAL
HAPPENS IN A PERSON THAN CAN BE ABSORBED AND DIGESTED AT ONE TIME, IS IT NOT
THEN WISE TO REPRESS UNTIL TRUST AND INNOCENCE GROW? MY BODY IS IN BAD SHAPE
BECAUSE OF REPRESSION BUT IT FEELS AS THOUGH I HAVE BOUGHT MUCH, NEEDED TIME.
ANAND TILOPA,
REPRESS and resist, how out of
repression and resistance can trust and innocence grow? You will be making it
more and more impossible. Innocence means a state of total nudity, of utter non-repressiveness.
Repressed persons become complex, they cannot become innocent. Everything in
them becomes crippled, paralyzed, devious. They start becoming split; in fact
they become many, not just two They have one door to show themselves to the
world and another door, a back door, through which they live. They say
something, they do something -- and they think something else. They are always
in a chaos, they cannot be innocent.
Innocence does not need repression,
it needs spontaneity, it needs naturalness. Whatsoever you repress will become
your problem. If you repress anger, anger will become your problem. Then in
everything anger will be hiding. In fact, if there is too much repressed anger
you will be angry twenty-four hours a day for no reason at all, because now it
is not a question of having any valid reason for being angry, you are just
boiling within -- any excuse will do, or if there are no excuses to be found you
will start inventing excuses.
A group of nuns were traveling to a
convent in the interior of Africa when they were kidnapped by a ferocious tribe
of Africans. The United Nations was immediately informed and some days later a
military troop was sent by plane to the heart of the black continent.
It was a successful operation. The
soldiers surrounded the tribe, rescued the nuns, and brought them to the plane.
All the nuns boarded the plane with
torn clothes, swollen lips, hair a mess, and with their breasts exposed.
"It's so good that you
came!" they said, "We couldn't bear it any longer. All those blacks
with those enormous 'things' and all day long fucking, fucking, fucking!"
The soldiers tried to console them,
one by one. Finally the last nun came on board. She was very pretty, with her
habit in perfect condition. She was clean, combed and composed.
One soldier said to her, "What
a pity, sister; how you ladies suffered... all those blacks with those big
things' all day long fucking, fucking, fucking."
And the pretty one answered,
"No, not with me."
"Why not?" he asked.
"I wasn't into it!" she
said.
If you repress you will find some
way. If you repress sex you will find some way to be raped so that the
responsibility is not on you, so that you can feel completely free of the
responsibility. It is out of repression that there is rape. It is out of
repression that there are crimes of all kinds. It cannot lead you into
innocence.
No, Tilopa, if you want to be
innocent you don't need time, you need understanding, you need insight. Time
won't help, because what will you be doing meanwhile? You will continue your old
habits: you will go on repressing. You need immediate insight. You have already
repressed for many lives -- enough is enough. Now see the point and drop all
your repressions. And this is the place! If you cannot drop your repressions
here you cannot drop them anywhere in the whole world.
That's why I am condemned so much
-- obviously, because all the societies in the world exist on repression. And my
whole approach is that of non-repressive spontaneity; only then can innocence
come hack to you. It is your nature. Innocence is not something that has to be
achieved; it has only been repressed deep down in you. If all the repressions
are removed it will start surfacing. You will become a child again.
And Jesus is right when he says:
Unless you are a child again, unless you are reborn, you will not enter into my
kingdom of God.
WATCHING
THE WATCHER...