Nansen: The Point of Departure

Talks on Zen

Talks given from 05/10/88 pm to 14/10/88 pm

English Discourse series

CHAPTER 1

The Earth and the Sky are not Seperate

5 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ON A CERTAIN DAY, ALL THE MONKS IN NANSEN’S MONASTERY WERE INVOLVED IN

PREPARATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING DAY – WHICH WAS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MA TZU’S

DEATH.

NANSEN SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, ”TOMORROW WE WILL OFFER VEGETARIAN FOOD TO

MASTER MA TZU. DO YOU THINK HE WILL COME?”

NO ONE ANSWERED. BUT AMONG THE GROUP WAS A YOUNG, TRAVELING MONK CALLED

TOZAN. HE STEPPED FORWARD AND SAID, ”HE WILL WAIT FOR A COMPANION TO COME.”

NANSEN COMMENTED, ”ALTHOUGH THIS MAN IS YOUNG, HE IS QUALIFIED FOR THE

TRAINING.”

TOZAN RESPONDED, ”THE VENERABLE SIR SHOULD NOT OPPRESS A GOOD MAN BY

REGARDING HIM AS A WORTHLESS FELLOW.”

Maneesha, in the long history of Zen there are milestones. Mahakashyapa is the first, but not much is known about him – in Buddhist scriptures he is mentioned only once. Just one mention and yet he is regarded as the greatest disciple of Gautam Buddha.

For twenty years he has not spoken a single word, no question, just sat by the side of Gautam Buddha. Even Gautam Buddha is concerned: ”This is a strange fellow – he has not even said hello; there are thousands of monks, they all come with questions, problems, but this man seems to have no questions.” But in that utter silence, everything happened.

Mahakashyapa was immensely courageous to be utterly silent for twenty years, not even to ask the master, but just to wait: ”Whenever the time is ripe, the master will deliver the truth.” And it happened, and it happened in a strange way.

The emperor Prasenjita has come to offer Gautam Buddha some flowers out of season. And at the same time a great philosopher, whom Prasenjita has up to now believed to be his teacher, has come with Prasenjita.

Prasenjita introduced his teacher, Maulingaputta, and said to Gautam Buddha, ”I offer my gratitude that you are staying in my kingdom; just let me know if anything is needed by the great assembly of monks. One thing more I ask you: I have brought my teacher, Maulingaputta, and he has come with his five hundred followers. He is a great philosopher, a man of tremendous knowledge, very articulate in discussing things. I pray to you to give him a chance to discuss ultimate problems with you.”

Gautam Buddha turned to Maulingaputta and said, ”I am ready. But are you ready?”

Maulingaputta could not understand what readiness was needed.

Gautam Buddha said, ”Readiness means, are you capable of being silent, utterly silent, not a single thought passing through your mind?”

He said, ”Thought is my life, I am a thinker; philosophy is my profession. All that I know about mind is that it is a thinking process. Beyond that I don’t know any silence you are talking about.”

Then Buddha said, ”You are not ready. And it will be a very strange conversation. From the hilltop I will be shouting to you, and from the dark valleys you will be answering me – without understanding me. So first, let us come to a point where our consciousnesses are at the same level.”

It was convincing, and even Prasenjita said, ”Gautam Buddha is right. But what is to be done?”

Gautam Buddha said, ”Nothing has to be done. Just sit silently by my side for two years. Many people will come and go, and ask – you don’t bother about anything. Your work is simply to watch and be silent. Not a single word for two years.”

At this moment Mahakashyapa, sitting under a tree, started laughing hysterically, could not manage... The whole assembly was shocked – they had never heard him even speak, he did not speak to anybody. You might say something, he would not answer; he would not take note of anybody. People had accepted him as a strange fellow. But what happened? Suddenly, out of nowhere... And he laughed, such beautiful laughter, resounding in that silence of the assembly.

Maulingaputta said, ”Why is your disciple laughing?”

Buddha said, ”You can ask him yourself.”

This is the only mention of Mahakashyapa.

Mahakashyapa said, ”I am laughing because this fellow is tricky. He tricked me also, in the same way he is trying it on you. But now he has become old, so he is saying only two years; I had to remain silent for twenty years. If you really want to ask the questions, ask now. After two years it will be too late.”

This is the only mention.

And when Prasenjita offered flowers, Buddha called Mahakashyapa and gave those flowers to him.

And he said, ”What could be said through words, I have said to everybody. What could not be said through words, but only through silence, I have imparted to Mahakashyapa.”

This made him the first Zen master. But besides this, there is no other mention of him. Perhaps silence remained his method. Many must have become enlightened sitting by his side, but nothing was said. He was a silent master. So there is no record left.

Then the second great departure – there have been many others – but the second great departure from the past is Bodhidharma. He was even more strange than Mahakashyapa. He is the sixth in the line of Zen patriarchs.

After Bodhidharma, Nansen is a new point of departure. He opens Zen to a wider variety, he gives Zen more dimensions. It is no more a small stream, but becomes an ocean.

Today we are starting a series on Nansen. A little biographical introduction: NANSEN, ALSO KNOWN AS NAN-CHUAN, WAS BORN IN NORTH CHINA IN 748.

BEGINNING HIS STUDY OF MEDITATION WHEN A YOUNG BOY, NANSEN BECAME A BUDDHIST PRIEST AT THIRTY AND TRAVELED TO VARIOUS WELL-KNOWN MONASTERIES.

ON ARRIVING AT CHIANG-SI AND MEETING WITH MA TZU, NANSEN IMMEDIATELY BECAME

ONE OF MA TZU’S FOREMOST DISCIPLES.

We have discussed Ma Tzu. It is no wonder that a man of the insight of Nansen immediately became... he did not miss a single moment as he arrived at Ma Tzu’s monastery, as he saw the master, he immediately touched his feet.

And this respect was not one-sided, this love was not one-sided; Ma Tzu showered great love and respect on Nansen. Both saw into each other, something immediately became connected. Ma Tzu understood the urgency and the intensity of the search of Nansen; and Nansen understood, ”Here is the man. If I cannot make it with him, I am not going to make it at all.”

This is how disciples and masters meet. It is not a superficial thing; it is something intrinsic, intuitive, and immediate. You have to understand the word ‘immediate’. It is not because of something, that Nansen becomes an intimate disciple of Ma Tzu. There is no cause visible. Nothing is mediating him to become the disciple – that is why it is ‘immediate’. No cause, no visible reason, nothing to be understood by the mind... but heart to heart something has transpired. They have fallen in deep love, the great love.

HE REALIZED HIS ENLIGHTENMENT AND LATER LEFT MA TZU’S MONASTERY.

That’s why I have called this series, THE POINT OF DEPARTURE. Ma Tzu has his own methods; he has brought Bodhidharma’s methods to the ultimate peak. Nansen loved Ma Tzu, but was not ready to become his successor. If he had remained, he would have been the successor of Ma Tzu.

Just to avoid the embarrassment – because he would go far beyond in different directions – it was better to leave before the master proposed that, ”You are my successor.” Then leaving would have been impossible.

He became enlightened... The ordinary course will be that when you become enlightened with a master, where can you go? This love, this shelter, you will not find anywhere. There is no need to go anywhere at all. Now you can understand the great song of the master, and the invisible music.

This is no time to depart.

But the reason for his departure from Ma Tzu’s monastery was that if he does not leave now, he will never be able to leave. Once Ma Tzu proposes that, ”You become my successor,” he cannot say no to his master.

But he wanted to introduce many new things into Zen. Sometimes they may be contradictory to Ma Tzu; sometimes they will be new to Ma Tzu’s methods of teaching, and he does not want anybody to say that he is betraying his master. Rather than betraying, he simply left the monastery at the age of fifty.

NANSEN FOUNDED HIS OWN COMMUNITY AND ATTRACTED THOUSANDS OF DISCIPLES.

Maneesha has brought the sutra:

BELOVED OSHO,

ON A CERTAIN DAY, ALL THE MONKS IN NANSEN’S MONASTERY WERE INVOLVED IN

PREPARATIONS FOR THE FOLLOWING DAY – WHICH WAS THE ANNIVERSARY OF MA TZU’S

DEATH.

NANSEN SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, ”TOMORROW WE WILL OFFER VEGETARIAN FOOD TO

MASTER MA TZU. DO YOU THINK HE WILL COME?”

Before we go on further – this was one thing amongst many – Ma Tzu insisted on vegetarian food. In his monastery non-vegetarian food was absolutely prohibited. It takes me back to Gautam Buddha.

Gautam Buddha was a vegetarian, strictly vegetarian. And all his followers were vegetarians. That was a revolution in a way, because man had lived as a non-vegetarian for millions of years. And according to Buddha, he would remain a barbarian unless he became vegetarian. Killing life is destroying your own possibility of growth. You have to respect life; a reverence for life will help your growth of consciousness. And he was absolutely right.

But a strange incident happened, and this will show you how man’s cunning mind takes advantage, even of masters like Gautam Buddha.

He had made it clear to everybody that, ”Whatever is given to you in your begging bowls, receive it with gratitude.”

And everybody knew that they were vegetarians, so people prepared vegetarian food.

”But don’t throw anything that is given to you with love and respect. Eat everything that falls into your begging bowl.”

One day a monk came with a very puzzled look. He said, ”I am in a strange difficulty. A bird flying dropped a piece of meat into my begging bowl. I was coming back from begging in the city, to settle under some tree” – in the garden where they were staying – ”to eat my food. Now the problem is, if I throw out this piece of meat I am going against your teaching that, ‘Everything has to be eaten that falls into your begging bowl.’ And if I eat it, I am still going against your teaching of, ‘Always be vegetarian.’ Now what am I supposed to do?”

The whole assembly of monks also were in a strange position: how is Buddha going to solve it?

Buddha thought, ”If I say ‘throw it’, that will become a universal thing. People will start choosing: whatever is good, delicious they will eat and the remaining they will throw out. The country supports the monks. This will be against the people who are supporting you. With great hardship they earn, and you throw away their food. So I cannot say to throw it out.

”And as far as birds are concerned, it is very unlikely that again, in the centuries following, any bird will repeat this. So there is no danger, if only one person eats on one day a small piece of meat.”

He said, ”Eat everything that has fallen into your begging bowl.”

And this became for the cunning mind of man a loophole, that, ”Buddha is not against meat; just you have not to kill, he is against killing. If meat is given to you, offered to you, you have to respectfully receive it.”

So now in China and Japan, all the Buddhists are non-vegetarian.

Not a single Buddhist is

vegetarian. And in every food shop, restaurant they make it clear that here non-vegetarian food is available which has not been especially killed – it is from animals dying on their own.

Now, so many animals don’t die on their own. And in fact, few animals do; you will never find how they die. Have you seen a cow or a crow dying, dead? Once in a while perhaps because of electric wires... otherwise before dying, somehow they disappear. They disappear deep in forests, they disappear into mountains, to find a peaceful grave.

Just nearby, there is one of the national deer parks with thousands of deer. I used to go there often.

It is deep in the forest, just one small resthouse and a big lake, and in the night thousands of deer will come to drink water. And in the night their eyes shine like stars. You see lines of stars moving around the lake, reflected in the lake. It is one of the most beautiful scenes that I have ever seen.

I have watched those deer. I enquired of the resthouse peon who took care of the resthouse, ”Have you seen any deer dead?”

He said, ”Millions of people must have come to see this park; nobody has asked such a question.

No, I have never seen a single deer dead.”

And I asked him, ”Don’t you ever wonder where they disappear?”

He said, ”The very question has never arisen in me.”

From where in China, in Korea, in Taiwan, in Burma, in Japan – in all Buddhist countries... It seems the animals have a special joy: they come into the restaurants and die on their own – spontaneously.

And not a single Buddhist monk ever raises the question that, ”This is absolutely absurd, this is not possible. Animals have to be hunted and killed, only then can you get non-vegetarian food.”

But Ma Tzu was absolutely in tune with Gautam Buddha.

So when Nansen was arranging in his monastery a ceremony on the anniversary of Ma Tzu’s death, he said to his disciples – it is so touching –

”TOMORROW WE WILL OFFER VEGETARIAN FOOD TO MASTER MA TZU. DO YOU THINK HE

WILL COME?”

NO ONE ANSWERED. BUT AMONG THE GROUP WAS A YOUNG MAN, A TRAVELING MONK

CALLED TOZAN. HE STEPPED FORWARD AND SAID, ”HE WILL WAIT FOR A COMPANION TO

COME.”

NANSEN COMMENTED, ”ALTHOUGH THIS MAN IS YOUNG, HE IS QUALIFIED FOR THE

TRAINING.”

TOZAN RESPONDED, ”THE VENERABLE SIR SHOULD NOT OPPRESS A GOOD MAN BY

REGARDING HIM AS A WORTHLESS FELLOW.”

Tozan finally became himself a great master. He is saying that he will come – Ma Tzu will come –

and he will not come alone.

It was the habit of Ma Tzu that he is referring to. He always traveled with an enlightened disciple with him, because his teaching method was so strange and many freaked out.

So first he would send those to the companion enlightened man, who could discuss, who could make them aware of all the possibilities, and who could also make them aware that, ”If you want to have any communication with Ma Tzu, you have to be ready for these things – anything is possible.

He may beat you, he may jump upon you, he may sit on your chest and ask, ‘Do you get it?’”

He had his own ways, and we cannot say that he was wrong in his ways because hundreds of disciples became enlightened through him. So what means he applied does not matter, the end was so great.

If you analyze the matter, you will understand there is a great psychological insight. A stranger comes – not even in his dreams has he thought that a master would jump on him. He has come to ask, ”What is the truth?” Now this question does not deserve in any way that the master should jump immediately on him, and sit on his chest with his staff in his hand. Obviously, at this moment, all the thinking of that stranger will stop. What can you think in such a situation? For a moment the whole mind comes to a complete, screeching stop.

Ma Tzu was immensely compassionate. This stopping of the mind takes years – he managed it in a single minute. But his method makes him a very weird fellow. And the person who had suddenly become aware of a state of silence was able to see it. Many became enlightened.

Once a monk was entering in the door – he was half inside the door and half outside – and Ma Tzu closed the door, so he was fixed in between, screaming, with Ma Tzu asking, ”Do you get it?” He has not even asked any question, he has not even entered fully into the temple.

And it looks strange that these people got it – they never asked again.

Once he threw a man out of the window, and then jumped on him from the window, and asked him...

He is suffering fractures but Ma Tzu is not concerned with the fractures; he says, ”Forget about fractures! First tell me, do you get it?”

And it is said that the man gasped, ”Yes, I get it.”

So the young man is referring to Ma Tzu’s habit of always having a companion who will explain him to any stranger, a verbal communication, and will also explain that, ”If you want Ma Tzu to work upon you, then you have to be ready for all these things – anything can happen. He is an unpredictable master.”

The young fellow, Tozan, who was not a disciple of Nansen, he was just traveling... That too has to be understood: in China and in Japan and other Buddhist countries the monks go on traveling from one monastery to another monastery, until they find the heart with whom their heart beats in a dance. They are received in every monastery with respect. They stay for a few days and if nothing happens there, they move on with gratitude that, ”You allowed us to stay here for four days.”

This young man, Tozan, was not a resident monk in the monastery of Nansen.

HE STEPPED FORWARD AND SAID, ”HE WILL WAIT FOR A COMPANION TO COME.” But he will come; that is the implication: he will come. When so many of you are celebrating the anniversary of his death, how can he resist to come? The only problem is, if he cannot get a companion, then it will be very difficult for him to come. But he will get the companion – there are so many enlightened people dead. And with a man like Ma Tzu, when he says to someone, ”Come follow me,” he has to.

But Nansen’s own disciples remained without any answer; they missed the point.

And Nansen has shown such a beauty of his heart; although he was not the successor of Ma Tzu, he had become enlightened under him.

TOMORROW WE WILL OFFER VEGETARIAN FOOD TO MASTER MA TZU. DO YOU THINK HE

WILL COME?

An enlightened being can visit. There are hundreds of cases when enlightened people have visited.

The only condition to be fulfilled is your loving invitation.

And that’s what Nansen is saying, ”We are sending the loving invitation to Ma Tzu, and we promise him...” because Nansen has deviated from vegetarianism, he has allowed non-vegetarians into the monastery. His attitude was that if the whole of humanity – and the argument is worth consideration

– if the whole of humanity becomes vegetarian, it will be impossible to supply food to everybody.

Almost ninety-nine percent of humanity is non-vegetarian. From where can you get so much vegetarian food?

So his consideration was very practical and pragmatic. He said, ”Just because of the food, don’t prevent their spiritual growth. Yes, it is true that with vegetarian food they can enter into meditative states more easily, but that is their problem. With non-vegetarian food their entry into higher consciousnesses is more difficult, but it is not impossible.”

Non-vegetarian masters have simply followed a harder path, but the situation of the world is that we cannot supply everybody with vegetarian food.

That’s why he says that, ”We are sending the invitation to Ma Tzu’s enlightened soul, freed from the body. We will offer vegetarian food – we promise. DO YOU THINK HE WILL COME? I think he will come; he has to come.”

An enlightened man is simply living in total freedom out of the body, floating like a white cloud, without any roots in the earth, and without any destination. Just out of freedom – to the north, to the west, to the east – wherever spontaneously a movement occurs, he moves. If with love, with prayer, with deep meditation he is invited, perhaps you will not see him, but you will feel his presence –

particularly those who have known his presence.

Nansen will feel him if he comes. He knows his fragrance, he knows his touch, he knows the atmosphere that comes with him.

He had asked a very beautiful question, but not a single disciple was yet able to understand a mysterious phenomenon.

And Tozan, who was destined to become an enlightened master himself, certainly showed deeper understanding. He said, ”HE WILL WAIT FOR A COMPANION TO COME. I know him, he will not come alone – that was not his habit. If he comes, he will come with another enlightened person also.”

Seeing this man’s understanding, NANSEN COMMENTED, ”ALTHOUGH THIS MAN IS YOUNG, HE IS QUALIFIED FOR THE TRAINING.”

He did not much appreciate Tozan’s answer, because it is conditional. And as for Ma Tzu’s coming to the ceremony, he will not follow the old habit of being followed by a companion.

He is not coming here to teach anybody, why should he wait for any companion? The companion was taken just to avoid any misunderstanding with the people. Here he will be a guest; there is no need for him to wait for a companion.

That’s why Nansen has not given him much credit, although Tozan has shown a little understanding.

So he says, ”ALTHOUGH THIS MAN IS YOUNG, HE IS QUALIFIED FOR THE TRAINING.”

TOZAN RESPONDED, ”THE VENERABLE SIR SHOULD NOT OPPRESS A GOOD MAN BY

REGARDING HIM AS A WORTHLESS FELLOW.”

He felt offended. He must have been thinking that he would be appreciated.

But I agree with Nansen... there was a little truth in his understanding that ‘he will come, but he will wait for a companion’. But that ‘waiting for a companion’, destroyed his whole understanding. That’s why Nansen says, ”HE IS QUALIFIED FOR THE TRAINING.”

But Tozan felt insulted deep down. He was thinking he would be appreciated, that while no other disciple had responded, he, a traveling monk, has said that he will come. He has shown his deep understanding, but Nansen is not appreciating his understanding; he is at the most saying that he is qualified for the training.

TOZAN RESPONDED, ”THE VENERABLE SIR, SHOULD NOT OPPRESS A GOOD MAN BY

REGARDING HIM AS A WORTHLESS FELLOW.”

This destroyed the small truth that he has shown in saying, ‘he will come, but he will wait for a companion.’ You are not supposed to be offended by a master, for the simple reason that perhaps you deserved what you got. And the master is not in any way interested in insulting anyone. What is he going to gain by insulting? But he cannot appreciate beyond the limit, because that will give you unnecessarily an ego. And in that way he will become a hindrance in your progress.

Tozan could not understand that at that point.

These small anecdotes are immensely helpful, if you understand that we are not studying them for study’s sake. We are the people of the path, we are moving in the same directions. So we should take note of every phenomenon that can happen on the path: the mistakes, going astray for small trivia, becoming angry at the master; and the master was slapping you only out of compassion and love, slapping does not give him any joy.

All these anecdotes, understood rightly, will help you for your own evolution, for your own centering.

A poem by Sekiso:

SACRED AND SECULAR ORIGINALLY LIVE

IN THE SAME HOUSE.

WITH COMPASSIONATE HANDS

THE GREAT MASTER HAS OPENED

THE GATE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

DON’T ASK WHO OR HOW MANY

ARE IN THE HALL.

THESE TILES AND RAFTERS CONTAIN ALL

OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

A great insight by Sekiso.

He is saying, the SACRED AND THE SECULAR – the material and the spiritual – ORIGINALLY LIVE

IN THE SAME HOUSE. WITH COMPASSIONATE HANDS THE GREAT MASTER HAS OPENED

THE GATE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

This statement, that the secular and the sacred live in the same house, is an opening, a new opening of the gate because all the masters have always condemned the material, the secular, and praised the sacred, the spiritual. They have always divided the Zorba and the buddha. In their understanding, Zorba has to be killed – only then can the buddha come into existence. That is the history of all the religions.

Nansen has opened a new door by saying that, SACRED AND SECULAR ORIGINALLY LIVE IN

THE SAME HOUSE.

Sekiso is a disciple of Nansen.

WITH COMPASSIONATE HANDS THE GREAT MASTER HAS OPENED THE GATE FOR THE

FIRST TIME. DON’T ASK WHO OR HOW MANY ARE IN THE HALL.

Numbers don’t matter; don’t ask how many have entered the gate. The significant point is that Nansen has opened the gate, that the secular and sacred can be together. There is no need for them to be separated.

It was an immensely radical departure from the past.

DON’T ASK WHO OR HOW MANY ARE IN THE HALL. THESE TILES AND RAFTERS CONTAIN

ALL OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

When a man like Nansen lives in a temple, then the rafters and the tiles also become something divine, something sacred, but not sacred against the secular. Nansen has joined the earth with the sky.

My love for Nansen is immense because of this understanding that the earth and the sky are not separate – are not separateable. And both should be enjoyed.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

WHY HAVE YOU CALLED THE SERIES NANSEN: THE POINT OF DEPARTURE?

Because he opened the gate for the first time, making it clear that the sacred and the secular are one, just different ways of seeing. There is no need to torture the body to purify the soul. They both can dance together as sacred a dance as possible. And unless a spirituality transforms even your body, it is not much of a spirituality.

Zorba has not to be killed, Zorba has to be transformed. Zorba is the buddha, just in the seed form.

You don’t have to destroy the seeds, you have to find a right soil, a right climate for the seeds, and wait for the season when the clouds bring the first rains, and your seeds will start sprouting. The seeds and the flowers are not separate – the seed is the flower hidden, the flower is the seed come out in the open.

That’s why, Maneesha, I have called this series NANSEN: THE POINT OF DEPARTURE. From the past spirituality Nansen is a tremendous departure, accepting secular and sacred as together, one

– two aspects of one reality.

You can understand my love for Nansen, because Nansen has been forgotten, even by his own successors. Again the same division came into their teachings: ”This is material, this is trivial, this is not spiritual.” What Nansen has done, even his successors have undone again. And nobody has taken note of the great departure.

I have to take note of the great departure, because my own understanding is the same. I want the earth and the sky to be together. Only in their togetherness is the wholeness; only in their togetherness is a joy, is a fulfillment. Buddha alone is half, Zorba alone is half, and unless they are together they can never be whole.

I want my people to be whole persons, not denying anything but transforming everything, including everything in their spiritual growth.

Now something serious...

It is a beautiful summer Saturday, so Zabriski decides to sunbathe in the nude for the first time in his life. He is on the roof of his apartment building, and he forgets about the time. Five hours later, he finds himself practically burnt to a crisp – especially his prick.

Later that night, Zabriski is in bed with his new Polack girlfriend, Carmen Klopski, and he is in agony.

So he gets up, tiptoes to the kitchen, pours a tall glass of ice-cold milk, and submerges his lobster-red machinery into it. Zabriski sighs from the cool relief, when suddenly Carmen appears in the doorway.

”Oh, my God!” she gasps. ”So that is how you guys load that thing!”

Lucifer, the devil, is quietly toasting some bread for his afternoon tea over the eternal fires of hell.

Suddenly, there is a loud crash at the gate.

The devil looks around in alarm and sees a long, silver Rolls Royce driving in through the roaring flames. The Rolls Royce has a young girl screaming with delight on the front of the car, and a large man, wearing a turban, standing on the back bumper – laughing as hard as he can.

Holding on to the man at the back of the car is a long line of people, singing and celebrating.

The new arrivals soon make themselves at home, and the devil finds that hell is no longer like it used to be.

So Lucifer phones God to come and help straighten things out. When God arrives, he is amazed by what he sees.

”What has happened to all the eternal fires and damnation?” asks God. ”This place is nothing like the way we advertise it on earth!”

”I know, it is terrible!” sniffs the devil. ”Ever since Osho drove in here with his sannyasins, the whole place has had to be air-conditioned!”

King Carlos of Spain, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Prince Philip of England are sitting together having a few drinks in the pub. They get a little drunk and start bragging about whose prick is the longest.

A crowd gathers as King Carlos whips out his machinery and lays it on the table. Six inches!

Everyone applauds and sings the Spanish national anthem.

Then Prince Bernhard puts his dong on the table. Eight inches! Everyone screams and shouts, and then sings the Dutch national anthem.

Finally, Prince Philip drops his pants and puts his prick on the table. Twelve inches!

The crowd gasps, and everyone starts singing ”God Save the Queen”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes; feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards. Collect all your consciousness and move straight forward towards the center of your being. This center is the door to eternity; this center is going beyond death.

Get deeper into it. This is your buddha. You have to live it out in your daily life.

I don’t like monks. I want buddhas in every place, in every activity.

I want the whole world full of buddhas. That is the only way we can transform the world into a paradise.

To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax and just be a witness of your body, of your mind, and the great silence that prevails over...

At this moment, who cares about the numbers? At this moment, everything becomes sacred; everything becomes an eternal treasure: truth, good, beauty.

Get a tight hold of buddha; you have to bring him back. And you have to live him in your life, moment to moment.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but you have made it a splendor, a majestic experience, a mystery, a moment of magic. Bring this magic with you.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but come back as buddhas, silently, gracefully. Sit down and remember for a few minutes the place you have been in, the temple you have visited, and the path to the temple.

The path on which you have gone in, is the same path you have come out. Slowly slowly the path will become absolutely clear.

And buddhahood will not be a question, it will be your experience.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho!

CHAPTER 2

Go beyond Emptiness

6 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

A MONK ASKED NANSEN, ”FROM PATRIARCH TO PATRIARCH THERE IS A TRANSMISSION.

WHAT IS IT THAT THEY WISH TO TRANSMIT TO ONE ANOTHER?”

NANSEN SAID, ”ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE.”

THE MONK ASKED, ”WHAT IS THAT WHICH WAS POSSESSED BY THE ANCIENTS?”

THE MASTER SAID, ”WHEN IT CAN BE POSSESSED, I WILL TELL YOU.”

THE MONK SAID DUBIOUSLY, ”MASTER, WHY SHOULD YOU LIE?”

THE MASTER REPLIED, ”I DO NOT LIE. ENO LIED.”

ON ANOTHER OCCASION A MONK SAID TO NANSEN, ”THERE IS A JEWEL IN THE SKY; HOW

CAN WE GET HOLD OF IT?”

NANSEN SAID, ”CUT DOWN THE BAMBOOS AND MAKE A LADDER; PUT IT IN THE SKY AND

GET HOLD OF IT!”

THE MONK SAID, ”HOW CAN THE LADDER BE PUT UP IN THE SKY?”

NANSEN SAID, ”HOW CAN YOU DOUBT YOUR GETTING HOLD OF THE JEWEL?”

Maneesha, it is very rare to find an exact comparison between two mystics. But once in a while their expressions are the same, their symbols and metaphors are the same. It happens by chance because they may not have known each other at all. This is so in the case that Maneesha has brought:

A MONK ASKED NANSEN, ”FROM PATRIARCH TO PATRIARCH THERE IS A TRANSMISSION.

WHAT IS IT THAT THEY WISH TO TRANSMIT TO ONE ANOTHER?”

It is a very pregnant question, but almost impossible to answer. But the master’s very being is to bring the impossible within possible limits – if not the moon itself, then at least the reflection. And the reflection can be brought. And through the reflection the moon can be found.

NANSEN SAID, ”ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE.” This reminds me of Kabir. I don’t think either knew of the other, but this is how Kabir used to answer questions, exactly the same. To anybody it may look like a puzzle, but it is not a puzzle. It is a way of indicating that which is impossible to say.

The experience is of nothingness. So when the experience of enlightenment happens, it is one; there is nothing else other than the illumination. But immediately you recognize the illumination, immediately recognition comes, it becomes two. At the moment you recognize, it is a vague recognition, not yet conceptualized. When you conceptualize it as enlightenment, as awakening, as buddhahood, it has already become three. When you say it to somebody else – that is the transmission – when you convey it, communicate to somebody else, it becomes four. And if the person to whom you have conveyed it understands it, it becomes five.

At each step you are going far away from nothingness, but nothing can be done about it. That’s the nature of reality. Now it is no more a puzzle when you understand what they mean by ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE. On the five the transmission is complete.

THE MONK ASKED, ”WHAT IS THAT WHICH WAS POSSESSED BY THE ANCIENTS?” ‘The ancients’ does not mean the people of the old times. ‘The ancients’ indicate the people who have reached the heights of consciousness. They are the real ancients, not in time but in consciousness.

In time they may be contemporaries, they may be sitting by your side. As far as time is concerned you may be contemporary to a buddha. But his height of consciousness has taken him far away. He has become an ancient.

Ordinarily when a man becomes old, we don’t call him ancient. He is just called old. But if the man becomes a buddha, then not only in time has he become old, grown up, ripe, but beyond time he has reached to the very source of life where all the ancient buddhas have reached. It is the same source. He has become one with all the ancient buddhas.

So when these questions are asked, always remember, ‘the ancients’ does not mean the old people, or the people of the old times. It means the people of greater consciousness, of higher peaks of being. They are the real ancients. They may be contemporary to you, but you exist on such different levels, you cannot call them your contemporaries.

”WHAT IS THAT,” the monk asked, ”WHICH WAS POSSESSED BY THE ANCIENTS?”

THE MASTER SAID, ”WHEN IT CAN BE POSSESSED, I WILL TELL YOU.” The master is saying that it can never be possessed either by you or by any ancient. When you reach to the experience, you are overwhelmed by it. It possesses you, not you possess it. Do you see the difference when you are possessed? The experience is far bigger than you. You are absorbed into it.

The master was right when he said, ”WHEN IT CAN BE POSSESSED, I WILL TELL YOU.” As far as I know, it cannot be possessed; you have to be ready to be possessed by it. But Zen does not complete its sentences; it leaves everything open; it simply gives hints. It is a test of the questioner’s intelligence to complete it.

THE MONK SAID DUBIOUSLY, ”MASTER, WHY SHOULD YOU LIE? You possess it. And you are lying to me.” He has missed the point. The master does not possess it; it possesses the master.

Because of its possession of the master, the master is no more. It is a pure emptiness through which the whole existence can pass – no hindrance, just a pure receptivity.

THE MASTER REPLIED, ”I DO NOT LIE. ENO LIED.” Eno was his master. He said that, ”You should go to Eno. He lied to me that ‘Yes, truth can be possessed.’ But when I reached to the point, the cliff from where you jump into nothingness, it was a totally different story: I was possessed by it; I was nowhere to be found; the experience was too much. I cannot hold it in my hands; it was holding me from all directions.

”I am not lying. If you want any lie, you should go to my master Eno. He lied to me.” But it is said with great respect. ”Because of his lie I could come to the point where truth possessed me. If he had not lied, I would not have moved a single inch.”

All masters have to lie, because there is no way to say the truth. But with some devices you can start moving towards the truth.

I have told you the story many times: A man’s house is on fire. He has very small children inside the house. A crowd has gathered outside and they are calling to the children, ”Get out of the house.

There are still windows and doors left. You can come out. In a few minutes there will be no way to come out.” And nobody dared to go in. It was dangerous. The fire was going so strong.

And just then the father of the children came from his shop. The children did not listen to the neighbors, because they could not understand. They really enjoyed the flames all around the house; they had never seen such a beautiful scene. They were dancing and enjoying and they could not understand why they should leave the house.

As the father came, the people told him, ”Do something immediately, all the passages are being taken over by the fire. We have been shouting, but your children are strange. They dance, they are singing and playing. They are enjoying the beautiful flames all around.”

Now there was no passage and no time to enter. The father shouted, ”I am here and I have brought all the toys you had asked for.”

The children jumped from the last window which was just going to be taken over by the fire. They came running out and they said, ”Where are our toys?”

The father said, ”Forgive me, today I have forgotten, but tomorrow I will bring your toys.”

He has told a lie. But the lie saved the lives of the children. You cannot complain against the father.

Nansen is not complaining against his master, he is saying he was compassionate enough to lie. ”I am not lying, I am simply saying, ‘WHEN IT CAN BE POSSESSED.’ If some time comes when I can possess it, I will tell you. Right now it possesses me so I cannot tell you.”

The monk was dubious. He said, ”MASTER, WHY SHOULD YOU LIE? You know and everybody knows that you have it.” But this is the problem with language. He says, ”You have it.” If he had said,

”It has you,” things would be different.

THE MASTER REPLIED, ”I DO NOT LIE. I have simply stated the straightforward fact. You ask me,

‘Do you possess it?’ I don’t. If sometime I happen to possess it, I will tell you. If you say that I am lying, I am not lying. My master Eno lied. And because he lied, I am a master. You should go to Eno.”

ON ANOTHER OCCASION A MONK SAID TO NANSEN, ”THERE IS A JEWEL IN THE SKY; HOW

CAN WE GET HOLD OF IT?”

NANSEN SAID, ”CUT DOWN THE BAMBOOS AND MAKE A LADDER; PUT IT IN THE SKY AND

GET HOLD OF IT!”

THE MONK SAID, ”HOW CAN THE LADDER BE PUT UP IN THE SKY?”

NANSEN SAID, ”HOW CAN YOU DOUBT YOUR GETTING HOLD OF THE JEWEL? The question is not of putting up a ladder; the question is of destroying the doubt. And the jewel is not in the sky; the jewel is in you. In the sky it is reflected, just as the moon reflects in the lake. The jewel is within you, but it is reflected in the sky far away.

”You asked me a stupid question, I have to answer you with a stupid answer. Don’t ask a stupid question and I can tell you the truth. From where did you get the idea that there is a jewel in the sky? Have you ever looked within yourself? If you had looked within yourself, you would have been surprised that all the beauty of existence is a reflection of your inner splendor. What you see outside

– the roses and their beauty, and the stars and their majesty – pales down the moment you look within. Right now you don’t have even the criterion to judge which is the reflection and which is the real.”

Look within and you will find the real – just its flavor, its certainty, its grandeur – and everything outside will become pale, just a reflection.

It has to be remembered that before asking a question to the master, you should look into your question as deeply as possible. It should become more intelligent, more meaningful. Only when you are satisfied that the question is ripe, it can be polished no more, it can be made no more intelligent, you can ask. Only an intelligent question can get an intelligent answer. Otherwise you ask a stupid question and the master gives a stupid answer. It is just out of kindliness. He could have simply said, ”Don’t ask such stupid questions.” Rather than saying that, he tells him, ”CUT DOWN THE

BAMBOOS AND MAKE A LADDER; PUT IT IN THE SKY AND GET HOLD OF IT!”

Anybody who has a little intelligence can understand that because the answer is stupid, the question must have been stupid. The master does not want to say it directly, but indirectly he is pointing to the stupidity of the question. But the questioner does not stop there; he goes on. This is the problem: a stupid person as he grows becomes more stupid; an idiot is a bigger idiot when he becomes ripe and mature – and older idiots are more dangerous because they are old and people think old people are wise.

Sekiso has a poem:

FOR SIX YEARS SITTING ALONE

STILL AS A SNAKE

IN A STALK OF BAMBOO,

WITH NO FAMILY BUT THE ICE

ON THE SNOW MOUNTAIN...

LAST NIGHT, SEEING THE EMPTY SKY

FLY INTO PIECES,

HE SHOOK THE MORNING STAR AWAKE

AND KEPT IT IN HIS EYES.

A tremendously beautiful poem. He is saying, FOR SIX YEARS SITTING ALONE – that means meditating; sitting, in Zen, is equivalent to meditation, just sitting and doing nothing. SIX YEARS

SITTING ALONE, STILL AS A SNAKE... When the snake is waiting to catch something to eat, he remains absolutely immobile as if he is dead. The slightest movement, then the bird he was going to catch will be gone, then the butterfly he was going to catch will not be there. He has to remain just dead, no movement.

STILL AS A SNAKE IN A STALK OF BAMBOO, WITH NO FAMILY BUT THE ICE ON THE SNOW

MOUNTAIN. LAST NIGHT those six years sitting matured. Last night the moment came of great benediction.

LAST NIGHT, SEEING THE EMPTY SKY FLY INTO PIECES, HE SHOOK THE MORNING STAR

AWAKE AND KEPT IT IN HIS EYES. He is talking about the inner sky, the inner emptiness, that suddenly gave way. For six years he was holding. Last night, suddenly the emptiness also fell into pieces. He was thinking that just to be empty is enough for meditation. Just to be empty is only the beginning. A moment comes when emptiness falls into pieces. You go beyond emptiness.

LAST NIGHT, SEEING THE EMPTY SKY FLY INTO PIECES, HE SHOOK THE MORNING STAR

AWAKE... He is talking about his own inner being. That emptiness flying into pieces shook the star awake and kept it in his eyes. Now he is carrying that star in his eyes, that clarity, that light, that shining jewel which is not in the sky, which is hidden somewhere inside your emptiness, which is covered by your thoughts and emotions. Your mind is blocking the path, but somewhere inside you, it is shining bright. Just a little turning in, and you will be fulfilled.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

YOU HAVE OFTEN SAID YOU WILL HAVE NO SUCCESSORS. BUT WON’T ALL THOSE WHO

LOVE YOU BE YOUR SUCCESSORS IN THAT WE CARRY YOU IN OUR BLOOD AND BONES

AND SO YOU ARE PART OF US FOREVER?

Maneesha, the concept of the successor is bureaucratic. The very idea of succession is not the right idea in the world of consciousness. That’s why I have said, I will not have successors. But you are right in saying that you will carry in your bones and in your blood my love, my insight. But don’t use the word ‘successor’, rather use the words ‘you will be me’. Why be so far away, a successor, when you can be me? Be so empty that I can make a home in you, that your emptiness can absorb my emptiness, that your heart can have the same dance as my heart. It is not succession; it is transmission.

The very idea of succession is political. Only one person can be a successor, so there is bound to be competition, ambition. There is bound to be a subtle struggle to be closer to the master, to force others away. It may not be on the surface but, underneath, the problem will remain in the disciples:

”Who is going to be the successor?”

I destroy the whole conception. Every disciple who has loved has become one with the master.

There is no need of any competition, nor one successor. It is for everybody who has offered himself in deep gratitude, who has become one in a certain sense with the master’s presence. There is no need of any competition. Thousands can have the same experience, millions can have the same experience.

To avoid politics in religion, I have said that I will not have successors. I want religion to be absolutely devoid of ambition, competition, being higher than another, putting everybody lower than oneself.

With me you are all equal. And I trust and love you, that you will prove this equality. In equals there is no competition; there is a combined effort. You will all carry my message, but nobody will be higher or lower, nobody will be a successor. All will be my lovers and they will carry me.

I am reminded of a case: Ramakrishna had a cancer of the throat. In the last stage it became impossible even to drink water. All his disciples said, ”Why don’t you ask in your prayers to God to remove this cancer? We know that if you ask, your prayer will be heard. And if your prayer cannot be heard, then all prayers are false.”

Ramakrishna was such a man that if his prayer is not heard, it can only mean there is no God, or God is deaf. If Ramakrishna’s prayer is not answered, then nobody else in the whole world should hope that his prayer will be answered. So they insisted again and again, but Ramakrishna said, ”It does not look right. I close my eyes because you insist. But I cannot ask anything from existence.

Perhaps cancer is right; otherwise why should it be given to me? I cannot be wiser than existence.”

The disciples in despair asked Ramakrishna’s wife, Sharada, ”Unless you tell him, he will not listen to anyone. And you have to be absolutely insistent.”

Sharada told Ramakrishna. He said, ”I knew that my disciples would bring you, and I cannot refuse you because I have never refused. And you have never asked anything; this is the first time in your whole life you are asking for something, and in these last moments how can I refuse you? I will try.”

He closed his eyes and after a few seconds he opened them and started laughing.

Sharada said, ”What happened? Did you ask?”

He said, ”I asked. But the answer came: ‘Why do you insist on your own throat? Drink from all the throats of your disciples. Why insist on being identified with your own body? Why not merge into all your lovers?’ That’s why I started laughing because I knew this would be the answer. You unnecessarily made me look stupid before existence.”

If the disciple loves the master, if there is trust, and trust founded on experience, he will carry spontaneously the master’s message. There is no need to say anything, he will be his master’s message.

Now something serious...

Ronald Reagan is on his last legs as president. So to impress the world with his sense of culture, he opens a new art gallery in Washington D.C. Reagan invites Pope the Polack, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev – also his old buddy, Bonzo, the chimpanzee.

Ronald and his tour guide, Reginald the homosexual, are giving these world famous figures a special tour of the collection of priceless paintings.

”Ah, yes,” says Reagan, the amateur art connoisseur, ”this painting is by Rembrandt.”

”No, it is not,” says Reginald; ”this is by Salvador Dali.”

The group pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath, and then moves on.

”And this one,” says Reagan proudly, ”is painted by Monet.”

”No,” corrects Reginald again, ”this is painted by Van Gogh.”

At the next painting, Reagan stands motionless. He stares at it this way and that way, and then he scratches his head.

”Well, I’m sure this must be a Picasso,” he says loudly to the group.

”Wrong again, Ronnie,” replies Reginald. ”That is a mirror!”

The Babblebrain family are going to the theater one night, but nobody wants to stay at home to look after Grandad. So they have to take him with them.

The play is nearing its climax when the whole row is disturbed by old man Babblebrain crawling around on his hands and knees.

”Grandpa!” whispers Boris loudly. ”Get back in your seat!”

”I can’t,” replies Grandad. ”I’ve lost a toffee.”

”Sit down!” snaps Boris. ”You are disturbing the whole theater for a lousy toffee. I’ll buy you another one if you just sit down.”

”I need that one,” says Grandad.

”My God!” cries Boris. ”What’s so special about that toffee?”

”Well,” says Grandad, ”my teeth are in it!”

Pope the Polack is on a ten-million-dollar pilgrimage to India. He goes to Calcutta, where he visits Mother Teresa’s orphanage.

He is in the middle of addressing a large gathering of Indian Christians, when a little boy comes up to him.

”Holy Father,” asks the boy, ”tell me something. If your father was a gorilla and your mother was a gorilla, what would you be?”

Pope the Polack immediately gets annoyed, but tries to smile, and answers coolly, ”My son, I guess I would be a gorilla, of course.”

A little while later, the same kid interrupts the Polack’s sermon and asks, ”Holy Father, if your mother was a donkey and your father was a donkey, what would you be?”

Pope the Polack is very embarrassed and gets really pissed-off – but keeps a cool face, and answers the little boy. ”Naturally, my son,” he replies tensely, ”I would be a donkey.”

After the sermon, the Polack Pope sees the same kid outside. He drags him into a quiet corner, grabs him by the collar, and fuming, he splutters, ”Okay, wise-guy. Here is one for you! If your father was a gorilla, and your mother was a donkey, what would you be?”

”That’s simple,” the boy replies, brightly. ”I’d be Pope the Polack!”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes; feel your body to be completely frozen. Now look inwards, with absolute urgency, as if this is your last moment of life. Go as deep as you can. At the very end is your life source. The distance is not much. Just a little courage, courage to enter into the unknown and you are at the very source of life. This space is called the buddha.

This is not an achievement; this is a discovery. It has always been with you; it is your nature. Even if you want to lose it, you cannot; you can only forget it or remember it: those are the only two alternatives. You have lived for millions of years in forgetfulness. The original meaning of sin is forgetfulness.

Now the moment has come, you can change your face, your being into a remembrance.

Remembrance is the only virtue, just as forgetfulness is the only sin.

With your totality of

consciousness look, and you will find you are the buddha.

To make it clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Just watch and witness the body and the mind. You are neither the body nor the mind. You are just a pure witness. Your buddhahood consists only of a pure witness – a mirror – reflecting everything without being affected by anything.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but you have made it more beautiful, more memorable. You have made it a golden moment, a milestone in your life because this buddha, this witnessing has to become your very life-style. Only in the fire of witnessing will you be transformed; there is no other way. This is the very point of departure from ignorance to wisdom, from darkness to light, from mortality to immortality, from time to eternity.

In this tremendously beautiful moment in the Buddha Auditorium there are not ten thousand people, but only one oceanic consciousness. Everybody is dissolved into it; everybody is possessed by it.

This is the greatest thing that can happen in a man’s life. And if you can live it in your ordinary day-to-day life, in your actions, gestures, words, silences, you have attained the highest peak of the Himalayas – Himalayas of consciousness.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Call the buddhas back, somebody may go too far. Come back silently, gracefully, remembering that you are a buddha. Don’t forget it.

I have to call you the moment I see that a few are reaching to the point from where they can jump beyond the buddha. Then there is no way of coming back. The buddha is the last milestone where the road ends. Those who have gone beyond the buddha, they have simply dissolved into existence.

Buddha himself has said, there is still one step more. There are only two steps in the whole journey: one step from you to the buddha, and the second step from the buddha to the oceanic existence.

First learn the first step in its totality. When it becomes your twenty-four hour existence, then I will not say ‘Nivedano’ to call you back. You can take the jump, but not unripe. Be ripe, then the jump happens on its own accord. It is not an effort. It is absolutely spontaneous.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 3

Your Urge must become Urgent

7 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ON ONE OCCASION, THE GOVERNOR SAID TO NANSEN, ”THERE IS A PIECE OF STONE IN

MY HOUSE. SOMETIMES IT STANDS UP AND SOMETIMES IT LIES DOWN. NOW CAN IT BE

CARVED INTO THE IMAGE OF BUDDHA?”

”YES,” SAID NANSEN, ”IT IS POSSIBLE.”

”BUT IT IS ALSO IMPOSSIBLE?” COUNTERED THE GOVERNOR.

”IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!” DECLARED NANSEN. ”IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!”

Maneesha, a little note:

ONE OF NANSEN’S MOST FAMOUS DISCIPLES WAS LU HSUAN, WHO LATER BECAME

KNOWN AS RIKUKO TAIFU, THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR OF THE HSUAN DISTRICT. AFTER

RESIDING IN HIS MOUNTAIN RETREAT FOR THIRTY YEARS WITHOUT ONCE VENTURING

OUT, NANSEN FINALLY AGREED TO THE GOVERNOR’S REQUEST TO COME DOWN AND

TEACH ZEN TO THE PEOPLE ON THE PLAINS. FROM THAT TIME, HE BECAME VERY WELL

KNOWN.

THE GOVERNOR ONCE ASKED NANSEN ABOUT THE SAYING THAT ALL THINGS CAME

FROM THE SAME SOURCE, SO THERE CAN BE NO RIGHT OR WRONG. NANSEN POINTED

TO A PATCH OF PEONIES IN THE GARDEN AND SAID, ”GOVERNOR, WHEN PEOPLE OF THE

PRESENT DAY SEE THESE BLOSSOMS, IT IS AS IF THEY SEE THEM IN A DREAM.”

The governor has made a very important statement. If there is only one source of everything, then there can be no right, no wrong, no good, no bad, no God, no Devil. And this is exactly the case; all our rights and wrongs are judgements of the mind which knows nothing of the source.

Our conceptions are moralistic, they are not religious. They are not based on the experience of the original source, from where everything arises and finally disappears also in the same source, just like waves arising in the ocean and falling back into the ocean.

But to live this insight in your life needs tremendous courage; it needs a non-judging mind. And we have been brought up with every single thing being judged: this is right, that is wrong.

A small boy was asked in the school, ”What is your name?”

He said, ”Don’t!”

The teacher said, ”Don’t? I have never heard such a name.”

He said, ”Whatever I do, wherever I want to go they always say ‘Don’t!’ So I think this is my name.”

But actually this is the case with everyone. What are your criteria of right and wrong? Who has given you the criteria? How do you decide, how do you judge? All our moralities are man-made conveniences. Whatever is convenient to society becomes moral.

For example, by nature, for every one hundred boys born, eighty-four girls will be born. By the time they are of marriageable age, the numbers will be equal. More boys die, girls are more resistant.

People think of strength only in the muscular way, but there are other ways to think of strength.

Women have more resistance to disease; they don’t get sick so soon. And on average sixteen boys will pop off by the time they are fourteen. By fourteen there is an equal number of girls and boys.

Obviously then it is convenient to create the idea of monogamy; otherwise there will be very much inconvenience. One man one woman: this becomes what is right, but it is simply a convenience.

To give you a contrast: in Mohammed’s time, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the people were barbarous, continuously fighting and killing. Caravans loaded with goods from one country to another were looted and men were killed. In Saudi Arabia at that time, there was no other way to survive; killing was the profession. So more men than women were killed because men were doing the killing and fighting. The proportion between man and woman became so different, that there were four women to one man. That created very much restlessness, so Mohammed in the Koran had to make it a moral concept to marry at least four women. He himself married nine women; of course, he is the leader, and he is propounding the moral concept, he has to follow it to the very end.

Today it has become foolish, because these judgements are dependent on causes and time. Now the situation is not the same. But Mohammedans insist... even in this country they forced the Indian government to have in the constitution that Mohammedans are allowed to have four women.

Now the whole thing is stupid! The number of women and men among Mohammedans is equal; from where can men get four women? This now gives them an opportunity to steal women from other people. Hindus and Jainas are very puritan: if a woman has been in a Mohammedan’s house for one night, forcibly, nobody is going to accept her back, neither the husband, nor her children, nor her parents. The whole society rejects her; she is no more part of them. She has to go back and beg the Mohammedan to keep her.

Now a judgement based on convenience has become a crime. And it has given birth to many crimes. All moral judgements are somehow based on the convenience of the society; they have no fundamental value. If man’s nature is looked at, neither is man monogamous, nor woman; both are polygamous and it is absolutely natural.

If we look at nature, then we must create a more flexible society where people can at least exchange their wives or husbands with their friends once in a while, for the weekend. That will create a happier, satisfied, contented society.

But that goes against all the moral concepts that the past has given to us. It is absolutely simple to understand that everybody gets fed-up with one thing continuously. It is not unnatural; it says nothing about the person. However beautiful and good your wife is... she may look beautiful to the whole world and good to everybody, but think of the poor husband! How long can he go on thinking her beautiful? Perhaps by the time the honeymoon ends, she has become obvious, taken for granted.

And to go on loving with the same intensity becomes every day more and more difficult.

The husband is bored by the wife, howsoever beautiful she is. The wife is bored by the husband, howsoever great a man he may be. This boredom is expressed in every activity of life; all their actions are dominated by this boredom. Their life seems to be the life of a prisoner: if they change partners, the whole society is against them, they lose their respectability, they may lose their jobs, they may become outcasts. So they go on clinging to each other, but they both go on creating misery also for each other.

Now I will not call this a morality based on clear perception; it is a morality based on ordinary convenience. I know it will be very inconvenient if people go on changing wives. Children won’t know who is the father and who is the uncle. But what is the problem in that? In fact it will be a good chance for the children to know many fathers; it will be a preparation for their own life, and many mothers... it will be a great preparation for their own life. In the future, if society continues to exist after the year two thousand, there is going to be an immense revolution in the man-woman relationship. The whole concept of right and wrong is going to change.

The governor has asked a really fundamental question; if the source is the same then what is the difference between right and wrong? Every moment it has to be decided by a clear conception without any prejudice, without any pre-arranged idea. I’m against morality for the simple reason that it gives you prejudices, superficial prejudices. Anything going against it you immediately take the idea that it is wrong, it is right.

It happened to Lao Tzu, the source of Taoism, that he was made the chief justice of the Supreme Court of China. He begged the emperor, ”You are committing a mistake; I’m not the right man. You will repent.”

But the emperor knew that he was the wisest man alive, and he was, there was no doubt about it.

He said, ”Why should I repent? You are the wisest man.”

Lao Tzu said, ”That is the problem. My judgement will come from my wisdom. And your judgements will never be adjustable with my judgements.”

But the emperor was stubborn; he said, ”Let us see.”

So the first case came: a thief was caught red-handed in the richest man’s house. Lao Tzu listened to the whole story.

The thief himself confessed that, ”In front of you, I cannot lie. If there was another judge, it would be a different matter, but I have always respected you and loved you. So I say there is no need for any witnesses. I have been stealing, not only this time but from this same man’s house I have stolen many times. This time I have been caught. Whatever judgement you feel right, I will not complain.”

Lao Tzu waited for a moment and then said, ”Both of you, you and the man whose house you have been stealing from, are criminals.”

”Both?” the rich man asked. ”Are you in your senses?”

Lao Tzu said, ”You have collected so much money, that almost fifty percent of the wealth of the city is in your hands, with the other fifty percent in the whole city’s hands. This situation creates the possibility of stealing. This man is a victim; in fact you are the criminal. But I will be very equal: six months jail for both.”

The rich man said, ”My God! I have never heard that when somebody steals from your house you are jailed!” He said, ”I want first to see the emperor! Even the emperor owes money to me. Whenever he wants, I have been giving money to him.”

And he went to the emperor and said what had happened. ”And I have come to remind you that soon you will be in jail also! If this man is going to remain the supreme judge of the empire, you cannot remain out of jail long. We are small criminals according to him. You are the biggest criminal.”

The emperor said, ”Perhaps he was right that I would repent. Don’t be worried, I will release him from the service immediately.”

He called Lao Tzu and said, ”This is a very strange judgement.”

Lao Tzu said, ”It is not. If people were living in harmony with nature, if people were compassionate to each other, if they felt a certain brotherhood with each other, then how could there be rich people and poor people? There should only be people. And there is enough.” At least in those times it was perfectly true, there was enough for everybody to live comfortably.

At that time when Lao Tzu said that, in India the population was only two million. Now the population is nine hundred million, and by the end of this century, if humanity survives – the chances are very slim – India will have one thousand million. For the first time India will be the most populated country; up to now China has remained the first and India number two. In the race India is going to win within ten years.

In those days when the country had only two million people, nature was abundant. There was no need for anybody to be rich or poor. Things could be easily, comfortably enjoyed by all. But it was not the case, neither in India nor in China nor anywhere else. Now it has become absolutely impossible.

But Lao Tzu was right when he said, ”A man who collects so much wealth that thousands of people become undernourished – they don’t have houses, they don’t have jobs, they don’t have enough to eat... What do you want? Should they steal or not? Their stealing is not a crime; this rich man is the criminal. What is the point of collecting all this wealth? Your wealth is simply the blood of the people. You should be happy that I’m sending you to jail only for six months. In fact if I’m to be just, that man could go for six months, but you would have to go for your whole life! Less than that would not be justified.”

The emperor said, ”I understand. I release you. You were right that I would repent; you are a dangerous fellow.”

The convenience of the emperor, the convenience of the vested interest, the richest, the super-rich, their convenience is the problem. Everything is right that fits with their convenience, and everything is wrong that does not fit with their convenience.

All our moralities are decided by the exploiting classes, the oppressors. The very people who are the cause of immorality in society are the decisive factors of morality.

Krishna had sixteen thousand wives, and no Hindu objects to it. He still remains God’s perfect incarnation. Others are imperfect incarnations; he is the only one who is the perfect incarnation. But nobody thinks that this man married only one woman, the remainder he has taken from anywhere; he just sees any beautiful woman, and his soldiers take her to the palace. She has a husband, she has children, she has old parents, or her husband has old parents – no one cares.

And one can think that Krishna must be a sexomaniac. What will you do with sixteen thousand women? In a small life sixteen thousand women! You are treating women as cattle; you will not even know their names. Many will not have any chance to meet you.

But these are the people who make rules for society. For the society the rule is monogamy. Krishna is above rules, he is God’s incarnation. So the oppressive society has been deciding rules for the oppressed. All moralities are criminal.

Only a man of deep meditation and silence can say anything, but he will not use the words ‘right’ or

‘wrong’. And he will not decide it forever as a criterion; it can only be in that moment, a spontaneous response, not a reaction. He’s not deciding the morality.

Looked at from another point of view, there is only one thing right and that is to be absolutely conscious, and only one thing wrong, to be absolutely unconscious. Out of unconsciousness whatever arises is going to be wrong. Out of consciousness whatever arises is going to be right. It is not a question of actions, it is a question of from where it arises.

But still it is relative in the ultimate sense.

Whether it arises from unconsciousness or from

consciousness does not matter, for everything is whatever it is. There is no question of right and wrong, because unconsciousness and consciousness both arise from the same source, the source of eternal life.

Hence it is said, the buddha goes beyond the ordinary rules: he lives according to his own responsibility.

He does not take steps according to the preordained morality, he takes steps according to his awareness moment to moment.

Ordinary people who know nothing of consciousness obviously need a certain kind of morality, a certain system of rules. But this is unfortunate. It simply shows that man has not become conscious enough, hence he needs rules to keep him within bounds and limits. The day the whole society becomes more conscious, there will be no need of morality and no need of government, and no need of any courts. These are ugly things, these are insulting things to humanity. They are humiliations.

The day I entered America, the first question of the man who interviewed me for my entry visa was,

”Are you an anarchist?” He must have been informed; he had a whole file.

I said, ”I am something more.”

He looked a little shocked, because for this there was no rule; he started looking in the file. In America an anarchist cannot enter. An anarchist is one who does not believe in government, who believes that every government is a slavery and unless we are free from all governments, man will go on living in slaveries, changing slaveries and thinking he is free, his idea of freedom being just a dream.

But when I said, ”I am something more.” He was at a loss what to do with me.

He said, ”What do you mean by ‘something more’?”

I said, ”I mean that before governments can be dissolved, man’s unconsciousness has to be dissolved. I am not an anarchist. But anarchism will be the by-product of my whole effort.”

He said, ”You seem to be very difficult.”

And from that moment for five years continuously I was in a fight with the American government.

And we were not wrong. But their prejudices! I said to a jailer where I was jailed, ”Do you consider that you are also a foreigner here?” No American is American; all are foreigners. The natives, the poor Red Indians, are the Americans. Americans have even changed their name; they are Red Indians and America belongs to them.

I said to the jailer – because he had become friendly during the three days I was in his jail – I said to him, ”You or your father or your grandfather at the most must have come from outside America. And I at least have a valid passport. Your parents entered America without any passport. Your parents entered America as invaders; I have come just as a tourist.

”And you have killed almost ninety percent of the Red Indians. The ten percent that have remained alive you have left half-alive and half-dead. You have forced them into reservations, into deep forests, and you go on giving them pensions. For what? Because you don’t want them to enter the society and work and be part of society. To separate them you go on giving them pensions without any work.

Naturally when you get money without any work what will you do? Then you will be into alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitutes. What else will you do with your money?

”So those Red Indians have been completely destroyed. They cannot even fight for freedom because to fight for freedom means losing the pension. And it is so good to have a pension! Just create more children and you have more pensions. And enjoy the life, drink as much as you want, use drugs as much as you want, but don’t go out of the reservation. Remain deep in the forest.”

I told him, ”What right have you got to prevent others entering America? It is not your motherland.”

But they have made it theirs, and nobody in the world, not even their own thinkers, ever raised the question, ”What about the freedom of America? When are we going to leave?”

”And you have become dispensers of morality, judgement, you have created courts of law and a constitution. And this country does not belong to you; you are barbarous invaders. If there is any greater crime you tell me!”

He said, ”You are right, but now it is too late. We have been here for three hundred years, and what has happened has happened. Now we cannot go anywhere. There are Italians, and there are Germans, and there are English people, and there are Spanish, and there are Dutch; from all the countries of Europe there are people. They will not be taken back; their own countries will not accept them anymore.”

So they have nowhere to go. And they are occupying a country of poor natives. You will be surprised to know how barbarous has been their behavior all through their history. The whole city of New York was purchased from the Red Indians by the so-called Americans for twenty-four silver dollars. Do you call that business? They were forced. The whole city of New York just for twenty-four dollars!

All rights and wrongs up to now have been decided by whoever is powerful; it is power that decides.

In India they have a proverb, ‘Whoever has the staff will have the buffalo.’ It does not matter to whom it belongs; the question is: whose staff is bigger, who is stronger? The stronger make the rules for the weaker, the richer make the rules for the poorer. Naturally those rules are in favor of the rich, of the powerful, they are against the poor and the weak. When I say I’m against morality, I say I am against this whole structure, this whole system of making rules by the powerful for the powerless.

Man has made rules for women because he is more muscular. The woman is more fragile, more dependent because she becomes pregnant. In her pregnancy she is absolutely dependent on the man for everything that she needs. Her pregnancy has become her slavery. If women want to be liberated from man, they should think about pregnancy first. They should insist on birth control, and they should insist that while they are pregnant society should take care of them, otherwise, they are not prepared to become pregnant. Pregnancy has made them handicapped; and man has exploited the situation very easily.

To the man of ultimate consciousness there is nothing right or wrong. Everything is as it is, there is no judgement.

The governor has asked something very important.

IF ALL THINGS HAVE COME FROM THE SAME SOURCE, THERE CAN BE NO RIGHT OR

WRONG.

NANSEN POINTED TO A PATCH OF PEONIES IN THE GARDEN AND SAID, ”GOVERNOR, WHEN PEOPLE OF THE PRESENT DAY SEE THESE BLOSSOMS, IT IS AS IF THEY SEE THEM

IN A DREAM.”

His answer is a little indirect. But what he is saying is that people are so unconscious that whatever they see is not more than a dream. In their dream they decide what is right, what is wrong. When they awaken, they will see everything is melting into each other: there are no opposites and there are no contradictions, existence is one organic unity.

But because people are unconscious, dreaming... What are your thoughts except dreams of the day, dreams with open eyes? And what are your dreams but thoughts of the night? How do you make decisions? You don’t have consciousness enough to decide anything. You simply follow the old rules. But do you know that the people who have made those rules were as asleep as you are?

For example, the Hindus follow the rules of Manu. Five thousand years ago he made the Hindu morality. According to him, men are divided into four castes. The Brahmins are the highest: nobody can enter into Brahminism; you are born a Brahmin. Conversion is not possible, because your being a Brahmin depends on your past life’s good deeds. Now where will you find your past life and do good deeds? That is gone.

The second class are the warriors, the third class are the business people, and the fourth class are the sudras, the ‘untouchables’. They are so dirty that even if their shadow passes over you, you have to take a bath. They have not touched you, their shadow has touched you, but that is enough to make you dirty. The fourth class cannot be allowed to live in the city, they have to live outside the town. There are places where they cannot enter, for example in temples. They cannot read the scriptures, they cannot enter into schools, they cannot be educated.

For five thousand years nobody has revolted against it. You are forcing a person to be a shoemaker just because he is born in the family of a shoemaker. He may have the qualities of an Albert Einstein, but that door is closed, he cannot even enter the school. He may have the qualities of Gautam Buddha but all doors are closed, he is allowed only to make shoes. For five thousand years all his ancestors have been making shoes, so he has to make shoes.

Very strict divisions and no mobility, no movement from one profession to another profession. Manu was a Brahmin, so obviously Brahmins are the best. They are the decisive factors, they will decide what is right and what is wrong.

And the situation is the same all around the earth; people are living in absolute unconsciousness.

All these so-called religious people are against me, obviously, because I am saying to them that all their moralities are of the same stuff as dreams are made of. The only possibility to know the right is first to be fully conscious. And when a man is fully conscious, things change.

For example, Gautam Buddha dropped the idea of castes immediately; when he became enlightened his first step was to say, ”There are no castes; everybody has to be free to do whatever he wants, to be whatever he wants; birth cannot decide his destiny.”

Buddha’s teaching could not survive in India because the Brahmins’ whole profession was at stake.

If Buddha’s message had spread, the Brahmins would have lost the power that they had, the warriors would have lost the power they had, and the sudras would have entered into every place, they would have had the freedom which has never been given to them.

Buddha can see in his silence, in his peace that this is a stupid idea. In the name of morality, in the name of religion it is imposed on people; it should be taken away. Freedom is the base, the fundamental base of all humanity. Anything that goes against freedom goes against humanity.

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

ON ONE OCCASION, THE GOVERNOR SAID TO NANSEN, ”THERE IS A PIECE OF STONE IN

MY HOUSE. SOMETIMES IT STANDS UP AND SOMETIMES IT LIES DOWN. NOW CAN IT BE

CARVED INTO THE IMAGE OF BUDDHA?”

”YES,” SAID NANSEN, ”IT IS POSSIBLE.”

”BUT IT IS ALSO IMPOSSIBLE?” COUNTERED THE GOVERNOR.

”IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!” DECLARED NANSEN. ”YES, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!”

A strange dialogue. First you have to understand that the governor is speaking in metaphors. When he says that THERE IS A PIECE OF STONE IN MY HOUSE he is talking about himself. He is saying,

”What am I more than a stone? Sometimes I get up and sometimes I lie down. I am as unconscious as a stone.” Do you think he was asking Nansen if stone could be carved into a buddha? It is not about a stone, it is about himself. Stones don’t stand and don’t lie down, they don’t get tired so soon.

He is talking about himself.

”YES,” SAID NANSEN, ”IT IS POSSIBLE.” He does not say that it is inevitable. He simply says,

”IT IS POSSIBLE.” If an urge arises in the stone, everything is possible: the stone can become a buddha.

The governor said, ”BUT IT IS ALSO IMPOSSIBLE?” Seeing that the governor cannot understand that even a stone, if an urge, a longing arises in it, can become a seed, and finally a buddha, seeing the governor cannot understand that possibility because he says, ”BUT IT IS ALSO

IMPOSSIBLE, very difficult?”, Nansen also said, ”Yes, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.” He repeated again,

”IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!”

If you yourself think it is impossible, then there is no way. The first thing is to see and perceive your potentiality and possibility. If you yourself say it is impossible, then nobody can do it for you. It is not something that somebody else has to do, you have to grow into a buddha. If you say it is impossible then the project can be dropped.

What he is saying to you in this anecdote is that your very urge to become a buddha ultimately discovers the buddha in you. The buddha is not somewhere far away that you have to go in search of. It is hidden behind you. If your urge becomes urgent, the hidden opens its doors. If you go inwards with a tremendous force to reach to the very source and the center of your being you will find the buddha.

But if you think it is impossible, then you have yourself closed the doors of your potentiality. Nobody can make you a buddha. But it is possible; if you have the passion, if you have the longing, if you turn in, dropping all mundane things of the outside, it is possible.

Sekiso wrote:

PEOPLE’S ABUSE HAS MELTED WHAT WAS GOLDEN

AND IT HAS GONE FROM THE WORLD.

FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE

BOTH BELONG TO THE LAND OF DREAMS.

DON’T LOOK BACK TO THIS WORLD,

YOUR OLD HOLE IN THE CELLAR.

FROM THE BEGINNING

THE FLYING BIRDS HAVE LEFT

NO FOOTPRINTS ON THE BLUE SKY.

Sekiso is a great poet. He is saying PEOPLE’S ABUSE HAS MELTED WHAT WAS GOLDEN. We have left a golden age behind, we misused it.

I am reminded of a very significant incident. In the Himalayan mountain range there are a few tribes, very ancient tribes which have followed a rule, very male-chauvinistic, that if you become a guest in their house they will offer you everything. And in the night they will offer you their wife too. A guest has to be given everything.

When the Britishers came to India, they exploited these poor people so much, that in the areas of Manali and Kulu almost ninety percent of the people are suffering from syphilis.

The British were responsible. When they heard that these people offer their wives, they would go hunting in the mountains and then in the night they would knock on some door. And those poor people offered them everything: food, shelter, their wives.

They could not think that these people had come just to exploit them, to prostitute their wives. And they spread syphilis all over the area in the whole tribe; even children were born with syphilis, and the British did not take responsibility for the children, which were born out of their lovemaking to those poor people’s wives.

So you can understand what Sekiso is saying, PEOPLE’S ABUSE HAS MELTED WHAT WAS

GOLDEN. There was certainly a more trusting world, more loving people.

I remember even in my childhood, in my village and the surrounding villages you could not purchase milk.

You could get as much milk as you wanted, but nobody would sell milk.

You have a

nourishment, somebody is hungry and you exploit his hunger! So milk was available to anybody.

Now in the same village you will not find pure milk at any cost – half water, half milk.

In the university where I was studying, a man was supplying the milk to the students. He was a very good man, a very nice man, a very wise old man. And people had started calling him santji, a saint.

And he used to come with buckets of milk, with his son carrying another bucket, to the hostel. And people would ask, ”Santji, is it true that you don’t mix water into the milk?”

He would put his hand on his boy’s head, and he would say, ”In my whole life, I have never mixed water into milk. If I have ever done that, my child would die.”

I heard it. I thought that this seemed strange, because the milk certainly was fifty percent water.

Already milk, pure milk is eighty percent water, and when you mix more water into it, fifty percent, it becomes so clear.

So my first day in the university when I heard him, I called him aside and I said , ”Tell me the truth, because certainly your milk is full of water. And if you don’t tell me the truth I will take you to the vice-chancellor and the milk will be sent for scientific analysis. And if water is found in it, your whole business is finished.”

He said, ”You are the first person to create so much trouble for me. I will tell you the truth, but don’t do anything and don’t tell others.”

I said, ”You tell me the truth; what is the truth?”

He said, ”The truth is I never mix water into milk, I always mix milk into water. That’s why I can say it without any fear, but don’t send it for scientific analysis. I will provide you water and milk free of charge. If you want it without water, I will stop the water in your milk, but then you have to send somebody to my place. But don’t tell anybody; I have told you the secret.”

There was a world, as far back as we can go where we find a certain quality of trust, which was the golden age of humanity.

Sekiso says: AND IT HAS GONE FROM THE WORLD. FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE BOTH

BELONG TO THE LAND OF DREAMS. DON’T LOOK BACK TO THIS WORLD, YOUR OLD HOLE

IN THE CELLAR. FROM THE BEGINNING THE FLYING BIRDS HAVE LEFT NO FOOTPRINTS

ON THE BLUE SKY. This is a saying of Gautam Buddha. He used to say, ”You have to follow a path which is not already made. You have to make it and walk it. You have to make it by walking it.

You have to arrange your pathway. You cannot follow anybody, it is just like the sky. ”THE FLYING

BIRDS HAVE LEFT NO FOOTPRINTS ON THE BLUE SKY.

The same is true about the inner sky, the buddhas have not left their footprints. So you cannot follow any buddha, you have to find your path on your own, alone. This is your dignity. This is a great freedom. If there were ready-made paths, superhighways, then truckloads of people would be becoming buddhas everyday. Buses would be going. But because in the inner world you cannot take your trucks, you cannot take even your rickshaw, or the rented bicycle, it will be very difficult; riding on the bicycle you can go anywhere except inside.

Inside you have to go not with your legs, you have to go with your vision, you have to turn your eyes in. There are no footpaths. The sky inside is absolutely untrodden. But the distance to the goal is not very big, only one step.

As you look inside urgently, you can see as if you are looking into a waterhole the water deep down, or as if you are seeing in a tunnel, far away, the opening to the sky. There is only one step that you have to take to reach to the buddha. Just courage and some energy for adventure, for inquiring, for exploration is needed. But remember this tremendously beautiful statement: THE FLYING BIRDS

HAVE LEFT NO FOOTPRINTS ON THE BLUE SKY. There is no possibility of being a follower.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

WHO OF US HERE COULD AGREE THAT ”WHAT WAS GOLDEN HAS GONE FROM THE

WORLD”? HOW COULD IT BE, WHEN YOU ARE AMONG US, AND IN YOUR PRESENCE IT

FEELS THAT YOU ARE FILLING US WITH GOLD? YOU ARE THE MIDAS OF THE SPIRITUAL

DIMENSION.

Maneesha, this Buddha Auditorium is not part of your so-called world. It is an island in itself where only buddhas dwell. For you as meditators time does not matter. The deeper you go, the more contemporary you become to Gautam Buddha, to Lao Tzu, to Chuang Tzu, to all those who have experienced the ultimate. You meet them at the very source of your being. It is the same taste, it is the same flavor, it is the same goal.

You are right and you are wrong. Right, because here in this Buddha Auditorium you are so urgently, so passionately searching for the buddha. You are bringing a golden age into existence.

But outside the gate there is a vast world where even the idea of looking inwards does not occur to people. If you tell the idea of becoming a buddha to those people outside the gate they will laugh, they will say, ”Are you mad?” They will look at you with suspicion: ”This man must be on heroin, under the influence of opium or some other drug; he is thinking to become Buddha. Buddha died twenty-five centuries ago.”

People in the ordinary world never think that they have a different destiny – to be not just a business man, or a clerk, or a stationmaster, or a teacher. These are not your destinies, these are your professions. Good for survival in the body, but not good enough to find the buddha.

You have to do something else, you have to enter into yourself, which is not part of the education or the morality of society. People will laugh at you because you enter in. They will say, ”You are mad, how can you enter in? We don’t see any door, any window, where do you enter from? And what can you find there? Just a skeleton! Don’t do that, otherwise you will become afraid of yourself, seeing a skeleton inside, a skull and all the blood vessels and the intestines. Just avoid this going in! It is a very dangerous thing that you are doing, and if you really are interested, just wait until you die. In your grave you can look inside because there will be no outside anymore. Then watch your skeleton; you will have enough time, no other work!”

You are right that here we are exactly trying to bring the golden age back. Those who want to join in this great venture, they are welcome. But in the world, Maneesha, that golden age has certainly disappeared. What is happening in the outside world you can find out from these jokes.

Chester Cheese is on a long sales trip when his car breaks down. He walks up to a nearby farmhouse and knocks on the door.

”Excuse me,” says Chester to the farmer, ”but my car has broken down. Can I stay here for the night?”

”Well, I guess so,” says the old man. ”But the only available bed belongs to my sixteen-year-old daughter, Lucy. You will have to sleep with her.”

”Really?” smiles Chester. And he is shown to Lucy’s room.

Later that night, lying next to Lucy, Chester puts his hand on her soft thigh.

”Stop that!” cries Lucy. ”Or I will call my father.” But then she moves a little closer to Chester.

A little while later, Chester tries again. ”Stop that!” cries Lucy. ”Or I will call my father.” But then she moves even closer to Chester.

On the third try, Lucy jumps on top of Chester, and they have a great time.

A little while later, Lucy whispers, ”Mister, can we do it again?”

Chester agrees, and they go for it again. Five minutes later, Lucy is tugging again on Chester’s deflated machinery. ”Mister, can we do it again?” she asks.

Stop that!” gasps Chester. ”Or I will call your father!”

That is what is happening in the outside world!

Swami Deva Cleverhead, the group therapist, is walking out of the front gate one night.

”Hello, sir,” says Black-Fat, the flower-seller. ”Buy roses for your lovely wife?”

”I haven’t got a wife,” snaps Cleverhead, waving him away.

”Okay,” says Black-Fat, ”roses for your girlfriend?”

”No,” screams Cleverhead. ”I haven’t got a girlfriend either!”

”Okay,” says Black-Fat,” then buy two bunches – to celebrate your good luck!”

Paddy and Seamus are sitting in Paddy’s yard drinking a few beers.

”Hey,” says Seamus. ”How was your boat trip to Spain?”

”Fantastic!” says Paddy. ”Imagine, I’m away from Maureen for the first time in fifteen years! Then, on the first night of my trip, I met this gorgeous girl, one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. We chit-chatted for a while, and it was love at first sight. Soon, we were rolling in each other’s arms, completely naked.

”But in the morning, as I held her in my arms, I found out she is the new wife of my best friend, Fergus. It came as such a tremendous shock that we both felt really guilty. And we both cried and cried and cried!”

”My God!” says Seamus. ”That is really something! So how was the rest of your trip?”

”Well, you know,” says Paddy. ”After that, it was just crying and fucking, crying and fucking...!”

That is what is happening in the outside world!

Big Olga, Kowalski’s overweight wife, is getting enormous. So she goes to Doctor Gasbag to see if she can get some advice.

”You need much more exercise,” says Gasbag. ”And you eat far too much. You must exercise every day.”

”But doctor,” complains Olga, ”what exercise should I do?”

”It is easy,” replies Gasbag. ”Begin slowly. Just strip off, lie down on your bed, and try to sit up and touch your toes. Then lift your legs back over your shoulders. Keep doing this until you start sweating off those pounds.”

That night, Olga decides to give it a try. Naked, lying on the bed, she can hardly see her toes. Still, she pushes forward, and tries to grab her feet. Then she lifts her legs back. But she gets stuck with her bum sticking out and her legs pushed back over her head.

At this point, Kowalski stumbles into the bedroom, utterly drunk.

”Jesus Christ, Olga!” he shouts in shock. ”Comb your hair and put your teeth back in! You look like your mother!”

This is what is happening in the outside world!

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now look inwards, with totality, with all your consciousness gathered as an arrow.

Go deeper and deeper. Remember, every moment can be the last moment of your life. Hence the urgency.

You are not to leave this body without realizing your buddhahood. It is possible. Even the stone can be carved into a buddha. What to say about consciousness? It is buddhahood itself.

Rejoice this moment. Very few people in the world are even trying to know who they are. That is what is making a mess of the world.

If you know consciously the source of your being, you become filled with contentment, joy, compassion, love. So many thousands of flowers blossom in you. You become a splendor.

This is your birthright. You can ignore it but you cannot destroy it. Any moment you want to remember it, it is available.

Just want it enough.

To make it clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Just watch. You are the witness, you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are only a witness

– just a mirror.

This witnessing is the point of departure, the point from where transformation begins.

Drink deeply from the source. Get soaked, drenched, so that when you come back you bring buddha in your heart, in your breathing.

You have to live the buddha twenty-four hours.

The evening was beautiful in itself. But the presence of so many buddhas has made it tremendously beautiful.

Gather as much gold as possible. Soon, Nivedano will be calling you back. Bring it all with you: the fragrance, the silence, the blissfulness.

In this moment, there are not ten thousand buddhas but only one buddha nature, one ocean where you all have dissolved.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but slowly, gracefully.

Bring the buddha with you. Don’t forget.

Sit down like buddha for a few moments. And remember the space you have been in, the path that you followed, and the same path you have come back on.

Remember it. You will have to go again and again on the same path to drink from the sources of eternal life.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the gathering of the buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 4

Even the Himalayas come and go

8 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, NANSEN DECIDED TO VISIT A VILLAGE, BUT WAS VERY SURPRISED TO FIND THAT

PREPARATIONS HAD BEEN MADE TO WELCOME HIM.

NANSEN SAID TO THE VILLAGE HEAD, ”IT HAS BEEN MY CUSTOM NEVER TO LET ANYONE

KNOW BEFOREHAND ABOUT WHERE I AM JOURNEYING TO. HOW COULD YOU KNOW THAT

I WAS COMING TO VISIT YOUR VILLAGE TODAY?”

THE VILLAGE HEAD REPLIED, ”LAST NIGHT, IN A DREAM, THE GOD OF THE SOIL-SHRINE

REPORTED TO ME THAT YOU WOULD COME TO VISIT TODAY.”

NANSEN REPLIED, ”THIS SHOWS HOW WEAK AND SHALLOW MY SPIRITUAL LIFE IS THAT IT

CAN BE FORESEEN BY VISIONS!”

Maneesha, before discussing your sutras I have to discuss something about Nansen’s way of tackling things, his methodology. Sometimes he looked very puzzling, would make contradictory statements on purpose. Unless you understand that, it will be difficult to find any rationality in the sutras you have brought to me. And reason is the only thread by which, for the present, you can grasp something of the beyond.

ON ONE OCCASION, THE GOVERNOR, LU HSUAN, SAID TO NANSEN, ”WHAT IF I TOLD YOU

THAT A MAN HAD RAISED A GOOSE IN A BOTTLE, WATCHING IT GROW UNTIL ONE DAY

HE REALIZED THAT IT HAD GROWN TOO LARGE TO PASS THROUGH THE BOTTLE’S NECK?

SINCE HE DID NOT WANT TO BREAK THE BOTTLE OR KILL THE GOOSE, HOW WOULD HE

GET IT OUT?”

A strange puzzle which cannot be solved rationally. Whatever you do – either you will have to destroy the bottle or the goose – you cannot save both. But the goose and the bottle are only metaphors of your witnessing self and your body.

Your body is the bottle and your consciousness is the goose. And nobody ever wonders how the consciousness entered the body and how the consciousness can come out of it. The consciousness is universal, vast, infinite in all dimensions. And the body is so small, just like a small bottle. How is this being managed by existence? It is a miracle that the physical, the material contains within it the non-material, the spiritual.

The governor was asking the question in the Zen tradition. This is an old story; perhaps every master has to work on it.

Nansen shouted, ”Governor!”. For a moment the governor completely forgot that he was a governor and Nansen just a beggar as far as possessions are concerned. And nobody should shout at the governor the way he was shouting. The question he has asked does not require... He forgot all. The shout was so sharp like a sword.

In a single blow, as he shouted, ”Governor!”, and the governor said, ”Yes, master,” Nansen said,

”The goose is out!”

A very strange way of solving the problem. The governor showed his consciousness, expressed his consciousness. This consciousness is not hindered by the body; it can come out, it can go in.

The body is not a barrier; the body is a barrier only to material things. But the non-material exists in a different dimension. It can enter the body without stirring anything in the body, without even touching the body. Nowhere in your life does your consciousness ever touch your body, whatever you do. Your consciousness simply remains a witness, far away on the hills as if....

Just think you are standing before a mirror. The question is how your reflection entered the mirror.

The mirror has no space to contain you, but certainly you are standing in the mirror. But if you watch carefully, you are standing in front of the mirror and watching your reflection in the mirror. The mirror is perfectly capable of reflecting, but it cannot contain you.

Neither the body contains the spiritual element in you, nor the spiritual element contains the body.

The spiritual element is just a mirror. It can at the most reflect the body, the mind; but it is always beyond, it is always out. That’s what Nansen means, ”THE GOOSE IS OUT!”. He shouted,

”Governor!” and the governor said, ”Yes, sir!” The governor is not asleep, he is perfectly awake.

In this awareness you are not the body and you are not in the body. You are beyond, you are out.

The goose is out. Different masters have worked on this small anecdote about the goose. But Nansen seems to be the best.

Maneesha has brought the sutra:

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, NANSEN DECIDED TO VISIT A VILLAGE, BUT WAS VERY SURPRISED TO FIND THAT

PREPARATIONS HAD BEEN MADE TO WELCOME HIM.

NANSEN SAID TO THE VILLAGE HEAD, ”IT HAS BEEN MY CUSTOM NEVER TO LET ANYONE

KNOW BEFOREHAND ABOUT WHERE I AM JOURNEYING TO. HOW COULD YOU KNOW THAT

I WAS COMING TO VISIT YOUR VILLAGE TODAY?”

Why was he so insistent that nobody should know beforehand? The reason was that he wanted people to recognize what had happened to Nansen, the illumination.

Unless they recognize it by themselves, he will pass the village. He won’t stay in the village; it is not yet ready for buddhas. People are fast asleep. They cannot see the invisible and they cannot understand the eternal. Their noses are closed, their eyes are closed, their ears are closed. They don’t have the sensitivity for the subtle, for the inner. They cannot experience the fragrance of one who has arrived home.

That was the reason he would never allow anybody to know where he was going. Even his companions were not aware where he was going; suddenly he would take a turn. They might imagine that this road leads to that place, and before reaching that place he would turn.

His whole effort was to find out the people who can just by his presence feel something ringing in their hearts. He wanted to commune with receptive people. The world is vast, full of absolutely non-receptive people, people whose hearts have become so hard that nothing reaches to them. They hear and yet they miss because they cannot listen. While they are hearing, their mind is doing a thousand and one things.

Even if a buddha passes in front of them, it is not certain that they will recognize. To recognize a buddha is to have some sensibility, some sensitivity. Just as to recognize the sun you need eyes, to recognize a buddha you also need a certain quality, a clarity, a transparency.

And unless you recognize, there is no point in the master wasting time on non-receptive people.

Perhaps next life they may be able to receive; perhaps this is not the right time for them – not ripe, their season has not come. A buddha can influence only a very few chosen people, for the simple reason his influence is not of the mind; it is not an argument that convinces you. He will not even say, ”I am a buddha.” He would like you to recognize. From there the journey starts, the right point of departure.

That’s why Nansen did not want anybody to know that he was coming to their place. If they knew already without recognizing his buddhahood, just traditionally because he is well-known –

thousands of monks follow him – they would also mechanically, robot-like worship him. This would be unnecessarily wasting Nansen’s time and perpetuating blind, orthodox, traditional ways.

He wanted to enter into a village as a stranger and see whether anybody could recognize him. And people used to recognize him who had not ever seen him. Just seeing him something would go through them like lightning. A heart would start dancing in a new tune. They would know that, ”This man although he looks like everybody else is very far away from us.”

His consciousness was overwhelming. It showered on people, if they were receptive, like a raincloud.

But he was not ready to shower blindly, the way the raincloud showers. It does not care whether it is showering on the stones, on the fields, on the good soil; it has no care. A cloud is blind, it is simply heavy with rain and wants to get rid of it wherever the opportunity arises. When there is enough coolness, its vapor becomes water, it showers. Nansen wanted to shower like a raincloud, but not like a blind raincloud. He did not want to shower on stones where nothing would grow. He would shower on the right soil where it was possible for something to happen.

He alone in the whole history of Zen has used this method. Masters ordinarily inform a village that they are coming, so people are prepared. But Nansen has his own unique personality. If people are prepared, there is every danger that they will traditionally pay their respect and will not understand anything about who has visited them. He never allowed anyone to know.

But this time it happened.

THE VILLAGE HEAD REPLIED, ”LAST NIGHT, IN A DREAM, THE GOD OF THE SOIL-SHRINE

REPORTED TO ME THAT YOU WOULD COME TO VISIT TODAY.”

NANSEN REPLIED, ”THIS SHOWS HOW WEAK AND SHALLOW MY SPIRITUAL LIFE IS THAT IT

CAN BE FORESEEN BY VISIONS!”

He was a very honest man. Anyone in his place would have felt tremendous ego, ”Even gods declare my coming.” But on the contrary he said, ”THIS SHOWS HOW WEAK AND SHALLOW MY

SPIRITUAL LIFE IS THAT IT CAN BE FORESEEN BY VISIONS, by imaginary gods which are your creation, that you have seen in your dreams that I was coming.” This perception through the vision or dream may have made anyone who was not authentically spiritual rejoice and declare, ”Look!

Even gods make declarations and predictions for me.” But Nansen said, ”This shows how shallow and weak my spirituality is that you can read it even in your dreams.”

One of the most important qualities of a religious man is his honesty about himself, his humbleness, his egolessness. He is as if he is not. He does not feel gratified by appraisal, he does not feel any superiority in his spirituality. But the ordinary religious people find trivia to fulfill their egos.

I have heard there were three institutions belonging to Christians of different sects. One day three churchmen, walking in the early morning, just by chance met on the crossroad. They welcomed each other and they bragged. One who belonged to the Baptist college said, ”Your monasteries are good, but you cannot beat us in our scholarship. Our students are the most scholarly.”

The second one was a Catholic. He said, ”You are right; it is true your students are very scholarly.

But scholarship has nothing to do with spirituality. Real spirituality is discipline, asceticism; on that point you cannot beat us. Our monks are the most ascetic, the most disciplined.”

The third one from a Protestant monastery said, ”That is all nothing. As far as humbleness is concerned we are the tops.”

Even humbleness can be used to fulfill the ego. And in the name of religion all kinds of stupidities are being perpetuated because they fulfill the ego. For example, the Catholic abbot has said that nobody can beat their monks – as if it is an ego game! Nobody can win in ascetic disciplines. But it is true; compared to anybody else the Catholic monk is the most masochistic. He tortures himself so much, just to be praised by people.

I am reminded of a story. A young man entered a Catholic monastery. He was told by the abbot,

”I have to warn you this is a Catholic monastery. Great discipline is needed; for example, you are allowed to speak only once in seven years.

The man said, ”I have come with great decision. Every discipline I am ready to follow.” But he was not aware what was going to be his fate. He entered his cell and found that there was no mattress.

Now he cannot speak. For seven years he has to wait for the mattress. He said, ”My God, I will not survive seven years in this cold weather. Outside snow is falling. There is no mattress, just a small blanket.” But he had promised and it had become an ego-point. He remained for seven years, suffering.

When seven years had passed he was very happy; he went to the abbot and he said, ”By God’s grace I have survived. There is no mattress in my cell.”

The abbot said, ”The mattress will be sent. You go back, and for seven years no more complaints.”

The poor fellow had not complained for seven years!

The mattress came, but the mattress was big; the room was not that big, and the door was very small, so while pushing the mattress in, the workers broke the glass of the window. Somehow they fixed the mattress, but the window was broken.

He had suffered through cold, now he started suffering from rain. Water would come directly into the cell where he was sitting covered with his tattered blanket. Seven years again before the glass can be fixed in the window! After seven years he went to the abbot, and the abbot said, ”Again? Have you got a complaint again?”

He said, ”It is not a complaint. But for seven years I have suffered from the rain. Those workers broke my window. It was better without a mattress – I had become accustomed – but to remain always afraid of rain....

The abbot said, ”Your window will be repaired, but don’t come again in this life with any complaint.”

But the situation remained the same: the workers came to fix the glass; he could not speak, and those idiots pulled out the mattress, so that they could work comfortably on the window and fix the glass. They fixed the glass and left the mattress out. Again the situation was the same – in fact, worse.

Now seven years looked really... next life perhaps he would be able to say, ”My mattress is out”. He tried to pull it in, but there was no way, it was too big. And the abbot had said, ”Now in this life you have complained enough. You have done nothing else since you came – complain, complain.”

These people think that they are doing something spiritual. Stupidity has many names; one of them is spirituality. Zen is not at all interested in decorating the ego. On the contrary its whole effort is how to empty you, how to make nothing of you, not something.

From my very childhood, my relatives, my neighbors, my well-wishers used to say, ”The way you are growing, you will end up as nothing,” because I used to sit for hours silently by the side of the river.

And people became so accustomed, they would not even ask what I was doing, because I was not doing anything at all.

But their prophecy was right. I ended in nothing. But that is the greatest blessing if you can end up being nothing. Good for nothing... only out of that nothingness blossom thousands of roses.

Humbleness is not practiced and cultivated by Zen. It is a simple outcome, a by-product of deep meditations. As you go deeper, you start forgetting that the whole world is struggling to become something, somebody special – more riches, more power. Everybody is trying to make history and you are disappearing almost like smoke in the sky. But those who can disappear just like smoke in the sky leaving no trace behind, no footprints behind, they are the only ones who come to know the splendor of existence, the beauty of this universe, and the truth and the divinity; which are just the beginning of great mysteries.

Doors upon doors go on opening for the humble one. And he remains simply a watcher. That is the ultimate. You don’t possess anything in a sense, and in another sense you possess the whole universe; but there is no possessiveness. You have entered into the essentials, into the eternal mystery of life and death, and you have found one thing, that everything changes except the witness in you. The witness is the only permanent phenomenon.

Even the Himalayas have come and will disappear. One day there was no Himalaya; it is not very old; it is a very new mountain. In Rigveda the ancientmost book of the Hindus, Himalaya is not mentioned. It is impossible not to mention Himalaya. It seems that Himalaya grew after Rigveda, because Himalaya is not referred to at all in the Rigveda when other small mountains are

– Vindhyachal, Satpura – rivers too, small in comparison to those in the Himalayas.

Lokmanya Tilak, a Hindu scholar from this city, Poona, argued against all the scholars who were trying to prove that Rigveda is only five thousand years old. He argued that Rigveda is at least ninety thousand years old with two arguments: one was that Himalaya is not referred to at all while small mountains are referred to. There is no reason not to refer to Himalaya. Himalaya must have grown after Rigveda.

And the people who wrote Rigveda had come from Mongolia. All the civilized nations of the world have come from Mongolia; Mongolia was the origin, particularly of Aryan races. Negroes have not come from Mongolia, nor the South Indians. But the Germans, the North Indians, the English, the French, the Italians, the Norwegians, the Swedish, the Swiss, the Greeks, they have all come from one original source, Mongolia, because all their languages have a certain percentage of Sanskrit.

Coming from Mongolia you have to pass the Himalaya. And to pass the Himalaya is not a small thing. It seems impossible, if Himalaya was there and the Aryans passed the Himalaya, for them not to mention anything about it.

Lokmanya Tilak’s argument has a validity. But even more valid is his description of a constellation of stars mentioned in the Rigveda that also happened ninety thousand years ago. That constellation of stars is described in absolute detail, so it is not something you cannot imagine. It has not happened since then, but it may happen again sometime – although perhaps millions of years will pass before the stars will come into that constellation again.

These two arguments were so valid that they have not been answered by any Christian missionary, because all Christian missionaries were trying to push Rigveda as close to us as possible. The reason was because according to the Christian Bible the world was created just four thousand and four years before Jesus Christ. It must have been certainly a Monday and January, but not far away from us, just six thousand years. So they have to fix everything into that framework of six thousand years. They give as much rope to Rigveda as possible, five thousand years. They cannot accept that Rigveda was written ninety thousand years before, because that would disturb their whole Bible.

But the Bible is not an argument; there are thousands of other proofs that the Bible is wrong. This earth itself according to scientific measurements has been in existence for four million years. On the Himalayas skeletons of sea animals have been found, sixty thousand years old. That shows that some time between sixty thousand and ninety thousand years ago Himalaya came out of the ocean; otherwise the ocean animals cannot reach in any way to the tops of Himalaya, they cannot travel from the great Indian Ocean, which is the closest. There is no way for sea animals; they don’t have legs, they cannot reach to the tops just to die there and create trouble for historians.

The authentic religions are not concerned with such matters; such matters belong to science.

Anything objective belongs to science. Religiousness is absolutely subjective;it belongs to your inner depths, and the deeper you go into your inner depths, the more and more you find an empty sky. But this empty sky contains all the buddhas. This empty sky of your being is your ultimate experience. Nobody has gone beyond it, the blessing of it, the benediction of it, the fulfillment of it.

A tremendous at-ease with existence... you have come home.

Nansen says, ”HOW SHALLOW AND WEAK MY SPIRITUAL LIFE must be that people can see it in their visions, in their dreams!” Very honest, fully aware of the great possibilities of falling into the paths of ego... this made him a great master. Those who followed him he never called ‘followers’

because that is again an ego-trip.

Teachers who have many followers think they are great teachers, just because of the numbers.

Numbers are important in politics but are not important in your spiritual growth. It is possible a buddha may be without any follower; that simply shows his height is so much that nobody can see that far. And a clever, parrot-like scholar or pundit or a rabbi may have a great following, because people can understand whatever he says. It is not coming from the beyond; it is coming from his mind, hence your mind can comprehend it very easily.

Nansen has not followers but fellow-travelers. He is the first one who used the word ‘fellow-travelers’, moving towards the same center of life together. There is no question of master and disciple.

That does not mean that the disciples had no respect for Nansen. On the contrary they had more respect because he never asked for respect. There are things, if you ask, you will never get, and if you don’t ask, you will be showered with. He never asked for any gratitude or any respect. He never said, ”I am the master and you are the disciple.”

That created a totally different kind of commune. And he was loved and respected more than any master for the simple reason he was so humble, so undemanding and so sharing of his empty heart.

And the freedom of humbleness... you may not have thought about it but ego can never have any freedom, it depends on others.

Sitting on a Himalayan peak alone, can you think of yourself as a great man? But the Pope can think himself a great man because he has six hundred million Catholic followers. No religious head has that many followers. This is the way of politics not of religion.

And the ways of the ego are so subtle that... I have heard about a saint who was living alone in the deep mountains. A traveler came to him. Just passing by, the traveler thought to give him a visit. He thought there must be many followers, but there was no one; he was alone.

The stranger said to him, ”People in the world who have many followers think they are great. But I think they are all egoist, they are using numbers rather than rupees as a support to their ego.

The old saint smiled and he said, ”I am the only one who has no followers. I am the only one, remember!” So subtle are the ways of ego. Even this becomes the same trip; there is no difference.

Humbleness has to remember that ego always comes to the back door if you throw it from the front door. And in your life there are many doors, many of which you are not even aware of. When you are fully aware and your house is full of light, the shadow of the ego will not be able to enter.

But it is not a question of cultivation. I have seen in temples written in golden letters that if you are humble you will be respected by all. Strange advice! Then one becomes humble just to be respected by all. You cannot cultivate these qualities because to cultivate any quality you need some goal, some greed. Humbleness comes as a by-product, not as a goal. When you are deep in your meditation, feeling absolutely nothing, just witnessing emptiness, humbleness comes on its own.

Nansen was certainly a man of great understanding, but this understanding is not scriptural, scholarly; this understanding has grown through his meditations.

For thirty years he was

continuously meditating; for thirty years he was just sitting and watching inside. Slowly slowly thoughts disappeared, dreams disappeared. All dust settles. The sky within becomes absolutely clean and clear. For thirty years he did not come out of the mountains.

It was governor Lu Hsuan who persuaded him, ”It is enough. Thirty years you have meditated.

Now it is time, you should come down to the plains and share your experience.” Hsuan’s persuasion worked because it reminded Nansen what great treasures he had got in his emptiness. There are millions of people who are living like beggars although inside them there are such majestic, such mysterious treasures. He agreed with Hsuan and came down to the plains. Immediately thousands of people deeply interested in searching for their self surrounded him. His monastery was one of the biggest monasteries in Japan.

Sekiso, a Zen poet, has written:

YOU CLIMB MOUNT HIEI ON

LADDERS OF CLOUD;

I WALK OUT OF KYOTO WITH

A BAMBOO STICK –

A THOUSAND MILES APART

LIKE THE STARS OF THE NORTH.

THIS IS OUR ONE CHANCE TO REMIND

EACH OTHER THAT WE ARE FRIENDS.

He is saying, it does not matter in what century, in what place you become enlightened. The moment you become enlightened, you become contemporary to all the enlightened ones of the past and the future. There is a kind of brotherhood of those who reach to the ultimate peak of awakening.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked a question:

BELOVED OSHO,

IN THE LIFE OF A DISCIPLE IS THERE A POINT OF NO RETURN?

Maneesha, I will have to explain to you. There are three categories which you can find around the master: the student, which is the shallowest – he has come to accumulate some knowledge; he will never go inside; he will simply take notes, become a great scholar, knowledgeable – the second is the disciple who does not accumulate the knowledge but practices it, finding out whether it has any truth in it or not – ”Is this only a philosophy or an authentic spiritual experience?” – and the third is the devotee who has become one with the master.

Your question is, IN THE LIFE OF A DISCIPLE IS THERE A POINT OF NO RETURN? In the life of a devotee there is a point of no return, but a disciple can go back. A disciple is still separate from the master. A disciple still keeps a certain distance; in fact he is afraid to come too close. A master is fire. Coming too close means to be burned, burned the way you are; all that is false will be burned and only the pure gold will remain. The disciple keeps himself a little faraway.

The student is absolutely faraway. He has nothing to do with the master; he just has to collect fragments of knowledge and go on his way. The disciple is in between the student and the devotee.

The disciple can go away, but the devotee has merged himself in the fire. The Upanishads say that the master is a death: to come too close to him you will have to die as you are. Of course you will be reborn; the Upanishadic statement is only half, the master is a death and a resurrection. But one has to have much courage to die. You never know whether you will be resurrected or not. A great trust is needed that this death is the death of the superficial and the false, and when the false and the superficial have died, there will arise your true individuality, your twenty-four carat gold. So your question is right about the devotee, Maneesha, but not about the disciple.

Now something serious...

Fred Frump walks into the pub and orders a beer and a whiskey. He drinks the beer, and then pours the whiskey into the top pocket of his coat.

”Give me another beer, and another whiskey,” says Fred, wiping his lips.

The bartender does, and the same thing happens. Fred drinks the beer, and dumps the whiskey into his coat pocket. This goes on several more times, and finally the puzzled bartender asks, ”Hey, what’s the big idea?”

”None of your business,” says Fred, drunkenly. ”And don’t be so nosey – or I will punch you in the nose!”

Just then, a mouse pops his head out of Fred’s coat pocket and shouts, ”And that also goes for your goddam cat!”

Chester and Betty Cheese are having some trouble with their sex life. Betty always has a headache when Chester wants to make love. So Chester sends her to Doctor Feelgood, the psychiatrist, for treatment.

”It is simple to cure,” says the shrink. ”Whenever you feel a headache coming on, just sit on the edge of your bed, and repeat over and over, ‘I have not got a headache, I have not got a headache.’”

Betty is doubtful about this, but the very next night, she sits on the edge of her bed, and tries it out.

And it works. So for the next few weeks there is sexual harmony in the Cheese household.

But then, Chester gets a problem. He can’t get his machinery hard anymore. So Betty sends him to Doctor Feelgood.

And sure enough, for the next few weeks there is no stopping Chester – he has got the strength of a bull.

But he has one new habit, which annoys Betty. Every night, he insists on going to the bedroom ten minutes before her.

So, one night, she sneaks upstairs behind Chester, and looks through the keyhole. There is Chester, sitting on the edge of the bed, repeating over and over, ”She is not my wife....”

Pope the Polack and Cardinal Rump are having a terrible argument in the pope’s private chambers.

The noise and screaming is so bad that half of the Vatican comes to put their ears to the door, to listen to what is going on.

”Just DROP DEAD!” screams Cardinal Rump.

”Go to HELL!” cries the Polack, at full volume.

”KISS MY ASS!” shouts back the cardinal.

”Oh!” says the Pope with surprise. ”So now you want to be friends!”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes, feel your body to be completely frozen. And now look inwards with absolute urgency as if this moment is the last moment of your life.

Go deeper – the center is not far away – just one single step. Deeper and deeper because at the center you are the buddha. At the center your lotus blossoms, you feel for the first time blessed, blessed just to be, for no reason at all.

The greatest experience of life is to experience your buddhahood, and buddhahood simply means witnessing. Watch your body, watch your mind and remember you are neither. You are just a pure witness, a mirror in which everything reflects.

Clouds come and go, months come and go. Eternity is your nature, only you remain; everything moves from death to birth, from birth to death – just a circle of movement, but within the circle the center is absolutely immobile. To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Just watch the body, the mind and be only a witness. You are not supposed to do anything.

Just be a witness. A mirror does not do anything when it reflects you. Just be a mirror-like witness.

The evening was beautiful on its own. But the ten thousand buddhas disappearing into a silent witnessing have made it very golden.

So many flowers start showering on you, so much joy that you have never known before. Such serenity, such beauty as you have never dreamt about. But it is your nature.

Collect as many flowers, as much fragrance as you can before Nivedano calls you back. You have to bring your buddhahood with you from the center to the circumference. You have to constantly remember in your actions, words, silences that you are a buddha. And this will become the greatest possibility of transformation, from mortality into immortality, from the false to the true.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back. But come back as buddhas, with the same grace, with the same silence, without any hurry. Sit down for a few moments just to recollect the space you have been in, the path that you have traveled forward and backward. This is the track that you have to continuously move on. The deeper this track becomes, the more your buddhahood becomes clear. I don’t want anybody to be a Buddhist. I want everybody to be a buddha.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 5

Sit in the center of the circle

9 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, NANSEN TOLD TWO OF HIS DISCIPLES THAT HE WAS GOING TO TAKE THEM WITH

HIM TO VISIT THE NATIONAL TEACHER. BUT BEFORE THEY STARTED OUT ON THEIR

JOURNEY, NANSEN DREW A CIRCLE ON THE ROAD AND SAID, ”AS SOON AS YOU GIVE

A RIGHT ANSWER, WE WILL BE ON OUR WAY.”

AT THAT, ONE OF THE DISCIPLES SAT DOWN INSIDE THE CIRCLE AND THE OTHER

BOWED LIKE A WOMAN. NANSEN SAID, ”JUDGING FROM THIS RESPONSE, IT WILL NOT

BE NECESSARY TO GO.”

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, NANSEN WAS WASHING HIS CLOTHES WHEN A MONK CAME

ACROSS HIM. SEEING HIM INVOLVED IN SUCH AN ACTIVITY, THE MONK EXCLAIMED,

”MASTER, YOU STILL ARE NOT FREE FROM ‘THIS’?”

NANSEN, LIFTING UP THE WET CLOTHES, COMMENTED, ”WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT

‘THIS’?”

Maneesha, before I discuss your sutras I have to inaugurate Avirbhava’s new arrivals for the museum of gods. This museum will show to the world how man has been insane. He has worshipped the animals and killed human beings. It is so idiotic that future generations will simply laugh. They could not possibly understand.

In Australia the white man killed almost all the natives of Australia. They used to call it hunting; just as you go hunting animals, they used to go hunting men. And by the evening they would ask each other how many they had killed. And they never thought for a moment that what they were doing was absolutely insane.

They have done the same with animals. They have worshipped animals on one hand and they have killed and destroyed many species. There have been thousands of species of animals; many have not left even a trace behind. Man has hunted them, killed them. This world used to be more alive, more colorful. It has become almost dead by our own hands; our hands are full of blood.

Just twenty years ago there were only four white lions left in the world. In a small town, Rewa, in India, where Narendra was a professor – because Narendra was a professor there, he invited me to speak – there used to be thousands of white, pure white, lions; their majesty was tremendous. Only four were left, and now I hear two of them have died. The other two may die any day. Because the remaining two are both males, there is no possibility of any children. Slowly slowly, many species have simply disappeared.

The lion used to be the national animal in India, but we have killed so many that they are almost finished. The Indian parliament had to change it; now the tiger is the national animal. The tiger cannot be compared to the lion. There has never been any animal comparable to the lion, its majesty, its power, its strength. But we have killed them. They were not doing any harm to us. They were living in the mountains, in the forest.

Avirbhava has brought a tiger and a lion. I will give you a little note about each.

The Tiger.

In Hanoi the tiger is worshipped as a god. In Sumatra the tiger is represented as the abode of the souls of the dead.

In many countries, there are superstitions and beliefs surrounding the tiger. In Mirzapur, Bagheswar, the tiger god is located in a bira tree and is said to take human form at night and to call out to people by name. Beware those who answer the call: they fall sick. In Greece, Dionysius’ chariot is drawn by a tiger. In Japan, the tiger denotes courage. In Nepal, there is a tiger festival, known as Bagh Jatra, in which the worshippers dance disguised as tigers. In India, Durga, the destroyer mother goddess, rides a tiger, and Shiva, as destroyer, also sometimes wears a tiger skin.

There is a belief in India that a garden in which a tiger has been killed loses its fertility. The fangs, claws and whiskers of a tiger are used in love charms, and as measures against possession by evil spirits.

In China, the tiger is the king of the beasts and lord of the land animals. It sometimes depicts authority, courage, military prowess and the fierceness needed for protection.

If you look at this psychologically, the tiger and lion are really worshipped symbolically. The worship of tiger and lion says simply that you worship power – just as there are worshippers of money. In India each year on the festivals particularly on Deepavali, the festival of lights, money is worshipped as god – just notes and coins! And we call these people intelligent! These mediocres who have been worshipping money... because if you worship money, the goddess of wealth, Laxmi, will pour down money on your house. It has never happened. Money neither grows on trees, nor is it simply dropped on the roof of your house. But still the festival goes on.

In my childhood I refused to sit while they were worshipping money. I said it was so insane that even a child could see it. Money is dead, just a method of exchanging things; it has no divinity. But the fear is that if you don’t worship, then Laxmi may turn back from your home. She may be coming just to shower money and you are not worshipping; she may turn back.

I asked my father, ”Have you ever heard that she has showered money? Just a single case will be enough to convince me.”

He said, ”On that point I cannot say anything because it has never happened.”

But the lust, the desire for money, for more money, has made even money a god, a dead thing, without any meaning. The same is the case with lions and tigers, because they represent strength and power. Everybody is hankering for power: power to dominate others, to become a prime minister, to become a president, to become a king or a queen. A deep desire in everyone is to conquer the whole world.

Not only is Alexander the Great sick, everybody is. Alexander was stupid enough to bring his sickness into activity. Most of the Alexanders keep it hidden inside themselves; but the desire to conquer the world is there.

When Alexander was coming to India, he met on the way the most beautiful man Greece has ever produced, Diogenes. Diogenes asked Alexander, ”What will you do if you conquer the world? Let us assume it for argument’s sake. Even if you conquer the world what are you going to do next?”

Alexander said, ”I have never given thought to it, but I assume that I will then relax and rest.”

Diogenes was resting by the side of a river, taking a sunbath naked. He laughed and he said, ”If after conquering the whole world, massacring millions of people, you are just going to relax, why not relax now? This bank of the river is big enough. We both can reside here. It will be good company.”

Alexander was first very much shocked because nobody had ever talked to him the way Diogenes talked. But he had to concede that, ”You are right. If after conquering the world one is just going to rest and relax, then why not rest and relax now? Who knows whether I will be able to conquer the world or not?”

And that’s what happened. He could not complete his conquest of the world. He returned just from the frontiers of India by the side of Sindhu river. He fought with a king named Poras, a man of tremendous courage and honesty, representative of the golden days of humanity.

Alexander tried cunning on Poras. He knew perfectly well it was not easy to conquer that man. So he sent his wife to Poras. It was the month of sawan, when in India sisters bind a thread on the hand of the brothers. It is called raksha bandhan. That thread reminds the brother that he has to protect his sister in every circumstance; even if he has to stake his own life, he will; that is a promise. And after binding the thread on Poras’ hand she said, ”Do you know who I am? I am the wife of your enemy, Alexander, who is camping on the other side of the Sindhu river. Now remember and keep the thread on your hand. Do whatever you want to do, but don’t kill my husband.”

Poras promised. This was a strange strategy. But when fighting, Poras had the chance, when he killed Alexander’s horse and Alexander fell on the earth and Poras jumped on him from his elephant with a spear. But as he was going to put the spear into the chest of Alexander, he saw the thread.

He simply stopped. Alexander asked, ”What has happened?”

He said, ”I have given your wife a promise. She has become my sister. I cannot kill you.”

That way Alexander became the conqueror. This is not conquest. This is pure cunningness. And from there he returned. Seeing the way Poras behaved, he did not have the guts to enter deeper into India, because he would have to face more, courageous, great warriors, and there was a whole continent to conquer. So he turned back, the world remained unconquered and he died by coincidence the same day as Diogenes died.

Now here is a beautiful story. It cannot be said to be factual, but it is certainly truthful. And you always have to make a distinction between fact and truth. Truth need not always be fact, even a fiction can have a truth.

The story is, they both met on the boundary line of this world and paradise. There is a river which makes the boundary line. Ahead was Alexander, nude, because you cannot take anything with you, just a skeleton. Suddenly he heard a belly laugh behind him. He looked back and he could not believe it. He thought, ”My God, this is Diogenes.”

But to keep his face, he said to Diogenes, ”It is a great coincidence that an emperor is meeting a beggar by this river which is the boundary line of the world and paradise.” He was saying that, ”I am the emperor and you are the beggar.”

Diogenes said, ”You are absolutely right. But there is some misunderstanding. The beggar is ahead of me and the emperor is behind you. I was as free when I was on the earth. I had no possessions, no power, no prestige. I simply enjoyed my life in utter freedom without bothering about what people say. You were concerned about conquering the world, so you had to compromise, you had to give thousands of concessions of all kinds, you had to be cunning, diplomatic. You were a beggar there too, and here now you are still a beggar. I was an emperor there also. Nobody ever challenged my emperorhood and I told you – have you forgotten? – that your conquest may not be completed and you may not have time to rest and relax. Now, what have you to say about it?”

Alexander said, ”Forgive me, I was too egoistic. Had I listened to you and rested by your side, at least a few years would have been of joy, silence, meditation, peace, love. But I did not listen to you.”

There are thousands of ways of getting into this trip of power, politics, money, knowledge, anything where man starts bragging about himself as special.

The psychology behind this worshipping of tigers and lions symbolizes the worship of power. So man on the one hand worshipped them and on the other hand killed them. I was a guest of the Maharaja of Bhavnagar. He took me around his palace. And I saw all over the palace hundreds of heads of lions hanging on the walls or the full lion stuffed standing in the corridors. I said, ”Who has done this?”

He said, ”My father was a great hunter. He has killed more lions than anybody else in India.”

I said, ”You call it hunting. And if a lion had killed your father, what would you have called it? A disaster. You would not call it hunting. And what is this hunting? From far away sitting on a tree with a machine gun, a poor animal with no arms to defend himself or to fight... killing him and rejoicing in this killing!”

I told the Maharaja, ”Your father must have been mad. Are you still continuing this madness? These things come as a heritage. I see in your eyes while you are showing me all this nonsense a great pride, as if your father had done some good to humanity. You should be ashamed of being the son of a man who unnecessarily destroyed such beautiful animals.”

A note about the lions.

Universally the lion is known as the king of beasts, and in several countries is worshipped as a symbol of the sun, and that of a destroyer. In Baalbek, the lion was worshipped as a god. A calf would be presented to the lion and while it was devouring the calf, adoring spectators would sing songs of praise to the lion. In Persia, Mythras, the Persian god of light, was always accompanied by a lion, and the Arabs had a lion-god, Yaghuth. In Egypt, there was a lion-headed goddess, Sekhmet.

And the ancient Egyptian god, Ammit, was part lion and was believed to eat the souls of the sinful.

In modern Africa there is a lion-idol among the Balondas. It is made of grass covered in clay and is placed in the forest. In case of sickness, prayers are offered and drums beaten before it.

In India, the fourth incarnation of Vishnu, was as the man-lion, called Narasinha – half man, half lion.

It is good to be conscious of how humanity has been behaving unconsciously. It is good to know the ugly spots of man’s behavior because then you can avoid much ugliness in your life, and your energy can move in more graceful, in more loving, in more compassionate ways.

Avirbhava, bring your tiger and lion.

(IN COME AVIRBHAVA IN A LION COSTUME, AND ANANDO IN A TIGER COSTUME, DANCING

AROUND THE PODIUM. )

The sutra:

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, NANSEN TOLD TWO OF HIS DISCIPLES THAT HE WAS GOING TO TAKE THEM WITH

HIM TO VISIT THE NATIONAL TEACHER.

In those days, particularly in Japan, a certain Zen master was declared as the National Master of Zen. There were so many masters, but the National Master was attached to the palace of the king.

And all the masters used to meet the National Master. Most probably he was old and well respected, a man who had helped many people to become enlightened. Nansen was enlightened; with his two disciples he was going to visit the National Teacher.

BUT BEFORE THEY STARTED OUT ON THEIR JOURNEY – this is how Nansen worked. He is unique in his devices. BUT BEFORE THEY STARTED OUT ON THEIR JOURNEY, NANSEN DREW

A CIRCLE ON THE ROAD AND SAID, ”AS SOON AS YOU GIVE A RIGHT ANSWER, WE WILL

BE ON OUR WAY.” Now, drawing a circle on the road, what answer can you give?

But the disciples did certainly the best that was possible. AT THAT, ONE OF THE DISCIPLES

SAT DOWN INSIDE THE CIRCLE AND THE OTHER BOWED LIKE A WOMAN. NANSEN SAID,

”JUDGING FROM THIS RESPONSE, IT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY TO GO.” In fact he was not intending to go anywhere, this was just his strange way of working. But the answers that the disciples managed are tremendously beautiful.

First, one disciple sat down in the center of the circle. That is the whole effort of all religion, to be at the center of your being. At the center of your being you are at the center of the whole universe.

That is the only shrine, the only temple. The door is at the very center of your being; you are only a circumference.

And the other bowed down to the disciple who was sitting in the center. In Japan the woman behaves in a very graceful way. The man is not expected to have that much grace. But the woman is expected to be very graceful. So the other bowed like a woman; with great grace he bowed down to the disciple who was sitting at the center. He also showed some insight that, unless you bow down to somebody who is at the center of his being, in great humbleness, with great peace, with totality, with love, with receptivity, which are all the qualities of the woman, you can never reach to your own center.

Seeing this NANSEN SAID, ”JUDGING FROM THIS RESPONSE, IT WILL NOT BE NECESSARY

TO GO.” The journey is cancelled because you both understand exactly the very process of how one becomes religious.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, NANSEN WAS WASHING HIS CLOTHES WHEN A MONK CAME

ACROSS HIM. SEEING HIM INVOLVED IN SUCH AN ACTIVITY, THE MONK EXCLAIMED,

”MASTER, YOU ARE STILL NOT FREE FROM ‘THIS’?” The word ‘this’ has a special significance for the fellow-travelers of Gautam Buddha.

Gautam Buddha insisted on the ‘thisness’ of things. You become old and you complain, and Buddha will say, ”There is no need to complain. This is the way nature works.”

Even if you are dying, he will not show any sympathy. On the contrary he will show his understanding.

He will tell you, ”Don’t be worried. Die peacefully; everything that is born one day dies. Take death with graceful receptivity, no grudge, no complaint. Life should be without any grudge and without any complaint; so should death be. The word that he used was tathata. It can be translated in English as thisness or suchness. Such is the way of life, or this is the way of life; there is nothing to complain of; you cannot go against the current, just float with it. This is the right way: such is the way of those who know.

Although Nansen was washing his clothes when the monk came across him, seeing him involved in such an ordinary activity – a great master with thousands of disciples is washing clothes? – THE

MONK EXCLAIMED, ”MASTER, YOU STILL ARE NOT FREE FROM ‘THIS’?” Nansen was always ready to use any situation to give a greater insight into things. The monk was pointing to the washing saying, ”It is time you should be free from all these small things, anybody else can do it.” But Nansen transformed the word ‘this’ immediately.

NANSEN, LIFTING UP THE WET CLOTHES, COMMENTED, ”WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT

‘THIS’?” The whole episode about washing the clothes changes its very color, its very meaning.

It becomes a question of thisness. You cannot do anything about this. ‘This’ means the present moment. You can think about the past, that it could have been something else; you could think about the future, how it should be; but what can you do about the present moment? What can you do about this? In the present moment one can do only one thing, only one thing: one can simply be silent and witness. More than that... there is not space enough in the present moment.

But the witness fits perfectly well. You can watch. The master is saying, ”I am washing the clothes and watching. What more can be done with this?” Secondly he is also indicating... And this was one of the new things that he introduced; I have called it a point of great departure: he made Zen monks work. ”If you don’t work one day, then another day you don’t eat. Work today, only then are you allowed to eat tomorrow.”

It was very new and the society was very angry at Nansen because monks had always been given their food, their clothes and other comforts by society. Nansen told the monks that you have not to be beggars. He was a very revolutionary character. Buddhist monks carry a begging bowl; Nansen forced his monks to throw away all begging bowls. In his monastery no begging bowl, because in his monastery there are only emperors, no beggars!

”We will work it out, our necessities are very simple: a cup or two cups of tea, just rice for food, and we have enough land around the monastery; just three, four hours work and transform the work into meditation. While working, work so totally that you forget the whole world, so that only the work remains, not even you; you are also gone, forgotten. So deep down you are involved in the work that the work becomes a great meditation, a great transformation.”

So he introduced a new thing. Buddha had introduced a sitting and walking meditation, because you cannot sit the whole day and meditate; your bones will start hurting. So he had given a one-hour-sitting and one-hour-walking meditation, so the balance and the health of the meditator could be maintained.

Nansen said, ”A few hours of sitting meditation and a few hours of working meditation.” He dropped the walking meditation. When you can work what is the need of walking? The working will be enough exercise for you, it will also be productive and it will change the face of the sannyasin. He should not be a parasite on society; he should become independent.

He saw that far away in the future the problem was going to be great. Just a few years back in Thailand the government had to make a law that nobody could become a monk without government permission. The monks had increased on such a large scale that for every four persons one was a monk. Now the other three have to carry the whole burden of the one, and the three themselves are on the edge of starvation. Thailand is a poor country, but this man does nothing, contributes nothing to the society and asks for everything, asks for respect, honor.

Nansen must have been very clear that the way monks were increasing in the Far East, they would soon overrun ordinary society. It would be impossible to feed them; they would lose all respect and become near beggars. His foresight was absolutely right. That is the situation in many Buddhist countries.

So this small incident not only shows the idea of thisness. It also shows that, ”I have to work. It does not matter that I am enlightened, I have to wash my clothes and I have to work in the field for my food.”

When he became very old, he insisted on working. And he was so old and fragile, the disciples became very much concerned. At a certain point they stole all his working tools. Nansen looked for his tools but could not find them. He did not eat on that day; the poor disciples had to give his tools back. He worked till the very last moment of his life. He raised the value of work, and he raised the respectability of the sannyasin. He brought many new ideas against, in opposition to the whole tradition.

Finally he was the winner because he foresaw the future. A man of enlightenment has a perceptivity, a clarity that can look far away into the future. And if you want to prepare for the future you have to begin now.

I am reminded of a Sufi mystic who used to work in his garden and he had become very old, almost ancient, one hundred and twenty years old; but he still used to work in the garden. The king used to come every day around the town in disguise to see if everything was all right. He was very much concerned looking at this old man, the oldest in his kingdom, still working in the field, in the garden.

He could not resist the temptation. The old man had a really beautiful garden with great cedar trees, perhaps four hundred years old and he was planting new cedar trees, just small plants. The king could not resist the temptation; he got down from his horse, went to the old man and asked him,

”How old are you?”

The man said, ”Old? People say that I must be nearabout one hundred and twenty. But I have never counted. It could be a little more, it could be a little less. But why do you ask?”

The king said, ”I am asking this because you are planting trees. You will not be able to see these trees grow. You are planting fruit trees which will bring fruit after forty or fifty years. You will not be here. And you work the whole day. I cannot understand your logic.”

The old man said, ”You will understand. If my parents had not planted trees which they were not going to see in their full bloom, I would not have seen them. I would not have enjoyed the fruits of those trees. I would not have seen these four-hundred-year-old cedars almost reaching to the stars, their beauty and strength. If my forefathers four hundred years ago had not planted them, I would not have been able to enjoy their shadow, their beauty, their grandeur. Have I to answer more or have you understood?”

The king said humbly, ”I understand. If you see clearly the future, then this is the moment to begin, now or never.”

A poem by Sekiso:

IN THESE MOUNTAIN VILLAGES

AND HARBOR TOWNS

I’M HAPPY TO HAVE FOUND

GOOD COMPANY,

A CROWD OF FISHERMEN

IN AND OUT OF MY HUT THE WHOLE TIME.

SINCE I HAVE NEVER HELD OUT THE LEAST

THING BY WAY OF BAIT

I’VE MANAGED NOT TO BETRAY

THE FISH WHO HAVE APPROACHED

AT THE RISK OF THEIR LIVES.

It is said about Sekiso that he lived in a hut in a fishermen’s village. He had a hut just by the side of the lake, and whenever he used to come to the lake hundreds of fish would come to greet him. Just as it is said about Saint Francis of Assisi, so it was about Sekiso.

And in this poem he is saying, SINCE I HAVE NEVER HELD OUT THE LEAST THING BY WAY

OF BAIT I’VE MANAGED NOT TO BETRAY THE FISH WHO HAVE APPROACHED AT THE RISK

OF THEIR LIVES. The fish who used to approach him were approaching at the risk of their lives.

But it happens if your heart is full of love. If your whole being is nonviolent so that you cannot even imagine killing a living thing, even trees understand it, even birds understand it, animals understand it.

And in a deeper sense, if you make it a metaphorical expression, then every master is approached by thousands of disciples risking their lives. It is possible only if the master radiates trust, if the master radiates love, if you can see in the eyes of the master nothing but a pure witness, a mirror.

Otherwise you cannot approach too close to the master; you will keep at a distance, because, who knows, he may cheat you, he may deceive you.

But with the authentic master it is not a question of mental discrimination. It is just that suddenly as you come close to the authentic master, something in your heart starts dancing. Nobody will see it; only, you will find that your heart has entered into a different kind of energy, that your heart has entered into a different climate, a new fragrance which pulls you magnetically.

It is true that the closer you come to the master, the more and more your so-called personality will disappear. Only that which is authentic and natural, that which you had brought from your birth will remain, not that which has been given to you by the society.

It is true that the master is a death and a resurrection. Passing through the master, you are passing through fire; only pure gold will be saved. All that is false in you is going to be burned. So only very courageous people take the step of coming close to a master.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked a question:

BELOVED OSHO,

IS IT CONCEIVABLE THAT A REAL MASTER COULD BETRAY HIS DISCIPLES?

Maneesha, it is conceivable. If the real master feels that by betraying the disciples he will be helping them, he will betray. The real master can do anything to help the disciple. It is a little difficult to conceive it – and while Maneesha was writing the question, she could not have thought that this would be my answer – but a real master can do anything. He can betray if he feels that betraying is going to help your spiritual growth. Otherwise there is no question of betraying.

In the first place the master is not committed to you. Before betraying a commitment is needed.

A real master never commits himself to you and never forces you to commit, because every commitment is a spiritual slavery. Neither is the disciple forced to commitment nor is the master; they come close as fellow-travelers on the same path. Perhaps the master is a little ahead, but that does not mean that you are lower and he is higher.

Anyone who thinks in terms of superiority and inferiority is not a master at all. He is just playing the same ego game which is being played in every place around the world in different ways. The authentic master is out of the game of ego. So there is no question of surrendering to him, no question of committing to him.

You are asking, ”Can a real master betray the disciple?” and I am even saying that a disciple cannot betray a real master because there is no commitment. We move together on the path.

At a certain point you feel to move in a different direction. An authentic master will simply bless you and will give you assurance that if you find any difficulty, ”I am always available. You can explore in any direction, this whole universe is ours. And there are thousands of ways to reach to the truth. So if a desire has arisen in you to move in a certain direction, you can leave me. Don’t think for a single moment that you are betraying me. Don’t feel guilty because there was no commitment in the first place.”

And as far as the master is concerned, obviously, why should he be committed to the disciples? For what reason? He has it. The disciple is searching, he has found it.

It reminds me of a very beautiful story in Gautam Buddha’s life.

A certain disciple of Gautam Buddha, named Manjushri, always remained sitting under a tree.

Buddha may be going to speak but he will not move from the tree to the assembly hall. And people asked him again and again, ”Manjushri, you are a man of intelligence. If you have renounced the world to be with Gautam Buddha, is your commitment with Gautam Buddha or with this tree? He is speaking and you are sitting here.” More often he will simply laugh and will not say anything. Finally he said, ”Why don’t you ask Gautam Buddha himself? I know, he knows.”

The people who were asking could not see the mystery of it. They asked Gautam Buddha, ”Why does Manjushri go on sitting under that tree? You move, you go to different places, but he remains there.”

Buddha said, ”He has found. Now there is no question of any movement. Everything has become still in him and it is perfectly beautiful. You have only seen him from the outside sitting under the tree. You have not seen thousands of flowers falling from the tree over Manjushri rejoicing in his enlightenment.

”And you never wondered why Buddha does not ask him. You should have thought about it. Be a little more alert. I am also aware that he is sitting under the tree, that he does not come to the assemblies. There is no need; he has found it. Now he is free; he can sit under the tree or he can go anywhere. There is no commitment.”

An authentic master has no commitment of any kind either from the disciple’s side or from his own side. That is ninety-nine point nine percent of the answer; point one percent, I say a real master in a certain situation could betray his disciples if he feels, if he sees that his betrayal may help the growth, may make the disciple more free, more independent. The possibility is there; it is not inconceivable.

But it will always be for the welfare of the disciple.

Now something serious in honor of the lion and the tiger...

Old Gronk, the hunchback, is about to retire. He has been ringing the huge bell of Trinity Cathedral for forty years, and he is getting too old to make the long climb up the bell tower steps.

He advertises for a replacement in the newspaper, and the next day another hunchback appears.

”I’ve come,” says the young hunchback, ”to take the job.”

Both hunchbacks make the long climb up into the bell tower.

”It is a tough job,” gasps old Gronk, puffing. ”Watch this!”

Then the old hunchback runs back, turns, and races towards the bell rope. He leaps twenty feet in the air, catches hold of the rope, and swinging wildly on it, rings the giant, thunderous bell – Clang!

Clang! Clang!

The young hunchback watches this and is eager to try. He backs up, sprints towards the bell rope, leaps twenty feet in the air, misses the rope, and smashes his face against the side of the bell, making a small ‘Ding’ sound.

”Wait! Wait!” says the young hunchback, dusting himself off. ”Let me try again.”

He runs, leaps twenty feet into the air, misses the rope, and again smashes his face into the bell –

Ding!

”Wait! One more try!” splutters the battered, young hunchback.

He runs all the way back into the corner of the bell tower, and with full speed, lunges towards the bell rope. He jumps thirty feet in the air, misses the rope, misses the bell, and sails out of the window, two hundred feet to the street below.

Old Gronk looks down at the small crowd gathered around a tiny blotch on the ground.

”Hey, up there!” shouts a police constable. ”Does anybody know who this guy is?”

”No, I don’t know who he is!” Gronk shouts back, ”but his face rings a bell!”

”How can you possibly say that I am absent-minded?” blinks Ronald Reagan at Nancy Reagan across the breakfast table, while he spreads butter on his tie, and looks at his toast.

”Well, Ronnie,” inquires Nancy, ”can you explain to me why you forgot to put your pants on yesterday, before you went to meet Mr. Gorbachev?”

”Meet Mr. who? Did I do that?” asks Reagan, scratching his head. ”How odd! I don’t remember doing that at all. ”In fact, there are only three things I can’t remember. I can’t remember names, I can’t remember faces... and I can’t remember what the third thing is!”

Mrs. Wimple, the headmistress of Bedding Down College, the all-girls’ boarding school, is giving her final speech of the year to the graduating class.

”Remember, girls,” says Mrs. Wimple, stiffly, ”keep your body and mind healthy and clean. You have a new responsibility as you enter womanhood. Love is the base on which the family is built, so don’t cast yourselves away to loose and wanton sex. Only dangers will come from it, and its pleasures are only transient. While you lose grace and respectability, you may gain disease and pregnancy...

and all for what? An hour’s worth of pleasure!”

Suddenly, a voice from the back shouts out, ”How do you make it last an hour?”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes and feel your body to be completely frozen. Now look inwards with deep urgency, as if this is the last moment of your life. This urgency is absolutely needed because only then can you reach to the center of your being.

Deeper and deeper like a spear go to the center of your being. That is the source of life. At the center of your being everybody is a buddha. And the moment you reach to the center and you feel the buddhahood filling your consciousness completely, a tremendous joy arises. Thousands of flowers start showering on you. A serenity, a silence, a blissfulness, a deep ecstasy... just watch everything. You are entering into the very mystery of life.

To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are only the witness. This witness is the point of departure. From this witness you can enter into the universal, into the eternal. This is the door to all that is great – the truth, the beauty, the good – satyam, shivam, sundram.

Gather as many flowers, as much fragrance, as much gold as possible, because you have to bring the buddha with you. Slowly slowly, you have to act around the clock as a buddha; not as if, but authentically a buddha, remembering the grace, the love, the compassion, remembering the balance of everything and always remaining in the middle, the golden mean. Witnessing makes all this possible.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but your presence, your silence, your witnessing, your melting into each other... This Buddha Auditorium is no more filled with ten thousand people. It has become just a lake of consciousness.

Losing the boundaries is the greatest joy; melting into the universe is the greatest splendor.

Before I call you back, have a good look at this space where you are, because you have to visit this space again and again.

Take a good look at the path you have followed to reach to your center from the circumference. The same path, you will be traveling again coming back. It is a small path, just one step. But what a miracle in a single step! The ordinary becomes extraordinary, the nobody becomes a buddha.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but come back as buddhas without any fear and without any doubt. The buddha is your essential self. Sit down silently for a few moments just to recollect the experience you have gone through. And live it out in your gestures, in your activities, in your words, in your silences.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 6

All your seriousness is about sandcastles

10 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ON ONE OCCASION, NANSEN SAID TO JOSHU, ”NOWADAYS, IT IS BEST TO LIVE AND WORK

AMONG MEMBERS OF A DIFFERENT SPECIES FROM US.”

JOSHU REPLIED, ”LEAVING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF ‘DIFFERENT’ LET ME ASK YOU, WHAT

DO YOU MEAN BY ‘SPECIES’?”

NANSEN PUT HIS HANDS ON THE GROUND. JOSHU WALKED TOWARDS NANSEN FROM

BEHIND, TRAMPLING HIM INTO THE GROUND, AND THEN RAN INTO THE NIRVANA HALL, CRYING, ”I REPENT! I REPENT!”

NANSEN SENT HIS ATTENDANT TO ASK JOSHU WHAT HE WAS REPENTING FOR. JOSHU

REPLIED, ”I REPENT THAT I DID NOT TRAMPLE HIM TWICE OVER.”

Maneesha, Zen alone has a religious approach of playfulness, of laughter. Even the great masters play with each other, with their words, with their actions and their gestures. But all this play is always indicative of the eternal and the ultimate. Behind their laughter you will find a great serenity, a tremendous peace. Their laughter is not hysterical.

And you have to understand the difference between these two laughters. Hysterical laughter is when you cannot stop it, when it has taken possession of you; and non-hysterical laughter is... it is your will, it is with your agreement. The moment Nivedano’s drum gives you a signal that it is time to stop, you stop it. The hysterical person will not be able to stop; it is beyond his capacity. Sane laughter is always within your hands.

Secondly, Zen masters playing with each other indicate something that cannot be said. Their disciples discuss for centuries these small anecdotes of tremendous beauty and grandeur. They are not jokes. The West, when for the first time it came in contact with Zen through the Christian missionaries, thought that these were some kind of joke. They could not conceive that these small anecdotes could carry scriptures.

This one is between Nansen and Joshu, both recognized buddhas with thousands of disciples. And it was not an extraordinary event, it was an everyday thing. Their monasteries were in the mountains, very close to each other and the masters would come to meet each other.

Their very playfulness shows one thing absolutely, that existence has not to be taken seriously.

Those who take it seriously are psychically sick. Existence has to be taken playfully, with a joy. Only for those who take it with joy and playfulness does existence open its mysteries.

In this anecdote: ON ONE OCCASION, NANSEN SAID TO JOSHU, ”NOWADAYS, IT IS BEST TO

LIVE AND WORK AMONG MEMBERS OF A DIFFERENT SPECIES FROM US,” he was saying that man has become too serious, has lost his playfulness, has become so knowledgeable he has lost his innocence. Hence it is better to mix with other species: birds and fish, other animals and trees, to have the whole universe as your commune, not just human beings who have gone too astray.

The roseflower is exactly the same as it has always been; the changes of time have not affected it.

Nansen is saying that it is time now that Zen disciples should spend their time more and more in contact with animals, birds, trees.

It is a very significant statement. He is saying that perhaps you can learn the secret of existence through species other than man; they are still in tune with existence, they are still part of existence, they have never separated.

Man in his egoistic effort has separated from existence. Even a man like Bertrand Russell could write a book calling it, THE CONQUEST OF NATURE. The very idea of conquering nature separates you, makes nature and you enemies. And one thing is certain, that nature is so vast....

Secondly, you are also part of nature; if nature stops cooperating with you, you will simply be dead.

Nature is supplying you every moment: breathing, food, all that you need. How can you think in terms of conquest? But nobody has objected to Bertrand Russell’s book, because it is representative of the whole modern mind: conquer. Conquer the moon, conquer Mars, conquer this, conquer that.

But nobody thinks that we are part of nature: why not relax with it, why not be at ease with it, what is the need of creating a conflict? Every conflict is going to defeat you because you are too small and nature is so vast. How many years are you going to live – seventy years, eighty years? And you think of conquering existence which has been here since eternity and is going to be here until eternity? Millions of people like you have come and gone, not even footprints are left, not even their shadows.

Once I asked my father, ”I know your father’s name and your grandfather’s name, how many more do you know?”

He said, ”Only one more, beyond that we don’t know who were the people whose blood is running in our veins.”

At the most we remember four or five generations, and then there is a vast silence. All those people who were here with so much concern and anxiety and trouble and fight have simply disappeared as if they had never been.

Zen does not take your life very seriously, it takes it playfully as if we were children playing by the seabeach, collecting seashells, colored stones, making houses of sand. Our life is not more than that; it is nothing to be serious about.

I am reminded of an occasion: Gautam Buddha is entering a village. On the boundary there is a river, and in the sand a few children are playing, making castles of sand, and they were very serious.

If somebody – there were many children – if somebody disturbed somebody’s castle... It is very easy to disturb a sandcastle, just throw a stone at it and it is gone. They were shouting and being angry at each other, and Buddha stood there, watching. Then it was time for the sun to set and their mothers called them from nearby houses, ‘Come back home, it is time for your supper.’ And they all jumped on their own castles, the ones they had made and for which they were fighting that nobody should disturb them. They jumped on their own castles and never looked back, simply went home.

Buddha said to his disciples who were with him, ”Life is not much more than this.”

All your seriousness is about sandcastles. And you yourself will leave them one day, trampling them down, and you will not look back. The people who take it seriously miss the beauty of playfulness.

This incident: ON ONE OCCASION, NANSEN SAID TO JOSHU, ”NOWADAYS, – it was not so in the very ancient times....

There are many stories for which there is no way to gather evidence, for or against: that man understood the language of animals, that man understood the language of the trees, that man was not apart from the world, but just one part who became a little more conscious than other parts. He was not in conflict. He lived joyfully, he died joyfully, because he was just a wave – a tidal wave, but even the tidal wave has to disappear; whatever is born will have to disappear.

So what is there to be serious about? And that is proved by many scriptures like AESOP’S FABLES

in which man is not there at all, but only animals. But those animals are very representative.

In a small anecdote a very young goat is drinking water in a mountain stream. A lion comes and thinks this is a good breakfast. But there has to be some rationality, you cannot just jump and catch hold of the young goat; first you have to rationalize your act.

So he said, ”Listen, your father was very disrespectful to me.”

The little goat asked, ”When did that happen?”

He said, ”Just yesterday.”

The little goat said, ”You must have been mistaken, my father has been dead for six months.”

The lion became very angry; his reason is nullified. Then he said, ”You are spoiling the water that I am drinking! You don’t have any respect for the king of the animals!”

The poor goat said, ”Just look at the stream. I’m standing down, you are standing up. How can I spoil the water? The water is going downwards not towards you. You are spoiling my water, but you have the right, you can do it.”

Seeing that he was being made a laughingstock – the goat was right – he jumped on the goat and said, ”You don’t know any manners, any etiquette! You speak so loudly before elders!” and he made a good breakfast of the poor goat. But all those reasons....

In Aesop’s fables, every fable shows something about humanity. They are not about animals, they are all about man. Whatever you want to do, first you try to find a reason for it, and if the reason is found to be irrelevant you become angry. You try another reason and if even that reason is not valid then you act absolutely irrationally, you forget everything of logic and reason. Those were just strategies to catch someone who is weaker than you.

Up to now there has been no evidence; stories have been floating down the ages, but they have been thought to be metaphorical, symbolic, because there was no way to prove that animals understood man’s language and man understood animal’s language. Even trees were said to be on talking terms, there was communication. But now evidence is coming through scientific research, at least about trees, because on animals very few people have started to work.

But animals are certainly more intelligent than the trees, and it could be proved that trees understand the language of man – not only understand but what is being revealed by science is they might even read your minds; you don’t have to say anything.

This has become such a great research. They have special mechanisms; they attach the mechanism to the tree. It is something like a cardiogram that takes your heartbeats and checks whether the heart is running in a healthy way or something is missing. The machine makes the graph; if the heart is running harmoniously, the graph is harmonious. If the heart is not harmonious, then the graph sometimes goes up, sometimes goes too much down; it is not harmonious, there is disturbance.

They use the same graph and the same cardiogram on trees. And they were surprised that if nothing is happening, the graph is harmonious. Then they bring a woodcutter with the idea that you have to chop the tree down. And as the woodcutter comes closer and the tree can see the woodcutter, immediately the graph shows it becomes worried. The harmony of the graph is disturbed. It has only seen... which is very mysterious because eyes are not part of the trees. How has it seen? Perhaps there are other ways of seeing, perhaps we are not the only people who have eyes.

We have a certain kind of eye; the trees must have some other way to see that a woodcutter is coming – and not only to see, they are capable of reading his mind, that he is going to destroy their life. It has also been found that if the woodcutter is told, ‘You are not to cut the tree, just pass by with your axe in your hand, as if you are going to cut the tree,’ if the mind is not set to cut the tree, the graph remains harmonious. That is a solid proof that trees are capable of mind-reading which man is not capable of.

It has also been found that not only is the one tree which the woodcutter is coming to cut affected, but other neighboring trees also are affected. Their graphs also become disharmonious. Some friend, some neighbor, with whom they have grown up, lived with in good times and bad times, in rains and in summer and in winter, some old friend is going to be cut. So not only the tree which is going to be cut reads the mind of the woodcutter, other trees surrounding are also affected. But if the woodcutter with his axe goes on with no mind to cut, the graphs remain harmonious.

This has been a tremendous experiment. It shows that trees somehow see; we don’t know yet how they see. Somehow they can read minds. It is extremely difficult for us to comprehend the idea because we cannot read minds. Some day the research is going to be deeper and we may be able to see that they can understand speech if they can understand the mind. What is mind? You are speaking inside, ‘I am going to cut this tree.’ If they can understand just the idea in the mind, there is no reason why they cannot understand the words.

And secondly, if they can understand the mind, and can show their fear and worry and anxiety, they may in some way perhaps be speaking also, but we don’t know their language. Perhaps their language sound range is either below us or above us.

We can hear only a certain range of sound, and we can also see only a certain range. For example, the owl can see in the night, where we cannot see. His eyes have a bigger range than our eyes.

It has always been known, and you can see it anywhere, in India particularly, that snakes dance with a flute player. The problem was that science could not find any ears in the snake. So how can they respond to sound? They cannot hear! But the research went on and on and now they have come up with a new idea which satisfies. The snake hears through his whole skin.

It is not a question of ears: ears are also skin, they are nothing but specialized skin; eyes are also specialized skin. The snake hears through his whole body, that’s why his dance has a beauty, because the flute does not only affect his ears, it affects his whole body. And because it has no bones, it has a flexibility. But the discovery that the snake can hear with his whole skin suggests perhaps it can speak also in some way. We just have to go on working on different ways of connecting.

Dolphins have been researched recently very deeply. And it has been found that dolphins have a certain way of speaking. They use a totally different system to what man uses, they use sonar waves. We cannot hear them, but millions of dolphins in the ocean... One dolphin can speak to dolphins miles away because the sonar sound goes like a wave in the water, just like radio waves.

You cannot hear radio waves because you don’t have any receptive mechanism. But if you have a radio... What is radio? A receptive mechanism. At this moment, thousands of radiowaves are passing from all the stations of the world around you but you cannot hear them. Just have a small radio which makes the range of hearing bigger and you can start catching stations.

In the last world war it happened that one man got shot in the ear. The bullet was taken out, but it was a great coincidence: his ear healed but he started listening to the local radio station.

At first nobody believed him. Everybody laughed: ”Are you mad? Has anybody in the street ever heard radio waves from his ears?”

But he insisted and he said, ”I am ready to prove it.”

Finally the doctors thought that some experiments should be done at least for his satisfaction.

Nobody believed that it was possible. So they put a radio in a second room, put it on to the local station and a typist typed whatever was coming on the radio. And in the other room where there was no radio that man who had started listening with his ear was writing everything that was coming.

When they were compared they were exactly the same. The man was right.

But he was getting crazy because there was no way to put the radio off. Early from six o’clock in the morning till twelve o’clock in the night, he had to listen to every advertisement, every news. And he was so much engaged in his mind that he was not able to do anything else. He could not talk to you; because there was so much going on inside. Finally they had to operate on the whole ear and take it off.

But it means there is a strong possibility that someday we may not have to carry radios. Just small changes in the ear itself, certain surgical changes, with a button perhaps attached to your lobe so you can switch off or on – it is up to you... No need to carry a radio.

I’m saying this because dolphins speak on a totally different wavelength so we cannot understand that anything is happening; no noise, but miles away the other dolphins are getting the message.

Dolphins are being studied very deeply because it seems they are the only animals in the whole world who have a bigger brain than man. It has to be discovered in what way it works. Certainly it is superior to man’s brain, but in a different direction, in a different dimension. Its work does not criss-cross with man’s mind.

So what Nansen is saying is that in ancient times there were people who could talk to creatures of other species. Nowadays, all that is completely forgotten. Nowadays, particularly for the seekers, he suggests IT IS BEST TO LIVE AND WORK AMONG MEMBERS OF A DIFFERENT SPECIES

FROM US. You can see the difference.

In the UPANISHADS there is a story about a young man, Shwetketu. He studied in the nearby forest university, graduated with honors, came back home with a very great ego because he had come first in the university. His father looked out from the window as he was returning.

And he told his wife, ”He has gained knowledge; one can see even in his walk his ego, pride. But we have not sent him for that. I will have to send him again. So don’t come in between, don’t start weeping and crying, ‘You are sending our son away again.’”

Shwetketu came. The father said, ”Don’t enter the house! I know that you have learned all the scriptures. But do you know who you are?”

Shwetketu said, ”It was not part of the course. I have learned the four VEDAS, all the UPANISHADS.

But the question ‘Who am I?’ was not part of the syllabus in the university.”

The father said, ”Then go back to the old seer who is the head of the forest university and ask him the question. And unless you learn it don’t come back; because there is no point in coming back.

I’m living just to see that you have known yourself.”

He was turned back from the outside of the door. Shwetketu was very much disturbed, shocked. He was hoping to be received with a great welcome and this was a strange welcome. He went to his master and told him, ”My father says what you have taught me is absolutely useless. You have not taught me the real thing, ‘Who am I?’”

The master said, ”That is true, but it is a difficult task, very difficult.”

He said, ”Whatever – I have to do it because without doing it I cannot enter into my house!”

So the master said, ”You do one thing: take these one hundred cows, and when they have become one thousand by giving birth to new calves... Remain in the deepest forest where nobody comes.

Even if you see somebody, hide! Don’t speak human language, just remain with the cows. And when they have become one thousand, bring them back.”

Strange idea, Shwetketu thought. ”When will they become one thousand? It may take half of my life.”

But the master was telling him, so he took those one hundred cows and went into the forest as deep as possible where there was no question of anybody coming. For a few days, ideas continued in his mind. But how can you continue to think the same things every day? And there was nobody to talk to.

Finally he became silent. Years passed, he became almost like a cow. Just living with the cows, sleeping with the cows, taking care of the cows, the cow world was his world. He forgot humanity completely.

The story is so beautiful, that he has forgotten even the idea that when they become one thousand he has to return, because an idea is language. And he had forgotten even to count. And things were going beautifully into utter silence.

The story says that finally one cow had to say, ”I cannot resist the temptation to speak because we are now one thousand. And you seem to have forgotten everything. Now it is time to take us back to the master.”

Shwetketu brought the one thousand cows. The disciples saw from far away one thousand cows and they told the master, ”Shwetketu is coming after many, many years. And he is bringing one thousand cows.”

The master said, ”Don’t use the word ‘Shwetketu’ anymore. Say one thousand and one cows are coming back!”

And that’s how it was. Shwetketu came and stood there just as other cows were standing. He didn’t say a single word. And his eyes had become so pure, so silent, that the master shook him, ”Now, get out of your cowhood! You are capable now of facing your father. Go back.”

So without saying anything he simply went to his father. His father looked again from the window.

He said, ”My God! He has really known. And I myself don’t know who I am!”

So he jumped out of the backdoor telling his wife, ”It does not look right because he will touch my feet. It does not look right that a man who knows should touch the feet of a man who is ignorant.

It is very embarrassing. I’m going. You take care of your son. It may take a few years for me, I am old, but I will try and I will not come back again until I know who I am. I cannot face my son; he’s approaching so beautifully, so humble, so not-knowing, with no pride, with no ego – just a pure silence, a cool breeze.”

It is possible, if you live with trees... I have given Mukta to look after my gardens. So for almost twenty years she has been looking after my gardens. And she has become so silent. She only fights with somebody who disturbs her trees; then she is ferocious. And particularly this Nivedano is her archenemy, because he goes on making waterfalls that disturb the trees because he has to make space for his waterfalls. Other than that, she is in the ashram, but almost absent.

Living with trees, one becomes a tree. In the innermost being the same silence....

What Nansen is saying is that, ”NOWADAYS, IT IS BEST TO LIVE AND WORK AMONG MEMBERS

OF A DIFFERENT SPECIES FROM US.”

JOSHU REPLIED, ”LEAVING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF ‘DIFFERENT’...” This is how the masters play the game. He says, ”LEAVING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF ‘DIFFERENT’” because first you will have to prove that anybody is different. All is one; who is different? The whole cosmos is one unity, what is different?

But for the time being ”LEAVING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF ‘DIFFERENT’ LET ME ASK YOU, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘SPECIES’?” You are making categories. In the innermost silence there are no categories, no species. Who are you in your silence – a cow, a man, a lion? In the innermost core you are just suchness. No name can be given to that suchness.

Joshu himself is a great master. He says, ”LEAVING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF ‘DIFFERENT’

LET ME ASK YOU, WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘SPECIES’?” You are creating divisions in existence where no divisions exist. He is perfectly right philosophically.

NANSEN PUT HIS HANDS ON THE GROUND, just as if he walked on all fours like an animal. He did not answer the question in a philosophical way, he did not discuss about ‘species’. He simply PUT HIS HANDS ON THE GROUND, showing that existentially, philosophically there is no question of categories. But superficially, there is a difference. A few animals walk on four legs, a few animals walk on two; a few animals walk on earth, a few animals jump from tree to tree. But he is not saying anything; rather than saying he is being. He puts his hands on the ground and becomes a cow, the same cow I have been talking about in Shwetketu’s story.

JOSHU WALKED TOWARDS NANSEN FROM BEHIND, TRAMPLING HIM INTO THE GROUND, AND THEN RAN INTO THE NIRVANA HALL, CRYING, ”I REPENT! I REPENT!”

He walked over his hands, trampling him down and then ran towards the Nirvana Hall, crying, ”I repent! I repent!”

NANSEN SENT HIS ATTENDANT TO ASK JOSHU WHAT HE WAS REPENTING FOR. JOSHU

REPLIED, ”I REPENT THAT I DID NOT TRAMPLE HIM TWICE OVER.”

A strange answer. In the first place, his behavior was strange that he trampled on Nansen. But in Zen it is acceptable. What he is saying by trampling is, ”I am a far superior consciousness to animals. I have reached the highest peak of consciousness. And they are just walking on all fours on the earth unconsciously. I trample down the unconsciousness.”

He’s not trampling down Nansen, he is trampling down his gesture of being a cow. And he is existentially right. But then he ran towards the Nirvana Hall, crying, ”I repent! I repent!”

What he has done Nansen has understood perfectly well; he has said that a man of consciousness, awareness, enlightenment cannot have any communication with animals.

It is difficult to

communicate even with human beings, what to say about animals? The difference is too far, light years of difference.

So Nansen has not objected to being trampled, he understood that Joshu was right. But why was he shouting, ”I repent, I repent”? There was nothing to repent, he answered rightly. So he sent his attendant to ask Joshu what he was repenting for. ”There is no reason to repent. You did exactly what was the right response in such a situation.”

JOSHU REPLIED, ”I REPENT THAT I DID NOT TRAMPLE HIM TWICE OVER,” because once may not be enough to change the attitude, that a disciple should work with nature, with animals, with birds. ”Just one time trampling over may not be enough, that’s why I’m repenting. Perhaps twice may have been right.” Nansen has not made any comment on it, which means he accepted that even if he had trampled him twice, nothing would have been wrong in it.

Joshu was as great a master as Nansen, but they were playing like small children. That is the speciality of Zen, a point of departure from all other philosophical systems.

A poem by Sekiso:

HUNDREDS OF OPEN FLOWERS

ALL COME FROM THE ONE BRANCH.

LOOK,

ALL THEIR COLORS

APPEAR IN MY GARDEN.

I OPEN THE CHATTERING GATE,

AND IN THE WIND

I SEE

THE SPRING SUNLIGHT.

ALREADY IT HAS REACHED

WORLDS WITHOUT NUMBER.

The quality of Zen poetry that has always to be remembered is that it is pictorial. Don’t try to understand, try to see it. HUNDREDS OF OPEN FLOWERS, try to see it, don’t try to understand.

Visualize, HUNDREDS OF OPEN FLOWERS ALL COME FROM THE ONE BRANCH. LOOK, ALL

THEIR COLORS APPEAR IN MY GARDEN. I OPEN THE CHATTERING GATE, AND IN THE WIND

I SEE THE SPRING SUNLIGHT. ALREADY IT HAS REACHED WORLDS WITHOUT NUMBER.

In every other language of the world, poetry has to be understood. Zen poetry has to be seen, visualized; it simply creates a world of flowers, colors, sunrays. If you can silently visualize it, you may even smell the fragrance of the flowers, you may even feel the warmth of the sunrays. It is only a question of with what intensity, with what totality you create the world according to the Zen poet.

Just drop the old idea of trying everything verbally; it is a visualization, it is a totally different way.

Otherwise poetry is not much; if you verbalize it, it is not much. There are great poets around the world; in comparison to those great poets these poets look very poor. But there is no comparison possible because the great poets have a different dimension, meaning; they are intellectualizing.

You don’t have to visualize Shelley or Byron, you have to understand. It is a very conceptual way.

And that is the way all over the world.

Only Zen is different in every way. This poetry is not to be understood. It is not a question of intellect, it is a question of feeling, of creating with visualization, in your silence with closed eyes, the whole world that he is talking about: the flowers, you have to see them; the colors, you have to see them.

And when you see the colors and the flowers and the chattering gate – as you open it, it crackles –

and the sunrays entering through the gate reaching to the flowers, you may smell the fragrance, you may even pluck a few flowers. This is a very existential way of expression.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

ARE YOU NOT COMMITTED EVEN TO TRUTH, TO FREEDOM? IF YOU ARE NOT IS THAT

BECAUSE TRUTH AND FREEDOM ARE SUCH AN INTRINSIC PART OF YOU THAT THERE IS

NO POSSIBILITY OF A RELATIONSHIP – WHICH A COMMITMENT IS – WITH THEM?

Maneesha, your understanding is right. I am not connected to truth. Truth is not something separate that I have to be committed to. It is my very being. Love or freedom, compassion or joy, they are all aspects of my own consciousness. They are not separate, so there is no question of commitment.

You commit only to something which is other than you. And my effort here is to make you aware that as you penetrate deeper into your consciousness all these things become available. It is not that you have to cultivate them. Just by penetrating deeper and deeper into consciousness you come across love, you come across compassion, you come across truth, you come across freedom. You don’t have to do anything. Your only effort is to penetrate deeper into consciousness, and everything else comes on its own accord. These are the flowers of consciousness.

Now something serious...

The B.B.C. interrupts its prime-time showing of the Olympic Games with the following announcement:

”Ladies and gentlemen, the planet earth has just received some bad news and some good news.

The bad news is that the earth has just been invaded by Martians. The good news is they eat politicians and piss petrol!”

Rock Hunk, the famous Hollywood movie star, strolls into a bar wearing his shirt open to the waist, and flexing his muscles. He sees Gorgeous Gloria sitting alone at the bar, sipping a martini.

He strides up to her, leans close and whispers in her ear, ”Hey, baby, I would really love to get into your pants!”

”I am sorry,” says Gloria, with a smile, ”but I don’t think that is possible.”

”Why not?” asks Rock.

”Because,” says Gloria, standing up to leave, ”there is only enough room in there for one asshole!”

Cardinal Cats-ass is caught stealing a frozen chicken from the Vatican supermarket by trying to hide it under his robe.

When Pope the Polack hears about this, he is very angry.

”Do you know,” spouts the Polack pope, ”that when you are stealing a chicken from my supermarket, you are breaking one of God’s commandments?”

”Yes,” replies Cats-ass, with downcast eyes, ”but I did not want the chicken for myself. I wanted it for that new secretary you just hired.”

”What? My new secretary?” shouts the Polack, nearly hysterical. ”You would lose your immortal soul for one young secretary?” Pope the Polack throws his arms up in the air and really freaks out.

”Fuck the secretary!” he shouts.

”I did,” replies the cardinal,” but she wants a chicken too!”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now, look inwards, with absolute urgency as if this is the last moment of your life. Go penetrating deep into the very life source that is your center and also the center of the whole existence.

The meeting of your center and the center of the whole existence is symbolically represented by the buddha. At this point you become a buddha, the awakened one.

You have entered a new world of truth, of beauty, of blissfulness. Get soaked with all these qualities.

Get drenched with the awareness of being a buddha; because you have to bring this buddha back with you. And you have to live this buddha in your every activity, gesture, word, silence twenty-four hours around the clock. Then only there is a possibility to reach the highest peak of consciousness.

To make it clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax, and just watch the body, the mind. You are neither, you are the witness.

Get centered on the witness. Everything comes and goes, only the witness is immortal. It is never born and never dies. The other name of this witness is the buddha.

This evening was beautiful on its own. But your presence, your witnessing has made it a majestic glory, a splendor unparalleled. Thousands of flowers are showering on you. Collect as many flowers as possible.

Soon Nivedano will be calling you back. Gather as much as you can of the experience. You have to bring it from the center to the circumference.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but bring the buddha with you. Be graceful. Remember the way Buddha will get up and sit down. The same grace, the same beauty and the heart dancing in the same way....

Rejoice and remember you are the fortunate ones; because outside the Buddha Auditorium, nobody is concerned with his own interiority. People are worried about trivia, mundane things. Feel fortunate that you have found a place where thousands of others are also crossing the same bridge, passing the same path, reaching to the same center.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the gathering of ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 7

You have forgotten your wings

11 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE, WHEN OBAKU WAS SITTING IN NANSEN’S RECEPTION ROOM, NANSEN ASKED HIM,

”IT IS SAID THAT THE BUDDHA NATURE CAN BE CLEARLY SEEN BY THOSE WHO STUDY

BOTH SAMADHI AND PRAJNA EQUALLY. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

OBAKU ANSWERED, ”IT MEANS THAT WE SHOULD NOT DEPEND ON ANYTHING AT ANY

TIME.”

NANSEN THEN ASKED, ”I WONDER WHETHER THE OPINION YOU HAVE JUST EXPRESSED

IS REALLY YOUR OWN.”

”OF COURSE NOT!” SAID OBAKU.

NANSEN THEN SAID, ”SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING

WATER FOR THE MOMENT, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR

THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?”

TO THIS QUESTION, OBAKU MADE NO REPLY.

Maneesha, although this anecdote seems to be very simple, it is not so. In these few words a tremendously important question has been raised. And unfortunately nobody has discussed that question up to now. I would like to go in detail into what I mean. ONCE, WHEN OBAKU WAS

SITTING IN NANSEN’S RECEPTION ROOM, NANSEN ASKED HIM, ”IT IS SAID THAT THE

BUDDHA NATURE CAN BE CLEARLY SEEN BY THOSE WHO STUDY BOTH SAMADHI AND

PRAJNA EQUALLY. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

Before we go into the answer of Obaku, you have to understand the meaning of samadhi and prajna.

It is a very intricate and complex question. Samadhi can be understood watching Ramakrishna. That will give you the basic symptoms which can be observed from the outside.

Ramakrishna used to go into samadhi for hours. Once for six days he was in samadhi. And samadhi to him and to his followers – and there is a great tradition from Patanjali, five thousand years old, which believes in samadhi – means to become perfectly unconscious. To every outsider he was almost in a coma; to the psychologist he had gone deeper into the unconscious layers of the mind.

And there was no way to bring him back.

Automatically, whenever his consciousness surfaced again, he would become aware. And whenever he came out of this samadhi, this deep coma-like unconsciousness, he would weep and cry, ”Why have you taken away that great beauty, that great bliss, that great silence that I was experiencing.

Time had stopped, the world was forgotten, I was alone and everything was at its perfection. So why have you taken it away?” He was asking the question to existence. ”Why don’t you let me continue it?”

Now, Buddha himself would not consider it a samadhi. His samadhi means prajna, and prajna means awareness. You have to become more and more conscious, not unconscious; just two polarities, samadhi and prajna.

Prajna is perfect awareness of your being.

And samadhi in

Ramakrishna’s case means absolute oblivion. Nobody has gone into the deeper search for what exactly is the difference deep inside.

Both talk about great blissfulness, both talk about eternity, truth, beauty, goodness as their ultimate experience. But one is completely unconscious – you can cut his hand and he will not know – that much unconsciousness; and Buddha is so conscious that before sitting on the floor, first he will look to see if there is any ant or anything that may be killed by his sitting there. In his every act he showed immense awareness.

I have told you the story that one day passing through a street in Vaishali, a fly came and sat on his head. He was talking to Ananda about something. So just automatically the way you do it, he simply waved his hand. Then he suddenly stopped talking to Ananda and again waved his hand.

Now there was no fly.

Ananda said, ”What are you doing? The fly has gone.”

He said, ”The fly has gone, but I acted unconsciously. I waved my hand automatically like a robot.

Now I am moving as I should have moved, with full consciousness, awareness.”

So these seem to be two polarities. Both have become a point of great debate as to who is right, because the experience they talk about is the same. My own experience is that mind can be crossed from both ends. One tenth of the mind is conscious, nine tenths of the mind is unconscious. Just think of mind: the upper layer is conscious and nine layers are unconscious. Now mind can be passed from both the ends. You cannot pass from the middle, you will have to travel to the end.

Ramakrishna passed the mind by going deeper and deeper into the unconscious layers. And when the final unconscious layer came, he jumped out of the mind. To the world outside he looked as if he was in a coma. But he reached to the same clear sky although he chose a path which is dark, dismal; he chose the night part of consciousness. But he reached to the same experience.

Buddha never became unconscious in this way.

Even walking he was stepping every step

fully conscious and gracefully, every gesture fully conscious, gracefully.

He transformed his

consciousness to such a point that unconscious layers started becoming conscious. The final enlightenment is when all unconscious layers of the mind have become conscious. He also jumps out of the mind.

Both samadhi and prajna are no-mind states, going outside the mind. So the experience is the same but the path is different, very different. One is the white path of light that Buddha followed; one is the path of darkness that Ramakrishna followed. And it is obvious that the people who cannot understand both, who have not followed both the paths and come to the same experience, are going to debate and discuss to no end.

One will say that Ramakrishna’s samadhi is a coma, that he has lost consciousness. Another will say that because Buddha never goes into Ramakrishna-like samadhi, he does not know anything about samadhi. But my experience is, both know the samadhi, both know the prajna. Ramakrishna first knows samadhi and out of samadhi prajna is born. Buddha knows first prajna and then out of prajna samadhi is born. It is only a question of understanding that existence is always contradictory, made of opposites – night and day, life and death.

Ramakrishna’s path is of unconsciousness. Nobody has deliberately considered the point. And Buddha’s path is of pure light, of continuous awareness. Even in sleep Buddha sleeps consciously.

So Nansen has raised a very meaningful question.

”IT IS SAID THAT THE BUDDHA NATURE CAN BE CLEARLY SEEN BY THOSE WHO STUDY

BOTH SAMADHI AND PRAJNA EQUALLY. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”

OBAKU ANSWERED, ”IT MEANS THAT WE SHOULD NOT DEPEND ON ANYTHING AT ANY

TIME.”

Obaku was not a master, Obaku was a scholar. And this question cannot be decided by any scholarship; no intelligence will do, only experience. So what he answers, is absolutely irrelevant.

He says, ”IT MEANS THAT WE SHOULD NOT DEPEND ON ANYTHING AT ANY TIME.” Can you see any relevance to the question? It has nothing to do with samadhi, nothing to do with prajna. He is not only a teacher, but a blind teacher. The question has gone above his head.

NANSEN THEN ASKED – immediately, which shows what I am saying – ”I WONDER WHETHER

THE OPINION YOU HAVE JUST EXPRESSED IS REALLY YOUR OWN.” Anybody could have seen that this is so stupid, it has nothing to do with the question. He could have said, ”I don’t know, I have not experienced either samadhi or prajna. I don’t know whether they end up into the same experience or they lead to different experiences. It is not my own experience, so I can’t say anything.”

That would have been more honest. But looking at his answer, NANSEN immediately ASKED, ”I WONDER WHETHER THE OPINION YOU HAVE JUST EXPRESSED IS REALLY YOUR OWN.”

Even this absurd opinion that you have expressed, I think even this one is not your own. ”OF

COURSE NOT!” SAID OBAKU.

Seeing the situation he must have felt it is better to say that this is not my opinion. NANSEN THEN

SAID, ”SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING WATER FOR THE

MOMENT... Nansen lived on top of a high mountain for thirty years. To bring water to that height, he had to go miles down to bring water up. To us it may look a little strange that he was asking a price for water. He says, ”SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE DRINKING

WATER, FOR THE MOMENT, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR

THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?”

Zen monks use straw sandals, the same shape as my sandals, but they are made of straw, very beautiful, very aesthetic and very cheap. Nansen is saying, ”Who has paid for your straw sandals?

They look so new. You don’t deserve these straw sandals; they are specially meant for Zen masters.

And as for giving you water, I will not ask anything for it, but it has been wasted on a man who does not even know what samadhi is, what is prajna, and still has the guts and the nerve to give an absolutely irrelevant answer; an answer, too, that is not his own. Such a borrowed state is all of scholars, pundits, rabbis.

Nansen exposed Obaku completely to the very innermost core of his being just by asking a small question. But the question is not small, and it is a question which nobody has explained the way I am telling you, that the experiences are not two. Just, the paths leading to the experiences are very different, contrary paths.

One follows the darkness, goes deeper and deeper into the darkness of the mind and the unconscious, reaches to the very end of the mind and jumps out of it. And another tries every possible way to make the unconscious also conscious. And when everything becomes conscious in him, he also takes a jump.

Perhaps Buddha’s method is more scientific. There is no question of right and wrong. Both lead to the same space, but Buddha’s method of prajna is more scientific in the way that you cannot miss because you are aware. Ramakrishna’s path is groping in the dark. He may reach to the dawn, he may not reach. And once he has gone into unconsciousness, all is darkness, he cannot see where he is going. It is just by chance that he finds the door out of the mind, just by chance.

Science does not believe in chance, it has to be a certainty. That’s why you will not find more Ramakrishnas in the world, because it is just a coincidence that groping in the dark you find the door and get out of the mind. It happened to Ramakrishna but you will not find another parallel in the whole history of mankind.

Thousands of mystics have reached to the same point. But they have all followed the path of prajna, because when you have a light with you, you need not grope. When you have a light with you, a consciousness, like a torch showing the path, your reaching to the goal has more certainty.

And once you have known the path, then it is very easy. Only the first time are you going into the unknown. But the unknown is not dark; you keep a torch in your hand. Ramakrishna is going into the unknown without a torch. Ramakrishna’s samadhi in a way is special. He is alone of that kind. He is a rare specimen who went into his depths without taking a single candle. It is more than probable that you will not find the door.

When Buddha was asked about it, he said, ”There was a palace with one thousand doors; only one door was real, the remaining were fake; they appeared like doors, but when you went close to them, they were just painted doors, there was a flat wall with no opening.

”A blind man got lost in the palace. He went around groping and groping. He touched many painted doors, but they were not really doors and the time he reached the real door, the only one, a fly came to sit on his head. So he became engaged in waving it away and passed the door.”

Nine hundred and ninety-nine doors, and a chance comes; that chance is very fragile, it can be missed by anything: your head starts itching or you become so tired of groping and touching that you say, ”Take a chance, leave this one, go ahead.”

So Buddha said, ”My path is not of such groping. In my palace all the doors are real. And there is no need to grope because I give you eyes of meditation and a light that burns like a fire within you, which is your very life. With that light and silence of meditation you can find the door. There are a thousand doors, every door is capable of taking you out.”

I am absolutely certain that Buddha is right; but that does not mean that Ramakrishna is wrong. But Ramakrishna cannot be the rule, he can only be the exception. Buddha is providing for everybody, not for exceptions. A rule has to be for everybody. You cannot make a rule on a single exception. Of the followers of Ramakrishna not even a single one has attained samadhi. But Buddha’s followers even today, continuing as a chain, master to disciple in different countries, are attaining prajna.

Whether you call it samadhi or you call it prajna, it is the same; the meaning of both is ultimate wisdom.

Buddhists don’t believe Ramakrishna to be enlightened. One very old Buddhist monk... he was an Englishman, and when he was just a child, his father was appointed to some post in Kalimpong where the child came in contact with Buddhist masters. He became a Buddhist at the age of eighteen. His whole family resisted; they were Christians and said, ”What are you doing listening to the Buddhist masters?”

He could see that Christianity is very childish. It has nothing much to give to you. What can you do even if Jesus did walk on water? Even if you learn to walk on water, what spirituality can you attain through it? Even if you can turn water into alcohol, which is a crime, it does not help anyone to be spiritual. What are the teachings of Christians which can be compared to Gautam the Buddha?

None comes close to him. He certainly is the Everest of the Himalayas.

So a Buddhist won’t accept Ramakrishna as enlightened. But talking to Buddhist monks and particularly this English monk, I asked him, ”Have you ever tried forgetting Buddha’s method and giving some time to using Ramakrishna’s method?”

He said, ”No, I have never tried it.”

I said, ”Then saying that Ramakrishna never achieved samadhi is going beyond the limits of your experience.”

I have tried both ways, going on the path of light and going on the path of absolute darkness. Nobody does that because once you have reached the path, then why should you bother about other paths?

You have reached the station in a rickshaw, now are you going to come back and try a taxi? People will think you are mad. You have reached, now there is no need to try whether a taxi also reaches the station or not.

But I am a little crazy. Seeing the argument going on for centuries, I decided that the only way to come to a conclusion is, follow both the paths: one time the path of light and another time the path of darkness. When I was following the path of darkness, almost all my friends, my professors thought that I had gone mad. ”What is the need if you have reached to the light in the day, what is the need to continue traveling in the night after reaching?”

I said, ”There is a need because there is no other way to conclude whether Ramakrishna was also in the same state of consciousness as Buddha.”

But neither has any Buddhist tried nor have any of Ramakrishna’s disciples tried. And I am nobody’s disciple, I am just an outsider; I don’t belong to any religion or any organization. But to come to a conclusion, seeing that for centuries people have been discussing it, I could not conceive any way that it could be decided by argument; the only way to decide it was to follow both the paths.

And now the meditation that I have been teaching to you is a combination of both the paths. It is neither a meditation dependent only on prajna, just being aware; nor is it a meditation just to forget all and drown yourself in deep rest and darkness. I am using both. I am telling you to forget the world, I am telling you forget the body, forget the mind, you are not these things, but keep your light alive as a witness. So you are going on both the paths together.

There is no problem. In fact it is more significant, because you will be achieving the space that Ramakrishna achieved and that Buddha achieved. And you will have a good laugh that for centuries scholars have been unnecessarily wasting their time. It is always good to experiment because this is not a philosophical question. It is a question of inner experimentation; it is as scientific as any science.

But in a very nice way Nansen said, ”SETTING ASIDE THE QUESTION OF PAYMENT FOR THE

DRINKING WATER, because I have to carry the drinking water for miles, LET ME ASK WHOM YOU

INTEND TO HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE STRAW SANDALS RETURNED TO?.Who has paid the money for your straw sandals? Return the money. You are just a teacher; don’t pretend to be a master. TO THIS QUESTION, OBAKU MADE NO REPLY.

Sekiso wrote:

A SINGLE TRUE MAN APPEARS IN THE WORLD

AND ALL FALSEHOOD VANISHES.

NO NEED TO WORRY THAT THE WAY

OF THE PATRIARCHS

SEEMS TO BE DECLINING.

THIS TIME YOUR AXE OF WISDOM

HAS FOUND WINGS.

SOME DAY SURELY

IT WILL RISE UP AND FLY.

Just as climate changes and seasons change, people’s life-styles change, people’s objects and goals change. So for the time being it seems we have forgotten the path of the buddhas, Sekiso says, but there is no need to worry. Even A SINGLE TRUE MAN APPEARS IN THE WORLD AND

ALL FALSEHOOD VANISHES. Don’t be worried.

The ancient path has declined. Now no one thinks about experiencing samadhi or prajna, nobody thinks about entering into one’s self, one’s center, nobody ever bothers how to become one with the cosmos. But still there is no need to be worried.

THIS TIME YOUR AXE OF WISDOM HAS FOUND WINGS. SOME DAY SURELY IT WILL RISE UP

AND FLY. It is not always going to be a dark night. The darker it becomes, the closer is the dawn.

You will also fly in the same sky of freedom as the ancient buddhas; just be prepared so that you don’t miss the opportunity. If you come in contact with a master, a real authentic man, then don’t postpone for any reason. Whatever you can gain from him, let it sink in you as deeply as possible.

As long as you can be a fellow traveler, be a fellow traveler, don’t go astray.

Although there are not many buddhas in the world, a single buddha can create thousands of buddhas. So Sekiso is very optimistic: the night is dark and becoming darker but that also means the dawn is coming closer, and soon there will be sunrise, and flowers will blossom and birds will fly.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

IS YOUR AXE OF WISDOM FINDING WINGS IN US?

You all have wings, you just have to be reminded. You have forgotten that you have wings to enter into the inner sky and fly to the highest peak of consciousness. Somebody has to remind you that you have wings.

You must have seen – it is worthwhile to see – when a bird is born, he does not know that he has wings. His mother flies around the tree and he wonders whether he can also do it or not. He just leans on the edge of the nest, hesitant; it looks dangerous: if he falls down, he will be finished. But the mother is flying, and the mother is flying for the special purpose of creating an urge in the child to fly. And then she goes to another tree and from another tree she gives a call. The small bird flutters its wings, but it still cannot gather the courage; he has never flown. Obviously he is afraid; he has just come out of the egg. He has never known the freedom of the sky; it is so vast and he is so small. But the mother is calling and perhaps she knows better.

A few birds prove to be courageous and take the jump. First it is a little haphazard, but soon they start flying and reach to the other tree. Other birds who are more prudent just flutter their wings and remain in the nest; it is more secure. The mother is calling, that is true, but it is dangerous. Then the mother has to push these birds into the sky.

Once in the sky their wings open. There are a few moments of worry and tension, just as when you learn swimming. The first few days it is difficult, you need somebody to help you, to encourage you and you have to learn in shallow water. But once you have learned, have you ever thought, can you forget swimming?

One Japanese professor believes that every child knows swimming just as every bird knows flying; they just have to be reminded. So he has been working on children. First he started with nine-month-old children and succeeded. Then he started with six-month-old children and succeeded.

The last report was he has succeeded with three-month-old babies.

Now that proves certainly that swimming is something intrinsic. You just have to be encouraged and given the opportunity. And once learned, why don’t you forget it? Everything else you can forget; geography, history, you can forget everything, but you cannot forget swimming once you have known it, because it is intrinsic to your nature. The bird cannot forget flying once it has opened its wings.

My effort is to make you aware that you have wings. And the sky is clean and clear waiting for you to take a quantum leap, open your wings and reach to the highest peak of consciousness. That’s what I have been calling meditation.

Sardar Gurudayal Singh has been waiting too long.

Father Finger goes to a whorehouse and says to the Madame, ”I want to sleep with Sleazy Sally.”

Madame goes over to talk with Sally and then returns saying, ”Okay, but she wants two hundred dollars.”

”But it was only fifty dollars yesterday!” protests Finger.

”Take it or leave it,” shrugs the Madame.

So the priest pays the money, and follows Sleazy Sally upstairs.

Afterwards, Father Finger is pulling up his pants and asks the girl, ”Well, how was I?”

Sally replies, ”You are absolutely the worst screw I have ever had in my life. And I told you that yesterday! I can’t understand why you keep coming back!”

”Well,” says the priest, ”I just wanted a second opinion!”

It is Christmas Eve, and the Babblebrain family have invited Father Fumble, the local priest, to join them. They are all sitting around the dining-room table about to start their Christmas dinner.

Suddenly, Grandpa Babblebrain claps his hand over his mouth and then lets out an enormous sneeze. Everybody is horrified as they see a slimy spray fly out of his nose and descend over the beautifully prepared food. There is a stoney silence, but nobody says anything, except Father Fumble, who mumbles a small prayer.

Five minutes later, Grandpa clutches his mouth again and lets fly another tremendous sneeze. More green spray covers the table to everyone’s disgust and Father Fumble crosses himself.

”Grandad!” whispers Boris loudly. ”Please cover your nose when you sneeze.”

”Okay,” mumbles Grandpa, ”if that’s what you want.”

Seconds later, Grandpa feels another huge sneeze coming, so this time, he grasps his nose with his hand.

Everybody sees it coming and they close their eyes in anticipation. Grandpa sneezes with a loud explosion.

When everybody opens their eyes again, they see a horrific sight. There, stuck in the shattered bowl of mashed potatoes, are Grandpa’s false teeth!

Young Freddy Fallick buys a new pair of very shiny, black patent-leather shoes, which he polishes so brightly that he can see his face reflected in them.

That night, Freddy goes out in his new shoes to the disco.

He sees three girls sitting together at a table, so he goes and asks one of them to dance. They have been dancing for a few moments when Freddy looks down at the reflection in his shiny shoes and says, ”I love your red panties!”

The girl screams in embarrassment and soon Freddy leads her back to the table. Then he asks the next girl to dance.

They have been out on the floor for a few minutes when Freddy says, ”I love your white lace panties!”

The girl blushes deep red and runs back to join her friends. The three girls talk about what has happened and the third one says, ”In a minute he is going to come and ask me to dance, but I have a plan to fix him.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Freddy Fallick comes over and asks her to dance. They go onto the dance floor and soon Freddy looks down at his shoes. Suddenly he gets a very worried expression on his face.

He keeps peering down, first at one shoe, and then at the other.

”It’s no good looking down at your shoes, Freddy,” says the girl, giggling to herself, ”because I took my panties off!”

”Oh, thank God for that!” says Freddy in relief. ”I thought my new shoes were cracked!”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

(Drumbeat)

Be silent.

Close your eyes; feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now gather all your

consciousness and look inwards with a deep urgency as if this is going to be your last moment of life. You have to reach to the center.

Deeper and deeper, without any fear, go on. At the very center of your being you are a buddha. And to experience the buddha as your very being is the ultimate joy. Your whole life becomes a poetry, a song, a music, a dance. All around flowers start blossoming.

Remember this experience of being a buddha. One does not become a buddha, one is. There are only two alternatives: either you can forget it or you can remember it. Those who forget it live in misery, suffering, anguish, anxiety; those who remember it, their whole life becomes a divine dance.

To make it clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Just be a watcher of the body and the mind. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to judge. Just be a pure witness like a mirror. This is the very nature of being a buddha, just to be an empty mirror.

Collect as much fragrance, as much light, as many blessings as possible, because you have to live your buddha twenty-four hours a day. Every moment you have to remember and you have to act accordingly with grace, with beauty, with that clarity that only a buddha can have.

The evening was beautiful on its own, but you have added thousands of stars to it, just by being silent, just by being witnesses; just by being buddhas you have made this place the holiest in the world.

Your watchfulness, your witnessing finally dissolve into each other. There are not one thousand or ten thousand buddhas in the auditorium. There is only one ocean of buddhahood. We are all just waves of it. It is so relaxing not to be, so relaxing just to be part of the ocean.

Before Nivedano calls you back, look at the space you have reached, look at the path that you have traveled. This path will be traveled again and again, back and forth till your buddhahood grows from the center to the circumference. At the center it is a seed, at the circumference it will become a full-fledged buddha.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Now, come back. But come back as buddhas, full of new joy, a new identity, a new individuality.

Sit down for a few minutes, remembering that you are a buddha. Just the very remembrance and your whole life goes through a metamorphosis. And the whole day whenever you find it, remember.

Sometimes you may forget because of old habit. Don’t feel sad for it; it is natural. But slowly slowly the moments of forgetfulness will become less, and the moments of remembrance will become deeper, longer; and finally a day comes when your whole life becomes nothing but a remembrance of your great splendor as a buddha.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 8

You need roses, just wheat will not do

12 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

NANSEN SAID TO THE ASSEMBLED MONKS, ”OLD MASTER O (‘O’ WAS NANSEN’S OWN LAY

NAME) IS GOING TO SELL HIMSELF. WILL ANYONE BUY HIM?”

A MONK CAME OUT AND SAID, ”I WILL!”

NANSEN SAID, ”DON’T MAKE ME DEAR; DON’T MAKE ME CHEAP. HOW WILL YOU BUY ME?”

THE MONK WAS SILENT.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION NANSEN WAS ASKED BY A MONK, ”WHERE WILL THE MASTER

BE GONE IN A HUNDRED YEARS’ TIME?”

NANSEN SAID, ”I’LL BE A WATER-COLORED OX.”

THE MONK SAID, ”MAY I FOLLOW YOU OR NOT?”

NANSEN SAID, ”WELL, IF YOU DO, BRING A MOUTHFUL OF GRASS WITH YOU!”

Maneesha, life can be taken as a drama, as a play, or can be taken very seriously. Those who take it very seriously suffer immensely, unnecessarily. They suffer if they fail, they suffer if they are victorious, they suffer if they are poor, they suffer if they are rich.

One of the richest men in India told me that he feels very guilty. The country is dying in poverty and his riches go on growing. And he is not courageous enough to stop this growing of riches; deep down he still wants more. On the one hand he can see the country is suffering from poverty, on the other hand is his desire to have more and more; between these two he is crushed.

The poor suffer, the rich suffer. It seems those who take life seriously, whatever their profession and whatever line they take in life, are bound to suffer, with anxiety, with frustration, at each step, because existence has no obligation to fulfill your desires.

And your desires are immense, almost infinite. Because of your desires life becomes a competition, and wherever there is competition, there is anxiety and angst; and at the end everybody is aware deep down there is death. Life is a misery, a struggle, an anguish and it finally ends in death, which is simply darkness. Nobody knows what happens after death.

Zen is not for those who are serious. Zen is only for those who can take life as fun. This looks strange because religion has always been thought to be a serious phenomenon. Zen has taken a departure from that attitude. It takes life as fun, and not only life but death too.

The moment you start seeing life as nonserious, a playfulness, all the burden on your heart disappears. All the fear of death, of life, of love – everything disappears. One starts living with a very light weight or almost no weight. So weightless one becomes, one can fly in the open sky.

Zen’s greatest contribution is to give you an alternative to the serious man. The serious man has made the world, the serious man has made all the religions. He has created all the philosophies, all the cultures, all the moralities, everything that exists around you is a creation of the serious man.

Zen has dropped out of the serious world. It has created a world of its own which is very playful, full of laughter, where even great masters behave like children. You can see this in the sutra that Maneesha has brought.

NANSEN SAID TO THE ASSEMBLED MONKS... They have come to hear about the ultimate truth, and NANSEN SAID TO THE ASSEMBLED MONKS, ”OLD MASTER O (‘O’ WAS NANSEN’S OWN

LAY NAME) IS GOING TO SELL HIMSELF. WILL ANYONE BUY HIM?”

Strange start to a sermon! You cannot think a rabbi would do it in a synagogue – although buying and selling is a very Jewish interest. In no temple, in no mosque, in no church is a sermon going to begin this way where the master comes on the stage and says: ”OLD MASTER O, and ‘O’ is his own childhood name, ”IS GOING TO SELL HIMSELF. WILL ANYONE BUY HIM?”

Before we enter into the discussion, remember that Nansen uses his childhood name, ‘O’. He could have used ‘Nansen’, he could have said, ”I want to sell myself.” He could not say ‘I’ because a man of the status of Nansen knows there is no I. He cannot use the word ‘Nansen’, because it is the name of his old age when he became a monk, the name of his maturity. He uses the word ‘O’, which was his childhood name. He has again become a child; he is again as innocent and as ignorant as a child, he knows nothing. His using the name ‘O’ is significant.

And his saying that he is going to sell himself reminds you that if you are going to sell yourself, do you think you will get any price? Perhaps man is the most worthless creature. A cow, a horse, an elephant... even in death an elephant is worth thousands of rupees, just his bones. Man in his death is so useless and so disgusting that people are in a hurry to take him to the funeral pyre.

His family are crying and the neighbors are preparing the stretcher on which the dead man is to be carried to the burning ghats. They are in a hurry; the sooner it is finished the better. Otherwise this crying and weeping and all this hullabooloo will continue. And if this man stays long, he will start stinking. There is no value in him; if you take him to the market you will be beaten.

I’m reminded of Diogenes again: he used to live naked; he was a very healthy and beautiful man.

Even Alexander the Great felt a little jealous. He had everything, but the beauty of Diogenes, his marble-like body, his statue-like firmness....

He was lying one day by the side of the river which was his resting place. Four thieves, whose function was... because in those days almost all over the world man was sold and purchased.

Women particularly had a good price, and healthy strong men also had a good price. Slaves were an accepted fact almost all over the world. So these four thieves were engaged in the business of catching hold of people and taking them to the marketplace.

They saw this man and discussed among themselves: ”This man will fetch a good price, perhaps the best ever. But he seems to be too strong even for four persons. He will kill us if we try to catch hold of him; he looks dangerous.”

And Diogenes was listening because they were discussing what to do just behind the bushes.

Diogenes said, ”You idiots! You don’t have to do anything! Just come out! Follow me!”

They said, ”But where?”

He said, ”To the marketplace where you want to sell me! There is no need to catch hold of me. I am coming on my own. Let this be also an experience. Anyway I am good for nothing.”

The thieves became very afraid seeing the strangeness of the man.

”Even to follow him is

dangerous; he may turn, or jump and hit somebody.” They kept their distance.

Diogenes said, ”Don’t be afraid! Just stay close! Are you taking me to the marketplace or am I taking you?”

With great fear they came close to him. And in the marketplace where people, men and women, were auctioned, Diogenes jumped on the table and shouted at the crowd that had come to purchase people, ”Here is a master for sale! Is there any slave who is ready to purchase him?”

There was great silence, the man certainly was a grandeur in himself. Even kings had come to purchase but they had to think twice whether to purchase this man. He could be dangerous, he could be ferocious if he can jump on the table and declare himself, ”Here is a master! Is there anyone ready to purchase him?”

Finally one king dared to purchase him, and he said, ”To whom is the money to be given?” Diogenes showed those four persons who were hiding in the crowd. ”Give the money to these four people.

They have brought me here. And bring your chariot closer so I can come in the chariot.”

Now slaves are not supposed to order kings, but even this king felt a weakening of the heart. He told his charioteer to bring the chariot close by. Diogenes jumped on the chariot and sat by the side of the king, and the king was trembling. He had purchased unnecessary trouble. This man can simply take him by the neck and throw him out of the chariot. ”Rather than purchasing a slave I have purchased a master; he was right.”

But Diogenes said, ”Don’t be afraid; I’m not going to do any of the things that you are thinking. I am a peace-loving man. Let us make an agreement: I shall not disturb you, you should not disturb me.”

The king was very willing. He said ”I am absolutely ready, I will not disturb you. You can have a part of the palace, and whatever you need will be provided. But please keep the agreement, don’t disturb me. I am a man with a very weak heart, and you seem to be very dangerous.”

Diogenes said, ”Don’t be worried. As far as killing is concerned I am absolutely against it; harassing anybody I am absolutely against. You will find in me a great master; you can learn much. You have purchased the only master who has ever been sold, and I have sold myself. In fact I needed some disciples. Now you, your wife, your brothers, your children, all are my disciples – agreed?!”

In the forest the chariot was moving towards the kingdom. Not to agree with this man was very dangerous because there was only the charioteer and the king, and he was enough for both. So whatever he said the king went on saying, ”Yes, absolutely agreed.”

And as they were entering the kingdom, Diogenes jumped out of the chariot, said goodbye to the king and said, ”I was just joking! For those four poor men I had to play this role. My river has come.

If you want sometime some advice you are welcome. Take note of my address: this river, and do you see that dog?”

He had only one dog as a friend. Because of this dog as a friend, his name became ”Diogenes the Cynic.”

The friendship with the dog also came in a very special way. One day he was running towards the river with a begging bowl, just as Buddha had a begging bowl. He was thirsty, but just as he was reaching to the water, a dog came running, overtook him and started drinking the water.

He said, ”My God! Why am I carrying this bowl? The dog is in a better position!” He threw the begging bowl in the river and learned the way of drinking water like the dog.

The dog certainly became very friendly to the man, so he invited the dog to share with him whatever he got for food. The dog was his only companion, and he would talk to it.

Even when Alexander was standing by his side, he was making a joke of it. Alexander said, ”I’m going to conquer the world.”

Rather than answering him, he looked at the dog and said, ”Do you hear? This fellow is going to conquer the world!” Then to Alexander: ”Before conquering the world you will be finished. If you are as wise as this dog, you would rest here, because what will you do after conquering the world?”

Alexander had to concede: ”After conquering the world I will certainly rest and relax.”

Diogenes said, ”Look at my dog, how relaxed! You can come on this side, I have no objection; I don’t possess this river. I don’t know who possesses this river, but we both live here and we welcome you. There is no need to take so much trouble to conquer the world and then rest; why not begin rest now?”

Alexander said, ”I can understand your logic, and I am not able to answer it. But now that I have started my journey of conquering, I will have to go and fulfill my desire.”

Diogenes said, ”It is up to you, but remember the day you die that I have told you life is very short and the world is very big. Most probably you will die before you have conquered the world.”

And Diogenes was right, Alexander died at the age of only thirty-three, and the last memory in his mind was of Diogenes: ”That wise man told it right. Even his dog agreed by waving his tail, ‘You are right. If he wants to rest he should begin now.’”

Diogenes is not historically very much in the line of the great Greek philosophers: Socrates, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus. Nobody mentions Diogenes much for the simple reason that he was not a man who took the world seriously.

Somewhere he found a lamp, an old lamp, which somebody may have thrown away. So he lit the lamp and, still with his dog, carried it day and night always lighted even in full daylight and people would say, ”It is strange, Diogenes; why are you carrying this lamp in the full sunlight?”

And he would say, ”I am in search of an authentic man. Just to see into his eyes, I keep this lamp.

Up to now I have failed.”

The day he died in Athens, the dog was sitting by his side and the lamp was there, and somebody asked, ”Diogenes, you are dying; can you say something about what happened to the authentic man? Did you find any authentic man?”

And his last words were, ”Unfortunately I did not find an authentic man, but fortunately nobody has stolen my lamp; that much I can say in favor of humanity. I am a naked man, I sleep and anybody could have stolen it.” He never took life seriously but lived with as much joy and glory as any buddha.

This man Nansen is saying that

”OLD MASTER O IS GOING TO SELL HIMSELF. WILL ANYONE BUY HIM?”

A MONK CAME OUT AND SAID, ”I WILL!”

NANSEN SAID, ”DON’T MAKE ME DEAR; DON’T MAKE ME CHEAP. HOW WILL YOU BUY ME?”

He’s posing a question which is very central to Gautam Buddha’s whole experience: being exactly in the middle. To be exactly in the middle is to transcend the extremes, right and wrong, dark and light, day and night, life and death, good and bad. Just be in the middle, exactly in the middle and you have flown to the beyond. The beyond begins from the middle, never from the extreme. That’s the point he is trying to make. He is saying, ”Good, if you want to purchase me, DON’T MAKE ME

DEAR and DON’T MAKE ME CHEAP. HOW WILL YOU BUY ME?”

THE MONK WAS SILENT. He could not find an answer to it. A man like Nansen can be purchased if you are totally balanced in the middle. If you can show that you are centered in the middle, neither this nor that but just the middle point of everything in the world, Nansen is yours.

THE MONK WAS SILENT. His silence is not an answer, his silence is a failure; in the game he could not manage to answer the master rightly. He could have purchased Nansen by just touching his feet, with gratitude, with love. But remaining silent like a dead tree he missed the point.

The master is always for sale, you just need to have an empty heart. Otherwise where will you allow the master to live? It is not only Nansen, every master is for sale. But you need the heart, the receptivity, the sensitivity, the balance, the space to contain the master.

By receiving the master in your heart you will be transformed totally. On the surface it looks as if you are purchasing the master, but in fact it is always the master who purchases you. It is always the master who is victorious; the disciple has to be defeated, defeated in his ego, defeated in his personality, defeated in his falsehood. The defeat of the disciple is the victory of the master. They both are two sides of the same coin.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION NANSEN WAS ASKED BY A MONK, ”WHERE WILL THE MASTER

BE GONE IN A HUNDRED YEARS’ TIME?”

Stupid question, because Zen does not move from this moment, thisness. A hundred years? The question is stupid but out of compassion the master answers even that. But you can see the playfulness.

”WHERE WILL THE MASTER BE GONE IN A HUNDRED YEARS’ TIME?”

The master goes nowhere, has never been anywhere else than here. Now and here are his abode.

To ask him, ”Where will you be?” is absurd. You don’t understand the simple fact of Zen that it belongs only to eternity. And eternity is in this very moment, it is neither past nor future. If you can be here without wavering towards the past or the future, the mystery of existence opens its doors.

But to ask a master a question like this... what can be done? Almost the whole world is full of mediocre people.

NANSEN SAID, ”I’LL BE A WATER-COLORED OX.”

He is just making a joke, showing his sense of humor, not telling the person that, ”You are stupid!”

But the final result is that, without saying it, he has said it.

THE MONK SAID, ”MAY I FOLLOW YOU OR NOT?”

NANSEN SAID, ”WELL, IF YOU DO, BRING A MOUTHFUL OF GRASS WITH YOU!”

This playfulness, not taking even the stupid question seriously, shows a tremendous insight into existence. You can understand only as a child. When there is no thought but pure innocence shining like a mirror, then everything is as clear as it could be. No question arises, no answer is needed.

This innocence of a child becomes the explosion of enlightenment. Enlightenment is not an answer to anything, it is simply bringing you to this moment with your total consciousness. It is not an answer to any question, it is simply coming back home. You have gone astray; everybody has gone far away from his own home, searching for the home.

In Indian languages the people who are vagabonds, who don’t stay in one place, who go on moving, the gypsies... Those gypsies which you find in Europe originated in Rajputan, in Rajasthan. They are Indians; but because they could not remain in one place, they ended up in Egypt. Because of Egypt they got the name ‘gypsy.’ ‘Egypsy’ it must have been in the beginning, then the ‘e’ was dropped in Europe and they became ‘gypsies.’

‘Gypsies’ in India is a beautiful word: it is khanabados. Its meaning is a man who carries his home on his own shoulders. Khana means ‘home,’ bados means ‘on the shoulders.’

We are carrying our home on our own shoulders, but we are searching unnecessarily for it here and there, running... not looking in the moment where we are. If you can just stay for a second, you will suddenly find this is the place you have always been in, but you never looked at it.

Zen takes away all goals from your life, all problems from your life, all questions from your life because they make you serious. It gives you the moment, and the joy that arises when you are centered in the moment... rejoice, dance, sing!

Life is to be just like a lotus flower.

Seriousness destroys all the flowers.

You will be surprised to know that in Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram – and he was one of the most serious persons in the world, so serious that even tea was a sin – he had a few flower pots, but he removed the roses and started growing wheat. Such seriousness! The country is poor, so he is growing wheat in his pots as if that wheat will destroy the poverty. And he has destroyed the roses.

Nobody raised a question in his ashram that, ”This is stupid. These few pots of wheat will not fulfill anything; only, you have destroyed a few beautiful roses.”

But that is what the serious person always does. He takes away your smiles, your laughter, because

”So many people are sick, how can you laugh? So many people are poor and you are laughing! So many people are in the madhouses, and you are laughing. So many people are criminals and you are laughing. The third world war is hanging over you and you are telling jokes!”

The serious person destroys everything, takes away all joy, all smiles, all love, all roses and makes everyone a dead weight, makes everybody’s life meaningless. Where roses don’t grow life cannot be a joy.

Jesus is right when he says, ”One cannot live by bread alone.” And Mahatma Gandhi used to read Jesus continuously. At least three times in his life he was just on the verge of being converted into Christianity. But perhaps he was interpreting the statement of Jesus the way the Christian missionaries have been for two thousand years. ‘You cannot live by bread alone,’ they interpreted as, ‘You need God, just bread will not do.’

My interpretation is ‘You need roses, just wheat will not do.’ And with bread, with wheat, roses seem to be complementary, parallel. With wheat and God, the distance is so vast, that anybody who interprets it as ‘You need God,’ is forgetting completely that God is a fiction. The rose is not. God is only a concept, the rose is a reality. So I say you cannot live by bread alone, you need roses too.

In fact, you need bread only to have roses; otherwise what is the point of just going on eating if you don’t have any roses?

Only roses can bring smiles to your faces, and joy into your hearts. But the serious person has been the maker of the whole of society up to now. It has to be changed. Life has to be made fun, a play, a beautiful drama. And a person who can make life a drama, a beautiful story, a fiction will be able also to make death a fiction. His life will be simply a dance of love , of gratitude, of peace, of silence.

That is the whole work of Zen, a great point of departure from the old traditional religions.

A Zen poet, Sekiso, wrote:

WITH YOUR TALL, GOLDEN STAFF TINKLING,

YOU HAVE COME ALL THE WAY DOWN.

TALKING FOR DAYS

ABOUT THINGS

NOT OF THE WORLD,

YOUR WORDS HAVE BEEN ALL WE NEEDED.

SUMPTUOUS THE COLORS OF THE HALLS

AND THE TEMPLE BUILDINGS,

LUSH AND DENSE AROUND THEM

THE SERENE BEAUTY OF THE FOREST

AND THE ARBORED WALKS.

LOVELY! OUR HEARTS ARE OPEN,

NOT A GRAIN OF SAND IN OUR FRIENDSHIP.

MAY IT GO JUST LIKE THIS!

IN THE FLOATING WORLD OF THINGS

NEEDLES HIDE IN THE CARPET.

THE MEMORY OF THIS VISIT

SHOULD BE HANDED DOWN FOREVER.

THERE IS SOMETHING BEYOND HAPPINESS

INSIDE THE GATE OF THIS MOUNTAIN.

Nansen used to live on a mountain. Sekiso is one of his followers.

He is saying there is something beyond happiness. Happiness is of the body, of the physiology, of the biology. But there is something beyond happiness, which is not of the body at all, neither of the mind, but of your innermost empty heart. A bliss arises there, mysterious and miraculous.

But it makes everything in existence clear, gives you eyes for the first time. Before that you have been blind and in darkness. In fact it also gives you life for the first time; before that you were only superficially living. Now you are living in the depths of eternity, your empty heart.

That was Nansen’s teaching. INSIDE THE GATE OF THIS MOUNTAIN... There was a gate that still stands on the mountain where Nansen lived. Now even the mountain is called Nansen in his memory. Sekiso is saying that if you are seeking something beyond happiness this is the right gate.

Here lives a man who can point you to the path of blissfulness, of a joy that is not of this world.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

WE HEAR YOU SAY EACH NIGHT, ”GO INSIDE – DON’T BE AFRAID. YOU WILL MEET NO ONE

ELSE BUT YOURSELF.”

WHY THE FEAR OF MEETING OUR SELF?

Maneesha, it is a significant question. Nobody wants to meet himself because there is so much risk in it. You have painted your face, you have a beautiful mask on your face. You will be afraid to see your real face, your original face. The mask helps you accord to people’s opinions of what is beautiful. You have gathered a personality that is also according to people’s opinion: how you should sit, how you should behave, what you should wear, everything society has forced upon you.

And it is a great blackmail because if you follow society they will give you respectability, you will be honored. If you don’t follow society, you will lose respect, you will be treated almost as an outcast. This is the fear of meeting yourself, because the society has covered your self in many layers according to its own convenience. Whatever it wants from you, it has made you.

You have become a commodity, useful, efficient, serviceable. You have become a slave. The fear is that if you find yourself, the authentic being, then you will be in trouble. You will have to drop all that is false. And all that you have right now is false.

And your authentic being will not be respected by the society: it will be condemned, it will be crucified, it will be poisoned. Society does not like original people; society wants slaves, not masters, and the man who knows himself can never be enslaved.

So your fear is that it is cozy and comfortable to belong to the crowd; you have your respect, your honor. Finding yourself you don’t know what you are going to find; it is going to be something absolutely unknown. Society has created so much distance between your real being and the unreal false personality that covers your real being.

You are trained as a personality, you are born as an individuality. Now your training is your investment. You may be forty years old, you may be fifty years old. For fifty years you have trained yourself as a personality. If you find your real self, these fifty years have gone down the drain. You have to begin from ABC and against the whole of society. The individual is always rebellious, and the personality is always a beautiful slave. Hiding behind the beautiful slave is an ugly reality? That is the fear.

You will have to stand alone. You will have to encounter the whole society that surrounds you.

Nobody wants you to be yourself, everybody wants you to be according to his convenience. And they have succeeded, by education, by changing you from childhood into a civilized, cultured being.

And you have left your reality in your childhood, fifty years back, sixty years back.

Now it is too long a distance and too dangerous, too risky; you have respectability, you have honor, all will be lost. So it is better to go on keeping hold of the false and ignoring the real. But one thing is to be remembered, through the false you can never be blissful. That which is not authentic cannot give you peace. You will be guilty in your own eyes.

A man was surrounded by his friends on his sixtieth birthday. And they were all drinking and singing and dancing when suddenly the man disappeared. So one of the friends went out in the garden to look for him. ”What happened, why has he gone out? He is not supposed to, he has to be here, it is his birthday.”

And the man was sitting there under a tree. The friend approached him and asked him, ”Why are you so sad?”

He said, ”You are the cause of it!”

The man said, ”I? What have I done to you?”

The man said, ”Not today, remember twenty-five years back?”

The man said, ”Twenty-five years back? Just tell me yourself, what is the problem?”

He was a very well-known criminal lawyer.

The man said to him, ”Twenty-five years ago, remember, I had come to you to ask that if I kill my wife, how much imprisonment...? And you told me, ‘At least twenty-five years. Even though I try my hardest, you will go for twenty-five years, so don’t do such a thing.’ Now twenty-five years have passed, and I am feeling that today I would have been free. If I had not listened to you, you idiot, today I would have come out of the jail. Now there is no hope. I lived with a woman for these twenty-five years whom I wanted to kill.”

But everybody is living with things which they wanted to drop. It is not only a question of a woman or a man. But they go on living with them; it seems risky to drop anything.

Society wants you to be very orthodox, traditional. ”Just follow the footpaths of your parents, don’t try to make your own path. Don’t try to become yourself.” That is told from all sides and corners of the society. Your teachers will tell it, your priests will tell it, your parents will tell it, your friends will tell it.

But my effort here, Maneesha, is exactly that you should go inside. And there is no need to be afraid.

You will meet no one else but yourself. And the sooner you do it the better, because nobody knows about tomorrow. At least know yourself in authenticity.

Live, even if few years are left, in your truth, whatever the consequences. At least you will be a blissful person. You may not be respected, may be condemned, but who cares about condemnation? That is their opinion, and they are free to have their opinion.

You should care only about one thing, that you are happy, that you are blissful, that you are silent, that you are at ease with existence. Don’t bother about anybody, any religion, any society, any culture, any education. They are all strategies to create personalities out of individuals.

My work is to undo their work, and bring out the individual in its pure beauty. Your authentic being is related to the eternity of life, your false being is not related to anything. It is just a cover that the society has put over you.

The fear arises, Maneesha, because one is afraid to be alone. But my experience is, the only bliss in life is to be alone, not taking any notice whatever the world says. They are free to say it, you need not be disturbed. You enjoy your life according to your own insight, you live your life according to your own intuition.

And you will be able to die. A life of fulfillment always ends in a death of tremendous revolution.

Death is no more there, you enter into eternity; death becomes a door, not an end. But it is a door only for the real; for the unreal it is an end.

Before you go on the marathon race to find yourself, just for the journey, to remember that it is a joyful and playful experience, it is not a serious thing....

Cecil B. Baloney, the famous Hollywood movie director, is shooting his new film on location in Ireland.

The next scene is to be a street fight, and Cecil gets a bright idea for making it very realistic.

He beckons to Rock Hunk, the star of the movie, and he says, ”Now, for this street fight, I want to try something new. You see that local couple coming down the street? Go and insult the wife. Then, when the man goes to hit you, we will start rolling the camera. It will be pure realism!”

Hunk shrugs and walks up to the couple, who turn out to be Paddy and Maureen O’Murphy, doing their shopping.

”Hey, buddy, is this lady your wife?” asks Hunk sternly.

”Yes,” replies Paddy. ”Why?”

”Well,” says Rock, ”she is one of the ugliest women I have ever seen!”

Paddy turns to look at Maureen. ”You see,” says Paddy, ”he thinks so too!”

Farmer O’Reilly goes to see the doctor for his yearly check-up.

After the examination the doctor says, ”You are good and healthy, but there is one thing I have to tell you. You must start wearing underwear, for two reasons. First, it is more hygienic, and second, it is warmer.”

So Farmer O’Reilly buys himself some underwear and puts them on.

The next day he is out in the fields when he needs to take a shit. So he climbs off the tractor, pulls down his pants, but of course forgets about his underwear.

When he has finished, he pulls up his pants, takes a look behind him, and mumbles, ”The doc was right, it is more hygienic.”

Then he climbs back onto his tractor, and sits down.

”Right again!” exclaims O’Reilly in surprise. ”It is warmer too!”

On an ocean cruise in the south Pacific the ship sinks, leaving only twelve survivors, who are lucky enough to reach a small island nearby.

They are two French businessmen and their secretary, two Italian businessmen and their secretary, two American oil executives and their secretary, and two British businessmen and their secretary.

After a week, the two Frenchmen reach an agreement. One man gets the secretary on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and the other Frenchman gets her on alternate days. On Sunday, naturally, she gets both of them.

After a week, one Italian businessman shoots the other Italian so that he can have the secretary all to himself.

After a week, the two American executives and their secretary are still waiting for instructions from head-office in Texas.

But after two days, the two British businessmen shoot their secretary, so that they can have each other!

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel the body to be completely frozen. Now, look inwards, with total urgency, as if this is your last moment.

Go deeper with all your consciousness as a spear forcing into the center of your being. This center belongs to eternity. At this center you suddenly become a buddha, because you also become eternal.

The buddha is the highest peak of your consciousness, the very Everest. And unless you have reached to this Everest, you have not fulfilled your potentiality.

You are not born to be just mediocre human beings. Your destiny is to be gods. Less than that won’t do. And it is not a question of becoming a buddha, it is simply a question of remembering. It is your very nature.

To make it absolutely clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Remain a witness of the body and the mind, just a witness because that is the only quality that belongs to eternity. That is the only quality, that is your nature. It is not given to you. It is your very self.

Just watch silently and peacefully. You are neither the body nor the mind. And then suddenly a great explosion happens, your witness takes the form of the buddha.

This evening has been beautiful on its own. But thousands of stars have been added to it by your witnessing selves. At this moment there are not ten thousand buddhas but only one ocean of consciousness. All separation disappears.

This is the greatest splendor that is available to you, and only to you. Except man no other animal can reach to this point of buddhahood. It is your privilege.

Thousands of flowers are showering on you, of peace, of silence, of love, of joy. The clouds have come to confirm it.

Before Nivedano calls you back, gather as many flowers, as much fragrance as you can, because you have to live the buddha twenty-four hours. It is not a question of a few minutes’ meditation.

A few minutes of meditation is just a remembrance, every day deepening more and more into the nature of your being.

But you have to live it twenty-four hours in every action, in every word, in every silence, in every gesture. If you can live the way a buddha is supposed to live, your life will become a dance, a poetry, a music.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back. But come back as buddhas. Even in your coming, show the grace of the buddha, silently, peacefully. Sit down for a few minutes, to recollect the experience, the space you have visited, the path that you have followed.

And make it a point to remember in your ordinary day-to-day life that you are carrying a buddha within you, that you are pregnant with a buddha. And you have to be careful about it. It is a very delicate affair.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 9

Just a morning walk

13 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

NANSEN ONCE WENT INTO THE GARDEN AND, SEEING A MONK THERE, THREW A PIECE

OF BROKEN TILE AT HIM AND HIT HIM. WHEN THE MONK TURNED HIS HEAD, NANSEN

LIFTED UP ONE LEG. THE MONK MADE NO RESPONSE. NANSEN RETURNED TO THE

TEMPLE AND THE MONK FOLLOWED HIM AND ASKED TO BE TAUGHT, SAYING ”THE

MASTER JUST THREW A PIECE OF TILE AT ME AND HIT ME. DID HE NOT DO THIS AS A MEANS OF AROUSING ME?”

NANSEN SAID, ”HOW ABOUT RAISING THE LEG?”

THE MONK WAS SILENT.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK CAME AND STOOD BEFORE NANSEN WITH FOLDED

HANDS. NANSEN SAID, ”A GREAT LAYMAN!”

THE MONK CLASPED HIS HANDS.

NANSEN SAID, ”A GREAT MONK!”

Maneesha, there exists in world literature nothing comparable to Zen anecdotes. They are so pregnant with meaning that even a child can understand them, although even the oldest person may not understand them. To understand these anecdotes you have to learn the whole language of Zen. It has a world of its own.

It speaks of course in your languages but it gives a totally new color, a totally new meaning to the same old words or gestures. Most often it speaks in gestures. People who are outside the stream of Zen will find it a little eccentric, crazy, but it is utterly sane; just its meaning has to be explained to you. The people who have been studying and meditating in Zen don’t need any explanation; they immediately pick up the gesture. But that is not true about the people outside the Zen circle. This anecdote is a beautiful illustration.

NANSEN ONCE WENT INTO THE GARDEN AND, SEEING A MONK THERE, THREW A PIECE

OF BROKEN TILE AT HIM AND HIT HIM. WHEN THE MONK TURNED HIS HEAD, NANSEN

LIFTED UP ONE LEG. Now there is something Nansen wants to convey through the gesture, but the monk missed.

THE MONK MADE NO RESPONSE. NANSEN RETURNED TO THE TEMPLE AND THE MONK

FOLLOWED HIM AND ASKED TO BE TAUGHT, SAYING ”THE MASTER JUST THREW A PIECE

OF TILE AT ME AND HIT ME. DID HE NOT DO THIS AS A MEANS OF AROUSING ME?”

NANSEN SAID, ”HOW ABOUT RAISING THE LEG?”

THE MONK WAS SILENT.

The gesture is ancient. The monk turned only halfway when he was hit, he turned halfway and looked at the master. That’s why the master raised one leg. He is saying, ”Turn totally; halfway will not do. Halfhearted you cannot enter into yourself. Have a complete about-turn.” That was the meaning of raising one leg: ”You are doing it, but very halfheartedly.”

There are things which can be done halfheartedly. In the whole world whatever we are doing, nothing requires your total being to be involved in it. But as far as the inner pilgrimage is concerned your total being is needed. Nothing has to be left behind. You have to gather your whole consciousness.

In that very gathering you are coming closer to the center.

Right now we are living on the circumference, completely forgetful about the center, yet the center is the source and the center is the goal. At the very center of your being is the connecting link with the universe. There you are not you. At the very center you disappear, there only remains a pure consciousness, a fragrance.

People are afraid to go in, for the simple reason they can feel, unconsciously of course, that they can exist only as personalities on the circumference. If they go deeper into their own being, they will have to leave their personalities, their egos, their respectabilities; all that they have gathered will have to be left. They will have to go alone as consciousness, pure consciousness.

And the ultimate fear of dissolving oneself into the universe... When a river reaches to the ocean, they say that it stops for a moment, thinks twice, looks backward – all those beautiful valleys and the mountains – hesitant, fragile, afraid to take a jump into the ocean, because that jump means you will not be anymore. But that is only half the truth. That jump also means that you will become the ocean.

I have told you about a great Indian mystic, Kabir. In his youth he wrote a small poem in which he said, ”When I reached to my very center I felt as if a dewdrop has slipped from the lotus leaf into the ocean.” It was a beautiful statement. But at the time of his death, he called his son and told him,

”Change it please because now I know more. That was my first acquaintance with the ocean. And I had felt at that time that the dewdrop had disappeared in the ocean. Please change it; write down that the ocean has disappeared in the dewdrop. Now I can speak with authority.”

The fear is one-sided. You have not taken into account the whole realization.

Nansen hit the monk with the tile. Nansen was the man who started hitting, slapping, beating, just to wake you. We are according to Zen half asleep, half awake. Our waking is not authentic and total.

We are almost somnambulists, sleeping, and also working with closed eyes, and if you become more watchful, you will see it in yourself that many of your actions you are doing like a robot; you have done them so many times.

George Gurdjieff used to say that man’s mind has the function of a robot. In the beginning you have to learn, you have a little awareness. Once you have learned something, you don’t need any awareness; once you have learned something, it is transferred to the robot part of your mind. Then it becomes computerized; then you can go on sleeping and the mind will go on working.

Nansen’s starting to hit monks is very symbolic; because if somebody is hit for no reason, naturally for a moment he wakes up. For a moment he comes out of his thick crowd of thoughts, because it is so unreasonable. If it had been reasonable it would not have disturbed; the man would have rationalized why Nansen did it.

But because he could not rationalize – there was no reason, he has not done anything wrong; he is simply working in the garden, and the master suddenly takes a broken tile and hits him hard – the mind stops for a moment.

He turned to look at the master; at that moment the master raised one leg. That he could not understand. The master is saying, ”You have turned only half; turn totally, and turn in, not towards me. I’m just an object outside.”

No authentic master wants his disciples to turn towards him, because that is taking them away from their own selves. Only the false master, the pseudo master, tries to get people to look up to him, to surrender to him, to be dedicated to him, to be devoted to him; his whole concern is that the disciples’ consciousness should be arrowed towards him.

This is the only way of finding out whether the master is authentic or pseudo. The authentic master tries in every possible way to turn you inwards. Everything outside is objective: it will never give you an insight into your subjective reality; it will never allow you to know your interiority, which is your temple, where is hiding your buddha, where you will reach to the highest point of consciousness.

ON ANOTHER OCCASION, A MONK CAME AND STOOD BEFORE NANSEN WITH FOLDED

HANDS. NANSEN SAID, ”A GREAT LAYMAN!”

A layman is not a disciple but has deep gratefulness, respectfulness towards those who have arrived, who have reached to the point of ultimate explosion. Folded hands in the East are the symbol of respectfulness. It also represents humbleness.

NANSEN SAID, ”A GREAT LAYMAN!”

THE MONK CLASPED HIS HANDS.

NANSEN SAID, ”A GREAT MONK!”

On the surface all these statements look irrational, absurd. What the monk is saying by clasping his hands is, ”My hands are not dead, they are not like a statue. My love and my gratitude is alive. You should not call me just a layman, I am a fellow traveler.” The movement of the hands signifies that the hands are not made of stone or wood, they are alive.

And Zen is the religion of the people who worship only life, no stone gods, no statues, no God in the heaven. All those are fictions for Zen. Zen loves this life in total affirmation. For Zen there is nothing more to existence than this life; you just have to go deeper into it, where space and time are both left behind, where you enter into the transcendental. Zen has no god, Zen has no prayer; there is nobody to whom to pray. Zen is absolutely concerned with the inner, not with the outer.

All of the religions are concerned with the outer: a god somewhere above the clouds. Zen laughs at such gods. Man has created them out of fear: man needs a protection, he feels alone, he feels afraid of death, he needs a protector god. All the gods are fictions; but they have a certain utility: they console. Zen does not believe in consolation, it believes in realization.

And if you want to know what life is... from the outside you can only know the surface. Only digging deep into your own being will you be able to know life from within and the moment you know life from within your whole existence becomes a dance, a joy, a bliss, a gratitude to existence. Zen has a totally different approach to any other religion. As far as I’m concerned, Zen is the only religion, others are pseudo substitutes.

Nansen has thousands of disciples. One of the disciples, Sekiso, wrote a small poem: A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT

BUT IT NEVER MOVES AT ALL.

WILD AND SOLITARY,

SHARP AND FULL OF POWER,

IT SOARS LIKE A BIRD’S FEATHER.

I GIVE MY ASSENT ONLY TO ONE

WHO HAS CLIMBED TO THE SUMMIT.

WALKING, SITTING, LYING DOWN,

HE DOES EVERYTHING AS THOUGH

HE WERE OUT FOR A STROLL.

A beautiful piece, describing exactly the state of a man who has reached to the sunlit peaks of consciousness. Everything for him is just playfulness, as if he has gone for a walk in the morning, as the sun is rising; just a morning walk: no goal, he can turn anywhere, he’s not going anywhere, no purpose, just the sheer joy of the morning and the cool breeze, and the rising sun, and the singing birds, and the opening flowers, and the fragrant air. But no purpose of his own, no goal of his own, just a sheer joy.

Unfortunate are the people who never look to the sunrise, to the sunset, to a starry night. These are all non-utilitarian things, and such people are so much concerned with money, power. Their whole concern is with small and mediocre things.

In Zen, nature in all its forms: whether it is raining, or there is a thundercloud, or lightning, whether it is morning, or evening, or a deep night when everything becomes silent... Zen goes on watching all this, witnessing all this. For the man who has found the witness, this whole existence becomes an immense wonder.

Sekiso said, A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT, against the witness, BUT IT NEVER MOVES

AT ALL; the witness has never moved. It is the only immovable part in the world. Everything moves and changes; only one thing never changes, that which is hidden inside you at the center.

Heraclitus said, ”You cannot step twice in the same river.” But unfortunately in the West, philosophers, theologians, the so-called religious people have never inquired about the witness. If I meet Heraclitus somewhere – and one never knows, in this vast universe I may meet him – I would like to tell him, ”It is true you cannot step twice in the same river because the river is continuously moving. But you have forgotten one thing, you have forgotten yourself.”

The same witness can step in thousands of rivers. The changing rivers don’t change the witness. A mirror can reflect thousands of things; those reflections don’t change the mirror. Reflections come and go without leaving a trace behind, no footprints, just the mirror. And this mirror has been the search of the East. When I say ‘witness’, I mean a mirror-like quality of your consciousness, which simply reflects.

A VIOLENT STORM BEATS AGAINST IT

BUT IT NEVER MOVES AT ALL.

WILD AND SOLITARY,

SHARP AND FULL OF POWER,

IT SOARS LIKE A BIRD’S FEATHER.

I GIVE MY ASSENT ONLY TO ONE

WHO HAS CLIMBED TO THE SUMMIT.

WALKING, SITTING, LYING DOWN,

HE DOES EVERYTHING AS THOUGH

HE WERE OUT FOR A STROLL.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked:

BELOVED OSHO,

THE POEMS OR HAIKUS THAT YOU TALK ABOUT EACH EVENING SOUND SO

CONTEMPORARY – AS THOUGH THEY WERE WRITTEN ABOUT YOU AND YOUR DISCIPLES.

YET THEY HAVE COME TO US FROM CENTURIES EARLIER.

IS THAT AN ATTRIBUTE OF THE TRUTH, THAT IT RESONATES WITH ALL PEOPLE

EVERYWHERE, IN ANY AGE, WHO ARE SEEKING IT?

Maneesha, every art can be described either as objective art or as subjective art. Subjective art you will find everywhere; it comes from your feelings, from your heart, from your mind in paintings, in poetry, in music.

But objective art comes from the emptiness of your heart; you just become a flute, a hollow bamboo and the universe sings through you. Your only credit is that you don’t create any hindrances, you simply allow the universe to flow through you. With you being in a let-go and allowing the universe to flow through you, objective art is created.

There is not much objective art in the world, because before objective art can be created you have to become a hollow bamboo; and you are so solid, your ego is so stubborn. Before creating objective art, you have to be so humble, almost nobody. In your absence there comes a great universal flood.

That flood can become poetry, a painting, music, a dance, a sculpture. Thousands of dimensions are available, you just allow it. These haikus are objective art; they are not composed, they have flown through a silent, empty heart.

I have told you about the great English poet Coleridge. When he died he left forty thousand poems incomplete. His whole life his friends insisted to him, ”Why don’t you complete them? Just one line is missing, otherwise this will be a great poem.”

He said ”You don’t understand me. I don’t write, I don’t compose, I am in the hands of the universe.

When it comes, it comes. When it stops, it stops. I have no way of adding anything or editing out anything.”

A strange incident happened when Rabindranath Tagore was given the Nobel Prize. He was given the Nobel Prize for a small book of poems, GITANJALI, ‘Offering of Songs’. Originally the book was written in Bengali which was his mother tongue; then he translated it into English. But he was hesitant because it might not be so beautiful as in his own mother tongue.

So he asked a great missionary who was here in India, Andrews, ”Will you take a look and if you find anything grammatical, linguistic that is wrong in it, just please help me so I can change it ?”

Andrews was a very learned missionary. He looked through the poem and he was very much impressed. But at four points he said, ”If you change these four words, it will be as complete as it can be.” Rabindranath changed those four words.

Rabindranath’s friend, a great poet himself, Yeats, called a poets’ gathering in which Rabindranath was to recite GITANJALI for the first time in London. Everybody was impressed. It is a tremendously beautiful book; there exist only a few books in world literature which can be compared to it.

But Yeats himself looked a little concerned. He said to Rabindranath, ”Everything looks right; only, at four words something has gone wrong.”

And those were the four words that Andrews had put in. Yeats got those four words exactly and told him that, ”There the flow seems to be stopped, somebody else has entered in, knowledgeable...

perhaps your own words may not have been grammatical. That does not matter, that is the freedom of the poet to open his heart, not to bother about grammar and not to bother about rules of language.

You just put your words.”

And Rabindranath changed his words in place of Andrews’, and Yeats said ,”Now I feel the flow is complete, there are no stumbling blocks.”

That was also Yeats’ own experience, that whenever a poem descends from beyond, and you are only at the receiving end, if you try to improve upon it, it loses its mystery, its miracle. It becomes human; it loses its quality of being divine.

Maneesha, haikus don’t belong to time. No objective art belongs to time; it is forever, because it comes from beyond the mind, from eternity itself. That’s why you feel as if these haikus are written for you. These incidents have happened for you. This will be forever so; as long as man goes on searching for inner truth these haikus will remain contemporary, these anecdotes will not become out-of-date.

Before you go for your morning stroll... just to let you know that you have to come back... I’m already condemned all over the world – just be kind to me – because I go on forcing you to go in, to go in.

And if you really go in, you are gone! So as far as I’m concerned I will tell you to go slowly, and remember to return. I’m sending you with a return ticket!

It is the nurse’s day off, so Doctor Bones sticks his head into the waiting room and says, ”Who’s next?”

”Me, doc,” says Kowalski, standing up.

”What is your trouble?” asks Bones.

”I’ve got a pain in my prick,” replies Kowalski.

Bones grabs Kowalski by the arm and drags him into his office.

”Never do that again!” he cries. ”Especially when my waiting room is full of people. Next time, just say that your nose or your eye is troubling you!”

A couple of weeks later, Kowalski comes back. It is the nurse’s day off again, so Bones sticks his head out of his surgery, and asks, ”Who’s next?”

”Me, doc,” says Kowalski, standing up.

”What’s the trouble?” inquires Bones.

”My nose is bothering me, doc,” replies Kowalski.

”What’s wrong with it?” asks Bones.

”Well, doc,” says Kowalski, ”I can’t piss out of it!”

This joke always reminds me about a shankaracharya who was speaking in Bombay. A lady was sitting in the front, very rich, with a small child. And the child was continuously telling her, ”I want to piss! I wanna piss!” And the shankaracharya was very much annoyed because he was talking about great things. And everybody was laughing and suppressing their laughter, but the boy was very insistent: ”You allow me, otherwise I will piss here! It is coming so strong!”

Finally the shankaracharya had to end his sermon more quickly. He took the lady aside, and told her, ”You have to teach some culture to the child. He disturbed the whole spiritual sermon.”

The woman asked, ”What can I do? He always insists on coming with me. And he cannot sit for too long. So this question of, ‘I wanna piss!’ always comes.”

The shankaracharya said, ”You should tell him that whenever you feel that you want to piss, don’t use the word ‘piss’. Just say, ‘Mom, I want to sing.’ And then you can take him away to the bathroom; nobody will know what ‘singing’ is.”

A few months later the shankaracharya was staying in that lady’s house itself.

And just by

coincidence the lady said to the shankaracharya, ”Some relative has died. I and my husband have to go immediately and we may not be back by the morning. And the child is accustomed to sleep with me or with his father. So if you don’t mind, can he sleep with you?”

The shankaracharya said, ”There is no problem, he can sleep with me.”

But in the middle of the night the problem came. The child nudged the shankaracharya and said, ”I wanna sing!”

The shankaracharya said, ”You idiot, in the middle of the night, you wanna sing?! You disturb my sleep and you will disturb other people’s sleep. Just keep quiet and go to sleep!”

But after a few minutes the boy nudged the shankaracharya again, and he said, ”I’m trying my best, but the singing is coming very fast!”

The shankaracharya said, ”I have never seen a singing that is coming so fast that you cannot wait for the morning.”

He said, ”My God, till the morning! I cannot wait for even one minute! Just tell me, can I sing or not?!”

The shankaracharya thought for a moment. There was nobody else to inquire what to do, so he said,

”You do one thing. You sing very silently into my ear, so nobody is disturbed. Then be satisfied!”

The boy said, ”If you say so I will do it! But don’t say anything about it to anybody! Not to my mother, not to my father. Otherwise, I will get beaten!”

He said, ”Why will you get beaten? Are you simply singing or doing something else?”

He said ”Pure singing!”

So the shankaracharya gave him his ear, and the boy ”sang” in his ear! The shankaracharya jumped up! He said, ”You idiot! This is singing?!”

He said ”You have forgotten. It was you who suggested to my mother that instead of ’I wanna piss’, I should say ‘I wanna sing’. And now you are changing.”

Then the shankaracharya remembered, and he said, ”My God, I will never change anybody’s word again.”

Changing words is dangerous!

A group of American tourists are about to enter the Limerick Hotel in Ireland, when suddenly the revolving door spins around and out shoots Old O’Grady.

O’Grady takes off, racing around the car park of the hotel making a noise like a car engine. He runs around changing gears, honking the horn, making hand signals, and then goes roaring off down the street.

One of the American tourists drops his camera and turns to Seamus, who is leaning against the side of the hotel.

”What was that all about?” asks the tourist.

”Oh,” replies Seamus, ”that was Old O’Grady. He is a little eccentric, and he always ‘drives’ around like that when he has had a few drinks.”

”Well,” snorts the tourist, ”why don’t you try to stop him?”

”Now why should I want to do that,” asks Seamus, ”when he pays me five dollars every week to wash the car?!”

Little Alice is walking down the beach one day when she sees Chester Cheese lying on the sand with only a newspaper covering his machinery.

Little Alice looks at the snoozing Chester for a while, with great curiosity. Finally, unable to resist, she shakes Chester awake and says, ”Hey, mister. What is that thing moving underneath your newspaper?”

Chester, groggy and blinking his eyes, looks at Little Alice and mumbles, ”Oh, that is my pet bird.”

Chester falls back asleep while Alice stands there and watches the mysterious, moving newspaper.

Finally, she cannot wait any longer, so she goes up to Chester and peeks under the newspaper. The next thing Chester knows, he wakes up in hospital with his machinery in bandages, and in terrible pain.

”What happened?” he moans to the nurse.

”Perhaps,” replies the nurse, ”you should ask this little girl. She came in with you.”

Chester looks at Little Alice. ”So?” he asks. ”What happened?”

”Well,” says Alice firmly. ”I decided to take a look at your pet bird, but as soon as I lifted up the newspaper and started to play with him, he jumped up and spat at me.

So I grabbed him, twisted his neck, crushed his eggs, and stomped on his nest!”

Now Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes, and feel your body to be completely frozen.

Now, look inwards. Gather all your consciousness as a spear. Move towards the center of your being. At the center are all the secrets of life. The center is beyond birth and beyond death.

Metaphorically we call the center the buddha, the awakened one. At this moment, you are all buddhas. And remember, to be a buddha does not mean to be a Buddhist.

It is not a question of following anyone. It is not a question of conversion. It is a question of awakening to your own depths, to your own center.

Your ordinary life is lived on the circumference. Meditation means to move from the circumference to the center. And this center is not only yours. It is the center of the whole universe.

We are separate on the circumference; at the center we are one, one oceanic reality. This oneness brings tremendous blessing, a great silence, a deep blissfulness.

Deeper and deeper. The deeper you go, the closer you are to the universal center. Without any fear go on, till you feel the buddha arising in you.

One has not to become a buddha; the buddha is our very nature. We are born with it. We are carrying it within our very soul. Everybody is pregnant with a buddha. It is only a question of discovering, only a question of remembering, who you are.

To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Just watch the body lying there, the mind lying there. You are not the body nor the mind but just a witness, a mirror-like, reflective watchfulness. This witnessing is the greatest contribution the East has made to the world. Everything dies, everything changes, only this witnessing remains.

Thousands of flowers, thousands of colors, stars are showering on you.

The evening was beautiful in itself. But ten thousand buddhas have made it majestic, a splendor, a miracle.

Particularly in these days, to reach to your own center has become very difficult because nobody tells you, nobody educates you, that your real treasure is within you not without you. The god is not above the clouds, the god is hidden in your consciousness. Your consciousness is god itself.

Drink from this source as much as you can, get drenched with the joy and the fragrance because you have to bring it back.

Meditation is not something that you do for a few minutes, it is something that you have to continue the whole day. Doing everything, your buddhahood should remain an undercurrent, a deep awareness, alertness, consciousness in your gestures, in your actions, in your silences.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back. But show the quality, even in coming back, of a graceful buddha.

Slowly, peacefully, joyously, with a dancing heart sit down for a few moments, just to recollect the place you have been, the path you have trodden. You have to go on this path every day deeper and deeper.

You have to become acquainted with your buddha as much as possible, so you can bring him from the center to the circumference.

When all your actions and all your gestures, words and silences become that of a buddha, you have arrived home.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Can we celebrate the ten thousand buddhas?

Yes, Osho.

CHAPTER 10

My dance is complete

14 October 1988 pm in Gautam the Buddha Auditorium

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE NANSEN SAID TO THE ASSEMBLED MONKS, ”THE WAY IS NOT OUTSIDE THINGS; OUTSIDE THINGS THERE IS NO WAY.”

JOSHU ASKED, ”WHAT IS THE WAY WHICH IS OUTSIDE THINGS?”

NANSEN IMMEDIATELY STRUCK HIM. JOSHU CAUGHT HOLD OF THE STICK AND SAID,

”FROM NOW ON, DON’T STRIKE SOMEBODY BY MISTAKE!”

NANSEN SAID, ”IT’S EASY TO SPEAK OF A DRAGON, BUT DIFFICULT TO PLEASE ME!” AND

THROWING DOWN HIS STICK, HE WENT BACK TO HIS ROOM.

AT ANOTHER TIME, JOSHU ASKED NANSEN, ”WHEN ONE REALIZES THAT ‘THERE IS,’

WHERE SHOULD HE GO FROM THERE?”

NANSEN REPLIED, ”HE SHOULD GO DOWN THE HILL TO BECOME A BUFFALO IN THE

VILLAGE BELOW!”

JOSHU THANKED NANSEN FOR HAVING LED HIM TO HIS FULL ENLIGHTENMENT.

IN RESPONSE, NANSEN COMMENTED, ”LAST NIGHT, AT THE THIRD WATCH, THE MOON

SHONE THROUGH THE WINDOW.”

Maneesha, first I have to express my apology to you that I could not join in your dance. The whole credit goes to President Ronald Reagan. For no reason at all he dragged me through six jails in twelve days; I thought it was sheer torture. But as symptoms of poison started appearing in my body, experts in England examined every possible kind of poison that may have been given to me.

And they found one poison which is a category in itself. It is the only poison that disappears and cannot be found either in blood or in any other way except in the symptoms. And that poison, given in a big dose, kills the man immediately.

That made it clear to me why I was dragged through six jails. It was to give the poison in small doses so it would not kill me immediately, but would take years to destroy my body from inside.

I have almost overcome the poison. Just in my hands, in the bones and particularly in the joints it is still stuck. I have been dancing with you without bothering about it. I would have continued, but today the pain became too much.

But the pain is not the problem for me. The problem is: if I continue then perhaps I may have to stop speaking. So it is better to let this pain settle. I hope soon I will be joining with you again.

It would have been good if Ronald Reagan had killed me completely; that would have been a great credit to Christianity and to American democracy. But he has poisoned me through his administration in such a way that I will remain crucified for years. I am saving all my energy just for these two hours in the evening; otherwise, I am lying down in the darkness.

For me it does not matter whether death comes this moment or the next, my purpose is fulfilled, my dance is complete. I am just lingering around for you all to join with me in the great matter of enlightenment.

So I thought it is better not to put too much stress on the hands; you can understand even my unmoving hands and their gestures. But I would like you to continue the dance before I come and to continue the celebration when I leave the podium. I hope that with your love the poison will be defeated and I will be able to dance with you, to celebrate with you.

I don’t have any complaint against anybody; nature, existence itself takes care of things. The day I was given poison – I remember the night in Oklahoma jail – that very moment Ronald Reagan’s days were finished, he started declining. His associate, Ed Meese, the attorney general who was the main agent as far as the poisoning is concerned, has now had to resign because he has been found to have committed great crimes.

His representative admitted at a press conference, after I was deported from America, that there is no evidence, no proof that I have committed any crime. ”Our main object was to destroy the commune and without deporting Osho it was impossible to destroy the commune.”

The commune was creating great trouble in the minds of fanatic Christians, the fundamentalists, because the commune was a clear-cut alternative to a sad society, miserable, in deep anguish. And the commune was just a laughter, a joy, a dance. This became impossible for the Christians to tolerate, and for Ronald Reagan who is a fundamentalist Christian. They forgot all democracy, all their own constitution and they did everything to destroy the commune. But the first thing was to deport me.

They could not deport me without any evidence of crime on my part so they tried everything else.

They did not leave themselves any alternative. First they poisoned me, second they put a bomb under my chair, thirdly they blackmailed my attorneys. They produced a list of crimes, thirty-four crimes, and the U.S. attorney admitted as soon as I had left America that there was no proof, no evidence that I had ever committed anything; I was not even speaking for three and a half years.

The government attorneys blackmailed my attorneys by saying, ”You see this list? We know and you know that if you go on fighting you will finally win, but it will take twenty to thirty years. Secondly our suggestion is that you are risking Osho’s life.”

That was a clear-cut indication that the government was bent upon destroying the commune whether any crime had been committed or not. My attorneys said to me: ”If you accept two crimes they are ready to let you go.” They did not tell the attorneys that accepting two crimes is not a simple affair; it has implications. Those two crimes committed by anybody else would have brought fines of twenty-five or at the most fifty dollars. But they punished me with a fine of four-hundred-thousand dollars.

That is nearabout sixty-lakh rupees.

Even my attorneys were shocked, because it was not discussed in the negotiations. And I was deported immediately; my plane was kept at the airport, ready. Perhaps they were afraid; if I died, then the blame would go on American democracy. So within fifteen minutes I had to leave America.

Since then I have been haunting their minds. They have been trying in every way... just as Ed Meese stated to the press, ”We will make every effort to silence Osho’s voice.”

They managed to persuade twenty-one countries not to let me in. And they have forced the Indian government not to allow in sannyasins coming from all over the world, so that I am isolated, almost imprisoned in my own home.

But my people are intelligent enough to manage to come against all odds. And it is your love that is now my life. It is a question whether love wins or the poison.

There is every evidence that from the whole body the poison has disappeared. Just in the hands it is there. It will have to disappear from the hands too, because you cannot destroy an innocent man; existence would not allow it. But I have to be a little careful now about the hands.

Why have they not been able to silence me? Truth cannot be silenced, neither love nor joy. But this is the stupid thing, for centuries people have been doing that: they killed Socrates by poison, but his voice is still ringing in the ears and in the hearts of those who want to understand the deepest meanings of life; they crucified Jesus, but that has not made any difference, in fact it gave a tremendous importance to his teachings.

I want to remind you that whether I am here or not the celebration has to continue. If I am not here, then it has to be more intense and it has to spread around the world.

Celebration is my religion.

Love is my message.

Silence is my truth.

Maneesha has brought the sutra:

BELOVED OSHO,

ONCE NANSEN SAID TO THE ASSEMBLED MONKS, ”THE WAY IS NOT OUTSIDE THINGS; OUTSIDE THINGS THERE IS NO WAY.”

Nansen has a style of his own – apparently contradictory, like this statement: THE WAY IS NOT

OUTSIDE THINGS, with the second sentence: OUTSIDE THINGS THERE IS NO WAY.

But what he is trying to convey is not contradictory. He is saying that if you are trying to find the Way in the outside things, you will not find it. In the outside things there is no Way, but when you have found the Way, the Way itself becomes part of the outside things. Everything that you are going to find in your meditations becomes outside you. You remain always and always just a witness, and for the witness everything is outside. The witness constantly transcends everything that it reflects.

Joshu, a man who was to become a great master – and by chance, tomorrow we are going to start a series on Joshu, JOSHU: THE LION’S ROAR – is also a milestone in the history of consciousness, a tremendously brave man who created roaring lions, buddhas of great strength and power.

He was a disciple of Nansen, but he was always a category in himself. He never became a disciple to Nansen formally; he was never initiated by Nansen; but he lived with Nansen, loved Nansen, and Nansen loved him, showered him with his love. Everybody knew that if Nansen died, he would choose Joshu to be his successor, although he was not his follower. He was such a unique person in himself, he could not follow anybody. He was a fellow traveler.

And Nansen allowed every kind of person. Whether you agreed with him or not, you could live with him. Perhaps, by the time you came to an agreement – just a little walking by his side – you might start feeling his heart touching you, changing you. He transformed Joshu without any formal initiation when he was saying this contradictory statement, ”THE WAY IS NOT OUTSIDE THINGS; OUTSIDE THINGS THERE IS NO WAY.”

JOSHU ASKED, ”WHAT IS THE WAY WHICH IS OUTSIDE THINGS?”

NANSEN IMMEDIATELY STRUCK HIM.

In Zen the master strikes only when he finds a man worthy to be a buddha. The striking is simply to wake him up: ”What kind of nonsense are you asking?” Nansen’s immediately striking him simply means, ”Joshu! You are asking this kind of nonsense! You understand well what I have said; somebody else can ask such a question, but not you. I know it and you know it.” To make it clear, he struck him.

JOSHU CAUGHT HOLD OF THE STICK AND SAID, ”FROM NOW ON, DON’T STRIKE

SOMEBODY BY MISTAKE!”

Joshu is not saying, ”Don’t strike me.” He is saying, ”FROM NOW ON, DON’T STRIKE SOMEBODY

BY MISTAKE!” Striking me is perfectly right, but don’t strike somebody else by mistake. I can understand why you are striking me, but striking somebody who has not reached to such a consciousness in understanding can be dangerous to you. You are getting old.”

NANSEN SAID, ”IT IS EASY TO SPEAK OF A DRAGON, BUT DIFFICULT TO PLEASE ME!” AND

THROWING DOWN HIS STICK, HE WENT BACK TO HIS ROOM.

What he was saying is, ”IT IS EASY TO SPEAK OF A DRAGON, BUT DIFFICULT TO PLEASE ME.

The statement of Joshu, ‘FROM NOW ON DON’T STRIKE SOMEBODY BY MISTAKE!’ is just an effort to please me.” To the statement, ‘As far as I am concerned you have done well, but don’t do it to anybody else,’ Nansen says, ”It is difficult to please me.”

AT ANOTHER TIME, JOSHU ASKED NANSEN, ”WHEN ONE REALIZES THAT ‘THERE IS,’

WHERE SHOULD HE GO FROM THERE?”

When one realizes ‘this is’, where should he go from this point? In fact, from this point you cannot go anywhere. Wherever you go you will be at this point. You cannot move away from ‘now’, whatever you do, however fast you run; wherever you will be, you will be in the now. And you cannot move in any other space than here. Wherever you will be, that space will become ‘here’. We have never moved, as far as our center is concerned.

He is asking, ”When one knows ‘this is’ WHERE SHOULD HE GO FROM THERE?”

Nansen replied, ”HE SHOULD GO DOWN THE HILL TO BECOME A BUFFALO IN THE VILLAGE

BELOW!”

Nansen’s answer is simply making a laughingstock of Joshu: ”Don’t ask such stupid questions.

You are not supposed to ask such questions. These questions are asked by mediocre people. To those who don’t have any experience of their inner being these questions are relevant, they are not relevant for you.”

But he does not say it directly, he says,

”HE SHOULD GO DOWN THE HILL TO BECOME A BUFFALO IN THE VILLAGE BELOW.”

JOSHU THANKED NANSEN FOR HAVING LED HIM TO HIS FULL ENLIGHTENMENT.

Reading such stories about Zen is an experience in itself. Something is happening behind the curtain of the words which is not visible to you. Something is happening which is neither in the questions nor in the answers. Because you have read this, do you think this will lead you to full enlightenment? But Joshu became fully enlightened.

These stories are very superficial. Underneath them there is another current of a personal intimacy, of deep love and gratitude.

Joshu is feeling Nansen almost as his own heart; although he is not a disciple, he is a fellow dancer.

And Nansen never insisted on anybody becoming a disciple. His insistence was, ”This is enough: to be with me. If there is something to happen, remain open. I am available; if you are also available the meeting will happen. Don’t keep your doors closed; just remain receptive.”

I am radiating that energy, which will take a jump and your heart which has lived in darkness for centuries will become suddenly enlightened. The fire will reach to you if you remain available, and close, intimate; because the jump is possible only within a certain distance.

If you remain too far away, secure and safe, and hoping to become enlightened, you are wrong. You have to risk to come close to the master, as close as possible. In that closeness, in that intimacy suddenly your heart becomes aflame. You are no more in darkness.

So always remember that these stories are the superficial part of the real thing. The real thing cannot be said. The real thing can only be understood.

Since eternity, whenever a man has become enlightened, ninety-nine point nine percent it has been a transfer of energy from one master to someone who is just ready and ripe. I am leaving point one percent, because it is not necessary, not absolutely necessary if you want to become enlightened to be with a master.

You can become enlightened on your own, but it is a little difficult, an arduous path. You may fall many times, you may go astray many times, you may return to the circumference again and again.

When you were reaching close to the center, you were not aware that you were close to the center.

Just a small difference and you may miss the target.

Have I told you the story?

A great king was a great archer also. But once in a while he used to miss the target. That is natural.

He was passing through a village, and there he saw on every tree, on every post arrows, stuck exactly in the middle of a circle. He could not believe his eyes, that this small village should have such a great archer. So he stopped his chariot, asked the people, and the people started laughing; they said, ”He is not an archer, he is an idiot.”

The king said, ”Idiot? But his aim is perfect!”

The people still laughed, they said, ”Here he comes. That fellow has deceived many people. He is a complete idiot. First, he shoots the arrow, and then he makes the circle. Naturally it is always perfect.”

That man can never fail. But a man who is going alone, on a path that he has never trodden, on a path where there are no footprints, not knowing the direction and all directions are available... But still, once in a while a man has managed to become enlightened without having a master. This I can say with authority, because I don’t have any master. I struggled on my own, knowing perfectly well that the path was going to be long.

But unfortunately in this century where can you find a master? Rather than wasting time in searching for the master, I thought, ”It is better to go alone. In the same time you may find yourself.” And in the name of the master there are so many pseudo teachers, who claim to be masters. Their claim is accepted because nobody follows them; otherwise you would find immediately that they know nothing, that they are simply quoting scriptures.

I have heard about a dog who was very much against barking. Now, asking other dogs not to bark he became a very famous master amongst the dogs.

They said, ”He is unique, perhaps an incarnation of God. We are poor dogs, and we cannot resist the temptation when we see a policeman, or a postman, or a sannyasin, anybody in uniform.”

Dogs seem to be very rebellious people. They are against uniforms. And this great master was insisting the whole day from morning till night that, ”Because of your barking, we have fallen so low.

Otherwise we would have been the very pinnacle of evolution. All of our energy goes in barking.”

And everybody agreed, ”That’s true. But what can we do, when the itching comes, to resist it? We are ordinary dogs; you are a great master.”

But one full-moon night they decided, ”He has been trying hard for years. At least give him a chance just for one night; he deserves it. Let him enjoy this night: every dog has to hide in different places, and try hard – it is only a question of one night. In the morning you can bark as much as you want.

Just for one night...”

The master dog looked around. He was very much puzzled as to what was happening, because the full-moon night is the night of most barking. Dogs are also against the moon – just unique characteristics. In the dark night they sleep perfectly well, but when the moon is there they cannot sleep the whole night; they are barking and barking. Either they are against the moon or perhaps they are great appreciators of beauty, one does not know.

That night the master dog looked around. No dog was available. The middle of the night came, the moon was just overhead. The master dog started feeling a great itching. He said, ”My God, I have never felt this.”

Before there had been no chance. He had been continuously teaching, so the whole itching was going into the teaching. It was the first time in his life that for hours he had not spoken. The itching was becoming so much that he went into a corner and started barking. The moment he started barking, suddenly the whole city... because all the dogs thought that one had betrayed.

They were keeping themselves somehow repressed saints. Now, one has betrayed, no need, the agreement is broken. So all the dogs started barking.

The master dog came out and started teaching again: ”I have been telling you that dogs will never progress – no evolution.”

These pseudo masters... if you follow them, you soon discover that they are teaching things they don’t follow themselves, things that they were condemning in you. Because you never follow them, you never know what they are doing.

A man used to teach that, ”Anybody who follows me, I will take him to truth.” Everybody agreed that,

”Sometime in old age, when all our worldly affairs are fulfilled, we will follow you.”

But by his teaching continuously around the villages he became a great master. ”He knows the truth.” In one village a young man, a very strong-willed young man stood up and said, ”I am going to follow you; now take me to the truth.”

The man became very much afraid. He had no knowledge what truth is. But just because nobody was following him, he was enjoying the great masterhood. He could not say to him, ”Don’t follow me.”

He thought, ”He will follow me for a few days and then will get tired. And I will take him into stubborn paths and mountains, just to tire him.”

But that man was very determined. After six years of continuously tiring him, finally the master said,

”Listen, because of you, I have forgotten the path myself. Now get lost! I used to find the truth so easily. Six years have passed, and not even a glimpse. It must be because of you!”

The pseudo masters are many. The time of the real masters is completely gone.

Nansen and Joshu belong to a golden age. When he said, ”I am fully enlightened,” IN RESPONSE, NANSEN COMMENTED, ”LAST NIGHT, AT THE THIRD WATCH, THE MOON SHONE THROUGH

THE WINDOW.”

The master knows exactly when the disciple becomes enlightened. He’s telling him the exact time,

”LAST NIGHT, AT THE THIRD WATCH, THE MOON SHONE THROUGH THE WINDOW. Do you think I don’t know that you have become fully enlightened? Before you knew it, I had already known it.”

To be with an authentic master, you need not tell him, ”I am enlightened.” The moment you are enlightened, he’s going to tell you. The moment he sees your flowering, the moment he sees that the spring has come, the moment he feels the fragrance, he declares the enlightenment of the disciple.

Certainly those days are gone. But they can be brought back. They have gone because we got lost into very mediocre, ordinary things. We forgot that the most significant thing in life is to know oneself. Through that window of knowing oneself you can know the whole secret of existence. But we are almost like children, playing with toys, not knowing that soon death will come when all that was important to us up to then becomes absolutely useless.

Only if your meditation has brought you a light that shines in every night will even death not be a death to you but a door to the divine. With the light in your heart, death itself is transformed into a door, and you enter into the universal spirit; you become one with the ocean. And unless you know the oceanic experience, you have lived in vain.

Nansen’s disciple Sekiso wrote a small poem:

NOT LEAVING YOUR ZEN PRACTICE BEHIND

IN THE HEAVENLY PALACE,

ALL BY YOURSELF

YOU REALIZE THE ELEGANCE BEYOND ELEGANCE.

YOUR OLD STAFF TINKLING

IN THE CHILLING DEW

AND FROST

PIERCES HEAVEN.

IN THE TEMPLE OF THE FOREST OF WISDOM

THE FRUIT IS RIPE;

NOW IS THE TIME.

Now is always the time and the fruit is always ripe. You just need to gather courage to enter into your inner forest. The fruit is always ripe and the time is always the right time. There is no such thing as wrong time.

Question 1

Maneesha has asked,

BELOVED OSHO,

WILL WE RECOGNIZE OUR ORIGINAL FACE, WHEN WE ENCOUNTER IT?

Maneesha, encountering the original face simply means realizing what is real and what is reflection.

You become a reflection when you see the real. It is just like standing before a mirror. It seems you are standing in the mirror. When you realize the fact that you are standing outside the mirror – in the mirror is only the reflection and the reflection is not a truth – then you encounter your original self.

Suddenly you realize that up to now you have lived a false face, this is your original face.

Up to now you have been living as a reflection, a shadow, an unreality. You disappear, only the original face remains. Your question is logical, relevant, because how will you recognize that this is your original face? You will not be there. You will disappear as the original face appears; you will not have to recognize it; you will not be there at all. The original face itself will know that up to now a false personality has been representing you.

Now the false has disappeared and only the truth remains. There is no question of recognizing. You are the false, how can you recognize? When the real comes, the false disappears: they never meet.

This is the fear of searching for oneself; because the moment you find yourself, the way you know yourself now will disappear like a shadow, as if it had never been – just a dream.

I have told you... A drunkard had been fighting in the pub, and had got many scratches on his face. He came home very much afraid of his wife. So very silently, taking his shoes in his hands, he entered into the room, went into the bathroom, looked at his face and said, ”My God! So many scratches! How am I going to hide them? In the morning she will find out.”

So he tried somehow to cover up. He could not find anything else but the lipstick of his wife. So he covered his scratches with the lipstick and went back silently to bed. In the early morning his wife shouted from the bathroom, ”Who has tried to make a painting with my lipstick on the mirror?”

That drunk had thought that he was putting it on his face, but he was putting it on the mirror because there was the face. He could not see his own face!

We are almost in exactly the same situation. When the original appears, we will suddenly see the false going away. They never meet so there is no question of recognition.

Now before we try to encounter the original face... It is a dangerous journey, you may find the original face, but please come back; don’t get stuck there. We have to bring the original face slowly slowly to the circumference.

It is a very silent and graceful process: every day you go in. Every day you go deeper. Every day you come back. Something changes, piece by piece, inch by inch, step by step. One day you will suddenly realize that there is no need to go in. The original face has come out. The clouds have dispersed and the moon, without any scratches from the clouds, is shining forth in its ultimate glory.

Sardar Gurudayal Singh is waiting.

Pope the Polack decides that he wants his Holy Catholic Church to be the most modern and up-to-date religion in the world, and be computerized.

”It is all quite simple,” explains Father Fungus to Father Fumble a few weeks later in the confession box.

”All you have to do is type the confession onto this screen, and you get a computerized print-out of the penance. Now, just watch while I type in ‘stealing’. And look! Here is the penance: three Hail Marys and a bill for fifteen dollars. Now, do you think you can manage?”

”Okay,” says Father Fumble nervously, ”I will give it a try.” And he starts practicing as Father Fungus leaves the church.

Just then, Sally walks into the confession box. ”Oh, Father,” says Sally, ”I have sinned!”

”Really?” says Father Fumble. ”Tell me all about it!”

”Well, Father,” explains Sally, ”I took my boyfriend home with me.”

”Terrible!” exclaims Father Fumble. And then he mutters as he programs his computer, ”Took boyfriend home.”

”Yes, Father,” continues Sally, ”but that is not all. He came into my bedroom.”

”Really?” says Father Fumble, typing furiously. ”Boyfriend into bedroom.”

”Yes, Father,” says Sally, ”but that is not all. He took off my clothes.”

”Jesus Christ!” says Father Fumble checking the print-out.

”But wait, Father!” says Sally. ”Then he took off his clothes and climbed on top of me.”

”My God!” says Father Fumble, as he types, ”Boyfriend on top.”

”Yes, Father,” says Sally. ”And then he put the tip of his machinery in me.”

”Really?” says Father Fumble, perspiring and typing, ”Tip of machinery in.” Then he furiously checks the print-out, but it is blank; so he types it again. But again, nothing comes out.

”Incorrect data!” snaps Father Fumble, in frustration. ”This computer does not work in fractions. You will have to go back and get your boyfriend to put it all in!”

George Bush, the vice president of America, walks into the Oval Office one morning to find Ronald Reagan laughing hysterically.

”Mr. President, sir,” inquires Bush, ”what on earth is so funny?”

”I just found out that Ed Meese has been paying twenty dollars every time he screws Nancy,” chokes the delirious president.

”My God!” screams Bush. ”That is not funny! That is a national scandal!”

”Why?” laughs Reagan, wiping his eyes. ”That idiot! I screw her for free!”

Doctor Sniff takes his old friend, Fergus, to a charity dance at the deaf and dumb college. The doctor warns Fergus that it is fine to dance with the young ladies, but to remember that they cannot speak to him or hear what he says.

”But how will I ask one of the ladies to dance?” asks Fergus.

”Oh, don’t be worried about that,” replies Sniff. ”You will manage okay.”

So, armed with good intentions, Fergus sees a nice-looking young girl sitting alone in the corner, and he gallantly takes her by the hand and leads her onto the dance floor.

Half an hour later, he is still trying to work out how to excuse himself and go and sit down for a rest.

Just then, a young man walks over and speaks to the girl. ”Hey, Lucy!” he says, ”when are you going to dance with me again? It has been almost an hour since we last danced.”

”I know,” replies Lucy, looking at Fergus, ”but I don’t know how to get rid of this deaf and dumb idiot!”

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

(Gibberish)

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Be silent. Close your eyes. Feel your body to be completely frozen. Now, look inwards with your total consciousness, with a great urgency, as if this moment is going to be your last moment on the earth.

Move towards the center of your being like an arrow. This center contains all the secrets of existence.

The deeper you go, the more you will find the splendor of life, the beauty of life, the truth of life.

Thousands of flowers suddenly blossom.

You are just a witness of all that is happening. Just watch the joy, the blissfulness, the ecstasy. Don’t get lost, don’t get identified. Just remain aloof, a great Everest which goes even beyond the clouds.

Just become a pillar of witnessing.

To make it more clear,

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Relax. Let go. You are not the body. You are not the mind. You are just a witness.

Get deeper into this witnessing. This witnessing is the very point of departure from the ordinary to the extraordinary, from the mundane to the sacred, from the mortal to the immortal.

The evening was beautiful on its own. But you have made it more beautiful. The silence of ten thousand buddhas, the peace of ten thousand buddhas, the witnessing of ten thousand buddhas becomes an ocean. You are all dissolved into that ocean.

Be soaked in this nectar. Be drenched, because soon you will be called back by Nivedano. Bring as much beauty, as much joy, as much truth, as much authenticity as you can from the center to the circumference.

Nivedano...

(Drumbeat)

Come back, but come back like buddhas with great grace, with silence, with deep gratitude. You are coming from another world, from the very source of life.

Just sit down like buddhas for a few moments, to recollect the experience, to remember the path which you have to follow again and again.

And whatever you have seen and experienced, let it become your ordinary life. Let it be expressed in your words, in your silences, in your gestures, in your activities. The ordinary has to be transformed into the sacred.

I have called Nansen ‘a point of departure.’ This experience of your interiority can become a point of departure for you too.

Okay, Maneesha?

Yes, Osho.

Do you promise me you will be celebrating when I’m gone?

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10