Tâm sự

Thứ Bảy, 13 tháng 6, 2015

ILLUMINATION

1 .
The moment you are illuminated, the whole if existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole if existence is dark. It all depends on you.
There are a thousand and one fallacies about meditation prevalent all around the world. Meditation is very simple: It is nothing but consciousness. It is not chanting, it is not using a mantra or a rosary.
These are hypnotic methods. They can give you a certain kind of rest-nothing is wrong with that rest; if one is just trying to relax, it is perfectly good. Any hypnotic method can be helpful, but if one wants to know the truth, then it is not enough.
Meditation simply means transforming your unconsciousness into consciousness. Normally only one-tenth of our mind is conscious, and nine-tenths is unconscious. Just a small part of our mind, a thin layer, has light; otherwise the whole house is in darkness. And the challenge is to grow that small light so much that the whole house is flooded with light, so that not even a nook or corner is left in darkness.

When the whole house is full of light, then life is a miracle; it has the quality of magic. Then it is no longer ordinary-everything becomes extraordinary. The mundane is transformed into the sacred, and the small things of life start having such tremendous significance that one could not have ever imagined it. Ordinary stones look as beautiful as diamonds; the whole of existence becomes illuminated. The moment you are illuminated, the whole of existence is illuminated. If you are dark, then the whole of existence is dark. It all depends on you.

Thứ Ba, 17 tháng 2, 2015

Sober Up

BELOVED OSHO,
THE MONK ZUIGAN USED TO START EVERY DAY BY SAYING OUT LOUD TO
HIMSELF, "MASTER, ARE YOU THERE?" AND HE WOULD ANSWER, "YES SIR,
I AM."

THEN HE WOULD SAY, "BETTER SOBER UP." AND HE WOULD REPLY, "YES
SIR, I'LL DO THAT."

THEN HE WOULD SAY, "LOOK OUT NOW, DON'T LET THEM FOOL YOU."
AND HE WOULD ANSWER, "OH NO SIR, I WON'T, I WON'T."
Meditation cannot be a fragmented thing, it should be a continuous effort. Every moment one has to be alert, aware and meditative. But the mind has played a trick: you meditate in the morning and then you put it aside; or you pray in the temple and then forget it.
Then you come back to the world, completely unmeditative, unconscious, as if walking in a hypnotic sleep. This fragmented effort won't do much. How can you meditate for one hour when you have been nonmeditative for twenty-three hours of the day? It is impossible. Suddenly to become meditative for one hour is not possible. You can simply deceive yourself.
Consciousness is a continuum; it is like a river, flowing constantly. If you are meditative the whole day, every moment of it... and only when you are meditative the whole day the flowering will come to you. Nothing will come before.
This Zen anecdote looks absurd but it is very meaningful. The master, the monk, used to call himself -- this is what meditation means, calling yourself -- he used to call his own name. He would say, "Are you there?" And he himself would reply, "Yes sir, I am here." This is an effort, a peak effort, to be alert. You can use this, it will be very helpful. Suddenly, walking on the street, you call yourself, "Teertha, are you there?" Suddenly thinking stops, and you have to answer, "Yes sir, I am here." It brings you to a focus. When thinking stops you are meditative, alert.
This calling to oneself is a technique. Going to sleep, putting off the light in the night, suddenly you call, "Are you there?" And in that darkness alertness comes. You become a flame and inside you answer, "Yes, I am here."
And then this monk used to say, "Sober up!" Be sincere, be authentic; don't play the game. He used to call to himself, "Sober up!" And he would reply, "Yes, I will make every effort that I can."
Our whole life is a fooling around. You can do it because you are not aware of how you waste time, how you waste energy -- how life is wasted you are not aware. It is going down the drain. Everything is going down the drain. Only when death comes to you, you may become aware, alert: What have I been doing? What have I done with life? A great opportunity has been lost. What was I doing fooling around? I was not sober. I never reflected upon what I was doing.
Life is not just to pass, it is to reach somewhere deep within you. Life is not on the surface, it is not the circumference, it is the center. And you have not reached to the center yet. Sober up! Enough time is already wasted. Be alert and see what you are doing. And what are you doing? Searching for money? It is finally, ultimately useless. It is again a game, the money game. You have more than others, you feel good; others have more than you, you feel bad. It is a game. But what is the meaning of it? What do you gain from it? Even if you have all the money the world contains, at the moment of death you will die as a beggar. So the whole wealth of the world cannot make you rich. Games cannot make you rich. Sober up!
Somebody is after power, prestige, somebody is after sex, and somebody after something else. All is a game. Unless you touch the center of your being all is a game. On the surface only games exist, and on the surface are only waves, and in those waves you will only suffer and drift. You cannot be anchored into your self. This is why he had to call, "Sober up!" He was saying, "Don't play games. Enough, you have played enough. Don't be foolish any more. Use life for anchoring, use life to gain roots, use life as an opportunity to reach the divine. You are sitting just outside the temple, sitting just on the steps, playing games, and the ultimate is waiting just behind you. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you..." But you have no time left from the games.
"Sober up" means remember what you are doing and why you are doing it. But even if you succeed, where can you reach? This is the paradox -- that whenever a man succeeds in these foolish games, for the first time he becomes aware that the whole thing has been nonsense. Only those who never succeed go on playing the game; those who succeed suddenly become aware that nothing has been reached. Ask an Alexander, ask a Napoleon what he has reached.
It is reported of Alexander that before he was going to die, he told his court, "When you carry my dead body in the streets let both my hands hang out. Don't cover them." This was rare -- nobody was carried that way.
The court couldn't understand, so they asked, "What do you mean? This is not the usual way. The whole body is hidden.... Why do you want both your hands hanging out?"
Alexander replied, "I want it to be known that I am dying with empty hands. Everybody must see it, and nobody should try to be an Alexander again. I have gained much and still gained nothing; my kingdom is great but I am still poor."
You die a beggar even if you are an emperor; then the whole thing seems like a dream. Just as in the morning the dream is broken and all emperorhoods disappear, all kingdoms disappear, so death is an awakening. That which remains in death is real, that which disappears was a dream: this is the criterion. And when this monk used to call, "Sober up!" he meant this: Remember death and don't fool around.
You go on in such a way as if you are not going to die, ever. Your mind says, "Death always happens to others, never to me; it is always a phenomenon happening to others, never to me." Even if you see a man dying you never think that you are dying in him. His death is symbolic: the same is going to happen to you. If you can see that you are going to die, will you be able to play these games so seriously, putting your whole life at stake for nothing? The monk was right to call in the morning, "Sober up!" Whenever you start playing a game again -- with your wife, in the shop, in the market, in politics, close your eyes, call yourself and say, "Sober up!" And the monk used to reply, "Yes sir, I will make every effort that I can."
Another thing is that he used to remember in the morning. And why the morning? The morning sets the pattern, the first thought in the morning becomes the door; hence all religions insist on at least two prayers. If you can be prayerful, that it is the right thing, but if not, then say at least two prayers -- one in the morning, one in the night. In the morning, when you are fresh and sleep has left you and consciousness is rising again, the first thought, the prayer, the meditation, the remembrance, will set the pattern for the whole day. That will become the door... because things move in a chain. If you are angry in the morning the whole day you will become more and more angry. The first anger creates the chain, the second anger follows easily, the third becomes automatic -- and then you are in it. Then whatsoever happens around you creates anger. To be prayerful in the morning, or to be alert, to call yourself, to be mindful, sets the pattern.
In the night also, when you go to sleep, the last thought becomes the pattern for the whole sleep. If the last thought is meditative the whole sleep will become meditation; if the last thought is of sex then the whole sleep will be disturbed by sexual dreams; if the last thought is of money then the whole night you will be in the market purchasing and selling. A thought is not an accident. It creates a chain, and then things follow and similar things follow.
So pray at least twice a day. Mohammedans pray at least five times. It is beautiful, because if a man is to pray five times a day then it is almost a continuous thing. He has to remember, "Now the morning has come, now the afternoon, now the evening prayer, now the night has come...." There are gaps, but two prayers are so near that they become joined together. Look at Mohammedans praying: they are the most beautiful people for prayer. Hindus don't look so prayerful -- they will do it in the morning. But a Mohammedan has to pray five times; only then is he a Mohammedan. It is a simple rule, and five times, continuously remembering, sets the pattern. It becomes an inner flow; you have to come again and again to it. Between two prayers it will be difficult to be angry; between two prayers it will be difficult to be aggressive and violent. The fundamental thing is that if what one does is continuous there is no need for five prayers. Still there will be gaps, and you are so cunning that you can fill the gaps with something wrong and then your prayer will be affected. Then it will not be real prayer. You will be praying, but inside deep down the wrong current will go on and on and on.
In the morning this monk used to call himself -- because Buddhists don't believe in prayer, they believe in meditation. The distinction has to be understood. I myself don't believe in prayer; my emphasis is also on meditation. There are two types of religious people: one, the praying type, and the other, the meditating type. Buddhists say there is no need to pray, but just to be alert, aware, because alertness will give you the prayerful mood. There is also no need to pray to a God. How can you pray to a God you don't know? Your prayer is in the dark; you don't know the divine. If you knew him there would be no need to pray -- so your prayer is just groping in the dark. You are addressing someone you don't know, so how can your address be authentic and real, how can it come from the heart? It is just a belief and deep down there is doubt. Deep down you are not certain whether God exists or not; deep down you are not certain whether this prayer is a monologue or a dialogue, whether there is someone who is listening and will answer, or whether you are alone, talking to yourself. This uncertainty will destroy the whole thing.
Buddha emphasized meditation. He said, "There is no need for the other; know well that you are alone." At least that much is certain -- that you are alone. Base your life on something which is absolutely certain... because how can you base your life on something which is uncertain, doubtful, which exists only as a belief, not as a knowing? But what is certain in life? Only one thing is certain, and that is you. Everything else can be doubted. I am here talking to you; you may not be there, it may be just a dream. You are here listening to me; I may not be here, it may be just a dream, because many times in dreams you have listened to me. And when the dream is on it looks real. How can you make the distinction whether this is a dream or not? How can you make the distinction between the real and the dream? There is no way. About the other you can never be certain; there is no way to be certain about the other. About yourself only you can be certain; the only certainty that is there is you. Why? -- because even to doubt yourself, you have to be there.
The father of modern western philosophy, Descartes, started by doubt; he doubted everything, because he was in search of something which could not be doubted. Only that can become the base of real life, authentic life -- that which can be doubted. That which has to be believed cannot become the real foundation. This foundation is sinking, and you are building a house on the sands. So he doubted everything. The gods can be doubted easily, the world can be doubted, it may be just a dream; the others.... He doubted everything.
Then suddenly he became aware that he could not doubt himself. That is contradictory. If you say that you doubt yourself it means you have to believe you are there to doubt. You can say that you may be deceived about yourself, but there is somebody who has to be there to be deceived. The self cannot be doubted.
Hence Mahavira didn't believe in God; he believed only in the self, because that is the only certainty. You cannot grow out of uncertainty. When there is certainty there is trust; when there is uncertainty there may be belief, but the belief is always hiding the doubt. So many people come to me who are theists. They believe in God, but their belief is just skin-deep. Poke them a little, push them a little, shake them a little -- they become doubtful and they become afraid. What type of religion is possible if you are so much in doubt? Something indubitable is needed.
Mahavira and Buddha both emphasized meditation. They canceled prayer; they said: How can you pray? You don't know the divine, so you cannot really believe.... You can force a belief, but a forced belief is a false belief. And you can argue and convince yourself, but that won't help, because your arguments, your convictions, are always yours; and the mind goes on wavering.
So Buddha and Mahavira both emphasized meditation. Meditation is a totally different technique. There is no need to believe, no need to move to the other; you are alone there. But you have to wake yourself: that is what that monk is doing. He is not calling the name of Ram, he is not calling the name of Allah, he is calling the name of himself, and only himself, because nothing else is certain. He calls his whole name, "Are you there?"
And he doesn't wait for any God to reply. He replies to himself, "Yes sir, I am here."
This is the Buddhist attitude, that you are alone there. If you are asleep you have to call yourself, you have to answer. It is a monologue. Don't wait for any God to answer you; there is no one to answer you, your questions will be lost in the empty sky, your prayers will not be heard -- there is nobody else to hear them. So this monk seems foolish, but really, all those who are in prayer may be more foolish than this monk. This monk is doing a more certain thing, calling himself and answering himself.
You can make yourself alert. I tell you, your name is the mantra. Don't call Ram, don't call Allah, call your own name. Many times a day, whenever you feel sleepy, whenever you feel that the game is taking over and you are losing yourself in it, call yourself, "Are you there?" -- and answer yourself. Don't wait for anybody's answer; there is no one to answer you. Answer, 'Yes sir, I am here." And don't answer verbally, feel the answer: "I am here." And be there, alert. In that alertness thoughts stop, in that alertness the mind disappears, even for a moment. And when there is no mind there is meditation; when the mind has stopped meditation comes into being.
Remember, meditation is not something that is done by the mind, it is the absence of the mind. When the mind stops meditation happens. It is not something out of the mind, it is something beyond the mind. And whenever you are alert, the mind is not. So we can conclude that your sleepiness is your mind, your unawareness is your mind, your somnambulism is your mind. You move as if drunk, not knowing who you are, not knowing where you are going, not knowing why you are going.
And the third thing the monk says is to remember not to be fooled by others. Others are fooling you continuously. Not only are you fooling yourself, others are also fooling you.
How are the others fooling you? The whole society, culture, civilization, is a collective conspiracy. That's why no society allows rebellious people; every society requires obedience, conformity. No society allows rebellious thoughts. Why? Rebellious thoughts make people aware that the whole thing is just a game, and when people become aware that the whole thing is just a game they become dangerous, they start going beyond the society.
Society exists as a hypnotic state, and the crowd is a hypnotizing factor. You are born, but when you are born you are neither a Hindu nor a Parsee, because consciousness cannot belong to any sect. Consciousness belongs to the whole, it cannot be sectarian. A child simply is, innocent of all nonsense of Hindus, Buddhists, Jainas. A child is a pure mirror. But immediately society starts working on the child -- a mould has to be given. A child is born as a freedom, but immediately society starts killing his freedom. A mould has to be given, a pattern.
If you are born in a Hindu family your parents will start teaching you that you are a Hindu. Now they are creating a hypnotic state. Nobody is a Hindu -- but this child is innocent, he can be befooled. This child is simple. He will believe the parents, that he is a Hindu -- not only a Hindu, but a brahmin, not only a brahmin, but a deshastha brahmin.
Sects within sects, just like Chinese boxes -- boxes within boxes. And the more he becomes narrowed, the more he becomes a prisoner. The box goes on getting smaller and smaller. He was just like the sky when he was born. Then he became a Hindu, a smaller box; then he became a brahmin -- a smaller box; then he became a Deshastha -- an even smaller box.
This goes on and on. Society goes on forcing him into smaller boxes, and then he will have to live as a Deshastha brahmin. His whole life he will be with this box. He will carry this box around him. This box is a grave. He must come out of these boxes; only then will he know what real consciousness is.
Then society gives concepts; then society gives prejudices and systems and religions. And then he will never be able to look directly, always society will be there to interpret. You are not aware when you say something is good. Are you there, looking? Is this your feeling, that something is good, or just an interpretation of the society? Something is bad: have you looked into it and come to the conclusion that something is bad, or has society simply taught you that this is bad?
Look! A Hindu looking at cow dung thinks that this is the purest thing possible in the world. Nobody in the world will think of cow dung as the purest thing in the world -- cow dung is dung, excreta -- but a Hindu thinks of cow dung as the purest thing in the world.
He will eat it happily. He eats it! Nobody in the world can believe how Hindus can be befooled in this, but they are befooled. When the Hindu child is initiated, panchamrita is given to him -- a particular combination of five things. In these five things cow dung is one, and the urine of the cow is another. It is difficult -- nobody can believe that this is right. But they have their own prejudices. Put down all prejudices and look directly.
But no society allows you to look directly. It always comes in and interprets, and you are befooled by it. This monk in the morning used to call, "Don't be fooled by others." And he would reply, "Yes sir -- yes sir, I will not be befooled by others."
This has to be constantly remembered, because the others are all around and they are befooling you in such subtle manners. And now the others have more power than ever.
Through advertisement, through radio, through newspapers, through television, the others are manipulating you.
In America, the whole market depends on how you can befool the customer, how you can create an idea in the minds of others. Now, a two-car garage is a must if you want to be happy; in America, a two-car garage is a must. Nobody asks why. If you are not happy with one car, how can you be happy with two cars? If there is fifty percent happiness with one car, how can you be happy with two cars? With one car you are unhappy; with two cars you will be doubly unhappy, that's all. The mathematics is simple. But there is advertisement, propaganda; the whole society exists by manipulating others.
Happiness is something like a commodity in the market -- you go and purchase it, it has to be purchased. How can happiness be purchased? Happiness is not a commodity, it is not a thing; it is a quality of living, a consequence of another life. You cannot purchase it -- there is no way.
Look at American newspapers and you will see that you are missing: happiness can be purchased just through money. They create a feeling that you are missing something; then you start working for it, then you earn money, then you purchase it. And then you feel that you have been deceived. But that feeling is not very deep, because before you feel that you have been deceived some new deceptions have entered the mind, and now they are pulling you ahead. You must have a hill station house, or you must have a summer resort, or you must have a yacht -- something is always there to be achieved. Only then will you be happy. They will go on pulling you up to your death. Until you die, those advertisements, that propaganda, will go on pulling you.
This monk was right. This must be part of your alertness -- that you should not be befooled by others. The whole society exists on exploitation, exploiting the other. Everybody is exploiting, and this exploitation is not only in the market, it is in the temple, in the church, in the synagogue. It is everywhere... because the priest is also a businessman, and the pope is a super-businessman. Because you need peace, you ask for peace, so there are people who say, "Come to us, we will give you peace." You ask for bliss, and there are people who are ready to sell bliss to you. If people like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi succeed in the West, they don't succeed in the East. Nobody listens to them in India. Nobody is bothered.
But America listens to every kind of nonsense. Once you get onto the right channel of propaganda, once you get all the right advertising people, then there is no problem.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi talks as if the inner silence can be purchased immediately, as if within a week you can find mediation; just by sitting for fifteen minutes and repeating a mantra you will be happy forever and ever. And the American mind, which has been poisoned by advertisements, is attracted and a crowd gathers. It goes on changing, but it is always a crowd, and it appears as if things are happening. Even temples and churches have become shops.
Meditation cannot be purchased and no one can give it to you. You have to achieve it. It is not something outer, it is something inner, a growth, and that growth comes through awareness. Call your own name, in the morning, in the night, in the afternoon, whenever you feel sleepy, call your own name. And not only call it, answer it and say it loudly. Don't be afraid of others. You have been afraid of others enough; they have already murdered you through fear. Don't be afraid. Even in the marketplace you must remember.
Call your own name, "Teertha, are you here?" And answer, "Yes sir."
Let people laugh. Don't be befooled by them. The only thing to be achieved is alertness -- not respect, not respectability from people. ... Because that is one of their tricks: they make you obedient through respectability. They say, "We will respect you. You bow down and be obedient. Don't be there at all. Just follow the society and the society will pay you much respect." This is a mutual arrangement. The more dead you are the more society will pay you respect; the more alive you are the more society will create trouble for you. Why?
A Jesus had to be crucified because he was an alive man. He must have called in his childhood, "Jesus, don't be befooled by others." And he was not befooled, so others had to crucify him, because he was not part of the game. Socrates had to be poisoned and killed, Mansoor had to be murdered. These are people who have escaped from the prison, and whatsoever you say you cannot persuade them to come back. They will not come into the prison. They have known the freedom of the open sky.
Remember. Be mindful and alert. If you are alert, if your actions become more and more aware, whatsoever you do will not be done sleepily. The whole effort of society is to make you automatic, is to make you an automaton, is to make you a perfect efficient mechanism.
When you start learning to drive you are alert but not efficient, because alertness takes energy, and you have to be alert to many things -- the gears, the wheel, the brake, accelerator, clutch. There are so many things you have to be aware of that you cannot be efficient, you cannot go fast. But by and by, when you become efficient, you need not be aware. You can go on humming a song or thinking inside or solving a puzzle, and the car goes by itself. The body takes it automatically. The more automatic you become the more efficient.
Society needs efficiency, so it makes you more and more automatic: In everything you do, be automatic. Society doesn't bother about your awareness; your awareness is a problem for society. You are asked to be more efficient, more productive. Machines are more productive than you. The society doesn't want you to be as men, it needs you as mechanical devices, so it makes you more efficient and less aware. This is automatization. This is how the society fools you. You become efficient, but your soul is lost.
If you can understand me, then the whole effort of meditative techniques is to deautomatize you, to make you again alert, to make you again a man, not a machine. In the beginning you will become less efficient, but don't be bothered by it because everything has settled as an automaton. In the beginning everything will become a mess.
You will not be able to do anything efficiently. You will feel difficulty, because you have become fixed with unconscious efficiency. To be consciously efficient, long effort will be needed, but by and by you will be aware and efficient.
If there exists in the future any possibility of a real human society, the first thing, the basic thing that will have to be done is this: don't make children automatic. Even if it takes a little longer to make them efficient, make them efficient with awareness; don't make them machines. It will take longer, because two things have to be learned: the efficiency and awareness. A human society will give you awareness, even with less efficiency, but efficiency will come by and by. Then when you are alert you will be able to be efficient with alertness.
Meditation is deautomatization in the beginning. Then you will start working with a new awareness -- efficiency remains in the body, and consciousness remains alert. You don't become a machine you remain a man. If you become a machine, you have lost humanity. This monk was doing this deautomatization. From the very morning he called himself, said, "Be alert!" said, "Don't fool yourself!" said, "Don't be befooled by others!" These three layers of mindfulness have to be achieved.
I have heard: once it happened that a young man belonging to a very rich and aristocratic family, came to a Zen master. He had known everything, indulged in every desire; he had enough money, so there was no problem. But then he got fed up -- fed up with sex, fed up with women, fed up with wine. He came to the Zen master and said, "Now I am fed up with the world. Is there some way that I can know myself, who I am?"
The young man said, "But before you say anything, let me tell you something about myself. I am indecisive and cannot continue anything for long, so if you give me some technique or if you tell me to meditate, I may do it for a few days and then I will escape, knowing well that there is nothing in the world, knowing well that only misery awaits there, death. But this is my type of mind. I cannot continue, I cannot persist in anything, so before you choose something, remember this."
The master said, "Then it will be very difficult if you cannot persist, because long effort will be needed to undo all that you have done in the past. You will have to travel back. It will have to be a regression. You will have to reach back to the moment when you were born, when fresh, young. That freshness will have to be achieved again. It is not ahead, but back that you will have to go -- to become a child again. But if you say you cannot persist and that within days you will escape, it will be difficult. But let me ask you one question: Have you ever been interested in something so deeply that you were absorbed completely?"
The young man thought and he said, "Yes, only in chess, the game of chess, I have been very much interested. I love it, and that's the only thing that is saving me. Everything else has fallen away; only chess is still with me, and with it I can somehow pass my time."
The master said, "Then something can be done. You wait." He called the attendant and told him to bring one monk who had been meditating for twelve years in the monastery, and to tell the monk to bring a chessboard.
The chessboard was brought; the monk came. He was acquainted a little with chess, but for twelve years he had been meditating in a cell. He had forgotten the world and chess and everything.
The master said to him, "Listen, monk! -- this is going to be a dangerous game. If you are defeated by this young man, the sword is here and I will cut off your head, because I wouldn't like a meditative monk -- who has been meditating for twelve years -- to be defeated by an ordinary young man. But I promise you, if you die by my hand then you will reach the highest heaven. So don't be disturbed."
The young man became also a little uneasy, and then the master turned to him and said, "Look, you say that you get absorbed in chess, so now get totally absorbed -- because this is a question of life and death. If you are defeated I will cut off your head, and remember, I cannot promise heaven for you. This man is okay, he will go anyhow, but I cannot promise any heaven for you. If you die hell is the place -- immediately you will go to the seventh hell."
For a moment the young man thought to escape. This was going to be a dangerous game, and he had not come here for this. But then it looked dishonorable; he was a samurai, a son of a warrior, and just because of death, imminent death, to escape was not in his blood. So he said, "Okay."
The game started. The young man started trembling like a leaf in a strong wind, the whole body trembling. He started perspiring, and cold perspiration came to his body; he started sweating from his head to the soles of his feet. It was a question of life and death, and thinking stopped, because whenever there is such an emergency you cannot afford thought. Thought is for leisure. When there is no problem you can think; when there is really a problem thinking stops, because the mind needs time, and when there is an emergency there is no time. You have to do something immediately.
Every moment, death was coming nearer. The monk started, and he looked so serene and calm that the young man thought, "Well, death is certain!" But when the thoughts disappeared, he became totally absorbed in the moment. When thoughts disappeared, he also forgot that death was awaiting -- because death too is a thought. He forgot about death, he forgot about life, he became just a part of the game, absorbed, totally immersed in it.
By and by, as the mind disappeared completely, he started playing beautifully. He had never played that way. In the beginning the monk was winning, but within minutes the young man got absorbed, started beautiful movements, and the monk started losing. Only the moment existed, only the present. There was no problem then; the body became okay, trembling stopped, perspiration evaporated. He was light like a feather, weightless. The perspiration even helped -- he became weightless, his whole body felt as if it could fly.
His mind was no more there. Perception became clear, absolutely clear, and he could see ahead, five moves ahead. He had never played so beautifully. The other's game started crumbling; within minutes the other would be defeated, and his victory was certain.
Then suddenly, when his eyes were clear, mirrorlike, when perception was profound, deep, he looked at the monk. He was so innocent. Twelve years of meditation -- he had become like a flower; twelve years of austerity -- he had become absolutely pure. No desire, no thought, no goal, no purpose existed for him. He was as innocent as possible... not even a child is so innocent. His beautiful face, his clear, skyblue eyes.... This young man started feeling compassion for him -- sooner or later his head would be cut off. The moment he felt this compassion, unknown doors opened, and something absolutely unknown started filling his heart. He felt so blissful. All over his inner being flowers started falling. He felt so blissful... he had never known this bliss, this beautitude, this benediction.
Then he started making wrong moves knowingly, because the thought came to his mind, "If I am killed nothing is disturbed; I have nothing of worth. But if this monk is killed something beautiful will be destroyed; but for me, just a useless existence...." He started making wrong movements consciously, to make the monk win. At that moment the master upturned the table, started laughing and said, "Nobody is going to be defeated here. You both have won."
This monk was already in heaven, he was rich; no need to cut off his head. He was not troubled at all when the master said, "Your head is to be cut off." Not a single thought arose in his mind. There was no question of choice -- if the master says it is going to be so, it is okay. He said yes with his whole heart. That was why there was no perspiration, no trembling. He was playing chess; death was not a problem.
And the master said, "You have won, and your victory has been greater than this monk's. Now I will initiate you. You can be here, and soon you will be enlightened." Both basic things had happened: meditation and compassion. Buddha has called these two the basic: pragya and karuna, meditation and compassion.
The young man said, "Explain it to me. Something has happened I don't know about. I am already transformed; I am not the same young man who came to you a few hours ago.
That man is already dead. Something has happened -- you have done a miracle."
The master said, "Because death was so imminent, you couldn't think, thoughts stopped.
Death was so close by, thinking was impossible. Death was so near, there was no gap between you and death, and thoughts need space to move. There was no space, so thinking stopped. Meditation happened spontaneously. But that was not enough, because that type of meditation which happens because of emergency will be lost; when the emergency is gone that meditation will be lost. So I couldn't throw the board at that moment, I had to wait."
If meditation really happens, whatsoever the cause, compassion has to follow. Compassion is the flowering of meditation. If compassion is not coming, your meditation is, somewhere, wrong.
Then I looked at your face. You were filled with bliss and your eyes became buddhalike. You looked at the monk, and you felt and you thought, "It is better to sacrifice myself than this monk. This monk is more valuable than me."
This is compassion -- when the other becomes more valuable than you. This is love -- when you can sacrifice yourself for the other. When you become the means and the other becomes the end, this is love. When you are the end and the other is used as a means, this is lust. Lust is always cunning and love is always compassionate.
"Then I saw in your eyes the compassion arising, and then you started to make wrong movements just to be defeated, so that you would be killed and this monk saved. At that moment I had to throw the board. You had won. Now you can be here. I have taught you both meditation and compassion. Now follow this track, and let them become spontaneous in you -- not situational, not depending on any emergency, but just a quality of your being."
Carry this story within you, in your heart; let it become the beat of your heart. Rooted in meditation you will have wings of compassion. That's why I say that I would like to give you two things: Roots into this earth and wings into that heaven. Meditation is this earth, it is here and now; the very moment you can spread your roots, do it. And once roots are there your wings will reach to the highest sky possible. Compassion is the sky, meditation is the earth, and when meditation and compassion meet a buddha is born.
Go deeper and deeper into meditatio so you can go higher and higher in compassion. The deeper the roots of a tree reach the higher the peak. You can see the tree, you cannot see the roots, but they are always in proportion. If the tree is reaching to the sky the roots must be reaching to the very end of the earth. The proportion is the same. As deep as your meditation is, the same depth will be achieved in compassion. So compassion is the criterion. If you think you are meditative and there is no compassion, then you are deceiving yourself. Compassion must happen, because that is the flowering of the tree. Meditation is just a means towards compassion; compassion is the goal.
Make yourself more and more alert. Call your name and answer, just to create more awareness. When you really become aware, you will feel a new upsurge of energy. Compassion will happen to you, and with compassion, bliss; with compassion, beatitude; with compassion, conviction.
Anything more?
Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
AT THE START OF THE CAMP YOU SAID YOU WERE MOVING INTO A NEW
PHASE OF YOUR WORK. WE'VE FELT IT IN MEDITATION, BUT MOST
IMPORTANT, YOU'VE CHANGED THE WAY YOU SPEAK TO US. AT ONE
TIME, FOR EXAMPLE, YOU NEVER ADMITTED TO BEING AN ENLIGHTENED
MASTER, AND NOW YOU DO. COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THIS NEW
PHASE OF YOUR WORK?
I can only say things which you have become capable of hearing. It depends on you. If you have become a disciple, then I can easily say that I am a master; but if you are not a disciple it will be just meaningless saying to you that I am a master. If somebody comes who is just curious about me, I will not say this to him; it would be pointless. He will not understand; rather, he will misunderstand.
When you are ready to receive, only then can I give. And now that you are ready I can say many things which cannot be said to casual visitors. They are curious.; their curiosity is shallow, they have not come to receive something. Their mind functions in a childish way: they just want to know everything, and they are not going to penetrate deeper into it. Now I can say many things to you, because I know that you will not misunderstand. Even if you don't understand this much is certain: you will not misunderstand. This will be a new phase; it has already started. I will be working only with those who are sober, not fooling around. I will be working only with those who have really come to a point where they need transformation -- who are really sincere, authentic seekers and are ready to do whatsoever I say. To them I can say, "I am a master" to them I can say, "Come to me and drink out of me, and you will not be thirsty, ever."
But this cannot be said to everybody; this cannot be said to somebody who is just passing, who you meet on the street. The more you get ready the more I can pour myself into you. Before, your pots were there but upside down; even if I had poured it would have been a wastage. Now many of you are in a situation where now your pots are not upside down, now they are right side up. Now I can pour, now I can trust that you will take it as a treasure, that you will hide it, that you will share it only with those who are sincere, who are in search. Many more secrets will be following, but they will only follow as you get more ready.
The phase, a new phase, has started. I will not be working with the masses now, and I will be dropping all those who are just hanging around for other reasons, and not for their spiritual growth. There are many types of people, and even they are not aware why they are hanging around -- but I know. I will be dropping them.
Fewer and fewer will be accepted now. If I drop you, you will not be able to know that I have dropped you because you will go on thinking that you dropped me. That's how the ignorant mind always consoles itself. Now I will be working only with a few, a chosen few, and as you get ready many more secrets can be given to you, and I will be able to talk easily. Then I can be true, I need not say a lie to you then. I will not say what you want to hear; no, I will say what is really to be said to you.
And don't wait for the future, because no one knows about the future. This very moment open yourself as much as you can so you can receive me.
I will tell you one anecdote. It happened to the head of one of the most famous European banking families, the Rothschilds. Baron Rothschild was standing in his garden one day, and a man looking like a beggar, a peddler, came to him and told him to purchase a lottery ticket. He said, "Come on, take a chance."
The Baron wanted to get rid of him. He said, "What should I do with the lottery ticket? I don't need it, I have got enough."
The beggar said, "No one has got enough. Take a chance -- who knows, you may win it!" So, just to get rid of the nuisance, he purchased the ticket.
Next morning the man knocked again and said, "Look, you have won one million dollars."
The Baron was very much pleased and said, "I suppose I must reward you." Then the Baron thought and said, "What will you choose? I can give you twenty-five thousand dollars right this moment, or ten thousand dollars a year for your whole life."
The man was not more than thirty or thirty-five. He was perfect in his health; he was going to live at least thirty, forty years, even more. Forty years at ten thousand dollars a year comes to four hundred thousand dollars -- or right now, twenty-five thousand dollars. The beggar thought for a single moment and said, "You please give me twenty- five thousand dollars right now."
Even the Baron was puzzled. He said, "You think over what you are doing. Your whole life, I say -- ten thousand dollars per year!"
The man said, "I will choose twenty-five thousand right now, because looking at the luck you Rothschilds have, I will not be alive six months. Looking at the luck you Rothschilds have, I will not live for six months more. You give it to me right now; the next moment is uncertain. Don't waste time!"
That's what I say to you. Right this moment I am here, available. Don't wait for the future, because nobody knows.... Open your heart, become more receptive, get attuned. Everything is possible. At this very moment I can give you the key.
A new phase has started. Now get ready for it, because it is not a question concerning me, it is a question concerning you. How much you can get, you will get; your capacity will be the limit. If you are totally open there is no limit. The whole ocean is ready to fall into the drop, but the drop is afraid. It is trying to protect itself.
Kabir, one of the greatest mystics ever born, has said two things. He has said, "In the beginning, when I was in search of God, I was thinking my drop of water would drop into the ocean of the divine. But when it really happened it happened quite otherwise: the ocean dropped into my small drop."
It always happens otherwise. You are not going to meet God, God is going to meet you. How can you seek him? You don't know his whereabouts, you don't know his address. He is in search of you constantly, and whenever you are ready the ocean drops into you.
Meditation will make you ready, compassion will make you perfect. So carry these two mantras: PRAGYA, meditation, KARUNA, compassion -- let these two be the goals. Let your whole life revolve around them, and very soon you will be attuned. Then I can pour myself into you.
Anything more?
Question 2
BELOVED OSHO,
YOU'VE SAID MEDITATION IS A FLOWERING. AND FOR US, THE PERFUME
OF THE FLOWER IS GRATITUDE. IS THERE ANYTHING WE CAN DO FOR YOU?
Yes. Meditation, compassion and gratitude. Whenever you are meditative, you feel blissful; whenever you are in compassion, you feel ecstatic. And then gratitude arises -- not towards anyone in particular, gratitude just arises. It is not towards me or towards Jesus, or Zarathustra or Buddha, it is simply gratitude. You feel so grateful just for being here, just for being alive, just for being able to be meditative, just for being able to be in compassion. You feel simply grateful. That gratefulness is not towards anybody, it is towards the whole.
If you feel grateful towards me it is a gratitude of the mind. If you meditate and if you flower in compassion you will feel simply grateful, not grateful towards me. Then there is no "towards" -- you feel simply grateful towards all. And when you feel grateful towards all, that is really gratefulness towards me, never before it. When it is a choice you choose me; then your master becomes a point, not the whole.
That's what is happening everywhere. Disciples get fixed with the master and masters help them to be fixed. That's not good, it is ugly. When you really flower then your perfume is not addressed to anybody; when you really flower the perfume goes in all directions. It simply moves in all directions, and whosoever passes near you is filled with your fragrance, he carries your fragrance. And if nobody passes you then on that silent, lonely path your fragrance goes on spreading -- but it is not addressed.
Remember, the mind is always addressed; being is never addressed. The mind is always moving towards something; being is simply moving towards all. It is a movement without any goal. A goal exists because of motive: you move towards something because there is desire. When there is no desire how can you move? Movement is there but no motivation. Then you move in all directions, then you overflow. Then your master is everywhere; then I am everywhere. And only when this point comes are you free from the master also. Then you are freed of all relationship, you are freed of all presence, of all bondage. And if a master cannot free you from himself he is not a master at all.
So you need not do anything for me; you do something for you. Meditation, compassion -- that is doing for me. Then the presence will come, and not thought by the mind. Right now you think and you feel: What shall we do? Then it is the mind. How to pay the master? He has done so much for you, what should you do? This is the mind thinking in terms of giving and taking. No, this mind won't help. One thing you can do for me: drop this mind, allow your being to flower; then you will be fragrant. Then in all dimensions and directions the whole will be happy. You will be a bliss and your gratitude will not be narrow. It will not be towards a point, it will be moving all over, everywhere. Only then do you achieve prayer. This gratitude is prayer.
When you go in a temple and do a prayer, it is not prayer; but when, after compassion, gratitude arises, the whole existence becomes the temple. Whatsoever you touch it becomes a prayer; whatsoever you do it becomes prayerful. You cannot be otherwise. Deeply rooted, anchored in meditation, deeply flowing into compassion, you cannot be otherwise. You become prayer, you become gratitude.
But remember, the mind is always addressed. It has a goal, a desire to achieve. Being is unaddressed; it has no goal, it has nothing to achieve. The kingdom of being is already achieved, the emperor is already there on the throne. You move because movement is life, but don't move towards any goal, because when there is no goal, there is no tension. Then movement is beautiful, graceful.

Save the Cat

BELOVED OSHO,
NANSEN FOUND TWO GROUPS OF MONKS SQUABBLING OVER THE
OWNERSHIP OF A CAT.

NANSEN WENT TO THE KITCHEN AND BROUGHT BACK A CHOPPER. HE
PICKED UP THE CAT AND SAID TO THE MONKS, "IF ANY OF YOU CAN SAY A
GOOD WORD, YOU CAN SAVE THE CAT."

NOT A WORD WAS SAID, SO NANSEN CUT THE CAT IN TWO AND GAVE
HALF TO EACH GROUP.

WHEN JOSHU RETURNED THAT EVENING, NANSEN TOLD HIM WHAT HAD
HAPPENED. JOSHU SAID NOTHING. HE JUST PUT HIS SANDALS ON HIS
HEAD AND WALKED OUT.

NANSEN SAID, "IF YOU HAD BEEN THERE, YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THE CAT."
Nothing is saved by the mind, by thinking, by logic, and if you try to save by logic you will lose. Life can be saved only through an irrational jump, through something that is not intellectual but total.
But the whole story seems to be too cruel. Nansen's disciples were struggling over a cat. Nansen had a big monastery and the monastery had two wings. This cat was moving from one wing to another and both wings claimed that the cat belonged to them -- and the cat was a beautiful one.
The first thing to be understood is: a real sannyasin cannot claim any ownership. A sannyasin means one who has left all possessions, or all possessiveness, which is deeper and more basic. You can leave possessions, that is easy; but to leave possessiveness is difficult because it goes deeper in the mind. You can leave the world, but the mind goes on clinging to it.
These monks, Nansen's disciples, had left the world behind -- their homes, their wives, their children -- but now they were fighting over the ownership of a cat. This is how the mind works. You leave one thing and the mind claims another, but the basic thing remains the same and it makes no difference if the object of ownership changes -- it makes no difference. The difference, the revolution, the real change, comes only when the subjectivity changes, when the owner changes. This is the first thing to be understood. Monks claiming ownership of a cat looks foolish, but this is how monks have been acting all over the world. They leave their houses, then they claim ownership of the temple, of the church. They leave everything but they can't leave their minds, and the mind creates new worlds for them continuously.
So it is not a question of possessing a kingdom; even a cat will do. And wherever possession comes in, fighting, violence and aggression are bound to be there. Whenever you possess, you are fighting, because that which you possess belongs to the whole. You cannot possess anything; you can use it, that's all. How can we possess the sky and how can we possess the earth? But we possess -- and that possession creates all types of conflict, struggle, wars, violence and so on.
Man has been fighting and fighting and fighting continuously. Historians say that within the last three thousand years there have been wars almost continuously somewhere or other on the earth. In three thousand years, we have fought at least fourteen thousand wars. Why so much fighting? It is because of possession. If you possess you have started a war with the whole.
Buddha, Mahavira or Jesus, all said, "If you possess, you can't enter the kingdom of God." Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." It is impossible, because when you possess you are constantly fighting with God. When you claim ownership, from whom are you claiming ownership? The whole belongs to the whole; the part cannot claim the whole. The part cannot even claim the part. Every claim is aggression. So those who possess cannot be in deep contact with the divine.
Nonpossessiveness doesn't mean you should not live in a house. Live in a house, but be thankful to the whole, to the divine. Use it but don't possess it. If you can use things without being possessive you have become a sanysain.
These followers of Nansen have left the world, but their minds have followed them like shadows. Now they claim ownership of a cat. The whole thing is foolish.
But the mind is foolish. The mind always goes on searching for excuses to fight. If you have a mind you have a potential fighter within you who is always in search of a fight with somebody. Why is the mind always in search of a fight? By fighting, ego is accumulated, becomes stronger. Through fighting your ego grows; if you don't fight, ego disappears.
Mahavira and Buddha both insisted on nonviolence. The basic reason for not fighting is that once you stop fighting the ego cannot exist. Ego exists in fight; it is a consequence of fight. The more you fight the more ego exists. If you alone remained on the earth, nobody to fight with, would you have an ego? You would not have an ego. The other is needed to create it; the other is a must. Ego is a relationship, it is not in you. Remember, the ego is not in you, it is not located within you. It is always located within you and the other -- somewhere in between, where fight exists.
There are two types of relationship: one is of fight, fear, hatred -- this creates ego -- the other is of love, compassion, sympathy. These are the two types of relationship. Wherever love is, fight ceases, ego drops. This is why you cannot love. It is difficult, because to love means to drop the ego, to drop yourself. Love means not to be.
So look at the strange phenomenon: lovers go on fighting. How can lovers fight? If there is love fight should drop and the ego will disappear. Your whole being thirsts for love, your whole mind thirsts for ego. So you make a compromise: you love and you fight.
The lover becomes an intimate enemy, but the enmity remains. All lovers go on fighting and go on loving. They have made a compromise: in some moments they are loving, then they drop the ego. But the mind feels uneasy, and again the mind starts fighting. So in the morning they fight, in the evening they make love, and the next morning they fight again.
Then a rhythm of fight and love is created.
True love means the fight has disappeared, the two have become one. Their bodies exist separately but their being has mingled. The boundaries are lost, there is no division. There is no 'I' and no 'thou', no one exists.
These monks of Nansen had left everything, but the mind was there. It wanted to possess, it wanted to create a fight, it wanted to be egoistic. A cat became just an excuse. Nansen called all the monks, all the disciples, caught hold of the cat, and he said, "Say something which can save this cat."
What did he mean when he said, "Say something which can save this cat?" He meant: Say something Zen-like, say something meditative, say something of the other world, say something of ecstasy, say something which doesn't belong to the mind. This cat can be saved if you say something which comes from no-mind, which comes from your inner silence. He demanded the impossible. If there had been inner silence these monks would not have been claiming possession; if there had been inner silence it would have been impossible for them to fight.
The monks were at a loss. They knew if they said something it would come from the mind and the cat would be killed, so they remained silent. But that silence was not real silence; otherwise the cat would have been saved. They remained silent not because they were silent; they remained silent because they couldn't find anything to say which came from no-mind, which came from an inner source, from the very being, from the center.
They remained silent as a strategy. It was tactics: it is better to remain silent because the master may be deceived that this silence is our response -- this is what they were saying. But you cannot deceive a master. And if you can deceive a master, then that master is not a master at all. Their silence was false. Inside there was turmoil, inside there was continuous chattering. They were thinking and thinking, in search of one answer so that this cat might be saved. They were very troubled inside; the whole mind was functioning fast. The master must have looked at them. Their minds were not inactive, they were not inactive; there was no meditation, there was no silence. Their silence was just a false facade. You can sit silently without being silent and you can talk and be silent; you can walk and be inactive and you can sit statuelike and be active. The mind is complex. You can walk, run, move, and inside, deep at the center, nothing happens, you are inactive.
I am talking to you and I am silent. You are not talking to me and you are not silent; the mind continues. The inner chattering goes on and on and on. The mind is a monkey, It cannot sit silently. Darwin discovered that man comes from the monkeys, but in the East meditators have always been aware that whether man comes from monkeys or not, the mind definitely comes from monkeys. It is monkeyish -- jumping, chattering, doing something or other, never silent.
What Nansen said to his disciples was, "If you stop behaving like monkeys, this cat can be saved." But they couldn't help it. You cannot help it: if the mind is there what can you do? If you try to hold it still it becomes more active; if you force it to be silent it talks more; if you suppress it, it rebels. You cannot suppress it, you cannot persuade it; you cannot do anything about it, because the moment you do something it is the mind which is doing. This is the problem.
They all wanted to save the cat, they all wanted to possess the cat; the cat was really beautiful. But how can a mind which is possessive be silent? And how can a mind which is possessive save anybody? It can only kill.
Remember, it was not Nansen who killed the cat, it was these monks who killed it; this is the secret key in the story. Nansen gave an opportunity. He said, "You can save this cat. Say something which comes from no-mind, from your very being. And if you don't say anything I am going to cut this cat and divide it in two so both parties can possess it." It was not Nansen who killed the cat. It seemed as though he killed it, but in fact the monks killed the cat. Whenever you possess a live thing, you have already killed it. Whenever you claim that you possess a live person, you have murdered, because life cannot be possessed. The cat was moving from this wing to that. The cat was alive, fully alive, more alive than these monks. She had no home, she didn't belong to anybody. She was just like a breeze -- sometimes passing through the left wing, sometimes passing through the right. And the cat never claimed that these monks belonged to her, or those monks belonged to her. She never possessed.
Animals are nonpossessive, trees are nonpossessive; only man is possessive. And with possessiveness man has missed all that is alive. You can possess only a dead thing. The moment you possess you are making something dead. You love a woman and then you try to possess her: you kill her. A wife is a thing not a person; a husband is a thing not a person.
This is the misery -- you love a person and then you start possessing. Unknowingly you are poisoning. And sooner or later the day will come when you have poisoned the person completely. Now you possess, but how can you love a thing? The love happened in the first place because the person was alive. Now the flow has stopped, now life doesn't move, now all the doors of freedom are closed. Now it has become a frozen thing. The river is frozen, now there is no movement. Certainly now this person cannot go to another. You possess him completely. But how can you love a dead person? This is the misery of love. You cannot love a dead person, yet whenever you love you start possessing. All possession creates death. Only things can be possessed.
These monks had already killed the cat. Nansen was not going to kill it, he was only going to make manifest what had already happened. This story has been used against Zen monks, Zen masters, to show that these people are violent. Think of a Christian theologian reading this story: he will say, "What type of religious man is this Nansen? He killed the cat, a poor cat. Those monks who claimed it were better. At least they were not killing. What type of master is this? What manner of man?" If Jainas -- not Mahavira, if Jainas read this story, they will throw Nansen into hell. He has killed a cat.
Nansen is violent in appearance only to those who cannot understand. To those who can understand he is simply manifesting a thing which has already happened. The cat was dead the moment it was possessed, the moment people started claiming it. He gave them one more opportunity, but they couldn't use that opportunity. They remained silent. But if the silence had been real the cat would have been alive. The silence was false, the silence was only on the surface, on the faces, skin-deep. Inside, the mad mind was functioning fast. It was whirling, spinning. Many answers must have come to those monks, but not the answer.
So Nansen had to kill. He chopped the cat in two, one part to the left-wing claimers, another part to the right-wing claimers. Those monks must have been happy, happy in the sense that at least they possessed half the cat. That is what is happening to you all. Whenever you fight, life goes dead and is divided. A father and mother fight over a son -- there is continuous fighting over children. The father says that the son belongs to him, that he should follow him, and the mother thinks the son belongs to her, that he should follow her. Claiming, they are killing. Sooner or later the son will be divided in two halves, chopped. Half of the son will belong to the father, half to the mother. And his whole life is destroyed, because now it will be very difficult for him to be whole. Half of his heart will always belong to the mother and half always to the father. One half will be against the mother and one half will be against the father. Now he is divided. Now this division is going to follow him his whole life. He is chopped in two.
This is what Nansen was saying by chopping the cat in two: Don't fight over a person, don't try to possess a person, because you will chop him. Visibly he may seem one, but deep down in his heart he has become two, and now there will be constant conflict.
The mother and father were fighting over the son; now the mother may be dead and the father may be dead, but they will go on fighting within the son -- sometimes the voice of the mother, sometimes the voice of the father. The son will always be at a loss whom to follow, and he cannot be whole.
You come to me in search of being whole, and I always say: To be whole is to be holy. There is no other way to be holy; just be whole. Divisions within you must fall, you must become a unity. But you are a conflict. Your father is fighting, your mother is fighting, your brothers are fighting, your teachers are fighting, your gurus are fighting -- everybody is fighting to possess you. There are many claimants. They have fragmented you, they have chopped you into many parts. You have become many, you are not one; you are a crowd. Neurosis comes out of it, madness comes out of it, comes out of it. Have you ever observed how many souls you have, many selves you have? You are not one, that is certain.
In my university days I used to live with a boy. He would never get up in the morning at five, but every day he would set the alarm. So I asked him, "Why do you set it? Why do you bother? -- because you never get up. You always turn the alarm off and go to sleep again. So why bother and why be disturbed every morning?
He laughed, but his laugh was hollow. He knew himself that he would not get up. But in the evening another self said, "No, tomorrow morning I am going to get up."
I said, "Okay, try." And at the time he was setting the alarm he was confident, absolutely confident that he would get up in the morning at five. There was no suspicion. But this was only one fragment who said, "Absolutely, you have to get up. You have slept enough. No more time is left; the exam is coming near."
At five I was waiting for him. He looked at me when the alarm went off. He looked at me -- I was aware, I was sitting on my bed -- he smiled, put off the alarm, changed sides and went to sleep again.
Later in the morning, at eight o'clock when he used to get up, I asked him about it. He said, "I thought, Just for a few minutes... And what is wrong in just sleeping for a few minutes more? I was feeling so sleepy, and the night was so cold. But tomorrow you will see, I will get up."
These are two different fragments -- and he was not aware that the one who said, "Get up at five," was a different part, completely unaware of the part who would say, "Go to sleep. The night is very cold."
You are doing the same: you decide a thing and the next moment you have simply forgotten what you decided. You say you are not going to be angry again, and even the next moment is very far away. If someone starts arguing with you, saying no, you will become angry. You may become angry because he is arguing -- immediately anger can come to you, and you had decided not to be angry. A divided house you are. There are many rooms in your house not connected with each other; the connections are broken, the bridges have dropped. You exist as a polypsychic being with many minds, so whatsoever you possess you will chop it. You are already chopped.
Those monks could not save the cat because they were divided. Nansen was saying, "Do something, say something, in a whole way, in a holy way, undivided. Act as a unity and this cat can be saved." Not a single one could act, and the cat was chopped.
A question arises: How could Nansen cut the cat? Is it just a parable, a symbolic story, or did he really chop the cat? There are people who would like to save Nansen; I am not one of them. He really did cut the cat. It is not a parable, it is not an anecdote, symbolic, metaphorical. No. Literally, it happened exactly the way it is said. He cut the cat in two. Could a saintly man do that? I say to you: Only a saintly man can do that.
That's what Krishna said to Arjuna in the Gita: Then don't bother! Chop these fellows. These who are standing against you, cut them down, kill them, but remember only one thing: that which is hidden in them cannot be destroyed. Only the body can be destroyed, because the body is already dead. Only what is dead can be destroyed. What is alive remains alive; it is eternal, nothing can be done to it. Fire cannot burn it, weapons cannot cut it. NAINAM CHHINDANTI SHASTRANI -- no weapon can cut it, no fire can burn it -- only the form. But don't bother about the form, because form is unreal, it is part of illusion.
This Nansen must have been in the same state of mind as Krishna, in the same state of consciousness as Krishna. He chopped the cat. He knows the soul of the cat cannot be destroyed; he knows that only the form can be changed.
And one thing more which is very difficult to understand, because moralists have created so much confusion and smoke around it: when a cat is chopped by a Nansen, it is beneficial to the cat, is is a blessing to the cat. This cat must have been rare -- and now this cat will not be reborn as a cat, she will be reborn as a man. To be chopped by Nansen is a rare opportunity, and the cat must have been wandering around the monastery waiting for this moment.
Nansen changed the form. The cat will be reborn as a higher being just because Nansen has chopped her.In that moment the cat was more silent than the monks, the cat was more ecstatic than the monks. And being chopped by Nansen is not an act of aggression, it is an act of love. Nansen freed the cat from the form, from the form of cat. She will be reborn as a higher being. But this is difficult to follow, and I am not telling you to go and free people from their forms so they will be reborn as higher beings. Don't chop anybody -- you would like to, you would enjoy it. But for Nansen, it was an act of deep prayer. He must have been watching this cat. This cat was no ordinary cat. There are animals who are crying out to be freed from their forms.
It happened at a camp in Matheran. I was staying very far away from the campus ground. The first evening, when I was going to my bungalow, a dog followed -- really a rare dog. Then the dog remained continuously. Three times I would go to conduct the camp, and three times I would return. It was half an hour's journey. Three times I was asleep, and he would sit just on the veranda. Even when he went to eat something he never left me. For the whole camp this was his routine. He would follow me to the camp, and when others were meditating he would sit more silently, more deeply, than those who were attending the camp. And then he would go back with me.
The last day, when I left Matheran by train, he followed the train. He was running by the side of the train, and the guard took compassion on him and he took him in. Up to Neral he came. This train was a slow train, a toy train, coming from Matheran to Neral, traveling just seven miles in two hours, and the dog could follow. But from Neral it is a fast train, when I took the train from Neral to Bombay others were standing there on the platform weeping and crying, and the dog was also standing there in tears.
I know that cat must have been extraordinary; otherwise Nansen would not have taken such trouble to chop it. He created an opportunity for his disciples, and he used that opportunity for the cat also. He hit two targets with one stone. This is possible. If you are ready, then your form can be destroyed and you will receive a higher form, because your higher form depends on the moment when you die. The cat died in the hands of Nansen -- a very rare opportunity. Such a silent man was Nansen, the cat must have caught the silence; such an ecstatic being, the cat must have been filled with his ecstasy. And then he chopped it. The cat was not afraid, she must have enjoyed the game. It was a surgical act.
The cat must be born in the next life as a very much higher soul. But that is an inner story and cannot be understood by ordinary morality. And persons like Nansen don't follow ordinary morality, they follow the inner rules, the inner laws. Ordinary morality is for ordinary men.
And then by the evening another monk came in from outside, another disciple who had not been in the monastery. Nansen told the story to him, "This has happened, and I had to cut the cat. I had to divide it in two because there was no way.... These foolish fellows couldn't save the cat. They couldn't save the cat -- they couldn't utter a single word, they couldn't act in a Zenlike way, they couldn't prove their Zen. Only Zen could have saved the cat, nothing else."
The disciple listened to the story, put his shoes on his head and walked out. Nansen called him and said, "If you had been here, the cat would have been saved."
This was the right man. What did he do? He took his shoes off, put them on his head, and walked out. He said many things without speaking. The first thing: He listened to the story and didn't comment on it. The monkey was silent; the mind was not chattering. He didn't try to think out an answer, he simply acted. That action was not from the mind, the action was from his total being. And what did he do? He put his shoes on his head.
Absurd! But he said that the mind, the head, is no more valuable than the shoes. Shoes, the meanest thing -- he put them on his head. He said by this act, "The mind is nothing but shoes. The mind is valueless, thinking cannot help. The mind has to be thrown to the shoes. Even shoes are more worthy and command more respect than the mind." That's what he said, and then he simply walked out.
And Nansen said, "Had you been here this morning, you could have saved the cat. The cat would have been saved.
Here was a man who didn't believe in the mind, who didn't believe in answers. Here was a man who could act spontaneously. Life can be saved only if you can act spontaneously -- not only the cat's life, your life also. Throw the mind to the shoes. It is not more worthy in any way. And shoes have not troubled you so much; sometimes they may pinch, but only sometimes, and if they are the right size they are always okay. But the mind has been pinching you for many many lives, and it is never the right size, it is always the wrong size. The mind is never the right size. Shoes can be the right size, but the mind is always the wrong size. It goes on pinching. The mind is the wrong size. You cannot make a good mind, there is no possibility. You cannot make a beautiful ugliness, you cannot make a healthy disease, that is impossible. The mind is always wrong. It goes on pinching. And whether you think or whether you pray, if the mind is there everything goes wrong. The mind is the factor which creates wrongness in life. This is the source of error, perversion, neurosis. Life can be saved only when you drop the mind.
What did this disciple do? It was difficult to drop the head, it was easier to put the shoes on the head. But it was symbolic. He was saying, "I have dropped the head. Don't ask me foolish questions" and he acted, that's the thing.
Meditation is not contemplation, it is action -- action of the whole, of the total being. In the West particularly. Christianity has created a false impression, and meditation looks like contemplation. It is not. Because of Christianity the West has missed many things, and one of them is meditation, the rarest flowering of a human being, because they have made it equivalent to contemplation. Contemplation is thinking. Meditation is no- thinking.
For DHYAN, Zen, there exists no equivalent in the English language, because meditation itself means thinking -- to meditate upon. Some object is there. Remember, dhyan is the original word. Dhyan traveled to China with Bodhidharma and in the Chinese language it became CH'AN. And then from China it traveled to Japan and in Japanese it became first ZAN, and then ZEN; but the original root is dhyan -- Ch'an, Zan, Zen. In English there is no word equivalent to it. Meditation also means thinking, a consistent thinking.
Contemplation means thinking too. It may be thinking about God, but it is thinking, and dhyan or Zen is a no-thinking state. It is action, without thought. Thought needs time. In the morning the monks were sitting thinking what to do. They thought and thought and couldn't find. Thought will never find the right answer. The cat had to be chopped. Life became death because thought is poisonous; thinking leads to death, not to more life. The cat had to be chopped. Nansen couldn't help -- those monks killed the cat.
This man, this disciple who came in the evening, listened to the story without commenting, without saying anything. He simply took off his shoes, put them on his head and walked out. He acted -- he said something through his action, not through his mind. He didn't use words, he used himself. And he didn't wait, he didn't contemplate, he didn't try to find the answer to how the cat should have been saved.
If you had been there in the evening and you were told the story, you would surely have started to think: How? When the how comes, mind has come. This disciple acted without the how; he simply acted, and the act was spontaneous, very symbolic. Putting the shoes on his head he said something -- he said the head is valueless.
This Nansen, the master, used to ask people,"What is the most valueless thing in the world?" He used to give it as a meditation to his disciples: think, what is the most valueless thing in the world? His master also gave this koan to him. He meditated, meditated, then one day he came and told his master, "The head. The master asked, "Why?" So Nansen said, "Cut a head and go to the market and try to sell it. Nobody will purchase it."
This is what Nansen's disciple did. By putting shoes on his head he said, "Worthless head!" And you go on insisting, asking head-questions. There is no answer. How can the shoes answer? He walked out, and Nansen said, "You could have saved the cat. Had you been there this morning the cat would have been alive and kicking. Some absurd act was needed -- absurd, spontaneous. Rational? No, something irrational was needed, because "ir-reason" is deeper than reason. That's why if you are too much head-fixated, you cannot fall in love, because love is irrational, absurd. The head goes on saying, "This is useless. What will you gain out of it? There is no profit, you may even get into trouble. Think about it."
It is said of Immanuel Kant, one of the greatest systematizers, that one girl proposed to him. In the first place it is bad that the girl should propose, it is always the boy who proposes. But the girl must have waited and waited and Kant wouldn't propose; the idea never occurred to him. He was so much rooted in his head, the heart was denied. So the girl, feeling too much time had been lost, proposed. Kant said, "I will think it over."
How can you think about love? Either it is there or not. It is not a question to be solved, it is a situation to respond to. Either your heart says yes or your heart says no and it is finished. What will you think? It is not a business proposal. But it was a business proposal to Kant. Too much head-orientation makes everything businesslike. So he thought, and he not only thought, he went to the library and concentrated on the books about love, marriage. Then he noted down in his notebook all that was in favor of marriage and all that was against. And he thought and thought and thought, and it is said that weighing the pros and cons, he decided in favor of marriage because a few points were more in favor than against. So it was a logical decision.
Then he went and knocked at the girl's door, and the father said, "She is already married and a mother of three children. So much time passed... you come a little late." Time is needed for the mind. The mind is always late because time will be needed and the situation will be lost. And when you knock at the door, the girl has moved -- she is already a mother of three children. And this is happening every moment. Remember, a situation is there, so act, don't think, because if you think the situation will not wait for you. The girl will have moved. And when you are ready to respond there will be nothing to respond to. Kant was ready, but the mind takes time and situations are moving. Life is a flow, a flux, it is not static; otherwise the mind would have found the answer. If the girl had remained.... But the girl was getting old, she was missing life. She could not wait, she had to move, make a decision.
Life is not static. If life were static there would be no need for meditation. The mind would do. Then you could think, and whenever, after many lives, you knocked at the door, the girl would be waiting for you. But life is a flux, a movement. Every moment it is changing and becoming new. If you miss a moment, you have missed.
This disciple didn't miss a single moment. He heard the story, took off his shoes, put them on his head and walked out. If he had waited a single moment to think Nansen would have beaten him. I tell you, he would have been beaten. Because the cat was not there any more he might have chopped this disciple -- but he acted.
Action without the mind is the most beautiful thing possible. But you are afraid because you think if you act without the mind you may do something wrong. Because this fear exists the mind exploits it -- think first, then act. But you go on missing the train. Leave this fear, otherwise you will never be meditative. Act! In the beginning there will be a deep shaking and trembling, because you have always been acting out of thinking.
It is just like a man who has been living in a prison, in a dark cell, for many years. His eyes have become attuned to darkness. If he is suddenly brought out of the cell he will not be able to open his eyes. The sun will be too much, the light will be too much. His whole being will tremble and he will say, "Let me go back to my cell.
This is what has happened to you, to everybody. We have lived in the mind for many many lives, and we have become attuned to its darkness, its ugliness, futility. When you act without the mind, your whole being trembles. You are moving on a dangerous path. The mind says, "Be alert! Think first, then act." But if you think first and then do something, your doing will always be dead, stale. It will be out of thought, it will not be real and authentic. Then you cannot love, then you cannot meditate, then you cannot really live and you cannot die. You become a phantom, a phony existence. Love knocks at your heart and you say, "Wait! I will think about it." Life goes on knocking at your gates and you say, "Wait! I will think about it."
This disciple must have been deep in meditation. He acted, he simply acted. He could have saved the cat. This means he has already saved it -- he has already saved all that is alive. Don't think about the story, otherwise I will have to chop the cat. You can save it; otherwise the cat will have to be chopped again, and you will be responsible. Act!
But the story won't help you. Don't try to put your shoes on your head, that won't help. It helped that disciple but it won't help you. The cat will have to be chopped if you put the shoes on your head and walk out, because that will be false again, that will be from the mind. You know the story. The mind cannot give you the real; whatsoever you do, don't imitate.
I have heard that in a Chinese town there was one big restaurant, very rich, the most beautiful, rich restaurant in the town. And just near that restaurant lived a poor Chinese. He couldn't go in the restaurant, it was too costly. But the smell of food, the aroma.... He used to sniff it, and when he took his lunch or dinner he took a chair out of his house and went as near to the restaurant as he dared, and he would sit there and sniff the aroma, the smell that was coming from the restaurant, and eat his food. He enjoyed it. He ran a small laundry.
But one day he was surprised. There came a man, the owner of the restaurant, with a bill for the smell of the food. That poor man ran into his house, brought his tiny money box, rattled it in the ears of the owner and said, "Hereby I pay for the smell of your food, by the sound of my money."
The mind is just smell and sound, nothing real. Whatsoever you do, the mind is smell and sound, nothing authentic. It is the source of all falsity.
So you have heard the story: don't try now to imitate it. You can do it easily now, now the secret is known. You can put the shoes on your head and walk, but the cat will be chopped. It will not save it, it will not help it. Act spontaneously. Put aside the mind and do something, and doing it you will come to know the cat has never been chopped, because the cat cannot die. Putting aside the mind you will come to know your own eternity, and the very same moment you know the eternity of the cat also. The mind is mortal, not you. You are immortal. The mind has a death waiting for it, not you. You are deathless. Putting aside the mind you will laugh, and you will say this Nansen played a trick. The cat cannot be killed.
That's what Krishna went on saying to Arjuna: "Don't you be worried. You chop these fellows, because nobody can be killed."
The Gita is very dangerous. Nowhere on the earth does such a dangerous book exist, so nobody has followed it. People recite it but nobody follows it. It is dangerous, and even people who love it very much and respect it very much, never listen to what it says. Even a man like Mahatma Gandhi, who called Gita his mother, wouldn't listen to it. How could Mahatma Gandhi listen to it? He believed in nonviolence and this Krishna said, "Chop these fellows! Nothing exists; it is like a dream. And I tell you, nobody is killed, so don't bother about it."
How could Gandhi believe? So he had to play a trick. This is how the mind plays tricks. He said, "This is a parable, this is metaphorical; don't take it literally, the fight is not real. The Kauravas and the Pandavas, these two groups of warriors, are just a story. Kauravas represent evil and Pandavas represent good. It is the fight between good and evil, between God and the Devil, it is not a real fight." But this was Gandhi's mind playing tricks.
There have been Buddhist interpreters of Nansen also. They said, "This is just a parable. There was no real cat, and this never happened."
But I tell you this happened. The cat was real, as real as Nansen, and the cat was chopped. Nansen could do it. Nansen was a Krishna. He knew nothing is destroyed. This word, the English word destruction, is very beautiful, meaningful. The word destruction means de-structuring -- nothing is destroyed, only the structure changes, a new structure arises. The old structure goes out of existence and a new structure arises.
Destruction means de-structuring. Only the form changes. The cat may be sitting here -- it is more possible than anywhere else! When you go back home, look in the mirror. You may be the cat, and you have come here again. Do something, otherwise I will chop you again.
And remember, now nobody can save you. That time the monks could have saved you. This time you are a monk, so nobody can save you except yourself. Action out of immediacy, spontaneous action, saves life. That is the only savior. There exists no other savior.
Anything more?
Question 1
BELOVED OSHO,
IN PLACE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, WITH WHICH I WAS BROUGHT
UP, I HAVE GIVEN MYSELF A NEW SET OF RULES -- BE ALERT, BE PATIENT,
BE SPONTANEOUS, ACCEPT MYSELF.
All questions are mind questions -- no question comes out of no-mind -- and all answers are no-mind answers. So questions and answers never meet. You ask a question and I give you an answer. They never meet, they cannot meet, because your question runs on the track of the mind and my answer runs on the track of no-mind. They may run parallel but they never meet. Either I should drop my no-mind -- then there can be a meeting -- or you should drop the mind. Then there can be a meeting. And remember, I am not going to drop my no-mind. It cannot be dropped, because how can you drop a no-thing? You can drop a thing, but you cannot drop a no-thing. So you have to drop the mind. Then the answer will be heard, understood. Then it will penetrate you.
And the mind is a deeper source of new questions, new puzzles, new riddles, so you can change the ten commandments -- you can create another ten. That will not do, because if they are created by the mind nothing changes.
Now the ten commandments have become very old, out of date. They speak in a language of the past. At that time that language was relevant, but now they don't look relevant. You can change, you can make new commandments, but those new commandments, if they are put together by the mind, will not be of any use. Your mind can think and put them together and they may look beautiful, but they will be false. You can make let-go a commandment, total acceptance a commandment, but if they are put by the mind they are meaningless. Why? It is because the mind cannot allow itself to be a total let-go. It can pretend, but it cannot really allow itself to let go. And the mind cannot accept because the mind exists through rejection; that is why the mind always likes to say no rather than yes.
Whenever you say no you feel the ego; whenever you say yes you don't feel the ego.
That's why people go on saying no more than yes. They say yes only when it becomes absolutely necessary; otherwise they say no. Whenever something is asked the first thing that arises in your mind is no -- because when you reject, you are, and when you accept, you are not there. Yes-saying will create a no-mind. So a theist is a yes-sayer, and an atheist is a no-sayer -- he says no -- and when you say there is no God, then you feel a tremendous energy in the ego. Then you are.
Nietzsche has said, "If God is then I won't want to be, and if I am, then I won't allow God to be, because both cannot exist." And he is right. How can both exist, you and God together? If you are there, then you are the God. God cannot exist. If he exists, then how can you exist? The ultimate no comes to the mind -- no God.
The mind rejects, cannot accept. So you can change, you can think about it, you can change the old ten commandments and create a new ten, but if they come out of the mind they are useless. And if they do not come out of the mind, what is the need? If the no-mind has happened and you feel it, what is the need of commandments? Commandments are for the mind. They are from the mind and for the mind. Rules exist for the mind, because the mind cannot exist without rules. This is one of the most basic things. Rules exist for the false, not for the real. The real can exist without rules, but the false cannot exist; it has to be propped, helped, supported by the rules. You play a game, you play cards -- can you play cards without rules? There can be no possibility. If you say, "I will follow my rules and you follow your rules and we play the game," there will be no game. We have to follow the rules -- and we both know that rules are just rules, nothing real in them. We have agreed on the rules, that's why they exist.
A game cannot continue if rules are not followed, but life will continue without rules. What rules are these trees following? What rules does the sun follow? What rules does the sky follow? The human mind is such that it thinks they are also following rules, moving according to rules. The sun moves, it follows a rule, so there is a ruler -- the God who controls everything. He is like a great super-manager. He goes spying on everybody -- who is following, who is not following. This is a mind creation.
Life exists without rules; games cannot exist without rules. So real religion is always without rules; only false religion has rules, because false religion is a game.
I have heard that one young woman came to a barber's shop with her young boy. The boy was dressed like a soldier, looked very dangerous, and he had a toy six-shooter. Immediately he jumped on the chair and said, "Bang! Bang!" He just made noise.
And the lady said to the barber, "I am going to leave my son here for half an hour, I have some shopping to do."
The barber became uneasy and he said, "If this young man becomes too restless, what am I supposed to do?" -- and that young boy was standing with his six-shooter on the chair looking very dangerous, soldierlike.
The young lady said, "If he gets too restless, you will simply have to drop dead a few times, that's all. If he says, 'Bang!' -- you drop dead. Follow the rule -- that's the rule -- then he will not be restless. So you have to drop dead a few times, and then he will be happy and there will be no trouble."
All the commandments are, "Bang! Drop dead!" For real life there is no commandment. You flow in it without any rules. You simply be. Why follow rules? Out of your being, everything will happen. These things you say will happen if you are simply there without any rules. Then acceptance will come, let-go will come; then the mind will drop. So these rules cannot be made rules. They are consequences of being spontaneous and total. If somebody follows them, and he has made a commandment that he has to accept everything, and then accepts, it is false, because in accepting he has already rejected. And if you have to accept something because of the commandment, you have already rejected.
Your mind says: Accept! Why accept? Before it has said: Reject. Then rejection has come before the acceptance. But if there is no rejection, how will you be aware of acceptance? You will simply accept and flow.
Become riverlike. Become a white cloud floating in the sky, and let the winds take you wheresoever they take. Don't, don't follow any rules. This is what I mean when I say: Be a sannyasin. Just be. Your ochre robes, your mala -- these are rules. This is a game. This is not what I mean by real sannyas. But you are so accustomed to games that before I lead you to a ruleless life, in the transitory period you will need rules. Moving from this world of rules, of games, to that world without rules and games, a bridge has to be passed. Your orange clothes, your mala, are just for that transitory period. You cannot drop rules immediately, so I give you new rules.
But be fully alert that your robes are not your sannyas, your mala is not your sannyas, your new name is not your sannyas. Sannyas will be there when there is no name, when you become nameless. Then there will be no rules. Then you will be so ordinary, you will not be recognized. Only then....
But don't think that now it is okay, so no need to take sannyas and no need to take an orange robe. That is again a trick. You have to pass through this, you have to go through this. You cannot bypass it -- and if you try to bypass you will never reach to the other shore.
Rules of the world, then rules of sannyas, and then comes a no-rule state; no, commandments are needed. Don't change the old commandments -- they are okay as they are. You be, simply be, and follow and flow into the being.
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