What About Physical Pain? – Osho

I have glimpses of how psychological, existential pain is created by the ego. It is homemade, and it can be homemade. But what about physical pain: why is it there? Is it a necessary part of dying? I do not feel I am afraid of death as much as I am afraid of physical pain, senility, old age.

Psychological pain can be dissolved; and only psychological pain can be dissolved. The other pain, the physical pain, is part of life and death; there is no way to dissolve it. But it never creates a problem. Have you ever observed? — The problem is only when you are thinking about it. If you think of old age, you become afraid, but old people are not trembling. If you think of illness, you become afraid, but when the illness has already happened, there is no fear, there is no problem. One accepts it as a fact.

The real problem is always psychological. The physical pain is part of life. When you start thinking about it, it is not physical pain at all; it has become psychological. You think about death; there is fear. But when death actually happens there is no fear. Fear is always about something in the future. Fear never exists in the present moment. If you are going to the front in a war, you will be afraid, you will be very apprehensive. You will tremble; you will not be able to sleep: many nightmares will haunt you. But once you are on the front — ask the soldiers — once you are on the front, you forget all about it. Bullets may be passing and you can enjoy your lunch; and bombs may be falling and you can play cards.

You can ask Gurudayal. He has been in the war, he has been to the front, he has been a soldier; he knows: the fear is about the future. Then the problem is not physical — because the fear exists in your psychology. When the pain is actual, physical, there is no problem about it. Reality never comes as a problem; it is only the ideas about reality that create the problem.

So the first thing to be understood is: if you can dissolve the psychological pain, no problem is left. Then you start living in the moment. “Psychological” means: of the past, of the future, never of the present. Mind never exists in the present. In the present reality exists, not the mind. Mind exists in the past and the future, and in past and future reality does not exist. In fact, mind and reality never come across each other. They have never seen each other’s face. Reality remains unknown to mind, and mind remains unknown to reality.

The psychology is the problem; the reality never is a problem.

There is an old fable . . . Darkness approached God and said, “Enough is enough! Your sun goes on haunting me, chasing me. I can never rest; wherever I go to rest he is there, and I have to run away again. And I have not done any wrong to him. This is unjust. And I have come to you to get justice.” It was perfectly right; the complaint was true. And God called the sun and asked the sun, “Why do you go on chasing this poor woman, darkness? What has she done to you?” The sun said, “I don’t know her at all. I have never seen her. You just call her in front of me; only then can I say something. I don’t remember ever having done any wrong to her, because I don’t know her. We are not familiar. Nobody has ever introduced us to each other; we are not even acquainted. It is for the first time from you that I am hearing about this woman, this darkness. You call her!”

The case remains pending — because God could not call darkness before the sun. They cannot exist together, they cannot encounter each other. When darkness is, the sun cannot be; when the sun is, the darkness cannot be. Exactly the same is the relationship between mind and reality: the psychology is the problem, the reality never is a problem. You just dissolve your psychological problems — and they are dissolved by dissolving the center of them all: the ego. Once you don’t think yourself separate from existence, problems simply evaporate, as dewdrops disappear in the morning when the sun rises, not even leaving a trace behind. They simply disappear.

Physical pain will remain, but again I will insist that it has never been a problem to anybody. If your leg is broken, it is broken. It is not a problem. The problem is only in imagination: “If my leg is broken, then what am I going to do? And how am I to avoid, or how am I to behave and work my way so my leg is never broken?”

Now, if you become afraid about such things you cannot live, because your legs can be broken, your neck can be broken, your eyes can go blind. Anything is possible; millions of things are possible. If you become obsessed with all these problems which are possible . . .

I am not saying they are not possible. They are all possible. Whatsoever has happened to any human being, ever, can happen to you. Cancer can happen, TB can happen, death can happen; everything is possible. Man is vulnerable. You can just go outside on the road and you can be hit by a car. I am not saying don’t go outside on the road. You can sit in a room and the roof can fall. There is no way to save yourself totally and perfectly. You can be lying down on your bed, but do you know that ninety-seven percent of people die on a bed? That is the most dangerous place! Avoid it as much as you can; never go to bed. Ninety-seven percent of people die in bed. Even travelling by airplane is not so dangerous; it is more dangerous to be in bed. And remember, more people die in the night . . .  so, remain trembling. Then it is up to you. Then you will not be able to live at all.

Psychological problems are the only problems. You can become paranoid, you can become split, you can become paralyzed because of fear — but this is nothing to do with reality. You see a blind man walking on the road perfectly well; blindness in itself is not the problem. You can see beggars — their legs broken, their hands gone, and still laughing, still gossiping with each other, still talking about women, making remarks, singing a tune.

Just watch life: life is never a problem. Man has tremendous capacity to adjust to the fact, but man has no capacity to adjust to the future. Once you try to protect yourself and secure yourself in the future, then you will be in a turmoil, in a chaos. You will start falling apart. And then there are millions of problems — problems and problems and problems. You cannot even commit suicide, because the poison may not be the right poison. In India you cannot rely on anything! They may have mixed something into it; it may not be poison at all. You may take it and you will lie down . . . and you will wait and wait and wait — and death is not coming. Then everything creates a problem.

Mulla Nasrudin was going to commit suicide. He came across an astrologer on the street, and the astrologer said, “Mulla, wait. Let me see your hand.” He said, “What do I have to do now with astrology? I am going to commit suicide! So there is no point; now there is no future.” The astrologer said, “Wait. Let me see whether you can succeed or not.” Future remains. You may not succeed, you may be caught by the police, you may misfire. There is no way to be certain about the future — not even about death, not even about suicide. What to say about life? Life is such a complex phenomenon; how can you be certain? Everything is possible and nothing is certain.

If you become afraid, this is just your psychology. Something has to be done to your mind. And if you understand me rightly, meditation is nothing but an effort to look at reality without the mind — because that is the only way to look at reality. If the mind is there it distorts, it corrupts. Drop the mind and see reality — direct, immediate, face to face. And there is no problem. Reality has never created any problem for anybody. I am here; you are also here — I don’t see a single problem. If I fall ill, I fall ill. What is there to be worried about? Why make a fuss about it? If I die, I die.

A problem needs space: in the present moment there is no space. Things only happen; there is no time to think about it. You can think about the past because there is distance; you can think about the future, there is distance. In fact, future and past are created just to give us space so that we can worry. And the more space you have, the more worry. Now in India they are much more worried because they think, “Next life . . . and . . . and” — ad infinitum — “what is going to happen in the next life?” A person is doing something and he does not think only about the consequences that are going to happen here now; he thinks, “What karma am I going to gather for my future life?” Now he will become even more worried; he has more space. And how is he going to fill that space? — he will fill it with more and more problems. Worry is a way to fill the empty space of the future.

The questioner says, “I have glimpses of how psychological, existential pain is created by ego. It is homemade, and it can be unmade.”

Just understanding it intellectually won’t help; you have to do it. Do it, and then the next question will disappear. Do it, and then you will find there is not any problem left. “But what about physical pain?” Now this is how problems arise. Intellectually you have understood one thing, but that doesn’t make any sense. The next question immediately brings your reality to the surface: you have not understood. It is as if a blind man goes on groping with his stick; he finds his path by it. And then we say, “Your eyes can be cured, but then you will have to drop your walking stick. It is not needed.” The blind man will say, “I can understand that my eyes can be cured, but how can I walk without my stick?” Now, intellectually he has understood that eyes can be cured, but existentially, experientially, he has not understood it — otherwise the next question wouldn’t arise.

Sometimes people come to me and they ask one question, and I say, “You go on; you ask the next too.” Because one question may not show the reality; they may be just showing their intellectual understanding. But with the next question they are bound to be caught. They are bound to be, because with the next question, immediately they will miss. The first part of the question is perfect, but you have got the point only through the mind. It is not yet chewed well; it is not yet digested. It has not become blood, bones, marrow. It is not yet part of your existence. Otherwise, you can never ask, “What about the physical pain?” — because the very question is psychological. Physical pain is not a problem — when it is there, it is there; when it is not there, it is not there.

A problem arises when something is not there and you want it to be there, or when something is there and you don’t want it to be there. A problem is always psychological: “Why is it there?” Now this is all psychological. Who is to say why it is there? There is nobody to answer. Only explanations can be given, but those are not really answers. Explanations are simple. It is very simple: pain is there because pleasure is there. Pleasure cannot exist without pain.

If you want a life absolutely painless, then you will have to live a life absolutely pleasureless. They come together in one package. They are not two things really; they are one thing — not different, not separate, and cannot be separated.

That’s what man has been doing through the centuries: separating, to somehow have all the pleasures of the world and not have any pain; but this is not possible. The more pleasures you have, the more pain also. The bigger the peak, the deeper will be the valley by the side. You want no valleys and you want big peaks. Then the peaks cannot exist; they can exist only with valleys. The valley is nothing but a situation in which a peak becomes possible. The peak and the valley are joined together. You want pleasure and you don’t want pain.

For example: you love a woman or you love a man, and when the woman is with you, you are happy. Now, you would like to be happy whenever she is with you, but when she goes away you don’t want the pain. If you are really happy with a woman when she is with you, how can you avoid the pain of separation when she is gone and she is no longer there? You will miss her; you will feel the absence. The absence is bound to become pain. If you really want that you should not have any pain, then you should start avoiding all pleasure. Then when the woman is there don’t feel happy; just remain sad, just remain unhappy — so that when she goes, there is no problem.

If somebody greets you and you feel happy, then when somebody insults you, you will feel unhappy. This trick has been tried. This has been one of the most basic tricks that all of the so-called religious people have tried: if you want to avoid pain, avoid pleasure. But then what is the point? If you want to avoid death, avoid life — but then what is the point of it all? You will be dead. Before death, you will be dead.

If you want to be perfectly secure, enter into your grave and lie down there. You will be perfectly secure. Don’t breathe, because if you breathe there is danger . . .  because there are all sorts of infections . . . There is danger, so don’t breathe, don’t move . . .  just don’t live. Commit suicide; then there will be no pain. But then why are you searching for it? You want no pain and all pleasure. You demand something impossible: you want that two plus two should not be four. You want them to become five, or three, or anything, but never four. But they are four.

Whatever you do, howsoever you deceive yourself and others, they will remain four. Pain and pleasure go together like night and day, like birth and death, like love and hate.

-Osho

From The Discipline of Transcendence, V.4, Discourse #2, Q1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Podcast Episode: A Way Out

An imaginary podcast discussing a real post
Following is an A.I. generated conversation discussing Purushottama’s post: A Way Out.

 

click to play or download audio file:

A Way Out Podcast

Pip: Welcome to Sat Sangha Salon — where the inner landscape gets more airtime than the outer one, which honestly seems fair at this point.

Mara: Today we’re working through a piece by Purushottama that asks a question most of us quietly carry: if conditioning is everywhere and unavoidable, is there actually a way out? Let’s start with that territory.

A Way Out

Pip: The premise here is almost vertiginous — not that we have some conditioning, but that there is no version of a human life that escapes it. Political, religious, cultural, generational — the post maps the full sweep and lands somewhere uncomfortable.

Mara: The setup earns that discomfort. After cataloguing every flavor of conditioning a person might inherit, the post arrives here: “There seems to be no way out of this quagmire.”

Pip: And that’s the real stakes — not a personal complaint but a structural diagnosis. If the mind itself is built from accumulated impressions, then thinking your way out just adds another layer. You cannot use the conditioned instrument to uncondition itself.

Mara: Which is exactly where the post turns. The mystics — Buddhas, Christs, Zen masters, Krishnamurti, Ramana, Osho — are cited not as authorities to believe but as a provocation to investigate personally. The move is from received wisdom to direct experiment.

Pip: And the experiment has a specific character. This isn’t positive visualization or philosophical detachment — it’s closer to just staying put.

Mara: The post is precise about this: meditation here means “giving a little time and space to have a look at what presents itself, what arises in my inner landscape and to stay with it totally, not by thinking about it, analyzing it, judging it, but by being with unconditionally.” No rejection of the uncomfortable, no clinging to the pleasant.

Pip: So the way out is in — which sounds like a bumper sticker until you sit with what it’s actually asking. It’s asking you to watch the machinery without touching the controls.

Mara: And the reported result is that the stream of conditioning slowly loses momentum. Not through suppression but through witnessing — dense matter, as the post puts it, becoming spaciousness.

Mara: There’s also a candid acknowledgment that most people have no interest in this project, because the end of conditioning is, in a real sense, the end of the self built around it.

Pip: That honesty is what keeps the whole thing from tipping into prescription. It’s offered as a personal discovery, not a mandate.

Mara: Exactly — the closing note is that intellectual understanding alone isn’t enough. It has to become lived experience, which is the whole point of the experiment.

Pip: And if spaciousness is what’s on the other side, the question becomes what we do with the quiet once we find it.

Pip: Conditioning as the water we swim in — and meditation as the first moment you notice you’re wet.

Mara: That’s the thread. Next time, we’ll see where the inquiry goes from here.

Here you can listen to the podcast on Youtube.

and Here is the original Post from Purushottama, A Way Out.

Podcast Episode: Unconditional Forgiveness

An imaginary conversation discussing a real post
Following is an A.I. generated conversation discussing Purushottama’s post: Unconditional Forgiveness.

 

click to play or download audio file:

Unconditional Forgiveness Podcast

 

Pip: Sat Sangha Salon — where the questions worth sitting with eventually find you, whether you invited them or not.

Mara: Today we’re working through one post from Purushottama, and it goes deep into forgiveness — not as a transaction, but as something you extend without requiring anything in return.

Pip: Let’s start with that territory — unconditional forgiveness, and what it actually costs.

Unconditional Forgiveness

Pip: The central tension here is whether forgiveness is something you grant to someone else, or something you do entirely for yourself — and whether waiting for the other party to show up first is even a viable option.

Mara: The post frames it plainly. Approaching his 72nd year, the writer reflects: “My wholeness, my at peaceness, is not dependent upon anyone else’s forgiveness, but it is wholly dependent on the unconditional forgiveness that I, myself, give.”

Pip: That’s a significant shift in where the work lives. It moves the whole project of becoming whole out of someone else’s hands and back into your own.

Mara: And the post follows that logic to its uncomfortable end — someone you harmed may still be carrying pain even after you’ve forgiven yourself. Someone who harmed you may still carry guilt even after you’ve forgiven them. The ledgers don’t automatically reconcile just because one side has settled.

Pip: So the only exit from that loop, for anyone, is to forgive without waiting for the other party to move first.

Mara: The post draws on Matthew 6:14-15 to anchor this — “For if you forgive men their trespass, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” — and then deliberately reframes it, swapping “heavenly Father” for “existence” or “the whole,” so the principle holds even outside a religious frame.

Pip: What I find sharp about that move is it doesn’t dismiss the scripture — it just strips it down to the mechanism: self-forgiveness and forgiving others are, as the post puts it, “glued together, and inseparable.”

Mara: The post closes on a practical consequence that’s hard to argue with. If wholeness depends on a reckoning with people who have already shown they can harm you, you’ve handed your wellbeing to exactly the wrong party.

Pip: Holding out for the apology is, structurally, a second injury you inflict on yourself.

Mara: That’s the post’s real argument — not that forgiveness is noble, but that withholding it is a form of captivity you choose.

Pip: Forgiveness as self-governance — that’s the frame that sticks.

Mara: It reorients the whole question. Not who deserves it, but who suffers without it.

Pip: More from Sat Sangha Salon next time.

Here you can listen to the podcast on Youtube.

and Here is the original Post from Purushottama, Unconditional Forgiveness.

I Want a Meeting of East and West – Osho

You have been using the key word “deprogramming” to describe your work. The techniques that you have suggested during these years, from Chaotic and Dynamic meditation to the modern therapeutic school.

I would like you to explain in brief why you had to create new meditation techniques like Kundalini Meditation or Dynamic Meditation, even though there is a tradition already including hundreds of techniques from Yoga, Sufism, Buddhism, etc.

What is also surprising to the West is that you are using therapies such as Gestalt, Primal, Encounter, in your commune. Is it really necessary? The suspicion is that your secret intentions are nothing but to brainwash people’s minds, and that cannot be tolerated because you are touching the most precious thing they have.

The ancient methods of meditation were all developed in the East. They never considered the Western man, the Western man was excluded. I am creating techniques which are not only for the Eastern man, which are simply for every man – Eastern or Western.

There is a difference between the Eastern tradition and the Western tradition – and it is the tradition that creates the mind. For example, the Eastern mind is very patient – thousands of years of teaching to remain patient, whatever the conditions may be. The Western mind is very impatient. The same methods of technique cannot be applicable to both. The Eastern mind has been conditioned to keep a certain equilibrium in success or in failure, in richness or in poverty, in sickness or in health, in life or in death. The Western mind has no idea of such equilibrium; it gets too disturbed. With success it gets disturbed; it starts feeling at the top of the world, starts feeling a certain superiority complex. In failure it goes to the other extreme; it falls into the seventh hell. It is miserable, in deep anguish, and it feels a tremendous inferiority complex. It is torn apart. And life consists of both. There are moments which are beautiful, and there are moments which are ugly. There are moments when you are in love, there are moments when you are in anger, in hatred. The Western mind simply goes with the situation. It is always in a turmoil. The Eastern mind has learnt… it is a conditioning, it is not a revolution, it is only a training, a discipline, it is a practice. Underneath it is the same, but a thick conditioning makes it keep a certain balance.

The Eastern mind is very slow because there is no point in being speedy; life takes its own course and everything is determined by fate, so what you get, you don’t get by your speed, your hurry. What you get, you get because it is already destined. So there is no question of being in a hurry. Whenever something is going to happen, it is going to happen – neither one second before nor one second after it. This has created a very slow flow in the East. It seems almost as if the river is not flowing; it is so slow that you cannot detect the flow. Moreover, the Eastern conditioning is that you have already lived millions of lives, and there are millions ahead to be lived, so the life span is not only seventy years; the life span is vast and enormous. There is no hurry; there is so much time available: why should you be in a hurry? If it does not happen in this life, it may happen in some other life.

The Western mind is very speedy, fast, because the conditioning is for only one life – seventy years – and so much to do. One third of your life goes into sleep, one third of your life goes into education, training – what is left? Much of it goes into earning your livelihood. If you count everything, you will be surprised: out of seventy years you cannot even have seven years left for something that you want to do. Naturally there is hurry, a mad rush, so mad that one forgets where one is going. All that you remember is whether you are going with speed or not. The means becomes the end.

In the same way, in different directions . . . the Eastern mind has cultivated itself differently than the Western mind. Those one hundred and twelve methods of meditation developed in the East have never taken account of the Western man; they were not developed for the Western man. The Western man was not yet available. The time that Vigyan Bhairava Tantra was written – in which those one hundred and twelve techniques have come to perfection – is nearabout five to ten thousand years before us. At that time there was no Western man, no Western society, no Western culture. The West was still barbarous, primitive, not worth taking into account. The East was the whole world, at the pinnacle of its growth, richness, civilization.

My methods of meditation have been developed out of an absolute necessity. I want the distinction between the West and the East to be dissolved.

After Shiva’s Vigyan Bhairava Tantra, in these five or ten thousand years, nobody has developed a single method. But I have been watching the differences between East and West: the same method cannot be applied immediately to both. First, the Eastern and the Western mind have to be brought into a similar state. Those techniques of dynamic meditation, kundalini meditation, and others, are all cathartic; their basis is catharsis.

You have to throw out all the junk that your mind is full of. Unless you are unloaded you cannot sit silently. It is just as if you tell a child to sit silently in the corner of the room. It is very difficult; he is so full of energy. You are repressing a volcano! The best way is, first tell him, “Go run outside around the house ten times; then come and sit down in the corner.”

Then it is possible, you have made it possible. He himself wants to sit down now, to relax. He is tired, he is exhausted; now, sitting there, he is not repressing his energy, he has expressed his energy by running around the house ten times. Now he is more at ease. The cathartic methods are simply to throw all your impatience, your speediness, your hurry, your repressions.

One more factor has to be remembered, that these are absolutely necessary for the Western man before he can do something like vipassana – just sitting silently doing nothing and the grass grows by itself. But you have to be sitting silently, doing nothing – that is a basic condition for the grass to grow by itself. If you cannot sit silently doing nothing, you are going to disturb the grass. I have always loved gardens, and wherever I have lived I have created beautiful gardens, lawns. I used to talk to people sitting on my lawn, and I became aware that they were all pulling the grass Out . . . just hectic energy. If they had nothing to do, they would simply pull the grass. I had to tell them, “If you go on doing this, then you will have to sit inside the room. I cannot allow you to destroy my lawn.”

They would stop themselves for a while, and as they started listening to me, again unconsciously, their hands would start pulling at the grass. So sitting silently doing nothing is not really just sitting silently and doing nothing. It is doing a big favor to the grass. Unless you are not doing anything, the grass cannot grow; you will stop it, you will pull it out, you will disturb it.

So these methods are absolutely necessary for the Western mind. But a new factor has also entered: they have become necessary for the Eastern mind too. The mind for which Shiva wrote those one hundred and twelve methods of meditation no longer exists – even in the East now. The Western influence has been tremendous. Things have changed.

In Shiva’s time there was no Western civilization. The East was at its peak of glory; it was called “a golden bird.” It had all the luxuries and comforts: it was really affluent.

Now the situation is reversed: the East has been in slavery for two thousand years, exploited by almost everyone in the world, invaded by a dozen countries, continuously looted, raped, burned. It is now a beggar.

And three hundred years of British rule in India have destroyed India’s own educational system – which was a totally different thing. They forced the Eastern mind to be educated according to Western standards. They have almost turned the Eastern intelligentsia into a second-grade Western intelligentsia. They have given their disease of speediness, of hurry, of impatience, of continuous anguish, anxiety, to the East.

If you see the temples of Khajuraho or the temples of Konarak, you can see the East in its true colors. Just in Khajuraho there were one hundred temples; only thirty have survived, seventy have been destroyed by Mohammedans. Thousands of temples of tremendous beauty and sculpture have been destroyed by Mohammedans. These thirty survived; it was just coincidence, because they were part of a forest. Perhaps the invaders forgot about them. But the British influence on the Indian mind was so great, that even a man like Mahatma Gandhi wanted these thirty temples to be covered with mud so nobody could see them. Just to think of the people who had created those hundred temples… each temple must have taken centuries to build. They are so delicate in structure, so proportionate and so beautiful, that there exists nothing parallel to them on the earth.

And you can imagine that temples don’t exist alone; if there were a hundred temples, there must have been a city of thousands of people; otherwise, a hundred temples are meaningless. Where are those people? With the temples those people have been massacred. And those temples I take as an example, because their sculpture will look pornographic to the Western mind; to Mahatma Gandhi it also looked pornographic. India owes so much to Rabindranath Tagore. He was the man who prevented Mahatma Gandhi and other politicians who were ready to cover the temples, to hide them from people’s eyes. Rabindranath Tagore said, “This is absolutely stupid. They are not pornographic; they are utterly beautiful.”

There is a very delicate line between pornography and beauty. A naked woman is not necessarily pornographic; a naked man is not necessarily pornographic. A beautiful man, a beautiful woman, naked, can be examples of beauty, of health, of proportion. They are the most glorious products of nature. If a deer can be naked and beautiful – and nobody thinks the deer is pornographic – then why should it be that a naked man or woman cannot be just seen as beautiful?

There were ladies in the times of Victoria in England, who covered the legs of the chairs with cloth because legs should not be left naked – chairs’ legs! But because they are called legs, it was thought uncivilized, uncultured, to leave them naked. There was a movement in Victoria’s time that the people who take their dogs for a walk should cover them with cloth. They should not be naked . . . as if nakedness itself is pornographic. It is the pornographic mind.

I have been to Khajuraho hundreds of times, and I have not seen a single sculpture as pornographic. A naked picture or a naked statue becomes pornography if it provokes your sexuality. That’s the only criterion: if it provokes your sexuality, if it is an incentive to your sexual instinct. But that is not the case with Khajuraho. In fact the temples were made for just the opposite purpose. They were made to meditate on man and woman making love. And the stones have come alive. The people who have made them must have been the greatest artists the world has known. They were made to meditate upon, they were objects for meditation. It is a temple, and meditators were sitting around just looking at the sculptures, and watching within themselves whether there was any sexual desire arising. This was the criterion: when they found there was no sexual desire arising, it was a certificate for them to enter the temples. All these sculptures are outside the temple, on the walls outside; inside there are no nudist statues. But this was necessary for people to meditate, and then they were clear that there was no desire; on the contrary those statues had made their ordinary desire for sex subside. Then they were capable of entering into the temple; otherwise, they should not enter the temple. That would be a profanity – having such a desire inside and entering the temple. It would be making the temple dirty – you would be insulting the temple.

The people who created these temples created a tremendous, voluminous literature also. The East never used to be repressive of sexuality. Before Buddha and Mahavira the East was never repressive of sexuality. It was with Buddha and Mahavira that for the first time celibacy became spiritual. Otherwise, before Buddha and Mahavira, all the seers of the Upanishads, of the Vedas, were married people; they were not celibate, they had children. And they were not people who had renounced the world; they had all the luxuries and all the comforts. They lived in the forests, but they had everything presented to them by their students, by the kings, by their lovers. And their ashramas, their schools, their academies in the forest were very affluent.

With Buddha and Mahavira the East began a sick tradition of celibacy, of repression. And when Christianity came into India, there came a very strong trend of repressiveness. These three hundred years of Christianity have made the Eastern mind almost as repressive as the Western mind. So now my methods are applicable to both. I call them preliminary methods. They are to destroy everything that can prevent you from going into a silent meditation. Once dynamic meditation or kundalini meditation succeeds, you are clean. You have erased repressiveness. You have erased the speediness, the hurry, the impatience. Now it is possible for you to enter the temple. It is for this reason that I spoke about the acceptance of sex, because without the acceptance of sex, you cannot get rid of repression. And I want you to be completely clean, natural. I want you to be in a state where those one hundred and twelve methods can be applicable to you. This is my reason for devising these methods – these are simply cleansing methods.

I have also included the Western therapeutic methods because the Western mind – and under its influence, the Eastern mind: both have become sick. It is a rare phenomenon today to find a healthy mind. Everybody is feeling a certain kind of nausea, a mental nausea, a certain emptiness, which is like a wound hurting. Everybody is having his life turned into a nightmare. Everybody is worried, too much afraid of death; not only afraid of death but also afraid of life. People are living half-heartedly, people are living in a lukewarm way: not intensely like Zorba the Greek, not with a healthy flavor but with a sick mind. One has to live, so they are living. One has to love, so they are loving. One has to do this, to be like this, so they are following; otherwise, there is no incentive coming from their own being. They are not overflowing with energy. They are not risking anything to live totally. They are not adventurous – and without being adventurous, one is not healthy. Adventure is the criterion, inquiry into the unknown is the criterion. People are not young; from childhood they simply become old.

Youth never happens.

The Western therapeutic methods cannot help you to grow spiritually, but they can prepare the ground. They cannot sow the seeds of flowers but they can prepare the ground – which is a necessity. This was one reason why I included therapies. There is also another reason: I want a meeting of East and West. The East has developed meditative methods; the West has not developed meditative methods, the West has developed psychotherapies. If we want the Western mind to be interested in meditation methods, if you want the Eastern mind to come closer to the Western, then there has to be something of give and take. It should not be just Eastern – something from the Western evolution should be included. And I find those therapies are immensely helpful. They can’t go far, but as far as they go, it is good. Where they stop, meditations can take over.

But the Western mind should feel that something of its own development has been included in the meeting, in the merger; it should not be one-sided. And they are significant; they cannot harm, they can only help. And I have used them for the last fifteen years with tremendous success. They have helped people to cleanse their beings, prepared them to be ready to enter into the temple of meditation. My effort is to dissolve the separation between East and West. The earth should be one, not only politically but spiritually too.

And you say that people think that this is a clever way of brainwashing. It is something more: it is mindwashing, not brainwashing. Brainwashing is very superficial. The brain is the mechanism that the mind uses. You can wash the brain very easily – just any mechanism can be washed and cleaned and lubricated. But if the mind which is behind the brain is polluted, is dirty, is full of repressed desires, is full of ugliness, soon the brain will be full of all those ugly things.

And I don’t see that there is anything wrong in it – washing is always good. I believe in dry-cleaning. I don’t use old methods of washing.

And yes, people will feel cheated that their mind has been taken away, and that was the only precious thing they had. This will be only in the beginning. Once the mind is taken away, they will be surprised that behind the mind is their real treasure. And the mind was only a mirror, it was reflecting the treasure, but it had no treasure in itself. The treasure is behind the mind – that is your being. But a mirror can deceive you. It can give you the idea that what is reflected in it is a reality. So unless the mind is taken away – and that’s what meditation is, it is a state of no-mind. It is taking away the mind and giving you a chance to see not the reflection of the treasure of your being, but the treasure itself.

It is at this point that the master becomes a tremendous help, because to lose the mind is the most difficult thing. I can understand, because that is the only thing you have, and to lose it means to lose all. And we know when somebody loses his mind he goes mad. So everybody clings to the mind – nobody wants to go mad.

It is here the master is a practical necessity, because you have a person who has lost his mind and yet is not mad. In fact by losing his mind he has become the sanest person possible. This is the moment when you need encouragement to take a jump, to risk it all. This is the moment when you need somebody you love and somebody who loves you, and somebody whose love is more precious than your mind, so that for his love’s sake you can lose your mind. And love is something that people can give their whole life for, what to say about their mind. If you love someone you can give your whole life – you can die for your love. So the mind is nothing. And the master grows the seeds of love slowly, slowly – seeds of trust. He will not do anything unless he feels the time is ripe; unless he sees that the time is ripe and your love is capable, has come of age, and it can be asked to throw the mind away.

It can happen very easily in love and trust. And when you have a living example before you and you have lived with the master for years and seen him in different situations, seen him from different perspectives – and always found him the same unflickering light, the same joy, without any change – then deep down in your heart love and trust go on growing.

And finally, when the heart is so strong with love and trust, you can risk the mind. It is not more valuable than your heart. And the moment you drop the mind, suddenly you open the doors of the real treasure. That’s what you have been seeking all your life, but the mind was a barrier.

-Osho

From Light on the Path, Discourse #16, Q1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

The Way Goes Through Technology – Osho

[Someone asks Osho: What should be done . . . about the effects of science on the environments?]

It is almost too late . . . and the way that people are thinking to do something is not the way. The problem is very complicated and complex. If we can destroy all technology and we can de- school society and universities are closed for one hundred years at least and people are again allowed to become absolutely ignorant and primitive, then only . . .

This is one possibility – which doesn’t seem possible, because we cannot afford it. We cannot drop technology now because dropping technology will mean reducing the world population to such a drastic extent that the whole world will be full of corpses.

If India wants to remain natural, with a pure climate, the population has to go back at least two thousand five hundred years. In Buddha’s time only twenty million people were in India; now there are six hundred million people.

If technology is dropped only twenty million people will be saved out of six hundred million people just in India, so that is not possible; technology cannot be dropped.

All the people who are thinking about how to save the environment and the ecology are against technology, but it cannot be dropped. It is almost impossible; it is not feasible.

We have gone too far in technology; we didn’t listen to Lao Tzu. He said three thousand years ago, ‘Don’t move into any technology,’ but for three thousand years we have denied him. Now it is too late. Now going back is not possible.

The only thing that I think is possible is to go into technology even more, because now to go back to nature is not possible. To go into technology to such an extent that technology itself starts cleaning the atmosphere – that is the only possibility.

If technology has polluted the atmosphere, then a technology can be found which can de-pollute the whole atmosphere. Now the way goes through technology, not against technology.

If rivers are polluted and oceans are polluted and the air is polluted, we have to develop super-technology to purify the air, to purify the rivers, to purify the oceans. Now this is the only possibility!

The other alternative looks easier but is impossible. And that’s what is being proposed all over the world. It seems simple – Gandhi proposed it in India: to go back, just live like primitive people, to drop all machines, railways, airplanes, everything! Seems simple but seems to be very suicidal. We cannot afford so many deaths; and what is the point?

If out of six hundred million people only twenty million people can be saved, what is the point? Then why not destroy all? Let things take their own shape if that seems meaningless.

Education cannot be stopped, and we have depended so much on technology now. Now it is impossible to think of living without electricity, impossible to think of living without allopathic medicine, impossible to think of living without cars, airplanes.

All these things dropped, nature can come back; but how to drop it? It is impractical. So the only possibility is: create better cars which don’t pollute – which is simple, not impossible.

If man can go to the moon, it is just absurd why we cannot create better cars which don’t pollute. Why can’t cars run on electricity or on solar energy? Why should they continue to run on petrol?

Why can’t we create airplanes which don’t pollute, ships which don’t pollute? That can be done.

It is just that we have not looked in that direction. And we have not looked because our whole concentration has been on war – how to create more death in the world; that has been our whole effort. That’s why absurd things have happened.

We know how to destroy a city within a second, but we don’t know how to cure a common cold. It looks so foolish! We know how to reach the moon, and we don’t know how to create a fountain pen which doesn’t leak! It is simply absurd! But we have not looked into these things. Who is worried about a fountain pen which doesn’t leak and who is worried about the common cold? We should orient our science more towards life and less towards war and death.

Now whatsoever science has done can be undone only by science. Gandhi is irrelevant, so is Tolstoy, so is Kropotkin. Now the only way left is to go into technology far more deeply but with a new orientation.

-Osho

From The Zero Experience, Chapter Seven, March 7, 1977

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Watching Without Involvement

For me, the key to Osho’s watching/witnessing meditation is his instruction to watch without any involvement. He says to watch without analyzing, without judging, without grasping or rejecting. All of those activities are how I watch with involvement.

So, what happens when I watch without involvement? What I notice is that as long as I am adding thought to the stream of thought by the above involvement, then I am supplying energy to the stream. But when I watch without involvement, then the energy that had been fueling the movement of thought begins to return home. It is in this energy returning home that the stream of thought begins to lose its potency. It begins to lessen and it is here that the gaps start to appear, gradually increase in size, until only the gap remains.

I just can’t see any way to move from a steady stream of thoughts passing, to an empty screen, without passing through this window of non-involvement. Of course, the window is just a metaphor. In reality, there is no window, except the one that I create through my own effort of thinking. So rather than passing through the window, I can simply stop creating it and then, I am out.

-purushottama

All Beliefs are Lies – Osho

Is it possible that while sannyasins might be cleaned of society’s conditioning, they can adopt certain facets of your teaching as another kind of conditioning?  – such as the need to be total, to doubt unless we know something from our own experience, not to be jealous, and so on? Could you explain how your way of working with us is not simply exchanging of one set of values – and thus conditionings – for another?

In the first place, what I am teaching are not new values, not a new set of values in place of old values.

For example, there are people who believe in God – that is one set. There are people who do not believe in God – that is another set. I am saying to people that there is no question of believing. Changing from one belief to another belief is changing the conditioning, but you remain conditioned. I am saying you have to remain without any belief system, and you yourself enquire into reality – and whatever you find is your own truth.

There is no need to believe in it because once you know it, the question of belief does not arise. You believe only in things which you do not know. When you know them, you know: belief is irrelevant. So I am not giving you another set of beliefs, another set of values: I am giving you a certain technique so that you can destroy all conditioning. That technique itself is not a conditioning. It cannot be, because you are not required to believe in it; you are required to experience it, and unless your experience supports it, there is no need to give it any credibility.

Not that you have to believe in living totally because I am saying so. I am saying that I am living totally, and this is the only way that I have found to live. You can also try. I am not saying to believe in living in totality; there is no need of any belief. Either live or don’t live. But if you decide to taste, to explore, you are going with a clean mind, with no belief, just to see what it is, and if it happens to be a joy, a rejoicing, a celebration, then it is up to you to continue it or to discontinue it.

All conditionings are based on belief. And my whole effort is that experience should be the only criterion, not belief.

All beliefs are lies.

Even my truth is not your truth.

Only your truth can be your truth.

So there is no question of conditioning. But whoever has asked the question is simply thinking intellectually, not trying it. And logically he can convince himself: this is a new set of values, again it is a conditioning. So what are you going to do? – whatever you will do will be a new set of values; if you don’t do anything, that will be a new set of values, so you cannot get out of conditioning.

Your question is less a question than a statement. You are saying there is no way of getting out of conditioning, so why bother? Remain with the old because the new will also be a conditioning. The old is at least well known, a well-trodden path – our forefathers’ inheritance, ancient truths. Millions have believed in it – why change it? You are simply trying to find a shelter in logical jargon. Look again at your question and you will be able to see that meditation is not a conditioning. It is unconditioning, because it is not going to give you any thought, any thinking, any ideology. It is simply cleaning everything and making you utterly empty. How can it be a conditioning?

Awareness cannot be conditioning. It is your own. You have brought it with your birth. Nobody can give it to you; you have simply to throw away all the rubbish that is clinging to it.

My effort is to give you your own individuality. I don’t want anything to be added to you. You are born perfect; the society is keeping you imperfect. I want you just to be aware of your perfection, of your beauty, of your joy, of all the blessings that are possible to you which the society is hindering by conditioning your mind.

I am not giving you any conditioning. If it was possible to make people more aware by conditioning, things would have been very simple. If it was possible to make people blissful, just by conditioning, things would have been so simple. You have been made to believe in utter lies – God, prophets, saviors, incarnations – but nobody could condition you for blissfulness, for spontaneity, for totality, because these are qualities which you already have; they just have to be discovered.

Things that are conditioned are qualities that you don’t have, but the society can manage by constant repetition to fill your mind with thoughts, and slowly, slowly you start believing in them, because people are afraid of emptiness and these thoughts give you a feeling of fullness.

But the miracle is that if you are courageous enough to be empty, you will be filled with all your natural qualities, which are tremendously beautiful and have the ultimate character of being eternal. Once found, they are never lost.

-Osho

From Path of the Mystic, Discourse #37, Q5

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Osho Speaks on Sannyas and the Malas

The following excerpts are from various Osho talks where he is speaking on sannyas and the malas. These are only a few of the selections that you can find at Neo-Sannyas – OSHO. If you read these chronologically, it is very clear what Osho is communicating regarding sannyas and the malas for today’s world.

“From now onwards, anybody who wants initiation into sannyas will not be given a mala and will not be told to change to red cloths . . .”

-From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #12

“I have not stopped the sannyas movement; I have stopped it becoming a religion. A movement is a flux; that’s the meaning of movement – it is moving, it is growing.

“But a religion is dead – it has stopped moving, it has stopped growing. It is dead. The only place for it is in the crematorium . . .

“Every priest or priestess wants a dead religion, because it is predictable. Everything is just a catechism. There is no opinion, no evolution, no growth. Just look at Christianity: two thousand years have passed – have they gone even an inch farther than Jesus Christ? Twenty-five centuries have passed since Buddha – have Buddhists gone a single step ahead? This is destroying growth, destroying evolution.

“Now I want my people to remain open, alive, growing, always fresh and new. It remains a new kind of phenomenon, religiousness: no label attached to it, because every label is a full stop. And I don’t like full stops, I don’t like even semi-colons: Life is always ongoing . . .

“I have withdrawn the mala. It has significance in India, because in India the red cloths and mala have been used for thousands of years by all the religions as symbolic of a sannyasin. I wanted to destroy that traditional idea of sannyas, because the sannyasin has to be celibate, the sannyasin has not to touch a woman, not to talk to a woman. The sannyasin cannot stay in a household; he has to stay in a temple. He has to eat only once a day, he has to fast continuously again and again. He has to torture himself. This is sick.

“I wanted to destroy this image, that’s why I had chosen the red color. And I had almost three hundred thousand sannyasins in India. My sannyasins created tremendous trouble amongst the traditional sannyasins, because there was no way to know who is who. My sannyasins would be walking on the road and people would touch their feet, not knowing that these are not celibates; they have their girlfriends. They eat two times a day, they eat everything that is the best – whether it is Italian or Chinese or Japanese, it does not matter. These people belong to the twenty-first century, and old sannyasins were very angry because I have destroyed their image.

“With our coming to the West, now red cloths and the mala are no longer needed, because in the West they have never been symbolic of religion. They have done their work in India. They have made their point, that a sannyasin can be with a wife, with children; that he need not be a parasite on the society, he can work, he can create, he can earn; that he need not be worshipped . . .

“And, more specifically, you are now completely devoid of all outer symbols. All that is left is the essential core of religiousness, the inward journey, which only you can do. I cannot do it for you; nobody can do it for you.

“So now there is left only the essential quality, the most fundamental quality of religiousness: that is meditation.…

“So now that you no longer have any outer symbols, it is good, if you want to be a sannyasin, for you to remember only one thing: how to go into the discipline of witnessing; otherwise, there is a possibility that wearing red cloths and the mala you are completely satisfied that you are a sannyasin. You are not. Cloths don’t make anybody change, neither does the mala make anybody go through a transformation. But you can deceive yourself.

“Now I am taking all that away from you, and leaving only one simple thing. You cannot deceive: either you do it or you don’t do it. Without doing it, you are not a sannyasin. So the movement has come to its purest state, the most essential stage; it has not been dropped.”

–From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #17

“You say you are not a sannyasin. That is wrong – you are. There are sannyasins who are not sannyasins; there are non-sannyasins who are sannyasins. Sannyas is not something outward, it is something inner. If you could enjoy these three weeks, you are already initiated. These three weeks are going to change your whole life.

“So drop that idea that you are a non-sannyasin. Anybody who is so open, so available, so unprejudiced that, just being a visitor here, he fell in tune with the commune, its sincerity, its love – the initiation has happened. The outer initiation may follow in its own time, there is no hurry. And even if it doesn’t follow, it doesn’t matter. What matters has happened!”

-From Bondage to Freedom, Talk #26

“The question is not of being my sannyasin, the question is of being a sannyasin.

“To be my sannyasin certainly needs a certain commitment, a certain surrender. And I do not want you to be surrendered to me, or to be committed to me. I want you to be surrendered to nature, committed to existence. You need not be my sannyasin; you have just to be a sannyasin – and that’s the only way of being my sannyasin.”

–Beyond Psychology, Talk #15

“Now sannyas will be a totally different movement: it will be for more authentic seekers.

“It will not be just for anybody who wants to change the society because he is fed up with the society. He wants an alternative society so he joins a sannyas commune as an alternative society – but he has no desire and no longing for truth.

“Just because in this society people are wearing red cloths – and he does not want to look awkward, odd, strange – he starts using red cloths, becomes a sannyasin.

“But his reality is that he is escaping only from the big world, where he was utterly bored and had no other place to go. The commune became a shelter for all kinds of people.

“Now sannyas will be a school, a mystery school. Only those who want to grow and change will be joining it. And there are millions of people who want some more consciousness in their being, who feel that they are sleepy and unconscious.

“So don’t be worried if a few other, old sannyasins disappear; new ones, fresh blood, will be coming in.”

–The Path of the Mystic, Talk #37

Have you stopped initiating people into sannyas and creating disciples? Am I to be deprived of becoming your disciple?

“A disciple is not made; one has to become one. When you love someone, do you first ask the person? Do you first take the permission of the person? Love just happens. Love neither obeys any order nor takes any permission, nor does it believe in any modes or methods.

“What is discipleship?

“It is the highest, the deepest name of love. If you want to love me, how can I stop you? If you shed tears in love for me, how can I stop you? And if you dive into what I call meditation, how can I stop you? Whosoever wants to be a disciple, no one can stop him. And that is why I have dropped all the formalities that were there for making someone a disciple, because now I want only those who are coming toward me of their own accord – not via some other route. Now, the whole responsibility is yours.

“For instance, we teach students in the first grade: a is for apple, g is for Ganesh. In fact, previously g used to be for Ganesh, now it is for gadha, the donkey. It is a secular state. Here it is not appropriate that the word Ganesh appears in a textbook. But neither does Ganesh have anything to do with g or gadha. It is just a way to teach a small child. The child finds gadha or Ganesh more interesting. He doesn’t find any interest in the letter g. But slowly, slowly gadha will be forgotten, Ganesh will be forgotten, only g will remain, and only g will be used.

“If you keep having to read a for apple, g for Ganesh, by the time you enter the university, there will be no opportunity to study. Even to read one complete sentence will be impossible. And after reading it, it will become difficult to understand what the meaning is, because who knows how many donkeys and Ganeshas and mangoes will be in the sentence?

“There are pictures in small children’s textbooks: colored pictures, big pictures, and a few letters. And with every move to a higher class the pictures go on becoming smaller and the letters become more and more. Slowly, the pictures disappear altogether and only the letters remain. In university classes, there are no pictures, only letters, the akshar.

“Our word akshar is also very lovely. It means that which will never be destroyed. So, Ganesha can be destroyed, gadhas can be destroyed, but the akshar will always remain. It never ceases.

“So when I started, I had to initiate people into sannyas, to make people disciples. But how long can one play the joke of gadhas and Ganeshas; apples and pineapples? Now, sannyas has matured. Now, formalities no longer have an important place.

“Now, if you are in love, become a disciple. It is not something even to be talked about. Now, no need even to let anyone know: if it is your feeling, be a sannyasin. Now, the whole responsibility is yours. This is the sign of being mature. How long can I walk along with you, holding your hand? Before my hands are removed, I have to let go of your hands by myself, so that you can stand on your own feet – relying on your own hands, your own responsibility – and walk.

“No, there is no need for you to stop from becoming a disciple. Nor can anyone prevent you from becoming a sannyasin. But now it is your decision alone, according to the thirst and the call of your own interiority.

“I am with you, my blessings are with you, but now I will not explain to you about becoming a sannyasin or ask you to meditate. Now, I will only explain this much: what meditation is. If only this much can trigger a thirst in you, then meditate. Now, I will not tell you to love. Now, I will only describe love and everything else to you. If no song arises in your heart – even upon hearing the unique and mysterious description of love – then nothing will come out of commanding it from you either. And if a song arises, then it is not a matter of giving and taking: you can be a disciple, you can meditate, you can become a sannyasin, you can attain to enlightenment, you can achieve the ultimate treasure of this life that we have called moksha, the ultimate liberation.

“But now you have to do all this. Gone are the days of someone giving you a push from behind. Now, you are completely free. Your own wish, your own joy, your own ecstasy are the deciding factors.

–The Diamond Sword, Talk #8

I am familiar with the master-disciple relationship after years of being around you.
Could you please comment on the disciple-disciple relationship?

“There is no such thing.

“Disciples in the past have created organizations. That was their relationship, that ‘we are Christians,’ that ‘we are Mohammedans,’ that ‘we belong to one religion, to one faith and because we belong to one faith, we are brothers and sisters. We will live for the faith and we will die for the faith.’

“All organizations have arisen out of the relationships between disciples.

“In fact, two disciples are not connected with each other at all.

“Each disciple is connected with the master in his individual capacity.

“A master can be connected with millions of disciples, but the connection is personal, not organizational.

“Disciples don’t have any relationship. Yes, they have a certain friendliness, a certain lovingness.

“I am avoiding the word relationship because that is binding.

“I am not calling it ‘friendship’ even, but ‘friendliness’ – because they are all fellow travelers walking on the same path, in love with the same master, but they are related to each other through the master.

“They are not related to each other directly.

“That has been the most unfortunate thing in the past: that disciples became organized, related amongst themselves, and they were all ignorant.

“And ignorant people can only create more nuisance in the world than anything else. All the religions have done exactly that.

“My people are related to me individually. And because they are on the same path, certainly they become acquainted with each other. A friendliness arises, a loving atmosphere, but I don’t want to call it any kind of relationship.

“We have suffered too much because of disciples getting directly related to each other, creating religions, sects, cults, and then fighting. They cannot do anything else.

“At least with me, remember it: you are not related to each other in any way at all.

“Just a liquid friendliness, not a solid friendship, is enough – and far more beautiful, and without any possibility of harming humanity in the future.”

–Beyond Enlightenment, Talk #2

“Certainly, initiation means you have taken a step into a dangerous life. You have accepted me as your friend in the darkness and you have given your hand with great trust. But I have never used any blank check and I have never used or even interfered in anybody’s life. It is just on your part – I am absolutely out of it. It is your initiation and it is your initiative to offer your life to be transformed. But the whole action and its responsibility are yours.”

–The New Dawn, Talk #30

“And it does not mean that you have to go to the mountains, you can be alone in the marketplace. It is simply a question of being aware, alert, watchful, remembering that you are only your watchfulness. Then you are alone wherever you are. You may be in the crowd, you may be in the mountains; it makes no difference, you are just the same watchfulness. In the crowd you watch the crowd; in the mountains you watch the mountains. With open eyes you watch existence; with closed eyes you watch yourself.

“You are only one thing: the watcher.

“And this watcher is the greatest realization. This is your buddha nature; this is your nature of enlightenment, of your awakening. This should be your only discipline. Only this makes you a disciple: this discipline of knowing your aloneness. Otherwise, what makes you a disciple? You have been deceived on every point in life. You have been told that to believe in a master makes you a disciple. That is absolutely wrong; otherwise, everybody in the world is a disciple.

“Somebody believes in Jesus, somebody believes in Buddha, somebody believes in Krishna, somebody believes in Mahavira; everybody believes in somebody but nobody is a disciple, because to be a disciple does not mean to believe in a master. To be a disciple means to learn the discipline of being your self, of being your true self.”

–The Invitation, Talk #23

“It does not matter that you have become a sannyasin; it won’t change anything unless your sannyas triggers a meditativeness in you . . .

“Without meditation there is no sannyas.

“It is only your pure consciousness rising upwards – slowly, slowly moving beyond the gravitation of lower things – that will make you a sannyasin.”

–The Great Pilgrimage, Talk #11

“I want you to drop all games – worldly games, spiritual games, games that the whole of humanity has played up to now. These games keep you retarded. These games hinder you from growing into consciousness, into your own ultimate flowering. I want to cut away all this rubbish that prevents you.

“I want to leave you alone, absolutely alone, so that you cannot take anybody’s help, so you cannot cling to any prophet, so that you cannot think that Gautam Buddha is going to save you. Left alone – utterly alone – you are bound to find your innermost center.

“There is no way, nowhere to go, no advisor, no teacher, no master. It seems hard, it seems harsh, but I am doing it because I love you, and the people who have not done it have not loved you at all. They loved themselves and they loved to have a big crowd around themselves – the bigger the crowd, the more they feel nourished in their egos.

“That’s why I called even enlightenment the last game. The sooner you drop it, the better. Why not just simply be? Why unnecessarily hurry here and there? You are what existence wants you to be. Just relax.”

-Om Mani Padme Hum, Talk #9

“A sannyasin need not be officially one. Any seeker, anyone in search of truth is a sannyasin. And a sannyasin need not be mine. A sannyasin is not a follower, but at the most a fellow traveler. If you are seeking and searching for the truth, the meaning and significance of life, it is enough.”

–Hari Om Tat Sat, Talk #17

“The day you take the initiation into sannyas is not necessarily the beginning of sannyas. It is simply your indication that, ‘I am willing to wait for sannyas to happen to me.’ Initiation is only your saying yes to existence, and opening all your doors and windows for the fresh breeze and the sun to enter and cleanse you and make you part of the whole.

“Someday sannyas will begin. It can begin in the moment of initiation, if your intensity, integrity, your trust and your love are total, but it is rarely so. It is always sixty percent, forty percent; seventy percent, thirty percent . . .There are people who may have ninety-nine percent trust, but that one percent doubt is enough to prevent . . . years, even lives. Unless you are one hundred percent open, unless the very word no has dropped from your vocabulary, the great revolution of sannyas will not happen to you . . .

“Sannyas needs a total yes and then it can happen this very moment. But your small doubt – it may be just very small – is just like a small piece of sand in your eyes, and you cannot open your eyes. Just a small piece of sand can deprive you of seeing this whole beautiful world. Doubt is just like a small piece of sand in your inner eye. It can prevent you from seeing the splendor and the glory of life, your own potential and your own flowers which have been waiting for lives to grow and blossom, but you have not given the chance.”

-Om Shantih Shantih Shantih, Talk #26

What are the prerequisites for being a disciple?

“None at all.

“An open heart, a loving heart, a deep trust in oneself and nothing else is needed. You don’t have to surrender to some master, you don’t have to worship some God, and you don’t have to do some prayer to some hypothetical deity. You don’t have to go to man-made temples and churches to find that which is hidden within you.

“A disciple is the seed of a master. The disciple is also a lotus flower; it is just that you are looking somewhere else and not within yourself.”

–Live Zen, Talk #7

“I don’t want anybody to be a monk; I want you to be in the world. Meditation need not to be done twenty-four hours; meditation is just a small glimpse – and then carry out your work. Slowly, slowly that glimpse will start radiating in your actions, in your silences, in your songs, in your dances.

“There is no need to waste twenty-four hours and become a parasite. And when you become a parasite on the society, you cannot rebel against the society. You cannot say a single thing against any superstition.

“My people can be sannyasins and yet absolutely rebellious, because they are not dependent on anyone. Their meditation is their own personal affair.”

–The Buddha: The Emptiness of the Heart, Talk #6

“I teach you to be sannyasins – and not my sannyasins. It is your sannyas, it is your investigation into truth.”

-Christianity: the Deadliest Poison and
Zen, the Antidote to All Poisons, Talk  #6

“Sannyas does not need to be an outward thing, just the longing for it is enough.”

-Christianity: the Deadliest Poison and
Zen, the Antidote to All Poisons, Talk  #7

“And you go on saying great things: ‘. . . but why should I change my name?’ Why not? It will help you to forget that you are a German; that’s why. The changing of the name simply means you are dropping the whole old personality that was indicated by the old name, that you are beginning afresh with a new name. It is symbolic. You were not born with a name. The name was given by your father, by your mother, by your people. Now you have dropped all conditionings, why not drop the name those conditionings gave to you?

“You can choose your name yourself; anything will do. It is not necessary for a name to mean something, it is only symbolic so that you can be recognized in the crowd and called. You can make up your name yourself, but change you must! Your insistence on not changing shows your inner idea: ‘On the surface, play the game that I have dropped all conditionings.’ And you are not even ready to drop a bogus name.

“I have no interest in changing your name. It is just out of compassion that I am saying, ‘Start a new life with a new symbol, so that you can be discontinuous with your past.’

“And then, ‘. . . why should I change my name, be a sannyasin…’ Do you understand the meaning of sannyasin? It simply means a seeker of truth.

“You don’t want to be a seeker of truth?

“Then what the hell are you doing here?

“And further, ‘ . . . why should I change my name, be a sannyasin and accept a master who says that there is no need for any authority?’

“Two things: first, the master accepts the disciple, not the other way around. So you need not be worried about that. The disciple has to wait for that blissful moment when he can be accepted. Who has given you this idea that it is in your hands to accept a master or not?”

“. . . The seeker of truth has to show his credentials, his ability to wait, his capacity to be patient, because the journey is long and the path is very narrow. A master accepts a disciple only when he can see the sincerity of the heart, the risk, the danger of going into aloneness . . . when the master is convinced that the person is capable of all these, he is accepted as a disciple.

“You don’t have to be worried: it is not so easy to be accepted by a master. And if you don’t want to be a sannyasin . . . perhaps you thought that sannyasins are also a kind of religion; perhaps this is also a new movement, enrolling people. It is not. If you are searching truth, whether you know it or not you are a sannyasin. If you are ready to drop all your conditioning, you are a sannyasin. If you meditate and raise your consciousness to its highest potential, you are a sannyasin. It does not matter whether you know the meaning of the word ‘sannyasin’ or not.

“The ancient meaning of the word was, one who leaves the world in search of truth. My own meaning is, one who lives in the world and yet goes on searching for truth. Because where can you go? Everywhere is the world.

“I cannot understand where those people were going, leaving the world. To the Himalayas? It is also part of the world, part of our geography. Where are those people going to find a place outside the world?

“There is nothing outside the world. Everything is inside the world, and there is no way to get out of it. The only way is to go into yourself, and you are out of it. If the world is not inside you – no desire, no longing, no will to power – if all this nonsense has disappeared from your inner world and it is utterly pure emptiness, you are out of the world. That is the only place which is not in the world.

“But as far as your body is concerned it will be in the world. I have always wondered where those people used to go. Wherever they go, they will find some kind of world.”

“. . . The old sannyasin, the old concept of a sannyasin, is basically wrong. I don’t teach you to leave the world, I teach you to live in the world but don’t let the world live in you. Be a lotus leaf in the water – but the water cannot touch it. That’s the only possibility, if we want the whole world to taste something of meditation; otherwise… the old sannyas cannot survive. And it is meaningless, because it makes you dependent on people. You were independent, you had your own time; you worked for a few hours and then you had your own time. But these poor people who have left the world, their whole time is wasted in asking for small things, being rejected, being insulted, being told, ‘Go away, go somewhere else.’ These people were in search of dignity, and what they have found is utter indignity.”

-Om Mani Padme Hum, Talk #29

Well, what will it mean to be a sannyasin in the future, from this day forward?

“From this date forward a sannyasin will simply mean that he is initiated into the meditation techniques here, and he makes a commitment to himself that he will follow the path.

“But it is going to be individual, alone. He will be responsible himself. It is not going to be a collectivity, a congregation.”

-The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #9

“Sannyas simply means they have accepted a way of meditation and a life of joy and rejoicing. It is accepting to create your life into a blissfulness. So sannyas is a totally different thing. Sannyasins will continue. I have dropped all outer symbols of sannyasins. If they want to keep them, it is up to them. From my side I have dropped. They don’t need any mala. They don’t need red cloths. All that I would like… My advice to them, that if you are a sannyasin, that meditation is the only essential thing that you should carry.”

–The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #13

“I have taken from the sannyasins everything that makes them distinct. I have told them, ‘Now it is not necessary to wear red cloths. All colors are ours. There is no need to wear a mala of my photo because I am not your savior or prophet or a messenger.’

“I don’t have any God to offer you. I can only offer you the science of knowing thyself. So you just have to understand that I am only a friend, not more than that. I am one amongst you, so no need of any adoration and no need of thinking yourself as part of a collectivity. You are all individuals.”

Osho, The Last Testament, Vol. 3, Talk #14

“I have been working hard to abandon everything that is outer, so that only the inner remains for you to explore.

“Otherwise the man’s mind is a very immature mind. It starts clinging with outer symbols. That has happened to all the religions of the world.

“I want my people to understand it clearly. Neither your cloths, nor your outer disciplines nor anything that has been given to you by tradition and you have accepted it just on belief, is going to help.

“The only thing that can create a revolution in you is going beyond the mind into the world of consciousness. Except that, nothing is religious.

“But to begin with and with a world which is too much obsessed with outer things, I had to start sannyas also with outer things. Change your cloths into orange, wear a mala, meditate, but the emphasis was only on meditation.

“But I found that people can change their clothes very easily but they cannot change their minds. They can wear the mala, but they cannot move into their consciousness. And because they are in orange cloths, wearing a mala, having a new name, they start believing that they have become a sannyasin.

“Sannyas is not so cheap. Hence it is time and you are mature enough that beginning phase is over.

“I don’t want my people to be lost into non- essentials. In the beginning it was necessary. Now years of listening to me, understanding me, you are in a position to be freed from all outer bondage. And you can for the first time be really a sannyasin only if you are moving inwards.”

–The Last Testament, Vol. 6, Talk #12
(Will be published in the library very soon)

“Sannyas movement is not mine. It is not yours.

“It was here when I was not here. It will be here when I will not be here.

“Sannyas movement simply means the movement of the seekers of truth.

“They have always been here.

“There have always been a line of seekers of truth. I call it sannyas. It is eternal. It is sanatan. It has nothing to do with me. Millions of people have contributed to it. I have also contributed my own share.

“It will go on becoming richer and richer.

“When I am gone there will be more and more people coming and making it richer.

“I will be gone. That does not mean that the sannyas movement will be gone. It does not belong to anybody.…

“I cannot give you the truth, but I can show you the moon . . . please don’t get attached to my finger which is indicating the moon. This finger will disappear. The moon will remain and the search will continue. As long as there is a single human being on the earth the flowers of sannyas will go on blossoming . . .

“First, I am the only man in the whole history who gives you individuality. The so-called gurus were doing just the opposite: they were taking away your individuality. Their whole effort was that you should surrender to them. That your function was just to touch their feet and receive their blessings. My effort is totally different. You cannot receive any blessing by touching anybody’s feet. On the contrary, you are making that man more egoistic and sick.

“Ego is the cancer of his soul. Don’t make anybody sick. Be compassionate. Never touch anybody’s feet . . .

“My effort is to take away all traditions, orthodoxies, superstitions, beliefs, from your mind so that you can attain a state of no-mind . . . the ultimate state of silence, where not even a thought moves. Not even a ripple in the lake of your consciousness.

“And the whole thing has to be done by you. I am not saying that ‘Just follow me. I am the savior. I will save you.’ All that is crap. Nobody can save you, except yourself. And the spiritual independence is the only independence worth calling independence.”

–The Last Testament, Vol. 6, Talk #14
(Will be published in the library very soon)

The Final Message to the Academy of Initiation on Malas, 1989.

Osho sends a message to the Academy of Initiation that there is no need to wear malas anymore. Sannyas is about going inwards and nothing to do with the outer.
Some people are upset, so it is taken in to Osho again and his response, passed on again to the Academy is: “If you must wear your mala, then at home in meditation only.”

Osho on Neo-Sannyas – OSHO

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of many of these discourses can be downloaded from Osho.com, or you can read the entire books online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Responsibility for My Own Meditativeness

As many of you know, much of my time living at the Ranch was spent traveling around the U.S. and Canada selling Osho’s books to bookstores and distributors. With the smaller stores, that always involved speaking about Osho and the Ranch. This work even continued after the Ranch once we moved the books to Boulder, CO. At some point during one of my sales trips from Boulder, I remember having the realization that I was going around the country talking about Osho and his teaching, but I wasn’t living it myself. It was a turning point for me. I started to take responsibility for my own meditativeness.

After being out in the world, away from the daily bathing in innerness of the Poona discourses and the collective high of the Ranch, I had to start finding my own way in. I had to begin discovering for myself that same no-mind that Osho delivered daily on a silver platter.

How many of us were feeling blissful while we were in the communes, and now many years later find ourselves without a hint of that wonder and are questioning whether what we experienced was real or just a dream? Osho addresses this in this question that Osho answers.

“Listening to me you can feel that you are levitating, but you cannot levitate. The feeling is not the thing, not the real thing. Listening to me you can feel very happy, but that happiness is like a reflection. It is my happiness reflected in your mirror; it is not your happiness. You are bound to land somewhere in dog shit.

One should not depend on anybody else. You need your happiness. Listening to me, you can become engulfed, you can be overwhelmed, but the farther you go from me, that music will start disappearing from you. It was not yours in the first place.

It is as if I am sitting here: in my light your darkness disappears. Then you go away; the farther away you go, the darkness starts surrounding you again.

It is as the Sufis say:

Two travelers were going into a forest. One had a lamp, a lantern of his own, the other had none. But the other was not even aware of the fact. They both walked in light because one had the lantern, so the other also had the light on the path. Then came the moment where they had to depart; their paths were going separately. And when the man with the lantern went on his path, suddenly the other traveler recognized, realized, that there was immense darkness all around.

You can walk with me to a certain extent. The disciple can walk with the Master to a certain extent, but then the paths separate. Then you have to go on your own way. Suddenly you will find you are in darkness.

So while you are with a Master, don’t just enjoy his bliss. Enjoy, but learn also how to create your own bliss and your own light. Those moments with a Master have to be tremendously enjoyed — good. But just enjoyment is not enough. You have to learn the secret of how to create your own light — so when the Master departs, or you have to go on your own way and paths are separate, you are not lost in darkness. Otherwise, this will happen again and again. […]

In Zen they say: The art of meditation is almost the art of being a thief.

You have to be so aware that you can walk into somebody else’s house where you may never have been before; not only can you walk, you can remove things without making any noise; not only that, but without any light in the dark night. You have to be like a thief: very aware, very conscious.

What happened to this questioner? — he was floating, he was no more in this world, he had moved into another world. A vision had dawned on him; he was in a dream, he was not aware, he was drunk. Hence, he stepped into dog shit.

This is very, very meaningful; remember it. Otherwise, there are many ways to land in wrong places. Unless you are tremendously aware, many times you will come nearer to home and again you will miss the door.”

This is just an excerpt. To read the entire post click on the link below.

You have to be Like a Thief – Osho

God is an Escape – Osho

The appearance of Gautam the Buddha was one of the most phenomenal events of human consciousness. Whatsoever was going on in the name of religion before he appeared stopped forever. He brought truth to such simplicity, to such felicity, to such grace. He spoke the way an enlightened person speaks – he spoke through his being. He was not a scholar, and he was not worried about speculation. He had no abstract ideas; he was very down-to-earth.

And since then, Zen people have carried the flame down the ages. They speak, not because they have a philosophy to propound; they speak because they have seen something – it has to be conveyed. They speak as seers, not as thinkers. They speak as masters, not as believers.

Buddha transformed the very quality of religion. It was theology before him; after him it became anthropology. God was dethroned, man was enthroned. ‘God’ is not a relevant word with Buddha, ‘man’ is. He says: All that is needed is hidden inside human consciousness. Man has not to look up to the heavens, he has not to ask for any grace from anywhere. He has to become a light unto himself.

And the light is there; it is the very core of your life. Just one thing has happened, you have forgotten it. Not that you have lost it, just forgotten. Remember it, because that is very fundamental to Buddha’s approach.

Life is a forgetfulness and a remembering. And that’s all, and that’s the whole story. one falls asleep and dreams a thousand and one things, and in the morning, one wakes up and all the dreams are gone. So is life. We have fallen asleep – fallen asleep to our inner being. We have forgotten who we are. Hence, the world, the samsara. The samsara means the world of ten thousand things. And we go on rushing from one thing to another thing – in search of a self. Because we have lost contact with our self, we are continuously searching for it. If you look deep down into the agony of man, this is the agony. He has forgotten who he is and is searching and asking, asking of everybody, “Who am I?” May not be so consciously . . .

That’s what you are asking when you fall in love. You are asking your beloved to tell you who you are. Why do people feel so beautiful when they are in love? Because some identity starts arising.

The woman you love says, “You are beautiful. You are intelligent, you are unique.” She is giving you a self. When you say to the woman, “You are beautiful. I have never come across such a beautiful person. I cannot live without you, you are my life, my joy, my very existence,” you are giving an identity to the woman. She was searching for it; she does not know who she is. Now you are creating a self She is creating a self for you, you are creating a self for her.

That’s why people feel so at ease when they are in love. When love disappears, is broken, shattered, they are shattered. Why are you shattered? You are shattered because your identity is again lost, again you don’t know who you are. It was the woman or the man who was giving you a certain kind of idea of who you are. Now the woman is gone and the idea is gone with her. Now again you are in darkness. Again, you don’t know, again you start searching for . . .

Why do you seek money and wealth? Just to have some identity. So that you know who you are, so that people can say who you are. Why do you go on searching for power, prestige? The same reason.

Man is in a constant search for the self. Man is in a constant identity crisis. And because in the past things were more settled, people were more at ease. Now things are changing so fast that again and again your identity is shattered.

Just think: in the old days, once you got married, you got married. You were not going to be searching again for a woman or for a man; it was a whole-life thing, a settlement. A certain idea would become fixed, slowly, slowly, that you were the husband, the father of the children, this and that. But now it is difficult, and more so particularly in the West.

Every once in a while, you will change the woman; every once in a while, you will change the man. Again and again, you will have to search for the identity.

In the past, people used to do the same work their whole life; it was traditional. Your grandfather was a carpenter, your father was a carpenter, you are a carpenter, your children will be carpenters – you knew who you were. Now it is impossible to know. People go on changing their jobs; things are changing so fast . . .

You knew in the past where you belonged. You were an Indian, a Christian, a Hindu, a Chinese, a Buddhist. Now you don’t know any more. The world has come very much closer; boundaries have become false. The world has become a small village, a global village. Now you don’t know. And now you know there is not much difference between a Hindu and a Christian or a Mohammedan; that identity is not of any help any more.

Who are you? This problem is one of the most fundamental problems. Modern man is very much puzzled. almost paralyzed.

Buddha says: It is not going to be of any help if you create a false identity. You can live with it your whole life, still you will not know who you are. The only way to know who you are is to go within yourself with great remembrance, with great mindfulness, with awareness. Asking from the outside, whatsoever you get is a pseudo-thing. Your woman, your man, your country, your religion, your church – they will give you a certain kind of identity. They will create a false self. But that is not real.

And only the mediocre can be deceived by it, only the stupid can be deceived by it. The intelligent person sooner or later will have to see the point that these identities are from the outside: “In fact I don’t know who I am. My being a husband does not say anything about me. My being a father or a mother does not say anything about me. My being a Christian or a Hindu does not say anything about me. I am still in darkness.”

These labels may be of some help in the outside world but your identity card is not you. Your name is not you, even your photograph is not you, because you go on changing and the photograph remains static. It simply represents one moment in your life. It is not that it represents you – one gesture in your life, and that too very superficial. For example, you were smiling and the photograph was taken, and you may have just been smiling for the photographer.

I have heard: One photographer was saying to a very, very serious-looking man, “Just for a single moment, sir, smile. And then you can be your usual self again.”

Now, this photograph of this serious man smiling is absolutely false; that smile is just on the lips. The photograph cannot penetrate inside you. In fact not even an X-ray can penetrate inside you – it may take the pictures of your bones but it cannot take your picture.

There is no way to see from the outside who you are. There is only one way, and that is to become alert inside, to awaken inside, to make great effort inside, so that you are not asleep there. Then only will you have the first glimpse of the real man.

And remember Ikkyu: One single glimpse of the real man and one is in love. The man who is searching for his identity cannot be in love; his love is also nothing but a search for the identity. Amongst other searches, that also is one. You write a book, you become a famous author, or you paint and you become a painter, or you sing and you become a singer. But these are all efforts to somehow categorize you, to identify who you are.

There is an ancient story about a philosopher who was very forgetful. He was so forgetful that in the night he would sleep with all his clothes on, even with his shoes on. Somebody suggested, “This is not a way to sleep – and how can one sleep with shoes on? and your hat on, and all the dress?”

And he said, “It is very difficult. If I put them away in the night, then in the morning I forget where I have put my shoes, where I have put my coat. And what is a coat? and what are shoes? And what is my hat? Everything becomes such a mess and it takes so much trouble to find and sort things out that I have decided never to do it again. Half my day is wasted.”

The man was a practical man. He said, “This is a simple thing. I know that you are a very forgetful man – you can do one thing. You can write, you can stick small labels on everything: ‘This is my coat’, ‘This is my shoe’. And you can keep a diary also: where you have put the shoes, underneath the bed; and where you have put your coat, and where your underwear is . . . you can just make notes.”

That appealed to the philosopher, and he did it. And next morning he was really in a mess – he had never been in such a mess. Everything worked out. He found his shoes, they were underneath the bed. He found his coat; it was hanging there in the cupboard. He found his shirt – he found everything. And finally, he shouted, looking at the sky, “My God! But now where am I? Because I have forgotten to note it down!”

He looked in the bed, but he was not there. You can imagine the poor man’s anguish. He searched all over the house, he looked in every nook and corner, and he was not there. And he came running out of the house shouting, “Please, somebody tell me where I am? Everything else I have found in its place; just one thing I forgot. I didn’t write in the notebook where I have to find myself. I think was in the bed, but the bed is empty.”

The story looks fictitious; it is not. It is your story. It is everybody’s story. It is man’s story. You know where your house is, you know your phone number, you know who your wife is, you know who your son is . . . you know you are a Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, Indian, Japanese. But do you really know who you are and where you are? And you will be almost in as much bewilderment as that ancient philosopher.

But people don’t ask this question, because this question creates such uneasiness. They avoid it. They go on living, avoiding it. Buddha transformed the quality of religion. Religion with Buddha became man-oriented. Before Buddha it was God-oriented. Now, God is not a problem at all – whose problem is God? How are you concerned with God? Seems to be a bogus problem, nobody’s concern. Maybe priests have some investment in it, maybe politicians have some investment in it, but really it is not an existential question.

The existential question is: Who am I?

With Buddha, religion changed its quality. It became realistic, it became pragmatic. Buddha said: There is no need to be worried about God. Let him worry himself about himself – if he wants to know who he is he can ask, “Who am I?” Why should you be worried?

And in the first place, God is your creation. That is your ultimate effort to avoid yourself. You go on creating fictitious problems. There is one beautiful thing about fictitious problems: they can be solved, easily they can be solved. In fact the problem is fictitious – any fictitious answer will do. The disease is pseudo – any pseudo-medicine will do.

People become very much interested in pseudo-problems, and they think they are great seekers. Buddha hit them hard and shattered their ego, the ego of being a seeker. He said: if you are seeking and searching for God, you are simply befooling yourself.

God is nobody’s problem I Just see the point. How can God be your problem? But people think it is a problem. B! making it a problem, they can avoid their own problems. They become too much occupied with God. They start thinking, they start collecting answers, they start philosophizing, speculating; they go into scriptures, and they are lost in the jungle of words. And they have forgotten the simple question that was really their question: Who am I? God may be the greatest escape.

It has been noted by psychologists that in times of anguish, misery, war, trouble, people start thinking of abstract things – God, truth, heaven, after-life. In times of stress when people are very uneasy on this earth, they start looking at the sky. They focus their problems there so they can avoid the real problems of the earth. This has been watched, observed, again and again. After each year there is a great revival of religion – the so-called religion.

And you know it by your personal experience also. Whenever you are in misery, in pain, you remember God. Whenever you are happy, when you are flowing and life is a celebration, you don’t care a bit about God, you don’t remember. This is a simple experience; no psychologist is needed to observe it. Everybody can observe in his own life. What does it say? It simply says that when you are in anguish you have to avoid the anguish and you have to create a false problem to go away from it – a great occupation . . .

You start praying. And you had never prayed. In fact, when things were going well you had never gone to the priest. When things were going beautifully and you were succeeding in life and the life was a bed of roses, you didn’t remember God. But when life becomes a bed of neurosis, then – then suddenly you remember God. God is an escape.

Bertrand Russell is right in saying that if life on earth becomes really blissful people will forget all about God and there will be no religion. He is right, because he does not know the religion of Buddha. He knows Christianity. Yes, religions like Christianity and Hinduism will disappear. But if life is really happy on the earth, something like Buddha’s message will become very, very prevalent.

When life is going well, beautifully, and all is flowing and flowering, this question arises in the deepest core of your being: “Now is the time to know – who am I?” When life is not flowing, all is blocked and there is only misery and misery and all is hell, how can you ask “Who am I?” To come that close to yourself is dangerous because there is only hellfire and nothing else. How can you come that close? How can you sit silently with closed eyes and look into yourself? You have to avoid, you have to escape, you have to run away. So anything will do.

And that’s how things always happen. Whenever a society is in turmoil people become very much interested in occult, esoteric things. They start seeing UFO’s, they start seeing beings from other planets, they start thinking of great things that are going to happen. They start going to the astrologers . . . and all kinds of nonsense .

Buddha brings a very sensible religion to the world. Empirical, experiential, existential. In Buddha’s way, there is no God, no prayer.

And just think of your poor God, if he exists. What will his situation be? – just think of him. All kinds of people praying and shouting at him and complaining. And it has been going on and on. Either he does not listen at all, or he must have gone crazy by now.

A great psychotherapist was asked by his student . . . The student watched the great old man working from the morning till evening, continuously psychoanalyzing mad people, all kinds of nuts, listening to them. And he u as dead tired by the evening, he was a young man. And the old man was as fresh as he was in the morning.

One day he could not contain his curiosity. He asked, “What is the matter? How do you manage? The whole day listening to such horrible tales, nightmares, and you never become tired?”

And the old man said, “Who listens?”

God must be avoiding you. […]

Buddha relieved man of God, and Buddha relieved God of man. Buddha’s approach is such that if Friedrich Nietzsche had been born in a Buddhist land, he could not have written that God is dead and that from now onward man is free. There would have been no need.

Buddha helped God disappear without any bloodshed. Nietzsche had to kill. Nietzsche says: God is dead; and not that he has died a natural death – we had to kill him, just to be free of him. How can man be free with God? If God is there, then religion becomes nothing but obedience. If God is there, then religion is reduced to obedience.

That’s why in Christianity you don’t talk about freedom; you don’t talk about moksha. Moksha means absolute freedom. And absolute freedom includes freedom from God! Otherwise, how can it be absolute? If there is somebody to whom you are responsible and answerable, you can’t be free.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s statement – God is dead and we had to murder him – is just a reaction created by Christianity and its obsession with obedience. Christianity has created slaves in the world. Nietzsche had to utter that word, had to utter that statement. If Nietzsche had not done it, then somebody else would have done it. It was a need, it was inevitable.

Christianity leaves no alternatives . . . it leaves only two alternatives: either commit suicide, lose all your freedom, become a zombie in the name of God; or murder God and be free. And both are ugly – suicide or murder?

Buddhism does not give you such ugly alternatives. It simply says God is not the problem – the problem is man. God is an escape from the problem. Look into man, find out your source inside, and all will be solved.

And remember again, Buddha is not an atheist. He is not saying there is no God, but his concept of God is totally different. When you come to the deepest core of your being, to your very source, you will know that you are God.

Christianity says: You are sons of God. Buddhism says: When you come to know yourself, you are not sons – you are godhood itself. There is no God other than you, there is no God other than the universe. Hence Buddha never talks about God, because there is no God other than this. There is no that other than this. This is that. Existence is divine.

But to know this, no prayer is going to help. To know this, no philosophy is going to be of any support. To know this, one has to go utterly into oneself – with only one question like an arrow piercing your heart: Who am I? And the deeper you go, the deeper you will see that you don’t exist as an individual.

That is the meaning of Buddha’s doctrine of anatta – no-self. You will not come to see any self inside you. The whole idea of being a person will slowly, slowly melt, and there will be a kind of presence but no personality. The individual will disappear and there will be the universal. You will not be separate from existence; you will find yourself one with the whole.

-Osho

From Take It Easy, Discourse #11

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