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
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