Tag: character

Morality is Invented Religion – Osho

Is moral character absolutely useless?

Vadan, moral character simply means something imposed by others on you: it is not really religious.

It is a form of domination, a form of slavery, because you have not come to the understanding of what is right and what is wrong; you have been simply told by others. You don’t know really whether what you are calling “moral” is moral or immoral. One thing is moral in one society and the same thing is immoral in another society.

Just look around the earth, have a little bigger vision, and you will be surprised: there are so many moralities. How can there be so many moralities? Right is right and wrong is wrong! There is no possibility of many moralities. There is no possibility of a Hindu morality or a Mohammedan morality or a Jaina morality, but there are different moralities. That simply shows all these moralities are inventions – inventions by different societies to dominate the individuals which make up those societies. It is a strategy for imprisoning the individual.

The whole process is a very subtle trick. Now we have even found a shortcut to it. One great scientist, Delgado, has found that electrodes can be put into the human brain, and you will not know anything about it, because the brain is the most insensitive part in your body.

It happened once; a bullet was found in a man’s skull – after eleven years. When he went for some other operation and an X-ray was taken, there was the bullet inside his skull. He had been in the army and for eleven years the bullet had been inside, and he had not even been aware of it, because the brain has no sensitivity; it is absolutely – insensitive.

An electrode, a small electronic mechanism just like a small button can be put inside your head, and you will never know that it is there. And you can be controlled from far away; you can be controlled by anybody who knows about that electronic mechanism inside your brain. He can have a small remote-control unit: he can push one button on it and you will be angry; he can push another button, and you will be full of love; he can push a third button, and you will become very quiet, and a fourth button and you will become utterly violent.

Delgado has proved it. He inserted one electrode in a bull’s brain, and with his remote-control unit he was standing there, the bull was let loose, and he pressed one button. The bull became so enraged that nobody had seen any bull so enraged, for no reason at all. And he charged towards Delgado.

Thousands of people had gathered to see the experiment, and they thought the bull was going to finish Delgado, that this experiment was over. Their breaths stopped. The bull reached so close, just one foot away; one second more and he would have killed Delgado, but he pushed another button and there was a sudden stop. The bull stopped as if frozen, became just a statue – just one foot away. All rage simply disappeared. He was standing there in a yoga posture, frozen, not moving at all!

And Delgado says the same can be done with man. Now Delgado, sooner or later, is going to deliver the secret to the politicians, just as Albert Einstein did, and then you need not wonder what will happen. Then it is absolutely certain that in countries like Russia and China, children when they are born will be immediately changed into slaves – just a small operation in the skull. And from the Kremlin, from Moscow or Peking, the president of the country or whosoever rules the country can control the whole country. He can send waves and there will be great peace, and he can send other waves if he wants the country to fight some other country and people will be so violent, so murderous that one single individual will prove to be like ten or a hundred murderers. This is going to happen because now the secret cannot be kept away from the politicians.

The same thing has been done by the so-called moralists down the ages, but their process was a bullock-cart process. This is a jet-set age. Delgado is saying that this is the way to control human behavior. There is no need to teach morality – for what? Simply insert one electrode and let everybody be controlled.

That’s what the priests have been doing for centuries, but of course they were not aware of such a subtle mechanism. They were creating conscience in you; that is also an electrode. Every child was being told, “This is right, this is right, this is right . . .” continuously, and what is wrong: “You have to do this and you have not to do that.” This creates a conscience, an auto-hypnotic state. By the time the child comes of age they have created a certain idea of good and bad in him. Now his whole life he will be in trouble. If he follows the morality he will become a hypocrite, because the morality has never taken any consideration of his nature, of his uniqueness, of his individuality. No account has ever been taken of him; he has not been considered at all.

Some guy, Manu, five thousand years ago, decided what is right and wrong for the Hindus; it is still valid – for the Hindus it is still valid. Still there are women who commit suicide by jumping into the fire at the funeral of their husbands, because Manu said that to be a sati – to die with your husband – is the greatest virtue a woman can ever attain. Still today, every day, almost every day, somewhere or other some woman commits suicide, burns herself alive. And these women are worshipped by the Hindus; they are worshipped like saints. And all that they have done is to commit suicide. It is illegal, it is a crime, because the Britishers who ruled India for two centuries could not conceive any morality in it; they could see that it was just suicide. Their mind was not created by Manu; their mind was created by Moses. And in the Ten Commandments there is no commandment which says that the woman has to commit suicide, so they were very much against it. They made a law against it; the law is still there. But in spite of it, every day the crime happens. And the woman who is committing suicide believes she is doing something really great, something belonging to the high order of values.

The Mohammedan has his own morality. Just a few days ago in Moradabad a riot happened, because a pig, an innocent pig, entered into the sacred prayer place – Id–Ghah – of the Mohammedans; while they were doing their prayer the pig entered. Now some stupid person somewhere in their history has said to them that the pig is the most unholy animal on the earth.

Pigs are just poor people, maybe a little bit Polack, but poor people and very innocent! How can a pig make the holy place unholy? That means the unholiness of the pig is far more powerful than thousands of Mohammedans praying in a holy place. Their prayer is not great enough to transform the pig! The pig changes their whole atmosphere.

They killed the pig and they killed the constable who was standing outside because they thought he had allowed the pig to enter – because he was a Hindu. And the riot broke. One hundred and thirty people died, immediately. And this is the official number; and whenever there is an official number given, multiply it by four – then you will have the right number. At least six hundred people must have died, or more.

The Hindus believe in the cow, that it is the holiest animal in the world, even holier than many human beings. The sudras, the untouchables, who constitute the major part of the Hindu society, are not as important as the holy cow. To murder a sudra, says Manu, is not a big crime; to murder a cow is the greatest crime one can commit. You can commit hundreds of other crimes – it is nothing – but to kill a cow . . . Now that is Hindu morality, and every Hindu believes that the cow is his mother. This has become his conscience. And the same is true about everybody.

Morality is invented religion, not discovered religion. Discovered religion has to be your own, then certainly a great revolution happens in you. Then certainly your character has a virtue, but then it is not moral; it is religious, it is spiritual. Moral character has value to those who want to enslave you, but it is against you. You need a spiritual character, and spiritual character is not born out of moral education; it is born out of meditation. You need more awareness, not more moral education.

Vadan, that’s why I am not emphasizing moral character at all; my whole emphasis is on the essential. If at the very center of your being some knowing, some clarity arises, your life will be different, totally different. It will have a beauty, a grace. It will not be Hindu because you will not live according to Manu; only stupid people do that. Living according to somebody else is stupidity.

You are not here to live according to me. I can only help you to find your own insight, that’s all. I am not going to give you my insight – that would be moral character if whatsoever I think is right I impose upon you. But one man’s nectar may prove poison to another; something which is a medicine to one man may kill somebody else. So what is right for me, what is true for me, is only true for me. But I can help you to discover the source from where you can also see.

For example, a blind man can be helped in two ways. One is that you can give him detailed information: “Go a hundred feet forward, then turn to the left ninety degrees, then go two hundred feet, then turn to the right a hundred feet again,” and so on in this way, in detail. This is morality. The blind man remains blind, but he starts functioning, starts moving.

To give meditation is to give a blind man eyes. Then you need not give him this detailed information: “First go right and then left and then this and that.” There is no need; you have given him eyes. Now he can see where he has to go, where the path turns towards the left and where the path turns towards the right – because life is such a complexity.

You cannot guide the blind man forever. He is bound to stumble somewhere or other, he is bound to commit many mistakes, he is bound to forget many things. Every moment new situations go on arising, and he will be simply following your information that may not be true anymore. Life goes on changing. […]

A smart New York career girl married Stefano, a handsome young Italian farmer. She was not too happy with his social manner and started trying to improve him immediately. Throughout the wedding reception she continuously corrected his mistakes, telling him what to say, which knife to use at the table and how to pass the butter.

Finally, the celebrations were over, and they were in bed at last. Stefano fidgeted between the sheets, unsure of himself, but finally he turned towards his new wife and stuttered, “Could you pass the pussy, please?”

That is bound to happen! That is inevitable.

A moral person remains stupid and unintelligent because he depends on others’ guidance. And guidance that Manu gave five thousand years ago is no more relevant at all, the whole context has changed. The moral person lives according to the past and the meditator lives according to the present. The meditator responds to the real situation and the moral person only goes on reacting according to ready-made formulas.

These puritans and moralists have stuffed your minds and your beings with rubbish. They have made you junk-yards!

A housewife adorned with a head full of curlers, puffy eyes, no make-up, covered in a tatty old dressing-gown and worn-out furry slippers runs out of the house with the garbage just as the garbage truck is about to move on. She rushes up to the truck and, panting, asks the garbage man, “Am I too late?”

“No, ma’am, just jump right in!”

Drop conscience and create consciousness, and then you will be living an authentic life. And to be authentic is to be divine. To be authentic is to know what God is all about. To be authentic is to be true to Tao, the ultimate nature. Ais Dhammo Sanantano, Buddha says: This is the ultimate law.

Be conscious, be a light unto yourself.

-Osho

From Guida Spirituale, Discourse #12, Q2

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.

Character is Stagnant, Consciousness is a River – Osho

Why don’t you give your disciples a certain mode of conduct? Isn’t a moral character necessary for a spiritual life?

Mahendra Singh, my whole effort is to give you a consciousness, not a character. Consciousness is the real thing, character the false entity. Character is needed by those who don’t have consciousness. If you have eyes, you don’t need a walking-stick to find your way, to grope your way. If you can see you don’t ask others, “Where is the door?” Character is needed because people are unconscious. Character is just a lubricant; it helps you to run your life in a smooth way.

George Gurdjieff used to say character is like a buffer. Buffers are used in railway trains; between two compartments there are buffers. If something happens, those two compartments cannot clash with each other; these buffers prevent them from clashing with each other. Or it is like springs: cars have springs so you can move smoothly – even on an Indian road. Those springs go on absorbing the shocks; they are called shock absorbers.

That’s what character is: it is a shock absorber. People are told to be humble. If you learn how to be humble, it is a shock absorber. By learning how to be humble, you will be able to protect yourself against other people’s egos. They will not hurt you so much; you are a humble man. If you are egoistic, you are bound to be hurt again and again. The ego is very sensitive, so you cover up your ego with a blanket of humbleness. It helps, it gives you a kind of smoothness, but it does not transform you.

My work consists of transformation. This is an alchemical school: I want to transform you from unconsciousness into consciousness, from darkness into light. I cannot give you a character; I can only give you insight, awareness. I would like you to live moment-to-moment, not according to a set pattern given by me or given by the society, the church, the state. I would like you to live according to your own small light of awareness, according to your own consciousness. Be responsive to each moment.

Character means you have a certain ready-made answer for all the questions of life, so whenever a situation arises you respond according to the set pattern. Because you respond according to the ready-made answer it is not a true response, it is only a reaction. The man of character reacts, the man of consciousness responds: he takes the situation in, he reflects the reality as it is, and out of that reflection he acts. The man of character reacts, the man of consciousness acts. The man of character is mechanical; robot-like he functions. He has a computer in his mind, full of information; ask him anything and a ready-made answer rolls down from his computer.

A man of consciousness simply acts in the moment, not out of the past and out of the memory. His response has a beauty, a naturalness, and his response is true to the situation. The man of character always falls short because life is continuously changing; it is never the same. And your answers are always the same, they never grow – they can’t grow, they are dead.

You have been told a certain thing in your childhood; it has remained there. You have grown, life has changed, but that answer, that was given by your parents or by your teachers or by your priests, is still there. And if something happens you will function according to that answer which was given to you fifty years before. And in fifty years so much water has gone down the Ganges; it is a totally different life.

Heraclitus says: “You cannot step in the same river twice.” And I say to you: “You cannot step in the same river even once; the river is so fast-flowing.” Character is stagnant; it is a dirty pool of water. Consciousness is a river.

Mahendra Singh, that’s why I don’t give my people any code of conduct. I give them eyes to see, a consciousness to reflect, a mirror-like being to be able to respond to any situation that arises. I don’t give them detailed information about what to do and what not to do; I don’t give them Ten Commandments. And if you start giving them commandments then you cannot stop at ten because life is far more complex.

In Buddhist scriptures, there are thirty-three thousand rules for a Buddhist monk. Thirty-three thousand rules! For every possible situation that may ever arise, they have given a ready-made answer. But how are you going to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct? And a man who is cunning enough to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct will be clever enough to find a way out always; if he does not want to do a certain thing, he will find a way out. If he wants to do a certain thing, he will find a way out.

I have heard about a Christian saint: somebody hit him on his face because just that day in his morning discourse he had said, “Jesus says if somebody slaps you on one cheek, give him the other.” And the man wanted to try it, so he hit him, really hit him hard on one cheek. And the saint was really true, true to his word: he gave him the other cheek.

But that man was also something: he hit even harder on the other cheek. Then he was surprised: the saint jumped on the man, started beating him so hard that the man said, “What are you doing? You are a saint, and just this morning you were saying that if somebody hits you on one cheek, give him the other.”

He said, “Yes – but I don’t have a third cheek. And Jesus stops there. Now I am free; now I will do what I want to do. Jesus has no more information about it.”

It happened exactly like that in Jesus’s life also. Once he told a disciple, “Forgive seven times.”

The disciple said, “Okay.”

The way he said, “Okay,” Jesus became suspicious; he said, “Seventy-seven times I say.”

The disciple was a little disturbed, but he said, “Okay – because numbers don’t end at seventy-seven. What about seventy-eight? Then I am free, then I can do what I want to do!”

How many rules can you make for people? It is stupid, meaningless. That’s how people are religious, and still, they are not religious: they always find a way to get out of those rules of conduct and commandments. They can always find a way through the back door. And character can, at the most, give you only a skin-deep, pseudo mask – not even skin deep: just scratch your saints a little bit and you will find the animal hidden behind. On the surface they look beautiful but only on the surface.

I don’t want you to be superficial; I want you to really change. But a real change happens through the center of your being, not through the circumference. Character is painting the circumference; consciousness is transformation of the center.

Once a carpenter was working in a church and he hit his thumb with a hammer. “Fuck’s sake!” he yelled.

The Vicar happened to be passing and heard him. “You cannot use that kind of language here. This is a house of God,” he admonished.

“Pardon, Vicar, but what’s a man to say when he whacks his thumb with a hammer?”

“You can say, ‘God preserve me,’ or ‘Jesus help me,’” suggested the Vicar.

Later, when the carpenter was sawing a piece of wood, he sawed right through his finger, which dropped to the floor. “God preserve me!” cried the carpenter, and the finger jumped back upon the hand and healed itself.

“Fuck’s sake!” exclaimed the Vicar.

-Osho

From Be Still and Know, Discourse #6

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.