Tag: Socrates

Contentment: The Dispersion of Desires – Osho

Sarva santosho visarjanamiti ya aevam veda.

Total contentment is visarjan, the dispersion of the worship ritual. One who understands so is an enlightened one.

Total contentment is wisdom. Three things have to be understood. First, what total contentment is; second, what wisdom is, what it means to be wise, to be Enlightened; and third, why contentment is wisdom. Whatsoever we know about contentment is a negative thing. Life is suffering, much suffering, and one has to console oneself. There are moments when one cannot do anything, so one has to cultivate a certain attitude of contentment; otherwise, it would be impossible to live.

So contentment for us is just an instrument – a survival instrument. Life consists of so much suffering that one has to create this attitude. That attitude saves you from much which would become impossible to bear, which would be unbearable if there were no attitude of contentment. But this is not the contentment which is meant by the rishi. That is with all of us. So that contentment is not wisdom: rather, that contentment is part of ignorance. When you cannot do anything, the situation will be unbearable. If you go on feeling that you cannot do anything – if you go on feeling that nothing is possible, the situation will become unbearable, it will be suicidal – so you change the whole thing. You interpret in such a way that, really, you begin to say that you can do much, but you do not want to – that much is possible, that things can be different, but you are not interested. That change of emphasis is really deceptive. But life exists through so many illusions. They are helpful.

Nietzsche has said that without lies it is difficult to survive. If one thinks he will live simply by truth, he cannot live. So we go on believing in so many lies. They are our foundations in a way; they help us to be on this earth. And so many so-called truths are not really truths for you: they are simply lies. For example, you do not know that the soul is immortal, but you go on believing in it. That helps. That is a lie for you; it is not your experience. But to live with death will be almost impossible, so this lie helps. Then you can forget death. You know that life is going to continue. Only the body is going to be dead; you are not going to be dead. You will be there.

This is a lie to you. You do not know anything because you do not know anything more than the body. You are acquainted only with your body, and that too not in its totality. You do not know anything which is immortal. If you know anything immortal in yourself, then this is not a lie. But to know that immortality one has to pass through conscious death.

All meditations are really an effort to die consciously. If you can die consciously, only then do you come upon something which is immortal, which cannot die. But we believe in an immortal soul just to deceive ourselves. Through this belief life becomes easier. You have solved the problem without solving it. Now there is no death for you, and you can live as if you are going to live forever. Not only those who are theists, but even those who are atheists – who do not believe in souls at all and thus cannot believe in immortal souls – they too live in such a way as if they are going to live forever. They also have to deceive themselves by believing that there is no death and that there are so many lives.

Kant has said that if there were no God, then too we would have to invent him because without God it is difficult to live. Why? Because without God no morality is possible. Without God the whole edifice of morality falls down. All heaven, all hell, the results of your karma, everything falls down. So Kant says that even if there is no God, he is needed. He is required because without him morality becomes impossible, and to live without morality will be very difficult.

We can live as immoral beings – we are already living so – we can live in immorality. That is not difficult; we always live in it. But even to live in immorality we need moral concepts. So an immoral person also goes on believing. He may not be good today, but tomorrow he is going to be good. He is not going to be good in this life, but he will be good in the next life.

So even a sinner goes on believing that he is not really a sinner. Any day he can be a saint – that possibility helps. Then he can hope for the possibility and continue to be whatsoever he is. So whatsoever he is, is just in a shadow. His being a sinner is just a changing thing. It is not going to be permanent: he is going to be a saint soon. He can hope for the saint and he can continue to be a sinner. If you want to be a sinner, you need some hope against your being a sinner. If you do not have any hope, it will be difficult to continue. So even those who are immoral need morality. And a God is needed as a central force, as a governing energy, otherwise the whole thing will be a chaos.

Kant then says: “Do not deny God.” Kant has written two books, very valuable books. First, he wrote one of the most valuable books of these two or three hundred years. He wrote The Critique of Pure Reason in which he says that there is no God because reason cannot prove him, and that book is based on pure reason. So he goes on thinking about it, he goes on, and ultimately he comes to say that there is no God, because for reason it is impossible even to conceive of a God since there is no possibility of proving the hypothesis. Since he is an honest man, he argues and finds that God cannot be proved. So because this hypothesis is irrational, he concludes there is no God.

Then he feels uneasy because he was a very moral, religious man. He was one of the keenest intellects, but a moral man, so he felt uneasy for twenty years continuously. Then he wrote a second book: The Critique of Practical Reason. The first was The Critique of Pure Reason. He followed pure reason wheresoever it led, but then it was not leading to God. For twenty years concluding that there is no God he felt an uneasiness, as if he had done something wrong. And the wrong was not that without God there was any inconvenience for Kant, but that he saw that if there is no God, then to the whole world morality disappears, evaporates.

Then he writes in the second book that it is not possible to prove God through pure reason, but practical reason needs him. So God is not a rational hypothesis, but a practically reasonable hypothesis. Without God the whole thing will become unreasonable, so he says God is – not because God is, but because God is needed. Without God man is not possible. So if he is not, he has to be invented because only then does morality become possible.

For us there are so many hypotheses like this. We go on believing in them – not because we know – but because if we do not believe in them then we will know our ignorance, our deep ignorance. We want to avoid it, we want to escape from it.

Contentment to us is really a deep escape. We cannot fight life. We try, but we cannot succeed in it. No one ever succeeds. Everyone comes upon barriers; there are limitations. Not only those who are weak, but also those who are very strong in our eyes, who are more strong than others and who come a little further ahead, they also come to barriers. And from those barriers there is no escape. Even a Napoleon has to die; even an Alexander comes to know things which he cannot win. Then what to do?

One thing is to remain continuously in discontentment. That will become a cancer. You cannot sleep with it; you cannot forget it at any moment. It will become a continuous worry, an inner cancer in the mind. So create a facade of contentment: “I am a contented man. It is not that I cannot win these barriers – I do not want to win.” This is a rationalization: “I do not want to. It is not that I cannot win – I am not interested in winning!” You withdraw yourself and you give a rational flavor to it.

This contentment is a rationalization – a shrewd, cunning rationalization. This gives you a certain hope that if you want to you can do it.

Look at it in this way. I have known many people. One man I know is a habituated alcoholic. For thirty years he has been trying to leave alcohol, but he cannot leave it. It has become impossible. But still he will go on saying, he will come to me and say, “Any day I can leave it – if I will it.” And he has tried continuously for thirty years. He has willed so many times, and was defeated, and again he will fall, but he still goes on saying, “If I will, I can drop this habit in a moment.”

Because of this hope that “If I will . . .” he still feels he is not a defeated man. He is already a defeated man, and this hope allows him to live. He goes on thinking that any moment he can drop it: he is not a slave; he can drop it – he is only not dropping it because he does not want to drop it.

So one day I asked him, “You go on saying ‘If I will . . .’ but have you not tried so many times, have you not willed so many times, to drop it?”

Then he said, “Yes, I have tried many times, but the effort was not really wholehearted.”

So I asked him, “Have you tried any time when the effort was wholehearted?”

He said, “No! If I try wholeheartedly, I can leave it this very moment.”

I asked him, “Is it possible for you to do it wholeheartedly? Is it in your capacity to will it wholeheartedly? Is your will your own?”

He became uneasy, because when you feel that your will is not your own you will have to face your imprisonment, your slavery. So he is in an imprisonment, but he goes on believing that he is free. That helps you to live in a prison as if it is your home.

This is how we go on rationalizing, and this man cannot leave alcohol unless he leaves this rationalization. If he begins to feel that “Even if I will, I cannot leave,” then he is realistic. Then he has come down to the earth. And if he comes to feel that “I cannot do anything even if I will,” then he can do something because then he will not be living in illusion – he will have stumbled upon reality. And you can do something with reality, but you cannot do anything with illusions.

To escape from reality, we create many mental attitudes. Freud is reported to have said that religion will continue to have power over man not because religion is true, but because man needs many illusions and man is not yet adult enough, mature enough, to live without religion. In a way he is right, because as far as the majority of humanity is concerned religion is a rationalized illusion. Only sometimes – with a Buddha, with a Patanjali or with a Kapil – does it happen that religion is not an illusion but the Ultimate Reality. But for others religion is an illusion. It substitutes for your life, compensates. Your reality is so horrible that you need some illusions to compensate for it.

For example, if a country is very poor, it is bound to believe in a heaven after this life. That is a compensation. The reality is so horrible, so ugly, and there is so much suffering all around for which nothing can be done. But you can do one thing: you can believe in some heaven after this life and that will help you to live in this ugly poverty. Then you can live easily because it is a question of a few years, or only a few lives, then you will be in heaven. So this poverty is not something permanent which you have to be worried about. It is just a passing phase, just as if you are in a waiting room in a railway station. Let it be ugly, let it be as it is, because you are not going to stay here. It is not your home. A train will come and you will be away from this waiting room.

If there is a heaven after this life, then this life becomes just a waiting room. Everyone is waiting for his train. When the train comes, you will go away. You need not be worried. You can close your eyes and chant the Gayatri – a spiritual mantra – close your eyes and chant a mantra because this is only a waiting room. Religious people are reported to have continuously made the simile that this world is just a waiting room. You are not to be here forever, so do not be worried about it.

But if the waiting room is going to be your home, if it is not a waiting room but the whole of reality, then it will be impossible to live there. Then it will be impossible to live there even for an hour. But if it is a waiting room, you can live even lives in it, because the hope is always for something else. Really, you are not there. You have transferred yourself mentally to somewhere else. This is a trick. The mind has gone to live somewhere else; only the body is here, so you can continue.

Much of religion, so-called religion, is a compensation, a consolation. Whatsoever you lack in life, you substitute for it in your dream. Whatsoever you lack, you substitute in your dreams! That is why every religion, every country, every race, believes in different types of heaven and hell. You believe in one heaven; in another country the concept of heaven will be different – because your problems are different and their problems are different, so you cannot compensate with one heaven.

For example, Tibetans believe in a heaven which will be warm. Indians believe in a heaven which will be cool. Indians believe in a hell which is going to be fiery, a burning fire, hot; Tibetans believe in a hell which is ice-cold. Why this difference? This difference is one of compensation. Tibetans are already in India’s heaven and India is already in their hell. India cannot believe in a heaven unless it is air-conditioned. What type of heaven can it be if it is not air-conditioned? It must be air-conditioned! That is a compensation. Your contentment is a compensation. It is a cunning mental trick.

So do not think that those among us who are contented are very simple. They are very complex and cunning. Whenever a person says, “I am content with my poverty,” do not think that he is a simple man. He has created a very cunning attitude.

Once I met a great Jaina monk. He is a leader and he has a big following. Hundreds and hundreds of Jaina monks believe in him as their teacher. So when I met him, he recited a small poem. He had written that poem. He is an old man, very old: he lives naked.

He recited the poem. The poem had only one central idea continuously repeated, and the idea was this: “You may be a king, you may be on your golden throne, but I am happy in my dust. I do not care about it. I am contented in my hut. You may be in your palace; I am contented in my hut. Whatsoever you have is nothing to me, because death is going to snatch everything away from you.”

Like this ran the whole piece. This mind is very cunning. What is he saying? If he is really not interested in being a king, why compare? If you are really contented in your dust, why think of golden thrones? I have never heard any poem written by a king that says, “You may be happy in your dust, but I am contented on my golden throne.” Why has no emperor written this? There must be some reason.

And why does this man say that whatsoever you have will be snatched away by death? He feels happy about it. “Okay, be on your golden throne. Soon I will see that death snatches away everything, and then you will know who was happy. I am happy because death cannot snatch anything away from me.” This is a very cunning attitude; this is not contentment. But he was writing on contentment. That was the title of his poem – “Contentment.”

Is this contentment? If this is contentment then this sutra is not concerned with it. This sutra has a different meaning, a different dimension of contentment. What is it? In your case, you desire something, you cannot get it; or, even if you get it, the desire is still unfulfilled. Then you rationalize.

Then you say, “I must live in contentment because desire gives pain, because desire gives suffering, because through desire anxiety is created, through ambition one suffers unnecessarily. So I give up: I do not desire because I do not like suffering.”

This is not the contentment of this sutra. This sutra means many things, so it will be good to enter through many doors. One door for total contentment is non-desiring. Our contentment comes after the failure of desire; this contentment comes through desirelessness. It is not that desire is suffering, but that desire is futile; desire is useless, absurd. Knowing this, feeling this, realizing this, one becomes desireless. Then one will not say, “I do not care about your golden throne.” Then one will not compare and will not say, “I prefer my hut.”

Buddha left his palace. The night he left and renounced, only his driver came along just to leave him on the boundary of his kingdom. The driver is weeping. He loves him and he feels attached to him. He thinks this is absurd: “What has happened to Prince Siddharth? What is he doing? Leaving the palace? Leaving the kingdom? Leaving his beautiful wife? Leaving everything everyone desires? He has gone mad!” So he goes on weeping. He cannot say anything. He is a mere driver of Buddha’s chariot. But he loves him, he feels attached, and he feels that Prince Siddharth is going to do something foolish.

This is unimaginable to a poor man. His reaction is natural. He feels that it is obviously madness. What is Siddharth going to do? Then when he leaves, he says only one thing; he says, “I am no one to say anything to you; I am just a driver. And also, it is not my business to interfere. Your order is your order, so I have brought you to the boundary of your kingdom. But if you do not mind, let me say to you a few words. What are you doing? It seems mad! This is what man lives to attain. This is what everyone aspires to be. You were born in it. You are a fortunate one. Why are you leaving? Remember the palace! Remember your beautiful wife! Remember your father! Remember the kingdom and the happiness it brings!”

Buddha says, “I cannot understand what you are talking about. I have not left any palace behind; I have not left any kingdom behind. I have left only a nightmare. The whole thing was burning in a fire. I am escaping from it. I have not renounced it because the very word ‘renunciation’ means you are leaving something valuable behind. I have not renounced anything; there was nothing to be renounced. The whole thing is on fire. It was a nightmare. So I have escaped from it, and I thank you because you have helped me to come out from it.”

After that Buddha is never reported to have talked about his palace, about his kingdom, about his beautiful wife – never again. If this renunciation is a bargain, if this renunciation is for something to be achieved in the future, if this renunciation is just an investment for heaven, moksha, then you cannot forget it so easily. He completely forgot it. Why? He was not leaving something for something else.

If you leave something for something else, it is a desire. If you simply leave it, it is desirelessness. If you leave it for something else, then it is still desire. If you simply leave it looking at its absurdity, futility, nonsense, then it is desirelessness. And when a man is desireless, he is content. This is the first door. When a man is desireless, he is content, because now how can you make him discontented? He is in contentment because no discontentment is possible now. [. . . .]

Because we desire that some expectations be fulfilled in the future, the mind is a constant discontent. Looking at the infinity of life, looking at the endless process of life, one is contented. This is not a defense measure. This is wisdom.

Thirdly, let us look at this from some other door: contentment means consciousness here and now; discontentment means consciousness somewhere else, in the future. Discontentment is concerned either with the past or with the future. Contentment is here and now, in the present. A person who lives moment to moment will be contented, but we never live from moment to moment. Really, we never live in the moment! We always live beyond it – somewhere in the future. We are moving like shadows, and we go on moving in the future. And the more you move in the future, the more discontented you will be, because the future never comes.

There is no future in Existence. In Existence nothing like the future exists. Existence is a continuity in the present; Existence is here and now. Expectation is somewhere else – and they never meet. That non-meeting is discontentment. You hope, and there is no meeting. You dream, and there is no fulfillment. And there is a gap – an eternal gap always between you and your hopes – so you move in discontentment. Discontentment means a movement that is always in the future and never in the present.

Buddha says that only this moment is real. That is why philosophy is known as kshanikvad – “momentism.” This “momentism,” only this moment, is real. Do not move beyond it! Be here and now! Consider it, think it over: just for this moment, if you are here and now, how can you be discontented?

Discontent needs comparison. You compare with the past which is no more. It is no more, but you compare with it. In some past moment you were somewhere else, and that moment was very beautiful – filled with happiness. But now you are sitting here, and you compare with that moment – discontent is given birth. Or, you can contemplate into the future about some moment when you will be meeting with your beloved or your lover, or something else. You compare – then you are discontented.

Discontent means comparison of something which is not in the present, which is either past or future, with your present. If you are really here with no comparison to the past or the future, then where is the discontentment? Then whatsoever is the case, you are contented.

Comparison brings discontentment; contentment is non-comparison. If you forget comparing, no one can make you discontented. It is you, your mind working in comparison, which creates discontentment. And then, to avoid this discontentment, you cultivate contentment. To negate one thing, first you create it; then to negate it, you have to create something else. And you will not succeed in it, because to think of creating contentment is moving again into the future.

So you will go on thinking that you have to cultivate contentment, and you will go on being discontented. You will begin to feel discontent even in relation to contentment, because you have not created it yet, because you are still far away from it – far away from the goal. So even the goal of contentment, the ideal of contentment, will create more discontentment.

Our contentment is after we have created the disease. The contentment of the Upanishads is not to create disease at all. Do not move in comparisons. Each moment is unique. It cannot be compared. And this is the nonsense, the stupidity of the human mind: that the moment with which you are comparing your present moment was not so beautiful as you think, because when you were actually in that moment, you were thinking about something else. So the glory, the beauty, the happiness of it, is just a false phenomenon.

Everyone says that childhood was golden, and no child seems happy about his childhood. Every child is trying to grow up soon. If he can take a jump, if a child is allowed to take a jump, he will become his father immediately. No child is happy about his childhood, because childhood is such a slavery, and childhood is such a weakness, and a child is so much at the mercy of others. He feels it. Everything hurts. Mother and father and everyone is so strong, and he alone is so weak and dependent that he cannot do anything on his own. From everywhere comes the commandment “Don’t!”

So every child is in deep misery. He contemplates the day when he will also be an adult – powerful. But when he is an adult, he will begin to say, “Childhood was good.” When he is old, just near death, he will create a golden dream. He will say, “What bliss childhood was! What a heaven!”

Psychologists say that this is also a trick of the mind. Because the reality is so hard, you have to escape somewhere. You are not capable of facing it, you do not want to encounter it. Really, the old man is now near death, so he wants to escape from it. When he begins to think about childhood, he has escaped, because childhood is as far away from death as anything. In his imagination, he has moved to being a child again. Now there is no death, no disease, no illness, no oldness. He is passing into the past, but why not into the future?

Old men always escape into the past, young men always into the future. Why? Because for an old man the future means death, so he doesn’t want to see the future. Every day on the calendar a new date appears and death comes nearer. He doesn’t want to see it, and the easiest way is to escape into the past. And to escape, you have to make it golden and beautiful, otherwise the journey will be boring. If you really escape into the real past, it is going to be a boredom.

Ask any old man, “If a chance is given by the Divine to you, will you be ready to repeat the same life again?” He will say, “No! The same life?” He feels horrible. The same life? No one will be ready to repeat the same life – not even the same childhood.

If you are given the opportunity that this can happen, that you are allowed to be born again to your parents and have the same childhood, you will say no. And just one moment before you might have been saying that “My father was just godlike, a holy man. And my mother? The climax of motherhood!” But if someone says, “Now be born to them again,” you are going to refuse – because whatsoever you have been saying about your mother, about your father, about your childhood, about your home, about your village, about your country, is just an imaginative creation. It is not concerned with reality. You have created it to escape from reality. A young man is thinking of the future, moving into the future, but contentment means to be here.

Socrates is dying, and on his face, there is so much contentment that everyone feels it is strange – because he is just on the verge of death, and death is a certainty with him. He is to be given poison. The poison is being made ready, being prepared just outside his room. The room is filled with his disciples and friends. They are all weeping and crying, and Socrates is lying on the bed. He says, “Now the time is coming near. Ask those persons who are preparing the poison if they are ready yet, because I am ready.”

Someone asks, “Are you not afraid of death? Why are you so anxious to die?”

Socrates says, “Whatsoever is, is. Death is there. Death is coming nearer. I must be ready to meet it, otherwise I will miss the moment of meeting death. So be silent. Do not disturb me. Do not talk about past days.” Many are talking of past days, of how beautiful it was to be with Socrates, and Socrates says, “Do not disturb me. I have known you. In the past, in the days which you are talking about, you were not so happy as you are saying.”

His wife is weeping, and the same wife struggled with him her whole life. It was a long conflict, a long problem – never solved. Socrates says, “It is strange! Why is my wife weeping? I would have thought she would be filled with happiness when I died, because my life was such a burden and such a suffering for her. Why is she weeping? She never enjoyed any moment with me, and now she is weeping for those golden moments. They were never there; only now she is creating a past which never was. It seems she has suffered because of me, and now she will suffer because of my absence.”

Such is the stupidity of the human mind. You will suffer the presence, then you will suffer the absence. You cannot live with someone, and then you cannot live without him. When he is with you, you will see all the faults. When he is gone, you will see all that was good in him. But you never face the reality.

Then the poison comes and Socrates says, “Be silent. Do not disturb me. Let me be here and now. Do not talk about the past. It is no more.”

Someone asks Socrates, “Are you not afraid of dying? You seem so contented. Your face shows such silence. We have never seen anyone dying in such beauty. Your face is so beautiful! Why are you not afraid?”

Socrates says, “Only two are the possibilities, two are the alternatives. Either I am going to die completely. If this death is ultimate and there will be no Socrates, why bother? If I am not going to be at all, there is no question. There will be no suffering because Socrates will be no more. Or, the second alternative: only the body will die, and I, Socrates, will remain. So why bother?

“These are the only two alternatives possible, and I do not choose either of the two. If I choose, then it will become a problem. If the one I choose doesn’t happen and the other happens, then there will be disturbance and discontent and fear and insecurity, and I will begin to tremble.

“But these are two alternatives, and I am not the chooser. The whole is the chooser. Whatsoever happens, happens. If Socrates will be no more, Socrates is unworried. Or, if Socrates will still be there, again there is no worry – then I will be. As I am here, I will be there. Then I will continue, so no need of any worry. Or, I will drop completely; then no one will remain to worry. But no more questions.” Socrates says, “No more questions! Let me face death.”

He takes the poison, he lies down, and then he begins to face, to encounter, death. No one else has ever encountered death in that way. It is unique – Socratic. He says, “Now my legs have become dead, but I am as much alive as ever. My feeling of I-ness is the same. The legs have become dead, my legs are no more. I cannot feel my legs, but my wholeness remains the same.”

Then he says, “My half-body has become dead. I cannot feel it. The poison is coming up and up. Sooner or later my heart will be drowned in it, and it is going to be a discovery whether, when my heart has been drowned, I feel the same or not. But there is no expectation – just an open inquiry.”

Then he says, “My heart is going, and now it seems it will be difficult for me to speak more. My tongue is trembling and my lips are now giving way. So these are going to be the last words. But still, I say, I am the same. Nothing has dropped from me. The poison has not touched me yet. The body is far away from me, going away and away. I feel I am without a body, but the poison has not yet touched me. But who knows? It may touch, it may not touch. One has to wait and see.” And he dies.

This is facing the moment without moving from it anywhere. Then you have contentment. Contentment means life here and now, living moment to moment without any escapes.

That is why this sutra says that total contentment is visarjan. Visarjan is a particular process. Visarjan means dispersion.

In India, whenever someone worships, the deity is created. For example, Ganesh, Ganesh is created – an image is created. For the worship, the image is taken as Divine, so Divinity is invoked in it. Then, for particular days, for a particular length of time, it is worshipped. When the worship is over, the deity has to be dissolved into the sea or into a river. That is known as dispersion – visarjan. This is rare. This happens only in India, nowhere else in the world. Everywhere else they have permanent images of gods. Only India has impermanent images. This is rare!

India says that nothing is permanent and nothing can remain permanent – not even your image of a god. Because you have created it, it cannot be a permanent thing. Do not fool yourself. When the time is over, go and throw it back. Your god cannot be permanent. Go on throwing your gods – creating them and throwing them. Use them and throw them. Only then can you reach that God which is not your creation. The images are your creations, so they have an instrumental value. They are devices. They are necessary because you are still so far away from the reality, and it is difficult for you to conceive of an imageless God.

Create an image, but do not stick to it. No clinging is allowed. When the worship is over, throw it; throw it back into the mud. It is again mud. Then do not retain it. This is a very deep psychological process, because to throw a god needs courage, to throw a god needs detachment.

You were just worshipping – falling at the feet of the god, crying, weeping, dancing, singing – and now you yourself go and throw it into the sea. So it was just a device – nothing permanent in it. You used it as an instrument. Now the worship is over, so throw it and create it again whenever you need. This constant creating and throwing will always help you to remember that your created gods are not real gods. They are symbolic.

Hindus were never in favor of creating stone images. They came with Buddhists and Jainas, and with Buddhists and Jainas came temples. Hindus were really never in favor of stone images, because they give a false permanence. They give a false appearance of permanence.

A buddha dies, but his stone image remains when even Buddha himself dies. How can an image of Buddha be permanent? But a stone image gives a false appearance of permanence.

Hindus have believed in mud gods. Make a mud god; then rains will come and you will know what happens to your god. It is your god; this must not be forgotten. And all gods created by men are mud gods. They are bound to be because man himself is an impermanent entity. He cannot create anything permanent.

So do not create a false appearance. This is called dispersion – visarjan. This word is beautiful. First create the image, then uncreate it. It is not destroyed. Visarjan means “uncreated.” Create, then uncreate it; then let everything go again to its basic elements.

Hindus say death is a dispersion. You are created in your birth; you are a mud image. Then in death the elements move again to their original source. You are dispersed, and that which was not born in you, which was even before your birth, will remain after your death. But your image will disperse. The same is to be done with human gods, man-made gods – create them, then disperse them.

This sutra says that dispersion means contentment. Contentment is the dispersion – the visarjan of your worship. Why? Why call contentment “dispersion”? It is very deeply related.

Creation means desire. You cannot create unless you are filled with desire. Hindus are very logical in a way. They say God created the world because he felt the desire to create it. Even God cannot create the world without desire: he was filled with desire! Creation means desire. You cannot create without desire. Desire allows you movement, effort, then you create. Then how to uncreate?

If there is still desire, you cannot uncreate. Uncreation means no more desire, desirelessness, contentment. That is why this sutra relates visarjan to contentment. If a man is totally in contentment, then everything will disperse.

This is what Buddhists call Nirvana – cessation of desire. Buddha says that when there is no desire you will cease: you will disperse into the cosmos. Still, the desiring mind will ask, “But I will be somewhere. Will I not be somewhere? Where will I be?”

Buddha says, “It will be just like a flame going out.” Can you find out where it is, where it has gone? You blow out a candle, and the flame goes out. Where is it? So Buddha says, “It has simply dispersed. It went to the elements, to the source.”

It is everywhere or nowhere, and both are meaningful. If you say it is everywhere, it also means that now it is nowhere. You cannot find it anywhere now because it is everywhere. Or, you can say it is nowhere now because to find it is impossible. [. . . .]

This sutra says that contentment is visarjan – contentment is dispersion. When you are contented totally, you are out of the birth cycle. Now you will not be reborn again, because only desire is reborn, not you, and because of desire you have to follow. You become a shadow of your desire. The desires move ahead and you move behind. Now there is no desire, and one does not need any movement. One is freed from the wheel of rebirth, from samsara– the world. This is what Liberation is.

Disperse yourself. Through this dispersion, you disperse your desires. Attain the center of Being through contentment. Contentment is a centering in oneself, and one becomes unmoving, still, silent.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, V.2, Discourse #14

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.

What is Truth? – Osho

What is Truth?

This is the question every man has to answer on his own. And unless a man answers this question he is not truly a man.

This question has haunted humanity down the centuries. It is as old as man himself because man became man only when he asked this question. Unless we know what truth is, our whole effort to live, our whole effort to make a meaning out of life is futile.

It is ultimate, but urgent also, to know from where life has arisen, and to want to know the source and the goal, to know the inner running current that holds everything, to know the thread which is the ultimate law of existence.

When we ask the question, “What is truth?” we are entering into the world of man for the first time. If you have not asked the question yet then you live below human beings. Ask the question, and you become part of humanity. And when the question is dissolved you go beyond humanity, you become a God.

Below the questioning you remain part of the animal kingdom; with the question you enter on the path; and again being without the question you have come to realize that you have come home. The question is very difficult because just by asking, it cannot be solved. One has to put one’s whole life at the stake.

This is the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus. At the last moment, when Jesus was going to be crucified, Pontius Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” And Jesus did not answer him. Christian mystics have pondered over it. Why did Jesus not answer it? Why did he remain silent?

There are three possibilities. One, that the question was not sincere. A man like Jesus answers only when the question is sincere. When is a question sincere? A question is sincere when a questioner is ready to do something about it. If it is just curiosity then it is not worth answering. If it has an intense passion, a deep desire, so deep that the questioner is ready to put his whole life at the stake – nothing less will do – then only is the question sincere. A man like Jesus will answer only when the question has been asked from the very core of one’s being. So the first possibility is that Pilate’s question was not sincere. Seeing the insincerity, Jesus remained silent.

Pilate was a well-educated man, a man who had succeeded at least in the eyes of the world. He was the viceroy, a Roman Governor-general. He was at the peak of his career – power, prestige, wealth, everything was his. Whatsoever he had been doing in his life had paid him well. Facing him was Jesus, almost a hobo, a failure, one who had not achieved anything at least in the eyes of the world. He had no power, no prestige, not even respectability. He was just at the other end of life, a tremendous failure, mocked, jeered, insulted. Whatsoever he had been doing had all failed. It had not paid him in any way. His life was futile, at least for others.

The successful man asked the failure, “What is truth?”

There are two types of successes in the world. One, the worldly, which is not really a success but just trying to deceive yourself, just trying to keep up faces, appearances. The eyes are full of tears but you go on smiling; the heart is miserable, but you go on showing something else, just the opposite, to the world. They say “nothing succeeds like success” but I would like to tell you “nothing fails like success.” As far as the inner journey is concerned, as far as the transcendental is concerned, nothing fails like success and nothing succeeds like failure.

The first possibility is that the question was not sincere, it was asked just by the way. The man was well-educated, well-trained in philosophical concepts. He could have asked the question as a philosophical question. Then Jesus remained silent because the question was not really asked and there was no need to answer it.

The second possibility is that the question was sincere, that the question was not just a childish curiosity, that there was passion behind it, that it was authentic. Then why did Jesus remain silent? He remained silent because if this ultimate question is authentically asked then silence is the answer, because there is no way to answer it except silence. The question is so profound that words will not be capable of answering it. The question is so deep that words will not be able to reach it, to touch it – only silence will.

If the second is the case then Jesus did answer it, but he answered it by silence.

A third possibility is also there: that the question was sincere and yet not so sincere – that it was ambiguous, split, which was probably the case because where can you find a man who is total? A part of him was authentically asking, another part was pretending, “Even if you don’t answer I am not in a hurry. And even if you don’t answer, I don’t mind because in fact I don’t need it. In fact, I know the answer already, I am asking just to test you.”

The question was ambiguous, Janus-faced. That seems to be more probable because that is how man is and has always been – split. A part of Pilate feels the truth of this man who is standing before him – a complete, utter failure but yet his eyes are luminous, yet he has a glow. Pilate can feel it, can almost touch it. Yet another part, the egoist part, is not ready to surrender so he pretends he is asking only casually, “Even if you don’t answer, don’t be worried. It is not my need. In fact, I already know the answer.”

If this ambiguity was the case, then Jesus would also remain silent because when a question is ambiguous and the person is divided, no answer is possible. Because the answer can be understood only in your undivided consciousness, the question can be answered only when you are no longer split, when you are one, when you are in a unison, unity. Only then can you understand it.

Jesus’ silence before Pontius Pilate is very significant, pregnant with many meanings. But Jesus has answered the question somewhere else, it is recorded in the New Testament. Somewhere else he says, “I am the Truth.”

I would like you to go a little bit into history then it will be very easy to understand today’s parable.

Homer asked the same question in 850 B.C. and he answered that ‘the Whole is supported by Fate and Fate is the Truth’.

This is not really an answer; in fact, it is avoiding. When you say, ‘It is Fate,’ you don’t say much; in fact, you are not saying anything, you are simply playing with a word. You have simply shifted the question. It doesn’t answer. If somebody is miserable and you say, “It is Fate,” how have you answered it? Your answering has not added anything to the already known situation. You have simply labelled it. “One is suffering because it is Fate.” But why is it so? Why is Fate so? No, it is not a real answer. In fact, it is a lie. But one can believe in such things. Many people still do as Homer did. They have not risen above that level of consciousness.

Then came Thales, 575 B.C. He said that the whole consists of nothing but water. Water is the basic element of truth, of life, of existence.

Better than Fate, something more tangible, but very fragmentary. Water does not go very deep, does not explain much. It is reducing the higher to the lowest. Thales must have had a scientific mind; that’s what science goes on doing. You ask about mind and they say it is nothing but matter. The higher is reduced to the lower; the sky is explained by the earth. Mind is a great evolution. To explain the mind by matter is a scientific fallacy.

Thales was the first scientist of the world. He tried to explain the unknowable by something known: he called it water, the liquid element, the liquidity, the flow. But the answer is very fragmentary. It has something of truth in it but not all of it. And a fragmentary truth is almost more dangerous than a lie because it has a certain appearance of truth and it can deceive more. That fragment of truth can become very deceptive; it can cover the whole lie and make it appear as if it is the truth.

Then came Pythagoras, 530 B.C. He says that the whole consists only of numbers, mathematical symbols. He has even more of a scientific attitude than Thales – mathematics. Meaningful, but mathematics is not life. In fact, all that is very alive is nonmathematical. Love is non-mathematical, you cannot reduce it to numbers. Poetry is nonmathematical. Just think of a life consisting only of numbers – one, two, three, four – all poetry disappears, all love disappears, all dreaming disappears. Life will not be worth living.

That’s how it is happening today. Scientists have reduced everything to mathematics. Life is not equal to equations howsoever accurate the equations; life is more than mathematics can ever explain. The mathematics cannot explain the mathematician, the mathematician who deals in numbers is higher and bigger than numbers. It has to be so; those numbers are just toys in his hands. But who is this player? Whenever life is reduced to mathematics it loses charm, it loses charisma, it loses mystery. And suddenly everything seems to be worthless. Mystery is needed; it is subtle nourishment for growth.

I have heard two mathematicians talking. One said to another, ‘Is there any meaning in life? Is there any worth? Is there any purpose?’

The other said, ‘But what else can you do with it?’

The first asked, ‘Is there any meaning to live for in life?’ and the other says, ‘What else can you do with it?’ If life has to be lived just as if you are a victim, as if somebody is playing a trick upon you, as if you are being thrown into this torture chamber, into this concentration camp called the earth, then even if you live, you don’t live enough. You slowly commit suicide. You by and by, by and by, go on disappearing. Suicide becomes a constant thought in the mind if life has no mystery.

Then came Anaxagoras, 450 B.C. and his answer is mind. Certainly he took a great leap from water, number, fate; he took a great jump. Anaxagoras is a great milestone in the history of humanity. ‘Mind,’ he says. ‘The whole existence is made up of the stuff called mind.’

Better, but Jesus would not agree, Buddha would not agree. Yes, certainly better than what others were saying, but Zen would not agree. Matter, mind . . . Zen says no-mind. One has to go higher still because mind still carries the duality with matter.

Good, great in a way, a radical step; from object Anaxagoras turns to the subject, from the outer he turns to the inner. He opens the door. He is the first psychologist in the world because he emphasizes mind more than matter. He says matter is also made of mind: he explains the lower with the higher.

You can explain in two ways. Go and see beautiful white lotus flowers in a pond; they come out of the dirty mud. Then there are two possibilities: either you explain the lotus by the dirty mud or you explain the dirty mud by the lotus. And both will lead you in totally different dimensions. If you say that this lotus is nothing but dirty mud because it comes out of it, your life will lose all significance, meaning, beauty. Then you will live in the dirty mud.

That’s what Freud has been doing; that’s what Marx has done. They have great skill in reducing everything to the dirty mud. Buddha attains to enlightenment, ask Freud and he will say it is nothing but sex energy. There is a truth in it, because it arises out of sex, but the sex functions like dirty mud and out of it arises the lotus.

Ask Buddha;. He will say sex is nothing but the beginning of enlightenment, the very first steps of nirvana. That’s how Tantra was born.

These are two ways and you will have to remember that your life will depend more or less on the way you interpret, on the way you choose. You can try to reduce the lotus to dirty mud, it can be done and it is very scientific. It can be done very scientifically because all that this lotus has was in the mud. It can be dissected and everything can be found, and then the mud can be dissected, and whatsoever the lotus has, everything will be found in the mud; nothing special, nothing extra, nothing from the outside has entered into the lotus so it is nothing but the mud. If you are choosing your life with this attitude, your life will be just nothing but mud.

And the person who says that the mud is nothing but potential white lotuses, that the mud is nothing but a waiting to manifest its beauty in lotuses, has a higher standpoint, the standpoint of a religious man. Then the whole life becomes full of splendor, significance, glory. Then wherever you look, you can find God, you can find the white lotus. Then everything is moving towards a peak. Then there is evolution. Then there is future, possibility. Then even the impossible becomes possible.

With the first attitude – the dirty-mud-attitude I call it – even the possible seems to be impossible. But with the second attitude – the lotus-attitude I call it – you can see deeply into mud and you can see hidden lotuses there. And the dirty mud is no more dirty mud, it is just potentiality. Then sex becomes potentiality for samadhi, the body becomes potentiality for the soul, the world becomes the abode of God.

Anaxagoras was one of the greatest revolutionaries, a radical thinker. This word radical is beautiful. It means: pertaining to the roots. He changed the outlook. He said mind. He took a necessary step, but that too was not enough.

Then came Protagoras, 445 B.C. and he said “Man.” Now his standpoint is more total. Mind is a fragment of man. Man is many things more, mind plus. If Anaxagoras is thought to be absolutely true then you will remain in the head; that is what has happened to many people. They have not moved beyond Anaxagoras. They go on living in the head because mind is all. Then mind becomes dictatorial, it goes on a great ego trip. It starts dominating everything and crippling everything. It becomes a destructive force.

No, you are not only mind. You are mind, certainly, but plus. Many more things are there.

A lotus cannot exist alone; the flower cannot exist alone. It will need many more things to exist: the pond, the water, the air, the sun, its connection with the mud, and leaves, and a thousand and one things. So if you think only in terms of the lotus and you forget all connections with the universe, your lotus will be a plastic lotus. It will not be a real lotus, it will not be inter-connected, it will not be rooted in existence.

Protagoras has a more holy attitude, wholistic attitude. Man, and the totality of man – the body, the mind, the soul – becomes truth.

Then came Socrates, 435 B. C. and he said: wisdom, knowing, knowledge. When man attains to maturity, he becomes wise; when man comes to fulfillment, then wisdom arises.

Wisdom is the essence of man, the fragrance of the lotus flower. A still higher attitude.

And then came Jesus who says, “I am the truth.” This one statement is one of the greatest statements ever made in the world. Either it is the greatest truth ever uttered or it is the most egoistic and arrogant statement ever made. “I am the truth.” It depends how you decode it. Ordinarily, when you hear that Jesus says, “I am the truth,” you think this man is a megalomaniac, has gone mad. He is uttering nonsense. This man is truth? Jesus is truth? Then what about us all?

Jesus is not saying that, you have misunderstood him. When he says, “I am truth,” he is not saying, “Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, is the truth.” What he is saying is totally different. He is saying “I am-ness, I am, is the truth,” so wherever there is this “I am-ness” there is truth. When you say “I am” you are uttering truth. Your “I am” and my “I am” are not two things, we both participate there. Your name is different, your form is different, my name is different, my form is different, but when I say “I, I am” and you say “I am” we refer to some common experience, we refer to some common root. Your “I am-ness” and my “I am-ness” are not different, are not separate, they belong to one “I am-ness” of God. When Jesus says “I am the truth” he means wherever this integration is felt of being totally “I am”, there is truth.

Ordinarily you are many I’s – you don’t have any capital I; you have many I’s, lower case. Gurdjieff used to say that we should not use the word I, only God can use it because you don’t have any single I, you have many i’s like a crowd. For one moment one I comes on the top, and becomes the ruler; in another moment it is gone and another I comes over and rules.

You can watch it. It is so simple. One moment you say, “I am happy. I am tremendously happy, at the top of the world” and the next moment you are unhappy, at the lowest bottom of the world, in the seventh hell. Are both these I’s the same? One moment you were flowing and you were compassionate and loving and another moment you were closed and frozen and dead. Are these two I’s the same? One moment you could have forgiven anything and another moment just any small tiny thing and you cannot forgive. Are these two I’s the same? One moment you are sitting in silence, in zazen, meditating, and you look so Buddha-like, and another moment, for a small thing, you are nagging, fighting. You will yourself feel ridiculous later on. For what were you getting so hot? For what were you creating so much fuss? It was not worth it. But another i was ruling over you.

You are like a wheel of many I’s; those I’s are like spokes. The wheel goes on moving, one spoke comes on top; hardly before it has come it starts declining. It goes on changing. Again it will come up and again you will feel a different being existing there within you. Watch. Have you got an I? Any substantial I? Any essential I? Can you say that you have some permanent I in you? A crystalized I in you?

You promise, and next moment you have forgotten your promise. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you have a permanent I, who will promise? You will not be able to fulfil it. Who will fulfil it? You say to a woman, “I love you and I will love you forever and forever.” Wait! What are you uttering? What nonsense! Forever and ever? How can you promise? You don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, you don’t know who is going to rule you tomorrow. Your promises will create trouble for you. You cannot promise because you are not there. Only a man like Gurdjieff or Jesus can promise. Yes, he can promise because he knows that he will remain the same; whatsoever changes in the world will not affect him. He will remain the same, he has come to a crystalized soul. Now he knows that his wheel has stopped. He is in total possession of his being. He can promise.

But ordinarily people go on promising, and you never see the fact that no promise has ever been fulfilled by you. You completely forget about it. You don’t even remember it because that remembrance will be like a wound. You find out ways and means to rationalize: you cannot fulfil it because the other person has changed, you cannot fulfil it because the circumstances have changed, you cannot fulfil it because you were foolish at the time you made it. And again you will make promises.

Man is an animal who goes on promising, never fulfilling any promise because he cannot fulfil it; man as he exists has too many I’s. When Jesus says “I am the truth” he is saying that whosoever attains to “I am-ness” is truth.

And this truth is not something philosophical, this truth is something existential. You cannot come to it by logic, argumentation; you cannot come to it by finding a right premise and then moving to a right syllogism and then reaching to a right conclusion. No, that is not the way. You will have to come to it through an inner discipline. That’s what Zen is all about.

-Osho

From Dang Dang Doko Dang, Discourse #9

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.

Seven Concentric Circles – Osho

Man is a bridge between the known and the unknown. To remain confined in the known is to be a fool. To go in search of the unknown is the beginning of wisdom. To become one with the unknown is to become the awakened one, the Buddha.

Remember, again and again, that man is not yet a being — he is on the way, a traveler, a pilgrim. He is not yet at home, he is in search of the home. One who thinks that he is at home is a fool, because then the search stops, then the seeking is no longer there. And the moment you stop seeking and searching, you become a stagnant pool of energy, you start stinking. Then you only die, then you don’t live at all.

Life is in flowing; life is in remaining a river — because only the river will reach the ocean. If you become a stagnant pool then you are going nowhere. Then you are not really alive. The fool does not live, he only pretends to live. He does not know, he only pretends to know. He does not love, he only pretends to love. The fool is a pretension.

The wise lives, loves, the wise inquires. The wise is ready, always ready, to go into the uncharted sea. The wise is adventurous. The fool is afraid.

When Buddha uses the word ‘fool’ you have to remember all these meanings of the word. It is not the ordinary meaning that Buddha gives to the word ‘fool’. For him, the fool means one who lives in the mind and knows nothing of the no-mind; one who lives in information, knowledge, and has not tasted anything of wisdom; one who lives a borrowed life, imitative, but knows nothing of anything that arises in his own being.

By ‘the fool’ Buddha means one who is well acquainted with the scriptures, but has not tasted a single moment of truth. He may be a great scholar, very learned — in fact, fools are scholars; they have to be because that is the only way to hide their foolishness. Fools are very learned people; they have to be, because it is only through learning words, theories, philosophies, that they can hide their inner ignorance, that they can hide their emptiness, that they can believe that they also know.

If you want to find the fools, go to the universities, go to the academies. There you will find them—in their utter ignorance, but pretending to know. They certainly know what others have said, but that is not real knowing. A blind man can collect all the information there is about light, but he will still remain blind. He can talk about light, he can write treatises on light; he may be very clever in guessing, in fabricating theories, but still he remains a blind man and he knows nothing of light. But the information that he collects may not only deceive others, it may deceive himself too. He may start thinking that he knows, that he is no longer blind.

When Buddha uses the word ‘fool’ he does not mean simply the ignorant, because if the ignorant person is aware that he is ignorant, he is not a fool. And it is more possible for the ignorant person to be aware that he is ignorant than it is for the so-called learned people. Their egos are so puffed up; it is very difficult for them to see — it goes against their investment. They have devoted their whole lives to knowledge, and now, to recognize the fact that all this knowledge is meaningless, futile, because they have not tasted truth themselves, is difficult, is hard.

The ignorant person can remember that he is ignorant — he has nothing to lose; but the learned, he cannot recognize that he is ignorant — he has much to lose. The knowledgeable person is the real fool. The ignorant person is innocent; he knows that he knows not, and because he knows that he knows not, because he is ignorant, he is just on the threshold of wisdom. Because he knows he knows not, he can inquire, and his inquiry will be pure, unprejudiced. He will inquire without any conclusions. He will inquire without being a Christian or a Mohammedan or a Hindu. He will simply inquire as an inquirer. His inquiry will not come out of ready-made answers, his inquiry will come out of his own heart. His inquiry will not be a by-product of knowledge, his inquiry will be existential. He inquires because it is a question of life and death to him. He inquires because he really wants to know. He knows that he knows not — that’s why he inquires. His inquiry has a beauty of its own. He is not a fool, he is simply ignorant. The real fool is one who thinks he knows without knowing at all.

Socrates was trying to do the same thing in Athens: he was trying to make these learned fools aware that all their learning was false, that they were really fools, pretenders, hypocrites. Naturally, all the professors and all the philosophers and all the so-called thinkers . . . and Athens was full of them. Athens was the capital of knowledge in those days. Just as today people look towards Oxford or Cambridge, people used to look towards Athens. It was full of the learned fools, and Socrates was trying to bring them down to the earth, was shattering their knowledge, was raising such questions — simple in a way, but difficult to be answered by those who have only acquired knowledge from others.

Athens became very angry with Socrates. They poisoned this man. Socrates is one of the greatest men who has ever walked on the earth; and what he did very few people have done. His method is a basic method. The Socratic method of inquiry is such that it exposes the fools as fools. To expose a fool as a fool is dangerous, of course, because he will take revenge. Socrates was poisoned, Jesus was crucified, Buddha was condemned.

The day Buddha died, Buddhism was thrown out of the country, expelled from the country. The scholars, the pundits, the brahmins, could not allow it to remain. It was too uncomfortable for them. Its basic attack was on the brahmins, the learned fools, and naturally they were offended. They could not face Buddha, they could not encounter him. They waited for their opportunity in a cunning way: when Buddha died, then they started fighting the followers. When the light was gone, then it was the time for the owls, the learned fools, to reign over the country again. And since that time they have reigned even up to now — they are still in power. The same fools!

The world has suffered much. Man could have become the glory of the earth, but because of these fools… and because they are powerful they can harm, and because they are powerful they can destroy any possibility, any opportunity for man to evolve. Man has been moving in circles, and these fools would not like man to become wise, because if man becomes wise these fools will be nowhere. They won’t be in power anymore — religiously, politically, socially, financially, all their power will be gone. They can remain in power only if they can go on destroying all possibilities of wisdom for man.

My effort here is to create a Socratic inquiry again, to ask again the fundamental questions that Buddha raised.

In the new commune we are going to have seven concentric circles of people. The first, the most superficial circle, will consist of those who come only out of childish curiosity, or out of already accumulated prejudices, who are, deep down, antagonistic — the journalists, etcetera.

They will be allowed only to see the superficial part of the commune – not that anything will be hidden, but just because of their approach they will not be able to see anything more than the most superficial. They will see only the garments. Here also the same goes on happening. They come and they see only the superficial.

Just the other day I was reading a journalist’s report; he was here for five days. He writes, “for five days,” as if it is a very long time to be here; five days, as if he has been here for five lives! Because he has been here for five days he has become an authority. Now he knows what is happening here because he has watched people meditating. How can you watch people meditating? Either you can meditate or not, but you cannot watch people meditating. Yes, you can watch people’s physical gestures, movements, dance, or their sitting silently under a tree, but you cannot see meditation! You can see the physical posture of the meditator, but you cannot see his inner experience. For that, you have to meditate, you have to become a participant.

And the basic condition for being a participant is that you should drop this idea of being a watcher. Even if you participate, if you dance with the meditators, with this idea that you are participating only to watch what happens, then nothing will happen. And, of course, you will go with the conclusion that it is all nonsense — nothing happens. And you will feel perfectly right inside yourself that nothing happens, because you even participated and nothing happened.

That man writes that he was in darshan and much was happening to sannyasins – so much was happening that after a deep energy contact with me they were not even able to walk back to their places — they had to be carried away. And then he mentions, “But nothing happened to me.” That is enough proof that all that was happening was either hypnosis, or people were pretending just because the journalist was there, or it was just an arranged show, something managed — because nothing was happening to him.

There are things which can happen only when you are available, open, unprejudiced.

There are things which can happen only when you put aside your mind.

The journalist writes again, “The people who go there, they leave their minds where they leave their shoes — but I could not do that. Of course,” he says, “if I had left my mind behind, then I would have also been impressed.” But he thinks the mind that he has is something so valuable — how can he leave it behind? He feels himself very clever because he didn’t leave his mind behind.

Mind is the barrier, not the bridge. In the new commune, the first concentric circle will be for those who come like journalists — prejudiced people, who already know that they know. In short, for the fools.

The second concentric circle will be for those who are inquirers — unprejudiced, neither Hindus nor Mohammedans nor Christians, who come without any conclusion, who come with an open mind. They will be able to see a little deeper. Something of the mysterious will stir their hearts. They will cross the barrier of the mind. They will become aware that something of immense importance is happening — what exactly it is they will not be able to figure out immediately, but they will become aware vaguely that something of value IS happening. They may not be courageous enough to participate in it; their inquiry may be more intellectual than existential, they may not be able to become part, but they will become aware — of course, in a very vague and confused way, but certainly aware — that something more is going on than is apparent.

The third circle will be for those who are sympathetic, who are in deep sympathy, who are ready to move with the commune a little bit, who are ready to dance and sing and participate, who are not only inquirers but are ready to change themselves if the inquiry requires it. They will become aware more clearly of deeper realms.

And the fourth will be the empathic. Sympathy means one is friendly, one is not antagonistic. Empathy means one is not only friendly; one feels a kind of unity, oneness. Empathy means one feels with the commune, with the people, with what is happening. One meets, merges, melts, becomes one.

The fifth circle will be of the initiates, the sannyasins – one who is not only feeling in his heart but who is ready to be committed, to be involved. One who is ready to risk. One who is ready to commit, because he feels a great, mad love — mad, mad love — arising in him. The sannyasin, the initiate.

And the sixth will be of those who have started arriving — the adepts. Those whose journey is coming closer to the end, who are no longer sannyasins only but are becoming siddhas, whose journey is coming to a full stop, is getting closer and closer to the conclusion. The home is not far away, a few steps more. In a way, they have already arrived.

And the seventh circle will consist of arhatas and boshisattvas. The arhatas are those sannyasins who have arrived but are not interested in helping others to arrive. Buddhism has a special name for them: arhata – the lonely traveler who arrives and then disappears into the ultimate. And the bodhisattvas are those who have arrived but they feel a great compassion for those who have not yet arrived. The bodhisattva is an arhata with compassion. He holds on, goes on looking back and goes on calling forth those who are still stumbling in darkness. He is a helper, a servant of humanity.

There are two types of people. The one who is at ease only when he is alone; he feels a little uncomfortable in relationship, he feels a little disturbed, distracted, in relationship. That type of person becomes an arhata. When he has arrived, he is finished with everything. Now he does not look back.

The bodhisattva is the second type of person: one who feels at ease in relationship, in fact far more comfortable when he is relating than when he is alone. He leans more towards love. The arhata leans more towards meditation. The path of the arhata is of pure meditation, and the path of the bodhisattva is that of pure love. The pure love contains meditation, and the pure meditation contains love – but the pure meditation contains love only as a flavor, a perfume; it is not the central force in it. And the pure love contains meditation as a perfume; it is not the center of it.

These two types exist in the world. The second type – the follower on the path of love – becomes a bodhisattva. The seventh circle will consist of arhatas and bodhisattvas.

Now, the seventh circle will be aware of all the six other circles, and the sixth circle will be aware of the other five circles – the higher will be aware of the lower, but the lower will not be aware of the higher. The first circle will not be aware of anything other than the first circle. He will see the buildings and the hotel and the swimming pool and the shopping center and weaving and pottery and carpentry. He will see the trees, the whole landscape . . . he will see all these things. He will see thousands of sannyasins, and he will shrug his shoulders: “What are these people doing here?” He will be a little puzzled, because he was not thinking that so many mad people can be found in one place: “All are hypnotized!” He will find explanations. He will go perfectly satisfied that he has known the commune. He will not be aware of the higher – the lower cannot be aware of the higher. That is one of the fundamental laws of life – Aes dhammo sanantano – only the higher knows the lower, because he has passed from the lower.

When you are standing on the sunlit mountain peak, you know everything down in the valley. The valley people may not be aware of you at all, it is not possible for them. The valley has its own occupations, its own problems. The valley is preoccupied with its own darkness.

The fool can come to a master but will remain unbenefited because he will see only the outer. He will not be able to see the essential, he will not be able to see the core. The fool comes here too, but he listens only to the words and he goes on interpreting those words according to his own ideas. He goes perfectly satisfied that he knows what is happening.

There are many fools who don’t come here – they don’t feel the need. They simply depend on other fools’ reports. That’s enough. Just one fool can convince thousands of fools, because their language is the same, their prejudices are the same, their conceptions are the same . . . there is no problem! One fool has seen, and all the other fools are convinced. One fool reports in the newspaper and all the other fools read it early in the morning, and are convinced.

-Osho

From The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, V.2, Discourse #7

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.

Rebel Against Personality – Osho

Does the being, or self, in the person die with the death of the person; or does it live beyond death in another body?

The question is a little complicated.

First you have to understand that your personality is not your reality; it is given by the culture, by the society.

Individuality is yours, but personality is not yours.

As personality you are always dead; only as individuality are you alive. But to be an individual you have to rebel against personality and against all those people who are forcing a certain personality on you.

Each child is born with a certain potential to be – and each society tries to make him something else.

I have heard about a man who was celebrating the golden jubilee of his marriage. All his friends, relatives, acquaintances, had gathered. There was much joy, laughter. But suddenly they realized that the man was missing. They could not understand where he had gone. They looked in the garden and he was sitting in the shadows, in darkness, by the side of a tree, very sad.

His friends said, “This is strange. You have called all of us to celebrate, and you are sitting here in such sadness as if somebody has died! What is the problem?”

He said, “The problem is… This woman that I married has tortured me so much that twenty-five years ago I enquired of my attorney, ‘If I shoot her what will be the result?’ and he said, ‘Are you mad? If you shoot her you will get twenty-five years in jail!’ I am feeling sad because today I would have been free. That idiot attorney has died; otherwise I would have killed him! He made me afraid.”

A man has to live with a woman he does not love, which is simply misery. A woman has to live with a man… which is simply misery, hell. A man has to work in a certain profession he hates. Everybody becomes something that he does not like. This is your personality. Society distracts everybody from his natural individuality and makes him something other than he was destined to be.

So the first thing to be understood is that you are not a person, you are not a personality. The word ‘person’ comes from Greek drama. In Greek drama the actors used masks, and the mask… you could not see the person’s real face; you could only hear his sound. Sona means sound. Persona means you don’t know who is speaking; you just hear the sound, the face is missing. The word ‘personality’ comes from that Greek drama.

Everybody is wearing a mask. You can hear the sound but you can’t see the face; you can’t see the individual. So the first thing: you are not a ‘person’. If you are a person, you are already dead. If you are only a personality, you have dragged yourself from the cradle to the grave but you never lived. You live only when you are an individuality – when you assert yourself against every tradition, every religion, every past that wants you to be someone other than existence wants you to be. Then you live.

Again I am reminded: a great surgeon I used to know – perhaps he was the most famous surgeon in India – was retiring, and all his friends, his colleagues, had given him a party, a farewell party, but he was very sad. I asked him, “Why are you sad? You should be happy: you are the topmost surgeon in the whole country.”

He said, “You don’t understand. I never wanted to become a surgeon in the first place, so who cares that I am the topmost surgeon? I hate to hear that! I wanted to become a musician, but my parents forced me to become a surgeon – against my will I became a surgeon. By chance I became the topmost surgeon; perhaps I would not have been able to become the topmost musician. I am rich, I have everything, I have respectability, but that does not help me to be happy.

“Even if I had remained a beggar, as a musician I would have been blissful because I would have been myself. This surgeon seems to be somebody else; it is a role that I have played, but it is not me. These people are celebrating, and I am crying within myself that my whole life is lost.”

So first, you are not a ‘person’; otherwise you are dead before death. And there are millions of people who die thirty, forty, or fifty years before they actually die. You are an individual, and only individuality is capable of knowing your real self. Personality has no self – only an ego, as false as personality. Individuality has a self, a soul. The individual is a living principle of life.

If you know life you will never ask this kind of question. Knowing life authentically means you also know that it is immortal. The knowledge of its immortality is intrinsic. It is not something informed, from outside. Just living your true being in totality you slowly, slowly become aware of the immortal current of life within you. You know the body will die, but this soul, which is life’s whole essence, cannot die.

In existence nothing is destructible.

And it is not something to believe in, it is a scientific truth that you cannot destroy anything. You cannot destroy even a small piece of stone. Whatever you do it will remain in some form or other.

Science enquires into the objective world and finds that even objective reality is immortal. Religion works exactly like science in the inner world and finds the dancing life is intrinsically immortal.

It will be good to remember Socrates at this point because he was not a man to believe anything. If you had asked him whether your soul would survive after bodily death he would say, “Let me first die – because unless I die, how can I say?” And the day he was given poison is one of the most significant days in the history of man. His disciples were sitting around him and he was lying down. He told his disciples, “I will tell you what is happening. As long as I can, I will go on informing you.”

Then he said, “Up to my knees, my legs are dead. Please somebody pinch my legs so I can know whether I can feel it or not.” Somebody pinched his legs. He said, “I cannot feel it; the legs have died. But remember one thing: I am as alive as I ever was. The death of the legs has not cut a part of my life; my life is as whole as it ever was.” Then all of the legs became dead, half of the body. And he said, “Half of my body is dead, but I am whole, as whole as ever.”

Then his hands became dead and he said, “I am still here and I am still whole. Perhaps now my heart will stop, but I can say to you that even though I may not be able to inform you, I will remain, because if all these parts are gone and I am whole, then it doesn’t matter: the heart is only a part.”

And when he died his face was so delighted, so joyous, that Plato, his disciple, remembers, “We have never seen his face so full of light, so radiant. Perhaps the last moment when the soul is leaving the body is just like the sunset when the sun is going down and the whole sky becomes so beautiful and radiant.”

It is not a question of belief. I am not a believer in anything, so I will not say to you to believe me that the soul is immortal. But it is my experience that it is immortal because I can remember my past lives, and that is a solid proof that there are going to be future lives. I can teach you techniques for remembering past lives and that will become a solid proof for you that you have a future. You have an eternity of past and an eternity of future.

You have always been here and you will always be here.

But first drop your fake personality.

Grow into your authentic individuality.

Live the way existence wanted you to live. Your very life should be so intense and so total that you burn your life’s torch from both ends. In that very intensity you will know that you have touched something of eternity. And if you have known it in your life, in your death you will find a deeper confirmation of the fact.

People who live in personality always die unconscious. They have never lived. They don’t know what consciousness is, so before death they become unconscious. That’s why we don’t remember our past lives. You were unconscious, and death happened in your unconsciousness.

But if you live consciously, as an individual, then you will die consciously, the way Socrates is dying – so conscious to the last breath. And this memory will be with you in the next life too.

In the East there are three great religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism. They disagree on every point – their philosophies are different about everything – but on one point they agree, and that is the eternal existence of the soul, because it is not a question of theoretical discussion, it is a question of existential experience. You can’t disagree about it – it is exactly so.

Against these three religions in the East, outside of India there are three religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. They all believe in one life, and that simply shows their poverty. They have not explored deeply enough to find past lives, and they cannot guarantee anything about the future. These three religions born outside India are superficial. Their work is not in-depth research.

But in India for ten thousand years thousands of people have entered into self-realization and have found that there is some light that remains forever. It goes on moving from one body to another body but is indestructible.

I will not tell you to believe it; I will only tell you to experiment. I am against all beliefs, because every belief destroys you, destroys your thinking. I am in favor of experimenting, and there are techniques available.

That has been my whole life’s work – to make those techniques available to anybody who really wants to search and to find, to one who is not only a curious person but is a seeker who is ready to risk everything for the search. And it is a search for which you need to risk everything because you are going to find the greatest treasure.

-Osho

From The Path of the Mystic, Discourse #1

 

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.

 

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