Osho,
I hear you saying that we are all leaves on the same tree, and that enlightenment is only possible when we really come together. On the other hand, I hear you saying that only the single individual can fulfill his being in deep aloneness.

I feel both of these are right, but still I have no real understanding of it. Please comment.
Both are right, but they appear to be contradictory; hence the confusion. On the one hand I am saying that when you are one with existence you come to realization – and to be one with existence means you disappear, you are no more. And on the other hand I am telling you to be yourself, to be authentically your original face; only then can you experience realization.
I can see your dilemma. You feel that they are both right – that is significant to remember, that you feel that they are both right – but your mind is not convinced, your thinking is not convinced. Your thinking creates questions: “How can they both be right?”
Mind functions in an either–or way. Either this can be right or its opposite can be right. Both together cannot be right as far as mind, its logic, its rationality is concerned.
If mind is either–or then the heart is both–and. The heart has no logic, but sensitivity, perceptivity. It can see that not only can they both be together, in fact they are not two – it is just one phenomenon seen from two different aspects. And there is much more than the two; that’s why I say both–and.
And, if there is a question of choosing between the mind and the heart, the heart is always right – because mind is a creation of the society. It has been educated. It has been given to you by the society, not by existence. The heart is unpolluted, it is pure existence. Hence it has sensitivity.
Look from the viewpoint of the heart, and the contradiction starts melting like ice. I say to you, “Be one with the universe; you have to disappear and let existence be. You just have to be absent so that existence can be present in its totality.” But the person who has to disappear is not your reality, it is only your personality; it is just an idea in you. In reality you are already one with existence; you cannot exist in any other way. You are existence. But the personality creates a deception and makes you feel separate.
You can assume yourself to be separate – existence gives you total freedom, even against itself. You can think of yourself as a separate entity, an ego. And that is the barrier that is holding you back from melting into the vastness that surrounds you every moment – it has no closed doors, all its doors are open. Sometimes you do feel a certain door open – but only for a fragment of a moment; your personality cannot afford more. Those moments you call moments of beauty, moments of ecstasy.
Looking at a sunset, just for a second you forget your separateness. You are the sunset. That is the moment when you feel the beauty of it. But the moment you say “It is a beautiful sunset,” you are no longer feeling it; you have come back to your separate, enclosed entity of the ego. Now the mind is speaking.
This is one of the mysteries, that the mind can speak – and knows nothing; and the heart knows everything – and cannot speak. Perhaps to know too much makes it difficult to speak. The mind knows so little, it is possible for it to speak. Language is enough for it, but is not enough for the heart.
But sometimes, under the impact of a certain moment – a starry night, a sunrise, a beautiful flower – just for a moment you forget that you are separate. And even forgetting it releases tremendous beauty and ecstasy.
When I say you have to disappear for the realization of the ultimate, I do not mean you; I mean the you that you are not. I mean the you that you think you are.
With the second statement, that only in feeling one with existence, totally dissolved in it, do you realize yourself, you realize truth, there is no contradiction for the heart, because this “you” that you realize when you are one with existence is not the old you. That was your personality, and this is your individuality. That was given by the society, and this is nature, reality, a gift of existence. You can forget it, but you cannot destroy it.
The other you, the false you, you can create, but you cannot make it real. It will remain a shadow, a painted face. It will never become your original face.

When I was a professor in the university, in the professors’ campus there used to be a small street. There were very few bungalows and those were the best bungalows – for the deans, and the vice-chancellor, and the heads of the departments. So very silent, empty, no traffic. And the street was not long. It went just half a mile and then there was an end, a dead end, and a deep valley.
Whenever there was rain… I loved to walk in the rain. The last house saw it happening again and again, that whenever it rained, I was certain to appear on the street. And that was the last house; then there was the valley.
They thought I must be mad – without an umbrella, soaked with water, with a beard, long hair, and walking so slowly and at ease, as if there the rain was no problem. And then I used to stand by the side of a big bodhi tree, just at the very end of the street.
The bodhi tree has many beauties. One of the beauties is that its leaves are such that when it is raining you can stand underneath it and save yourself from the rains: the leaves prevent the water from reaching to you. And it has very thick foliage, so the water goes on gathering on the leaves. The leaves are like cups, so they hold much.
If you are suddenly caught in the rain and don’t want to spoil your clothes, the bodhi tree protects you longer than any other tree. But the other beauty – which was more important for me – is that when the rain has stopped, then under the bodhi tree, rain starts! – because how long can it contain all that water? Sooner or later it becomes weightier, and leaves start… So when the whole world is silent, under the bodhi tree it is raining.
I used to go to the end of the street and rest under the bodhi tree. That was another madness to the people of the house. Only in the beginning few minutes of rain can the bodhi tree protect you; after that is dangerous, the most dangerous. The rain has stopped, but it will not stop under the bodhi tree for at least one hour.
The children of the house, the wife, daughters, sons would all gather in the verandah and look at me. And it became an absolute thing to them, that both things happened together – rain and my coming to their house.
The house was given to one of the most important physicists, the head of the physics department and he was very interested in me because once in a while I was making statements which were bringing physics and mysticism closer than ever. Perhaps the same statement can be made by the physicist as is being made by the mystics.
He was a very humble man. He had been teaching all over the world in different universities. Whenever I was giving a lecture in the students’ union – which was once or twice a week, almost every week – he would certainly come. Many other professors used to come, but he was absolutely regular. We became friends.
He was very old. He had worked with Albert Einstein, and after Albert Einstein’s death he went to America in his place – because he was his closest colleague, and nobody could have taken that place except him.
We became such great friends that he said, “Sometime I would like you to come to my house; I would like to introduce you to my wife and my children.” I had no idea that those were the people who knew me already, and I knew them already.
When I reached their house they all started giggling, and he was very angry. He said, “I have brought a friend. Accepted he is very young and I am very old, and the friendship looks strange, but our conceptions about reality are very close, and you should not behave like this – you have never behaved like this.”
But the wife said, “You don’t know this man.”
I said to him, “She is right, we have been well-acquainted for almost two years.”
He said, “What! You are acquainted with my wife and children?”
I said, “Not actually, but a sort of acquaintance is there.” Then I told him, “I come here on this street when it is raining; I love rain, and these people love to see me – a madman. And don’t think they are unmannerly: you are introducing me and they are laughing and giggling, even your wife cannot contain herself.”
This physicist had met a sannyasin in America, and had sent me a message: “The last person I want to see is you, and I am coming back to India as soon as possible just to see you. The reason is that I feel you are perfectly right, that the way of the heart in seeing things is far closer to reality than the way of the mind.”
But before he could come to India, he died. I feel that I must have been in his thoughts when he died.

We are one as far as our reality is concerned. We look separate as far as our fabricated egos are concerned.
So when I say dissolve your “you,” I mean your own creation, or the creation of the society in you, and just feel the silence of the moment when you are not. Then you will feel far more in tune with clouds and the ocean and the mountains.
The day you drop it completely is the greatest day in your life, because this brings you the whole universe. You lose nothing – you lose only a false idea – and you attain everything: the whole universe, the infinite universe with all its beauties, with all its treasures.
But before you can drop the false I, you have to find your real I; otherwise dropping the false I you will feel you are becoming empty.
That’s why I say become an individual, be yourself. That simply means that feeling your reality you will be, without any trouble, capable of dropping the false. In fact the false will drop itself. As the real comes in, the false goes out. And the real is from one standpoint, individual – individual against personality.
The personality was just hodgepodge; something was put by your mother, something by your father, something by your neighbors, friends, wife, teachers, priests, leaders… It was a patchwork, it was not indivisible. It was almost falling apart – any moment, a small accident and it will fall apart. It had no soul connecting all its parts. It had no wholeness, it was only parts.
Against personality I use the word individuality in the meaning of indivisibility. Individual means indivisible: you cannot divide it, there are no parts – it cannot fall apart. It is solid rock, it is one piece, seen in comparison with personality. But that is only one aspect.
Seen from the universal, you are no longer individual either. Even that much demarcation disappears. You are the whole. The winds, the trees, the moon are not separated anywhere; neither are you. You are breathing every moment. Existence is not separate from you, even when you think you are separate.
When you know that you are not separate, it is a tremendous realization. Then all fear of losing your face, all fear of losing your personality – which is always slipping – disappears. You have come to the origins. You have come to the eternal, to the universal. This is what I call enlightenment. You have become full of light and clarity. Now you live the whole mystery of existence. Seeing a roseflower, you become it. You don’t see it from outside; you feel it from its innermost being. Its petals are yours, its perfume is yours. You are not an observer – you are it.
Krishnamurti used to say again and again, his whole life he was saying it… I don’t think the people who were listening were really listening to him. This is his most repeated observation: that the observed becomes the observer, or the observer becomes the observed.
You don’t see a sunset from far away; you are in it, you are part of all those beautiful colors. And to live existence in such deep empathy is the richest experience man is capable of.
Trust your feeling. Never trust your mind – your mind is the Judas.

Osho,
The more I move into meditation, the more I feel responsible for myself and for the situation in the whole world. How is that possible?
It is the same thing – it is the same question.
The more you become yourself, the more you will feel responsible for the world because you are becoming more a part of the world – you are not separate from it. Your being authentically yourself means a tremendous responsibility, but it is not a burden. It is a rejoicing that you can do something for existence.
Existence has done so much for you, there is no way to pay it back. But we can do something. It will be very small compared to what existence has done for us, but it will show our gratitude. It is not a question of whether it is big or small; the question is that it is our prayerfulness, our gratitude, and our totality is involved in it.
Yes, it will happen: the more you become yourself, the more you will start feeling responsibilities which you had never felt before.
I am reminded of the life of Mahavira, the most important Jaina philosopher:

He is going from one village to another village with his close disciple, Goshalak, and this is the question they are discussing. Mahavira is insisting, “Your responsibility toward existence shows how much you have attained to your authentic reality. We cannot see your authentic reality, but we can see your responsibility.”
As they are walking, they come across a small plant. Goshalak is a logician – he pulls the plant and throws it away. It was a small plant with small roots.
Mahavira said, “This is irresponsibility. But you cannot do anything against existence. You can try, but it is going to backfire.”
Goshalak said, “What can existence do to me? I have pulled up this plant; now existence cannot bring it to life again.”
Mahavira laughed. They went into the town, they were going to beg for their food. After taking food, they were coming back, and they were surprised: the plant was rooted again. While they were in the town it had started raining, and the roots of the plant, finding the support of the rain, went back into the soil. They were small roots, it was windy, and the wind helped the plant to stand up again.
By the time they had come back the plant was back to its normal position. Mahavira said, “Look at the plant. I told you, you cannot do anything against existence. You can try, but that will turn against you, because that will go on separating you from existence. It will not bring you closer.
“Just see that plant. Nobody could have imagined that this will happen, that the rain and the wind together will manage for the small plant to be back, rooted into the earth. It is going to live its life.
“It seems to us a small plant, but it is part of a vast universe, a vast existence, of the greatest power there is.” And Mahavira said to Goshalak, “From this point our paths separate. I cannot allow a man to live with me who is against existence and feels no responsibility.”

Mahavira’s whole philosophy of nonviolence can be better expressed as the philosophy of reverence for existence. Nonviolence is simply a part of it.
It will go on happening: the more you will find yourself, the more you will find yourself responsible for many things you have never cared about. Let that be a criterion: the more you find yourself responsible for people, things, existence, the more you can be at ease that you are on the right track.

One of my professors, Dr Ras Biharidas – he was a very old man – had lived his life alone, because he was so contented, and so joyous in himself that he never needed anybody else. He was the head of the department, so he had a big bungalow – living alone in it. And as we became acquainted with each other, he became very loving toward me, like a father.
He said, “There is no need for you to live in the hostel, you can come and live with me. I have lived all alone in my life.” He used to play sitar – perhaps better than anybody else I have heard, and I have heard all the best sitarists. But he never played it to entertain people; he just played out of his joy.
And his timing was such that nobody would have ever thought… Every day, at three o’clock in the morning he would play his sitar. For seventy years he had been playing. The difficulty arose the first day, because I used to read up to three, and then I would go to bed – and that was the time for him to wake up.
This was a disturbance for both of us, because I loved to read things that I liked, not silently but loudly. When you are just reading with your eyes there is only a partial connection. But when you read poetry loudly you are involved in it; for a moment, you become the poet. You forget it is somebody else’s poetry; it starts becoming part of your blood and bones and marrow.
Naturally it was difficult for him to sleep. And when I would go to sleep at three it was difficult for me to sleep. Just by my side, in the next room, he was playing his electric instruments – the guitar, sitar, and other instruments. In two days we were both tired.
He said to me, “Live in this house – I am leaving!”
I said, “You need not leave. And where would you go? I have at least a place in the hostel. I will leave.”
But he said, “I cannot say to you to leave. I love you, I love your presence here. But our habits are dangerous to each other. I have never interfered with anybody; there has never been anybody with me to interfere with. And I know you; you will not interfere with me. But this will kill both of us! You will not say, ‘Change your time.’ I will not say, ‘Change your time.’ I cannot say that you should leave the house; that’s why I said that I am leaving – you live in the house.”
I persuaded him, “I cannot live in the house. Once you leave the house, the university cannot allow me to live in this house – this house is meant for you. I have to go to my hostel.” With tears in his eyes he came to lead me to the hostel.
I remembered him at this point because I have never seen anybody else in my life who was so responsive, so sensitive. Even if by mistake he had hit the chair, he will apologize to the chair. I told him, “Dr Biharidas, this is going too far!”
He said, “That’s how I feel. I have hit the poor chair. She cannot speak; otherwise she would have been angry. And she is part of this whole cosmos, and she has served me, and I have not been friendly toward her; I have hit her. I have to apologize.”
People in the university thought that he was mad. A man who asks forgiveness from a chair, in this world cannot be thought to be sane. I have watched him closely; he was one of the sanest persons. His responsibility was tremendous.
He could not say to me… It was his house. He could have said to me, “You can read silently,” or “You can read at some other time,” or “You can read while I am playing my instrument.” But that he would not do. It would have been easy – that’s what everybody else is doing in the world. But his sensitivity and deep respect for the other person, even his reverence for things, was impeccable.
People have looked at his behavior and have thought, “He is not in the right state of mind.” But nobody bothered to think that the right state of mind makes people responsible, so responsible that they start looking mad to others.

For example, Mahavira slept only on one side his whole life. He would not change his side in the night. Asked why, he said – because he was living naked, having nothing, lying down on the bare floor – if he changes his side, some ant, some small insects may be crushed by his turning, and he will not do such a thing. His responsibility toward very small things simply shows his integrity with existence.
His way of begging will explain to you what I mean. Nowhere else in the world has anybody done such a thing – so much trust for existence! In the morning, after his meditations, he would visualize in what condition he was going to accept today’s food. And sometimes it happened that thirty days would pass and he would not be able to receive food because what he has visualized, a particular condition, was not fulfilled. Strange things…
For example, he thinks that he will accept food if a woman at the house where he stands begging comes out of the house with her baby still sucking milk from her breast. Only then will he accept food from that woman; otherwise that day is gone. Then next day he will try again.
His people persistently said to him, “This is strange! There have been great ascetics… You can fast as much as you want, that is another thing.”
He said, “This is not a question of fasting. I am leaving it to existence, and I am making a condition so that I can know if existence wants me to eat today or not. It is between me and existence. If the condition is not fulfilled, that simply means existence wants me to fast. It is not my fast, it is simply that existence does not want me to eat today, and the wisdom of the whole is bigger.”
Sometimes such strange conditions were fulfilled that nobody could have imagined that it would be possible. For example, one of the conditions that was fulfilled…
After thirteen days remaining hungry, fasting, he continued: unless that condition was fulfilled he would not change the condition. He would change it only when it is fulfilled; then he would add the second condition.
The condition was that a princess – no ordinary woman, but a great princess – chains on her legs, handcuffed… If she offers food to him, he will accept. Now, this is asking something absurd. In the first place, if she is a princess, why should she be handcuffed, with chains on her feet? And if she is handcuffed and with chains on her feet, she will be in jail! She may be a princess, but she will not be able to offer food.
But it happened that one of the kings got very angry with his daughter – her name was Chandana – and out of anger he ordered that she should be handcuffed and chained for twenty-four hours. She was not put in jail, but she was free in the home.
When Mahavira came… And that was the argument that created the whole problem: she wanted to offer food to Mahavira. She loved the man, she loved his way of thinking, and her father was absolutely against it. That’s why she was handcuffed and chained – she would not be able to go out of the house in that way because it would be so embarrassing. When Mahavira came, he came with thousands of his followers.
But she went out with the food, and those thousands of followers could not believe their eyes. Because that very day, after thirteen days, they had insisted, “Mahavira, we would like to know what the condition is. We are not going to tell anybody; we just want to see whether there is any meaning in your conditions. Is existence compassionate enough, is existence caring enough? Does it bother about you? Just for once, we want to know what your condition is.”
He said, “This is my condition…”
They said, “My God, this may never be fulfilled!”
Mahavira said, “That simply means existence does not need me. I have no complaint; perhaps my work is completed and I am unnecessarily being a burden.” But the condition was fulfilled.

Such trust in existence, such unwavering trust, comes when you start taking responsibilities. As you feel more responsible toward small things around you, existence goes on responding in a thousand-fold way. You are not a loser.

Osho,
Can a chain-smoker become meditative? I have smoked for twenty-five years, and I feel that in smoking I stop going deeply into meditation. Still, I can't stop smoking. Can you tell me something about it?
A meditator cannot smoke, for the simple reason that he never feels nervous, in anxiety, in tension.
Smoking helps – on a momentary basis – to forget about your anxieties, your tensions, your nervousness. Other things can do the same; chewing gum can do the same, but smoking does it the best.
In your deep unconscious, smoking is related with sucking milk from your mother’s breast. And as civilization has grown, no woman wants the child to be brought up by breast-feeding – naturally; he will destroy the breast. The breast will lose its roundness, its beauty.
The child has different needs. The child does not need a round breast, because with a round breast the child will die. If the breast is really round, while he is sucking the milk he cannot breathe; his nose will be stopped by the breast. He will get suffocated.
The child’s needs are different from a painter’s need, from a poet’s need, from that of a man of aesthetic sensibility. The child needs a long breast so his nose is free and he can do both – he can breathe and also feed himself. So every child will try to make the breast according to his needs. And no woman wants the breast to be destroyed. It is part of her beauty, her body, her shape.
So as civilization has grown, children are taken away from the breast of the mother sooner and sooner, and the longing to drink from the breast goes on in their minds. And whenever people are in some nervous state, in tension, in anxiety, the cigarette helps. It helps them to become a child again, relaxed in their mother’s lap.
The cigarette is very symbolic; it is just like the nipple of the mother. The smoke that goes through it is warm just like the milk is warm, so it has a certain symmetry. You become engaged in it and for the moment you are reduced to a child who has no anxieties, no problems, no responsibilities.
You say that for thirty years you have been smoking, a chain-smoker; you want to stop it, but you cannot stop it. You cannot because you have to change the causes that have produced it.
I have been successful with many of my sannyasins. First they laughed when I suggested to them: they could not believe that such a simple solution could help them. I said to them, “Don’t try to stop smoking, but rather bring a milk bottle that is used for small children. And in the night when nobody can see you, under your blanket enjoy the milk, the warm milk. It is not going to do any harm at least.”
They said, “But how is it going to help?”
I said, “Forget about how and why, just do it. It will give you good food before you go to sleep and there is no harm. My feeling is that the next day you will not feel so much need for cigarettes. So count.”
They were surprised. Slowly, slowly the cigarettes were disappearing, because their basic need which had remained hanging in the middle was fulfilled: they were no longer children, they were maturing and the cigarette disappeared.
You cannot stop it. You have to do something which is not harmful, which is healthier, as a substitute for the time being, so that you grow up and the cigarettes stop themselves.
Small children know this – I have learned the secret from them. If a child is crying or weeping and is hungry, and the mother is far away, then he will put his thumb in his mouth and start sucking it. He will forget all about hunger and crying and weeping, and will fall asleep. He has found a substitute – although that substitute is not going to give him food, at least it gives a sense that something similar is happening. It relaxes him.
I have even tried a few of my sannyasins with sucking the thumb. If you are too afraid to bring a bottle and fill it with milk, and if your wife comes to know about it or your children see you doing it, then the best way is, go to sleep with your thumb in your mouth. Suck it and enjoy it.
They have always laughed, but they have always come back and said, “It helps, and the number of cigarettes next day is less and it goes on becoming less.” Perhaps it will take a few weeks, then the cigarettes will disappear. Once they have disappeared without your stopping them… Your stopping is repression, and anything repressed will try to come up again with greater force, with vengeance.
Never stop anything. Find the basic cause of it and try to work out some substitute which is not harmful so the basic cause disappears – the cigarette is only a symptom. So the first thing is, stop stopping it. The second thing is, get a good bottle, and don’t be embarrassed. If you are embarrassed, then use your own thumb. Your own thumb will not be that great, but it will help.
I have never seen anybody failing who has used what I am saying. One day, suddenly, he cannot believe that he was unnecessarily destroying his health rather than having pure and clean air, smoking dirty smoke and destroying his lungs.
This is going to become a problem more and more, because as the women’s liberation movement grows, children will not be breast-fed. I am not saying that they should be breast-fed; but they should be given some substitute breast so that their unconscious does not carry some wound that will create problems for them. Chewing gum and cigarettes and cigars are all symptoms. In different countries they are different.
In India they go on chewing pan leaves, or there are many people who use snuff. These are all the same. The snuff looks far away, but it is not that far away. The people who are nervous, tense, in anxiety, will take a dose of snuff. It gives a good sneeze, clears their mind, shakes their whole being, and it feels good.
But those anxieties will come back. The snuff cannot destroy them. You have to destroy the very base of your being nervous. Why should you be nervous?
Many journalists have told me, “One of the greatest difficulties is that we feel nervous with you.” And they have said, “This is strange because we interview politicians – they feel nervous, we make them nervous. You make us nervous, and immediately the desire to smoke arises. Then you prevent us smoking: ‘You cannot smoke here.’ You are allergic.
“You have a great strategy! – we cannot smoke, and you are making us nervous and tense, and this allergy you have which prevents us from smoking… So you have no way out for us.”
But why should they feel nervous before me? Those politicians are powerful people – if they feel nervous before them, it can be understood. But the reality is, those powerful people are just hollow inside and that power is borrowed from others, and they are afraid for their respectability. They have to think twice about each word they have to speak,. They are nervous that these journalists may create a situation in which their influence over people is destroyed. Their image that they have created has to become better and better. That is their fear. Because of that fear, the journalist – any journalist, who has no power – can make them nervous.
To me there is no problem. I have no desire for respectability. I am notorious enough – they cannot make me more notorious. I have done everything that could have made me nervous; I have managed already. What can they do to me? – I don’t have any power to lose and I can say anything that I want because I am not worried about being contradictory, inconsistent. On the contrary, I enjoy being contradictory, inconsistent.
They start feeling nervous, and the nervousness immediately brings the idea to do something, to get engaged, so nobody feels that you are nervous. Just watch: when you start feeling that you need a cigarette, just watch why you need it. There is something that is making you nervous, and you don’t want to be caught.
I am reminded…

One day, in a New York church, as the bishop entered he saw a strange man, a perfect hippy type. But he made the bishop nervous, because that man looked into his eyes and said, “Do you know who I am? I am Lord Jesus Christ.”
The bishop phoned Rome: “What am I supposed to do?” he asked the pope, “a hippy-looking man, but he also looks like Jesus Christ. And I am alone here, early in the morning, and he has come here. I have never been told what we have to do when Jesus Christ comes, so I want instruction, clearly, so I don’t commit any mistake.”
The pope himself was nervous. He said, “Do only one thing: look busy! What else can be done? Meanwhile, give a phone call to the police station. Look busy so that man cannot see your nervousness.”

Cigarettes help you to look busy; your nervousness is covered by it. So don’t try to stop it; otherwise you will feel nervous and then you will fall back to the old pattern. The desire is there because something is left incomplete in you.
Complete it – and there are simple methods to complete it. Just a baby’s milk bottle will do. It will give you good food, it will make you healthier and it will take away all your desire for looking busy!

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