The first question:
Osho,
Will I know when I am ready to face you?
You will face me; knowledge will come later on. Not otherwise – not that knowledge will come first and then you will face me. Knowledge will not precede, reality will precede. Knowledge is a shadow: it follows. Once you start thinking knowledge precedes, you are in a mess.
I will tell you a story…

One evening a monk knocked at the doors of a Zen monastery. He wanted to stay over for the night. He was tired, hungry. The host opened the door, but rather than greeting him with a hello or good evening, he encountered him with a very famous Zen koan. He said: “What is your original face, the face that you had before your father and mother were born?”
The monk took his sandal off from his foot and hit the face of the host hard. The host stepped back, bowed down and said, “Welcome, you are welcome. Your understanding is tremendous.”
Then they had dinner. In the cold night they were sitting by the fireplace chitchatting and the guest asked, “Do you have the answer yourself or not? The koan that you asked me – do you have the answer to it yourself or not?”
The host said, “I am not that fortunate. No, I don’t have the answer. But I recognized it when you gave me the answer because I have read so much about Zen, and heard so much about Zen, I could recognize the immediacy of your answer. You didn’t hesitate for a single moment. You didn’t think it. It came out of your totality. It was not from the head – that much I could recognize.”
The guest didn’t answer. He continued sipping his tea. But then the host became a little suspicious. He looked again at the face of the guest and he found there was something he didn’t like. So he asked again, “Please, tell me: do you really know the answer? Do you have the answer?”
The guest started laughing, and then he starting rolling on the mat in deep mirth. And he said, “No, sir. I have also read so much about Zen and heard so much about Zen.”

If knowledge becomes too much, that becomes the barrier. You can know without knowing. That is the danger of knowledge. You can know, not knowing at all. Deep inside you remain ignorant, but on the surface you know everything that can be known.
You can deceive others, but the greater danger is that someday you may be deceived by yourself, you may deceive yourself. Then all possibility for growth stops.
Never be bothered about knowledge. The whole quest should be for reality, for that which is. You should not be worried about it. That is the difference between theology and religion: theology goes on talking about God; religion talks God, not about. The “about” is the realm of theology. The priests, the preachers go on talking about and about. Religion is not talking about reality. Religion talks reality.
You ask me, “Will I know when I am ready to face you?” You will face me first; then you will know. Knowledge always follows. It is a recognition when the real thing has happened. You will not know God before knowing him. You will know him first and then, as a shadow, knowledge will follow. You will recognize later on what has happened. The happening is first, recognition is later.
Sometimes it may take much time to recognize because the mind is stupid. Sometimes it takes a long time to recognize. It may happen many times in your life: you may have attained a few moments of tremendous reality, authenticity, but you couldn’t recognize them. They are lost in the desert. Before you could recognize them they were gone – and then there were other things, the mind became engaged. You missed.
This is my observation: you cannot find a single human being on the whole of the earth who has not had some moments of reality. In spite of yourself, sometimes the glimpse comes to you because it is not only you who is seeking reality, reality is also seeking you. It is not only that you need God: God is in tremendous need of man. You cannot be without him; he cannot be without you.
You can forget him, but he cannot forget you. You may be standing with your back toward him, but he goes on trying to reach you. Your hands may be very small; his hands are not small. He can reach you wherever you are, even in the seventh hell. And he goes on groping for you, remember this.
That’s why many times – not because of you, in spite of you – a glimpse happens. But you cannot recognize it. Many people have religious experiences, but they cannot recognize them as religious. Sometimes they think they are aesthetic experiences. No true aesthetic experience can be other than religious.
When you see the beautiful face of a man or a woman a child, if you are really struck by the beauty, the experience is not only aesthetic, it is religious because in that moment of beauty, God has looked at you through that face. God has revealed himself to you through that face. Through those eyes, the depth of existence has tried to communicate with the depth of your being. The depth has talked to depth. There has been a dialogue. It is not only aesthetic.
Suddenly, one morning you are light and graceful and you are fresh and unburdened. The past is no longer haunting you and the future has not yet started. You look at the sky, a vast emptiness, and everything stops within you. You also become a vast emptiness. It is not just an aesthetic experience, it is religious. Beauty is truth – and truth is beautiful.
Sometimes you hear music and the mind stops, and the music surrounds you, you are drowned in it and you are no longer there. Just a transparent presence, and the music goes through and through. In that moment, it is not only music that is happening, it is religion. But you don’t recognize it.
Do you think religion happens only in the church, where dead priests go on beating around the bush? In fact, that is the last thing – for religion to happen in the church. It is a graveyard; God is not alive there. A church is full of dead Gods. They were alive sometime, somewhere in the past. They are just histories now.
When Jesus walked on the earth, religious experiences were happening around him. But now Jesus is a dead myth. He is worshipped in a church, preached about, but he is not there.
The church, the temple, is the last place for religion to happen, for God to penetrate you. He comes to you in more alive ways. He comes through the wife, through the child, through the husband, through the friend – sometimes, even through the enemy. Flowers and ocean and sand, and the mountains and the stars and the birds – he comes in a thousand and one ways, but always alive.
He is life. You can forget the name “God.” The word has become very dirty – drop it! Just call him life, that will do; call him existence or being, that will do. If truth seems too harsh, call him love, that will do. If truth has been too monopolized by philosophers, drop it. Love is perfectly beautiful.
Wherever you had any poetic experience, wherever your heart became a small poem – something throbbed within you, something unknown – there is religion. Recognition may take time. Sometimes you may not be able to recognize for lives. And when you do recognize, then you will simply laugh, you will go mad with laughter because then in that recognition many other things that were left unrecognized will be also recognized.

I have heard about a Zen monk – the story is simply unbelievable! He worked hard. His master has given him a koan, a Zen puzzle to work out. The koan was: If one hand claps, what will the sound be? Not two hands clapping with each other – just one hand clapping in emptiness. “What will the sound be? Try to hear it.”
He tried and tried, but he couldn’t hear it. Years passed. He would go to the master, he would always bring something that he had heard, and the master would reject it immediately. Even before he had said anything, the master would say, “No! Don’t bring any stupidity here. Go back! Work hard!”
It is said that twelve years passed and the master never even gave him an appreciative look. He was harsh and the disciple lost heart, he lost his nerve. He escaped from the monastery.
Where could he go? He had no home. The people from his home would not accept him because once you become a monk and you live in a monastery for twelve years, coming back home would be falling down, would not be respectable. The whole town would laugh at him, that he has failed, and his family would feel bad. Better not to go to them.
Then where could he go? He was just standing in a town, an unknown city, not knowing where to go, what to do. A woman looked from the window. The monk was standing there. He was a beautiful man. The woman called him. Not knowing who she was, and even if he had known, now there was no problem.
She was a prostitute. She called him and he went to her. The prostitute fell in love with him. She danced and she played music. And she was a great singer, and a great musician, and a great dancer, and he forgot everything that he has learned for twelve years with his master – the Zen koan and everything. He completely forgot – as if everything had been erased, as if he had never been to the monastery.
He was making love that night to the woman – I have never come across a beautiful story like this – and when he came to the climax, suddenly he heard one hand clapping because in deep love, there comes a moment where two become one, when the two energies meet – yin and yang, man and woman – and the man disappears, and the woman disappears. There is no yin and no yang: a circle, a non-duality.
Suddenly, the koan was solved. He heard the sound of one hand clapping. It is said he jumped out of bed, jumped out of the window.
The woman could not believe it. “What are you doing? Have you gone mad?”
He said, “Let me go to my master first. It has happened!”
He went to the master and, wonder of wonders, the master was waiting outside the temple for the disciple. He said, “So it has happened? This is no time to come and see me. Two o’clock – in the middle of the night!”

The master was waiting for him. Before it happens to the disciple, the master knows. If you are tuned with the master, if you have really surrendered to the master, it will also happen to your master exactly when it happens to you. The master lives many times, many satoris, through his disciples. His own satori is complete: he has arrived, but many times through his disciples, whenever a disciple arrives, he arrives again through him. Again, the same dance.
Life is God, love is God. Remember this much, and don’t be worried about knowledge.
“Will I know when I am ready to face you?” You will face me. You will jump out of bed, you will jump out of the window and you will rush. And you will not know what is happening because that happening is greater than you – how can you know it? It is vaster than you, how can you comprehend it? You are just a drop in it; it is oceanic. But later on, when everything is settled again and you are at home with this ecstasy, with this satori, samadhi, then the mind comes back, starts recognizing, starts thinking.
Recognition is of the mind; the realization is not of the mind. In the deep moment of realization, the mind stops. The phenomenon is such, and so unknown, that the mind cannot function, cannot cope with it. When it has gone, then the mind comes back. Then it starts looking and watching and thinking and brooding and then suddenly a recognition arises: “So it has happened?”
“So it has happened?” The mind cannot believe in it because the mind is a doubter. But it has to believe it. Believe it or not, it has happened.
Recognition will follow realization. You will know when it has happened, but you will not know beforehand, and there is no need. And if you know beforehand, your knowledge will become the barrier. So please don’t be concerned about it.

The second question:
Osho,
How can I serve you?
Just be yourself. There is no other service to me. Just be yourself; that’s how you can serve me. That is how you have already served me – if you are yourself. My whole effort is to help you to be yourself.
If you are centered, rooted, grounded; if you have come to a point where you are not worried about becoming somebody else, where the ambition to become somebody else has dropped – when there is no desire to move into the future, when the present is enough unto itself, when you are deeply contented as you are, when you can thank God, when you can be grateful and there arises no complaint; when your whole heart is simply full with gratitude – you have served me. There is no other way.
Of course it would have been easier if I had given you some other ways to serve me, because those things you can do. You can come and massage my feet. That won’t help; that is of not much use. That is not going to lead you anywhere. You may feel happy, but that happiness is not bliss.
My whole effort is: fall back on yourself. Don’t move and don’t be motivated by the future. If this moment becomes your total reality, you have come close to me, the closest that one can come to another. By being yourself, you will be near me; by trying to be something else, you will go far away.
Don’t be imitators. The mind is an imitator because it is very easy to play the game of imitation rather than to become authentically true. And many ideas have been given to you: become like Buddha, become like Jesus, become like Krishna – as if you have to become everybody else except yourself, as if God is only against you. He’s for Krishna, for Christ, for Mahavira, for Buddha – only against you. Then why does he create you? Then he seems simply foolish. Why does he go on creating you? If he is interested in Buddha, he can create Buddhas. Why you?
It would be simpler. He could go on creating Buddhas like Ford cars. They could go on coming through the assembly line: one car after another, one buddha after another! That would be good. But God is not interested in it. He never creates a Buddha again – have you observed? He never creates, he never bothers to create, a Jesus again. Why?
There is no need to repeat. All repetition is dead. He goes on creating the new, the novel. He creates you! He’s more interested in you than in creating more Buddhas or more Christs. And remember, he will not repeat you either, so while you are here, be true and authentic. Be yourself.
I have heard a story…

An American made a beautiful teacup and then he wanted to mass-produce it. But to mass-produce it in the States would have been very expensive, so he sent it to Japan to be mass-produced.
In transit, the cup handle was broken, and the Japanese, as you know, are perfect imitators. They mass-produced it exactly as it was: with the handle broken. They repeated it exactly as it was.

This has been going on. God goes on creating the new, God goes on creating the novel, God goes on creating you, and the imitators in the churches and the temples go on saying, “Be like Jesus, be like Buddha, be like this” – and in transit, everybody’s handle is broken. The transit: two thousand years. Even if Jesus comes back, he will not be able to recognize the Jesus that is worshipped in the churches. Impossible. Jesus was a totally different man – alive. Churches go on worshipping somebody who was never there. It is their invention.
Why do I go on speaking on Jesus, Buddha or Krishna, or Zarathustra or Lao Tzu? This is the reason: I would like to bring you Jesus as he was before the transit, before the priests entered – unbroken, complete.

In one of my friends’ house, there is a very valuable painting, a seventeenth-century painting by a great master – very precious – and he loves it so much that he’s always afraid even to clean it. Something may be destroyed and it is old and very fragile.
Much dust had gathered on it and an expert had to be called, and when the expert started cleaning it, a new problem arose. The paint started peeling off. The expert was very worried, and he said, “Should I stop?”
I was staying with the friend. I said, “Don’t stop. Go ahead.” The friend was not there, otherwise he would have stopped him.
But the expert said, “It may be destroyed.”
I said, “Don’t be worried. Just go ahead because I can see something else behind the painting.”
And it was so. When the paint was peeled off, it was discovered that the real painting was hidden behind it and some other painter had just tried to improve on the master. There were two paintings, and the real came out only when the imposed painting and the paint were peeled off.
Then everybody was happy. But the risk was there.

When I talk on Jesus, I am trying to peel off the paint with which Christianity has tried to improve upon the original face of the master. But it is natural that things change in transit.
Be true to yourself. Never try to be anybody else. That is the only sin I call sin. Accept yourself. Whatever you are, you are beautiful. God accepts you; accept yourself also. He created you in his own image. He trusts, he has committed himself in your being. Don’t betray him, don’t become imitators.
That is the only way you can serve me – by being yourself. Be thyself, and suddenly you will be close to me, the closest that is possible. By being imitators, by trying to be somebody else, you falsify your being, you become a traitor. All ideals are treacherous and all ideals are betrayals. I don’t teach you any ideal, and I don’t want you to become anything that is not intrinsic to you.
You don’t know who you are; that is the difficulty in being oneself. One has to remain content with the unknown.
I have heard…

When the apostle Paul reached Athens, he told the people of Athens, “You are good, you are great in your thinking, and you have given the greatest philosophies to the world. But one thing I have observed: I have seen a temple in your city that is devoted to the unknown God. Inside there is no statue – just written on marble is: ‘This temple is devoted to the unknown God.’”
Paul said, “This is not enough: an unknown God. This is not sufficient. Your foundation is incomplete. I give you the known God because only with the known God is a foundation possible. Your culture, your civilization, lacks foundation.”

But I tell you, only the unknown God is God. Once you are devoted to a known God you have already started falsifying because the known will be knowledge, the known will be part of your mind. Buddha is known, easy to imitate. Jesus is known, easy to imitate. You are unknown. I teach you to remain true to the unknown God.
The known is easy. You can tackle it; you can cope with it. To move into the unknown needs much courage, needs daring. And religion is the greatest adventure. It is not a consolation, it is not a convenience, it is not respectability. It is to move into the unknown, the uncharted, and to risk life.
What Paul said to the Greeks is dangerous. This man Paul talks sense, but is very dangerous. You will also feel that a known God is better than an unknown God because with the known, we can relate easily, with a map we can move easily. But I tell you again and again, there is no better way to be lost than to have a map.
In the world of truth, all maps are false because the truth is undefined and remains indefinable. Defined, it becomes untrue. That’s what Lao Tzu means when he says, “The truth cannot be said. Once said, it is no longer truth.”
God is unknown. Or even better would be to say, the unknown is God. And that unknown resides in you, abides in you. If you want to serve me and to be close to me, be close to your unknown God that is within you. Serve the unknown God that is within you, help that unknown God to be, to expand, to become, to flow, to flower.

The third question:
Osho,
The strangest thing has happened: I feel happy! My problems seem transparent, and I feel more and more alive. You talk about the need to die. How can my happiness lead me through “the dark night of the soul”?
This is from Sambuddha. Now, Sambuddha, please don’t try to create new problems!
This is how the mind functions. Even if you are happy, you feel unease. You, and happy? Impossible! Something must have gone wrong; it doesn’t fit with the idea that you have of yourself. You, and happy? You must have gone mad, or you must be imagining, or this man Osho has hypnotized you. You, and happy? Impossible.
Now, Sambuddha, don’t try to create new problems. Forget all that I say about dying – because in the happiest moment, one dies. The death I am talking about is not the death of misery. The death I am talking about is not the death of suffering, is not the death of agony. The death I am talking about is the death of ecstasy, the death of pure bliss, the death when you are so happy that you explode and simply disappear.
But don’t be worried about it. It will come by itself; it is already on the way. If you become worried and you become concerned: “Why I am so happy…”
“The strangest thing has happened: I feel happy!” If you become worried about it, soon the happiness will disappear and you will fall back to your old state of mind. Enjoy it. Move deeply into it. Dare! The mind has become so miserly and so miserable that when happiness happens, then too it clings to its old past. It is afraid to move. How to be happy? How to laugh? Even if it laughs, it laughs halfheartedly. Even if it moves, it moves ready to withdraw any moment if something goes wrong. And happiness wants you to be totally in it. It claims you totally.
Enjoy it, move into it, be possessed by it – and in that possession will be death. Totally possessed by happiness, the ego dies.
I don’t teach suffering, I don’t teach sacrifice, I don’t teach renunciation. I teach the death that comes out of bliss, the death that comes at the peakest peak of happiness; the death that comes when you are dancing, singing, loving; the death that comes when you are possessed by the whole and the ocean drops into the drop.
Of course, the drop dies. Such a tremendous phenomenon: the ocean dropping in the drop – how can the drop live now? But what is the point of living? If the drop tries to live, that will be real death, and if the drop disappears in the ocean, this is what Jesus calls “Life, and more abundant life.”
Allow it. It is very difficult: people go on seeking happiness, but when it comes, they close their doors. People go on seeking love, but when it knocks at the door, they hide somewhere in the closet. People go on seeking friendship, and when somebody comes near, close, they become panicky, they become afraid.
What is the fear of happiness? – the fear of death. What is the fear in love? – the fear of death. What is the fear of freedom? – the fear of death. The ego is afraid. The ego can remain in misery, it can remain even in the seventh hell, but even a slight breeze of happiness and the house of the ego starts falling, collapsing.
Nothing kills like happiness, nothing kills like ecstasy, but that risk is worth taking because only after that death does real life arise. You disappear. Then God lives in you.

The fourth question:
Osho,
Why is religion a dirty word for me, and why does it threaten me far more here in Pune than it ever did before?
Religion has become a dirty word. It has been used too much and abused too much. It has passed through thousands and thousands of hands. It is just like an old coin or an old currency note that has passed through many hands and has become dirty. Everything that is used too much becomes dirty – not only religion.
All beautiful words have become dirty. God, love, ecstasy – all have become dirty. The reason is natural, obvious. The words are so beautiful that humanity tends to use them too much. Just look at the advertisements, and you will find all the beautiful words being used for cigarettes, soaps, cars, furniture: all the beautiful words. Even a cigarette – the advertisement can say that the cigarette is ecstatic. Now, a beautiful word is being dirtied.
Every film, every movie, is thought to be “marvelous,” “fabulous.” If everything is fabulous, and every movie is fabulous, then nothing is fabulous. The word does not mean much now. If you say something is fabulous, it doesn’t mean anything. It simply means that you have been listening to TV too much. All beautiful words become dirty because the mind tends to use them more and more, for everything and anything.
Religion has become dirty. It is the oldest thing in the world. There is a controversy about which profession is the oldest, and prostitutes and priests are the two competitors. I have also been thinking about it and I cannot conceive of how prostitutes can come before priests. Impossible! Unless the priest is there, how is prostitution imaginable? Impossible. The priest must have come first. He must have condemned sex, and then prostitutes followed. He must have condemned it so much that the whole thing became very attractive.
Religion has become a dirty word, but remember well: when a word is dirty, that does not mean that the thing that is denoted by the word is dirty. Religion, the word, may have become dirty, but religion, the thing, is still fresh and will always remain fresh.
You can use another word for it. Any word will do; that is not a problem. Remember: just because a word has become dirty, don’t throw away the thing itself. That will be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The bathwater has become dirty – true, throw it away – but at least save the baby. If you can save the baby, there is no trouble.
Churches have made it dirty. They have made a profession out of it, they have corrupted it, and they have made it so low because they have to bring it to the masses. They have made it very cheap – as if there is no need on your part to do anything. They come and give you the Bible free; they come and go on throwing religion on you, they go on imposing. They don’t even ask your permission. They are intruders, pretenders. They have corrupted it. But they have not corrupted religion as such; they have corrupted only the word. Forget the word, but don’t forget the reality that is indicated by it.
And that may be the cause: “…and why does it threaten me more here in Pune…?” – because here, near me, I am not concerned about the word; I am concerned about religion itself. It threatens more. If you go into a church, you will come back intact. As you have gone in, so you will come out – the same. But if you come to me, you cannot go back the same.
If you really come close to me, in that very coming you will be transformed and changed. You may escape, you may become afraid, scared, but you will never be the same again. I will go on haunting you wherever you are. I will come in your dreams, I will follow you like a shadow.
The fear is real, the threat is real. When you go to a church, the priest is a false threat. He may thunder, but the threat is false. He may shout at you the name of God, but the threat is false.
I have heard…

It happened in a Zen temple. One morning there was a great earthquake, as happens in Japan. Half the temple collapsed.
The priest, who had been pretending that he was a real Zen man, immediately gathered his disciples and said, “Look! Now you must have observed what the real quality of a real Zen man is. The earthquake was there, but there was not even an iota of fear in me. Have you observed it? I remained as if nothing had happened. Not only that, you must have seen that after the earthquake stopped, I went to the kitchen because I was thirsty and I drank a big glass of water. Didn’t you observe that my hand was not trembling at all while I was holding the glass?”
One disciple smiled. The priest felt annoyed. He said, “What is funny about it? Why are you smiling?”
The disciple said, “Reverend sir, it was not a glass of water. It was a big glass of soy sauce that you were drinking!”

When you want to show off, from somewhere or other, the reality is bound to leak in.
Go to a priest. His words are okay – never more than okay, just okay – but if you look into the reality of the man, you will have no fear. He is just like you. He may pretend, and you may even pretend that whatever he is pretending is true. That’s how it goes on, because pretensions need mutual cooperation. He pretends that he is a great master, you pretend that you are a great disciple. He accepts your pretension, you accept his pretension. That’s how both are mutually satisfied and things remain the same.
When you are here, you are really near a danger point. I am a dangerous man. You should be alert about it. Come close to me with full awareness. There is danger. I am not a priest. I am not teaching religion here, I’m ready to give it to you. It is not a teaching, it is a transmission.
In churches, you have learned the words religion, God. They have all become dirty. Then you come to me and you start realizing that those words may have become dirty, but something is hidden behind them that is ever-fresh, ever-green, ever-alive – and capable of changing you totally. Then the fear arises.
Just the other day, Atmada wrote me a letter, a beautiful letter, saying, “Why are you so worried about this Jesus being crucified? It is good that this idiot was crucified! Why are you worried about it?”
In fact, this is all that the priests have done. Trying to force Jesus on you, trying to be aggressive intruders on your being, somehow trying to convert you to Jesus, they have dirtied the very name of this beautiful man. And trying to prove that he is the greatest wise man in the world, they have only been able to magnify his defects and nothing else. That’s why Atmada writes to me that he was an idiot.
I know he was, but that is how a wise man always is. This point has to be understood. A really wise man is a synthesis of whatever you call wisdom and idiocy. He is as simple as an idiot and as complex as any wise man can be.
You can look at him from both sides. If you look at him from one side, he will look like an idiot. And you can find in Jesus all the things you can find in idiots. Read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s book, The Idiot. It is about an idiot, but in that idiot you will find all the beautiful qualities Jesus has: the innocence, the quality of no-mind, the quality of trust. A doubt never arises. These are all idiotic qualities. You call a man an idiot if he trusts everybody and anybody; and you call a man an idiot if you go on deceiving him and still he goes on trusting you. You go on deceiving him and he goes on trusting you. You cannot create doubt in him because he has no mind.
A man like Jesus is also like an idiot – not because he has the same state of idiocy, but he has come to the same state from a very different dimension. The circle is complete: he has again become a child.
The idiot is below the mind, Jesus is above the mind. Both are no-minds. The idiot has no mind. Jesus and Buddha also have no minds, but there is a difference. They had, and they found out that to have a mind is foolish. They dropped it. They have become idiots voluntarily. They are not stupid. They are idiots because they are wise.
Yes, I know – Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, they look like idiots. In India we have a word for idiot that comes from Buddha. It is buddhu. The word is derived from Buddha himself. Buddha, buddhu. Buddhu means “idiot” and buddha means “the awakened man.” How can both these words be together?
When Buddha died, his impact was tremendous. Thousands and thousands of people became followers. Thousands and thousands of people were sitting under bodhi trees with closed eyes, meditating. And people called to them: “Buddhus, go home! What are you doing? Don’t be a buddhu! Do something, go home. Your wife is suffering, or your children are hungry. Don’t be an idiot! Don’t be a buddhu!”
I know. Jesus is so innocent he looks foolish, but that foolishness is tremendously precious.
I am also idiotic, Atmada. And whatever I am teaching is teaching you to be so simple and trusting that you also become idiots in a sense. But that idiocy is the supreme awareness, that idiocy is supreme wisdom. Polarities meet, dualities disappear.
In a Jesus, you will always find a paradox: he’s both together. You will find in him qualities that are feminine, you will find in him qualities that are absolutely male. They meet and mingle, and they have become one. In him, the feminine and the male have become one; the wise and the fool have become one. The polarities have disappeared.
The contradiction is no longer a contradiction, it is a synthesis – but difficult for the mind to understand. The mind is a doubter, the mind is skeptical. And the mind thinks it is very intelligent.
The mind is stupid, the mind is mediocre. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Intelligence is a totally different flowering of your being; it has nothing to do with the mind. The mind is just a mechanism. It is a computer, a biocomputer – very complex, but still a mechanism. It has nothing to do with intelligence.
Intelligence comes within you only when you have become so unidentified with the mind that you can see that the mind is separate and you are separate. In that state, intelligence happens. That intelligence will be both wise and a fool.
That is the mystery of a Jesus. That is the paradox, the poetry.

The fifth question:
Osho,
The peaks are getting pretty wonderful, but the valleys are deeper and darker than ever. Finding a balance seems impossible. What to do?
There is no need to do anything. You do not have to find a balance; the balance will find you. Simply move. When the valley comes, go into the valley. When darkness surrounds, enjoy it, feel blissful in the velvety touch of it. Move into it, into the infinite magnificence of it. Darkness has a soothing quality no light can have. And the valley is a rest – like the night, like death.
There is no need to try to find a balance. The balance will find you. Simply move into the valley. When the valley comes, accept it – not only accept it, welcome it, enjoy it, delight in it. Darkness is beautiful. And when the valley goes and you move toward the peak, that too is perfectly beautiful. It is beautiful – the light, the morning, the sun.
Don’t cling to anything. Clinging creates trouble. Through clinging, anguish comes. If you cling to the peak and you say, “I would not like to go to the valley again,” then you will be in trouble. Then, at the very peak you have created the valley. Then, already the suffering has started. You are afraid. Fear has entered, the agony is already there. You are no longer happy; you have destroyed the peak.
When you are in the valley, you will suffer because “now the valley has come.” You will suffer the valley and you will not be able to enjoy the peak. This is the ordinary situation.
When you are happy, you become afraid. Is this happiness going to stay or will it be gone? Now this fear eats happiness like a worm, poisons it. You are happy, and yet you are not happy. Something is already dead: you have become apprehensive about the future. And when you are unhappy, of course, you are unhappy. When you are happy you cannot be happy – how can you be happy when you are unhappy? So the whole of life becomes a vicious circle of unhappiness.
Now, listen! When you are at the peak, dance. I know, and you know, that the peak is not going to last forever. There is no need. If it lasts forever, it will be such a tension that you will not be able to tolerate it. It will be such an excitement that you will not find any rest in it. It will be dangerous, it will kill you. There is no need for it to last forever. But while it lasts, dance, enjoy, and sing it – knowing well it is going to be lost again. But knowing it, one has to enjoy it more before it is lost.
Remember, this is the miracle: when you enjoy it more, it lasts longer. When you are happy in it and dancing, it forgets to go away from you, it lingers with you. When you don’t cling to it, it clings to you. This is the whole secret.
And when it is gone, then too it is not gone. It has given you such a deep blissfulness that now you can go into the valley and you can rest in darkness. Then the valley becomes relaxation and the peak becomes enjoyment. Then the peak becomes the day and the valley becomes the night: then the peak becomes activity and the valley becomes passivity.
One has to enjoy the night also. That is the only way to enjoy the day. And if you enjoy the day, a great night comes with great rest. It refreshes you, rejuvenates you.
Always remember: the greater the peak, the greater the valley will be. Otherwise how can the peak be greater? If you go to the Himalayas, then you will find the greater the peak the greater the valley. If you are afraid of the valley, then don’t ask for the peaks. Then move on plain ground. There will be no peak and no valley.
That is the most miserable life – where there is no peak, no valley. One simply vegetates. It is not a life. One simply drags. It is a monotony. It is not a dialogue; it is a monologue. A dialogue needs duality, a dialogue needs contradiction, a dialogue needs polarity, a dialogue needs paradox. And within the paradox, you move from one pole to another.
Don’t be worried about balance. Balance will seek you; I will see that balance seeks you. Simply do this much: while on the peak, dance. While in the valley, rest. Accept the valley; accept the peak. Both are parts of the one whole and you cannot deny one part. They are two aspects of the same coin.
Remember, one who enjoys more is bound to suffer more because he becomes very sensitive. But suffering is not bad. If you understand it rightly, suffering cleanses. If you understand it rightly, sadness has a depth to it no happiness can ever have. A person who is simply happy is always superficial. A person who has not known sorrow and has not known sadness, has not known the depths. He has not touched the bottom of his being; he has remained just on the periphery. One has to move within these two banks. Within these two banks flows the river.
And I tell you, balance will seek you if you accept both and you live both. Whatever happens, welcome it. Suddenly, one day you will see that balance has come, and when balance comes to you, then it is something totally different from that balance you can force upon yourself.
If you force the balance, it will be a sort of control, and a control is always artificial, and a control is always ugly, and a control has a violence in it. It is forced, artificial. When balance comes to you, it is a happening. Suddenly it descends on you. Heavens open and the spirit of God, like a dove, descends in you.
All that is great always comes. All that you make is always small, petty. It is never great. All that you do is going to be lesser than you. All that is great, you have to allow. Balance will find you. God will find you. Just be ready.
And this is readiness: to accept whatever comes, to accept it with gratefulness. Even sorrow, even sadness, even the dark valley.

The last question:
Osho,
The other day you lovingly told me to be more concerned about myself and less about others. Thank you Osho. I got the point. And yet I must ask one more question not to do with me, but to do with you. What exactly is happening with you? Every month your body is becoming more sensitive in every way, and the phenomenon, even to my state of unawareness, is awesome. Can you say something about your changes?
This is from Chaitanya Sagar. It is good he says this is the last question that he is asking not about himself!
I can understand your worry, your concern. The fact is simple. After the age of thirty-five, life starts declining. Thirty-five is the peak: if you are going to live for seventy years, thirty-five is the peak. After thirty-five, you start declining. Now it is downhill.
If somebody becomes enlightened after thirty-five – as Buddha became at forty, Mahavira became at forty – then he can live a little longer, because he was already going downhill and enlightenment will not disturb the body more than it was already disturbed.
If you become enlightened before the age of thirty-five, then there is danger. Shankara became enlightened before the age of thirty-five. He died at thirty-three. When you are going uphill and life is moving strongly and you become enlightened, the connection between you and the body is disrupted. It has almost always happened that people who have become enlightened before thirty-five have not survived up to thirty-five. It is difficult because the body and you become so separate, and the uphill task becomes very difficult.
It is just as if you were going uphill and suddenly you see there is no more petrol in the tank of the car. The uphill task becomes almost impossible. Now you will have to get out and push the car uphill – very difficult! If you become aware when the car is going downhill that there is no more petrol there, there is no trouble. In fact, there is no need for petrol: the car can go without it.
Shankara died at thirty-three. Buddha lived up to eighty; Mahavira also lived up to eighty. This has to be understood. I should have died before thirty-five, in fact. Somehow, I have been pulling. That “somehow” can be understood.
By and by, I have dropped out of life; I have dropped all activity. Whatever energy my body has, I am using for you. That’s all. Otherwise I have dropped all activity: I have stopped moving, stopped traveling – I have almost stopped everything. I come out just to see you in the morning and in the evening. Otherwise I have become completely inactive, absolutely passive. Whatever small energy is there, I am using as economically as possible.
So every day my body is going to become more and more fragile, more and more sensitive. My ship is ready – any moment I can depart. I am lingering on the bank a little while longer for you. That’s why I am in a hurry. You have time to ask useless questions. I don’t have time to answer them.
You have time to waste. My time is finished. So if you really want to use this opportunity, don’t miss a single moment. Don’t hesitate, and don’t put your half-heart into the effort because when I am gone, then you will repent and then you will be very sorry – but then nothing can be done. While I am still here, use every opportunity I am giving to you, and don’t waste a single moment. I have what you are seeking: I can pour it into you – but your cup is not ready.
The thing is like this: you come to me and I have a full kettle of tea. You are thirsty, and I would like to give it to you, but I cannot pour it in your hands. It will burn you. I have to wait because you will have to produce your cup. And that cup can be produced only from your innermost core of being.
Only your innermost being can become the cup. Only then can I pour whatever I have. I am waiting for you so you can produce the cup. You are thirsty I know, and I have that which can quench your thirst, but the cup is not ready.
So don’t ask such questions. Rather, look at me and try to understand.
Just the other night a sannyasin was saying, “How can you help us when you yourself are not well in the body?” True. If I am not well in the body, how can I help you? It looks absolutely logical. But do you know if Buddha was well in the body?
No enlightened person has ever been well in the body, cannot be, because the bridge is broken, the being with the body is disrupted. The body goes on moving on its own, and the being goes on residing in it, but the energy that was given by the identification is not given. You live as one with your body. I live as two. My body is just like my clothes – absolutely separate. It is a miracle it is functioning.
Buddha had to keep a physician continuously with him because every moment was a danger. And the physician was not for him because his work was done, he had achieved. The physician was for those who were still thirsty, and he had something that could quench their thirst. The physician was for them.
If the doctor comes to see me, it is not for me. It is for you. If I see that there is no point and I cannot help you, I can disappear this very moment.
But many of you are working hard. I have the largest number of sannyasins that is possible in this twentieth-century world, almost fifteen thousand all around the world. They are all working hard. If they can succeed, we will release one of the greatest energies, spiritual energy, in the world.
I have to wait, and I have to linger on – whatever the body says. The body says, “It is time, and the ship is ready. You can go.” The house is ready to collapse, but I am holding it.
Don’t waste my time in anything. Use it if you can. And this is the trouble: you may not understand now, but later when you understand, I will not be there and then that understanding will not be of much help. It will give you simply deep anguish and sorrow and agony.
While I am here, if you understand me, it can become your ecstasy. When I am gone, it will be just an agony.
Enough for today.

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