Osho on MoralityI BELIEVE VERY STRONGLY IN RELIGION. I FOLLOW ALL THE PRESCRIBED RULES OF MORALITY. L HAVE ALWAYS LIVED A LIFE OF DISCIPLINE — THEN WHY AM I ALWAYS UNHAPPY?What else are you expecting? Are you expecting some miracle? If you were happy it would be a miracle — and miracles don’t happen. It is a natural consequence. Just try to analyse your question. I BELIEVE — this ‘I’ is too much. I BELIEVE VERY STRONGLY IN RELIGION. I FOLLOW ALL THE PRESCRIBED RULES OF MORALITY. I HAVE ALWAYS LIVED A LIFE OF DISCIPLINE — THEN WHY AM I ALWAYS UNHAPPY? This ‘I’ is too much. And ‘I’ is the misery.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">When ‘I’ disappears, misery disappears. Bliss is the absence of the ego and nothing else. But if you believe too strongly in religion, your ‘I’ will become very, very strengthened. If you live a life of discipline, a life of control, your ego will become very decorated. If you follow all the rules of morality, naturally your ego will become very holy, pious. And when a person is very pious it is very dangerous. This ‘I’ has to be relaxed — that is one thing.</blockquote>And the second thing: there is no need to believe strongly in religion. Belief simply shows that you don’t know and deep down somewhere doubt is bound to be. How can you dissolve the doubt without knowing? You can go on believing as strongly as is humanly possible but all strength will only be repressing the doubt, it cannot destroy it. No doubt is ever destroyed by strength, remember it. By strength you can force it into the unconscious, you can go on forcing it into the basement of your being, you can force it so deep that you completely forget about it — but it is there. And the deeper it goes, the more dangerously it is there. It will affect your total being, your very quality, and it will affect it in such an indirect way that you will not even be able to detect it. It will become a cancer in the soul. No, unless you know, doubt remains.I have heard….When the late King George VI was a lad, he stood one winter morning with his older brother Edward, their noses pressed against a window of the palace, looking enviously at a group of cockney urchins playing snowball outside the palace.Finally the temptation became too great for them and, seeing an opportunity as the governess left the room, they put on hats and coats and slipped outside to join the happy group.Soon a badly aimed snowball, smashing right through the window of the palace, brought the palace guard running on the double. In no time at all the sheepish group of youngsters was ushered into the presence of the precinct sergeant.‘What’s your name, boy?’ the sergeant asked the first in line.‘My name is Edward, Prince of Wales,’ said the boy, standing haughtily at attention.‘A smart guy, eh?’ said the sergeant. ‘And what’s your name?’ he asked the second in line.‘My name is George, Duke of Windsor,’ said the second lad.By this time the sergeant was furious. ‘I’ve never seen such a bunch of liars in all my life,’ he exploded.‘And what’s your name?’ he asked the next little fellow.The little boy hesitated a moment, then wiping his nose on his sleeve, he replied, ‘I’m going to stand wiv’ my buddies, guvnor… I’m the Archbishop of Canterbury.’Yes, you can say you are the Archbishop of Canterbury but deep down you know you are not.And the significant thing is what you know deep down. If you are, you are. Then there is a totality, no hesitation. Then you are totally into it. But when you only believe, you know it is not so. That creates a split. You become two. A duality arises. All belief creates schizophrenia. How can you be happy with schizophrenia? It is not possible. And you say: I FOLLOW ALL THE PRESCRIBED RULES OF MORALITY. Religion has nothing to do with morality. A religious man is moral but he has nothing to do with morality. A religious man is naturally moral — it is not that he follows all the prescribed rules of morality, a religious man is naturally, spontaneously, moral. He has no idea of what is good and what is bad. He never chooses. The good simply happens. It is part of his religiousness.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">The moment you understand that you are part of God, then all immorality disappears. Not that you have to drop it, it is simply not found. And when there is no immorality, what is the need to follow moral rules? Only immoral people follow moral rules, only immoral people need to follow. A moral person has no rules to follow. His morality is innocent. He is good because he feels that being good brings more and more happiness. He is good because he is happy. Happiness brings more good to his life; more good brings more happiness to his life.</blockquote>You will be unhappy because really you want to be immoral. And you have to curb and cut and you have to always force yourself to be moral. You are not being natural. You will be unhappy. And these moral things will not satisfy you. They are false. They will not make you more happy. It is as if one is eating the menu rather than eating the food. Food satisfies, but the menu… you can go on eating it, it will not satisfy. It is not food. The rules that have been given by others to you are menus, they are paper food not real food.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">The real morality arises in your being. Become more meditative rather than becoming more moral. Morality follows meditation. And then you will be happy.</blockquote>And you say: I HAVE ALWAYS LIVED A LIFE OF DISCIPLINE. The word ‘discipline’ is very beautiful but it has become very, very wrongly associated with the idea of control. Discipline comes from the same root as disciple. Discipline means become a disciple. And disciple means nothing but the capacity to learn. A disciple is one who is ready to learn. A disciple is one who has an open mind.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">A disciple is one who has not become closed, who does not say, ‘I know.’ He says, ‘I am open, available, to learn, to know more. And I am ready to risk all that I know if something unknown can be known.’ A learner is a disciple. And a disciple is in discipline. You cannot be in discipline unless you are with a Master. And remember the paradox of it: a Master never enforces any discipline on you, a Master simply makes himself available to you. Seeing him, loving him, feeling him, a discipline starts arising in you.</blockquote>And remember, there cannot be a fixed discipline for everybody. Everybody has to find his own discipline because everybody is so unique, everybody is so individual. When you follow a dead discipline you will be putting a structure on your being. You will not grow naturally and you will not grow into yourself. If you follow Mahavira’s discipline… it was good for him, certainly good, but you are not another Mahavira. There will never be another again. God never repeats. God always creates a unique person. No two persons are alike — they never have been, never will be. Yes, Mohammed has a discipline of his own. It was beautiful for him. It was beautiful for him only because it grew out of him; he never followed anybody else’s discipline. But if you follow it, it will be just a dead structure. How can life be happy caged in a dead structure?Hence the insistence of Sufism to find an alive Master — because an alive Master will not give you a dead structure. An alive Master will give you only an insight into your own being. An alive Master will give you only a vision of what is possible. And then you start working on your own. Everybody has to find his own discipline.And remember another thing too. Even when you have found your discipline it is not going to remain like a character. It will change every day. New situations and new disciplines will arise. You will have to respond to new situations in a new way. You cannot just carry a guidebook in your mind and you cannot go on behaving according to that guide book. Then you will not be responsible, then you will not be responding to the situation that is facing you, then you will have a ready-made rule — and then happiness is not possible.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">Happiness is a function of freedom. Only free people are happy people. Let this be remembered always and always: freedom brings bliss, freedom brings benediction.</blockquote>If you are unhappy that is simply logical. You have earned it. Now drop your belief and drop your discipline and drop your so-called rules of morality.And when I am saying ‘Drop it’ don’t misunderstand me — because sometimes people misunderstand. Somebody has asked: I understand you TO SAY THAT KNOWLEDGE IS A BARRIER. SHOULD I BURN ALL THE SCRIPTURES I HAVE ALWAYS WORSHIPPED? I have not said that. There is no need to burn the scriptures. That will not help. Your mind is not going to change by burning the scriptures. Your mind will be the same and you will find another kind of scripture. Maybe I will become your scripture, but that will be the same. You will have something to cling to. Your mind wants to cling to words, principles, doctrines. Rather than burning the mind you are asking about burning the scriptures. What have those poor scriptures done to you? Why be so angry with them?You remind me of a man, a man who came home on three occasions and, finding his wife on a couch with another man, decided he had had enough and threw away the couch. But what does the couch have to do with it? You can burn the scriptures and you can throw away the rules but again you will find something. The situation does not change so easily. Something has to change within you.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">Always remember that whatsoever I am saying here concerns your consciousness, concerns your innermost centre. Do some thing there. Outer things don’t matter. Scriptures are so worthless that by burning them nothing will be attained.</blockquote>If something can be attained by burning the scriptures then they have some value. They don’t have that value. Not even that much value do they have.<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">But burn the mind that clings to the scriptures, burn that mind that wants to depend on something, burn that mind that always avoids responsibility, burn that mind that seeks dead, fixed rules, is obsessed with fixed things and is afraid of free flow, is afraid of dynamism.</blockquote>Why not live a life with free consciousness? Why not live a life without rules? You have lived a life with rules and you feel miserable. Now if you are really feeling miserable and you want to get rid of that misery then the only thing that can be done is a radical change. Now start living a life without rules.Why do people cling to rules? Because to live free means one has to be very much aware. Those rules give you an opportunity not to be aware. You can depend on them, you need not be aware. If someone says something you have a readymade answer; you need not be attentive to what is being said. And you need not be creative in your response, you already have an answer. You can remain sleepy and still you can answer.It happened in a church…. The priest asked, ‘Those who are ready to go to heaven or want to go to heaven should stand up.’All stood up except one man who was fast asleep and snoring.Then the priest said, even more loudly, to wake him up, ‘Now those who want to go to hell they should stand up.’And he shouted so loudly that the man just jumped up. He had not heard what had happened but he looked around and he found himself and the priest standing. He said, ‘Sir, I don’t know what we are voting for but we both seem to be voting for it.’This is the situation. People are fast asleep and snoring and life can go on. With fixed rules there is safety, comfort, convenience. Drop that comfort, drop that convenience, drop that safety. Start living a dangerous life. And<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow not-prose">a life is life only when you live it dangerously, when it is a great adventure, an exploration always in the unknown.</blockquote>Don’t carry any rules — that’s what is meant by burning the scriptures. And don’t carry any fixed disciplines. Remain available and act, don’t react. Act out of your consciousness. Be a mirror and act out of that mirror-like consciousness. And you will be happy, you will be tremendously happy. That happiness is yours, and just for the asking. ‘Knock and the doors shall be opened unto you. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find.’ It is all yours, and just for the asking.Source:Listen to complete discourse at mentioned below link.<a href="/sufis-people-of-the-path-vol-1-01-16" data-type="URL" data-id="/sufis-people-of-the-path-vol-1-01-16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Discourse Series: Sufis: The People of the Path, Vol 1, Chapter #2</a>Chapter title: In Hiding12 August 1977 am in Buddha HallReferences:Osho has spoken on ‘Meditation, morality, bliss, consciousness, happiness, freedom’ in many of His discourses. More on the subject can be referred to in the following books/discourses:<ol type="1"><li>Beyond Psychology</li><li>Bodhidharma: The Greatest Zen Master</li><li>Christianity: The Deadliest Poison and Zen: The Antidote to All Poisons</li><li>The Discipline of Transcendence</li><li>God is Dead, Now Zen is the Only Living Truth</li><li>I Say Unto You</li><li>Philosophia Perennis</li><li>The Razor’s Edge</li><li>Tao: The Pathless Path</li><li>Theologia Mystica</li><li>Vigyan Bhairav Tantra</li></ol><style>.footer-ad{display: none !important;}</style><link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Quicksand:wght@300..700&amp;display=swap">