TALKS IN AMERICA
From Death to Deathlessness 38
ThirtyEighth Discourse from the series of 40 discourses - From Death to Deathlessness by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
Osho,
Is there any biological chance of an unconditioned, free and loving relationship between child and parent?
Absolutely no. Biology is blind; hence there is no biological chance. But you can get over biology. You are conscious, intelligent human beings, so there is a possibility; but the possibility will be through meditation, not through biology.
If the parents are meditative, if the child is born not only through biological sexual intercourse, but also through a deep meditative love….
The meditative love means melting into each other’s beings, not just the bodies. It means putting your egos away, your religions away, your ideologies away – becoming simple and innocent. In that unconditioned state of the parents, if the child is conceived there is every certainty, not only possibility, that the child will not be conditioned at all.
There are a few things which you have to understand. I cannot give any proofs for them, they are beyond proofs. Only your experience will give you the proof.
For example, the biological organism is capable of transcending itself. It transcends in certain moments. Those are the moments most cherished in the human mind, because in those moments you have known freedom, an expanded self, an utter silence and peace; love without its counterpart, hate, following it.
That moment we call orgasm. Biology gives you orgasm; that is the most precious gift from blind biology. You can use those moments of freedom, melting, disappearing, for meditation. There is no better space from which to jump into meditation than orgasm. Two lovers feeling one soul in two bodies…everything has stopped for the moment; even time has stopped. There are no thoughts, the mind has stopped. You are in your simple is-ness. Those are the little spaces from where you can get beyond biology.
All that you have to know is that this is what meditation is: timelessness, egolessness, silence, blissfulness, an all-pervading joy, overwhelming ecstasy.
This has happened through biology between two persons. Once you know that it can happen in your aloneness too, you just have to fulfill those conditions. My own understanding is that man came to know about meditation through sexual orgasm, because in life there is no other moment which comes so close to meditativeness.
But all the religions are against sex. They are for meditation, but they are not for the beginning, the basic experience that will lead you to meditation. So they have created a poor humanity – not only materially poor, but spiritually poor too. They have conditioned your mind against sex so much that under biological pressure you go into it. But in that pressure you cannot experience the orgasmic freedom, the infinity that suddenly becomes available to you; the eternity in the moment, the depth, the abysmal depth of the experience.
Because man has been deprived of orgasmic blissfulness, he has become incapable of knowing what meditation is. And that’s what all the religions want: that you never become meditative. Talk about it, read about it, do research on it, listen to lectures on it…. All that will create more frustration in you, because you understand everything about meditation intellectually, but you don’t have any existential base – not even a drop of the experience which can prove that if the drop is there, the ocean also must be somewhere.
The drop is the existential proof of the ocean. Biology is far more compassionate than your churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Although biology is blind, it is not so blind as your Moses, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed.
Biology is your nature.
It has nothing but compassion for you.
It has given you everything possible that is needed to go higher, to reach to a super-natural state.
My whole life I have been fighting against idiots. They cannot answer me, my argument, which is simple: you talk about meditation but you will have to give some existential proof in human life; otherwise, people will understand only words. You will have to give them something that can make them aware of what is possible: love made without any guilt, without any hurry, without thinking that you are doing something wrong. You will be doing the best and the most right thing in the world.
It is strange to see that people can kill without any guilt – not one but millions of people – but they cannot create a child without guilt.
All the religions have been nothing but a calamity.
Make love only when you are ready to be in a meditative space. And create a meditative atmosphere while you are making love. You should treat the place as sacred. Creating life…what can be more sacred? Do it as beautifully, as aesthetically, as joyously as possible. There should be no hurry. And if the two lovers meet in such an atmosphere outside, and such a silent space within, they will attract a soul, the highest available.
You give birth to a child according to your state of love. If every parent is disappointed, he should think about it, that this is the child they deserved. They never created a possibility for a higher and more evolved soul to enter into the womb – because the male sperm and the female egg only create an opportunity for a soul to enter. They create the opportunity for a body, so some soul can become embodied. But you will attract only that kind of person which your sexual activity makes possible.
If the world is full of idiots and mediocre people, you are responsible; I mean, parents are responsible. They never thought about it, their children are accidental. There cannot be a bigger crime than to create a life accidentally.
Prepare for it. And the most essential thing is to understand the orgasmic moment: thoughtless, timeless, mindless, just a pure awareness. In that pure awareness you can attract a Gautam Buddha. The way you are making love, it is strange that more Adolf Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, Nadirshahs, Tamerlanes, Genghis Khans, are not attracted. You attract only mediocre people. You don’t attract the lowest either, because for the lowest your love has to be almost a rape. For the highest, your love has to be a meditation.
The child’s life begins from the moment the soul enters into the womb. If it has come into a meditative space, it is possible to have a child without conditioning him. In fact, a child who is born out of meditation cannot be conditioned; he will rebel against it. Only mediocre people can be conditioned.
And a couple who is capable of meditativeness while making love is no ordinary couple. They will be respectful to the child. The child is a guest from the unknown, and you have to be respectful to the guest. Parents who are not respectful to their children are bound to destroy their lives. Your respect, your love, your gratitude that, “You have chosen us as your parents,” will be responded to with deeper respect, more gratitude, more love.
And when you love a person, you cannot condition him. When you love a person, you give him freedom, you give him protection. When you love a person you would not like him to be just a carbon copy of yourself, you would like him to be a unique individual. And to make him unique you will arrange all the conditions, all the challenges which provoke his potential.
You will not burden him with knowledgeability, because you would like him to know the truth himself. Any borrowed truth is a lie. Unless it is experienced by you, it is never the truth.
You will help the child to experience more and more things. You will not tell him lies, that there is a God. It is a lie, because you have not seen God. Your parents lied to you, and you are repeating it in your turn to your child. Your parents conditioned you, and what is your life? – a long misery from cradle to grave. Do you want your child’s life also to be just a misery, full of suffering, anxiety, despair?
There is only one statement in the whole Holy Bible which I am not against. The statement is, “God can forgive everything, but not despair.” Whoever wrote it must have been a man of immense understanding. God cannot forgive only one thing, and that is despair. But everybody is living in despair – God or no God, despair is a reality. It is self-destruction. If you love your child, you will make him rejoice, laugh, enjoy, dance. But just the opposite is being done.
In my house in my childhood, it used to be that when some guest was coming they used to get rid of me by sending me somewhere. And the moment they started talking about sending me somewhere – that I have to go to see the doctor because I have had a cold for so many days, I would say, “Nothing doing. I know my cold and I know the doctor; I will choose my time to go. At least this time I cannot go – cold or cancer, it makes no difference.”
They said, “But why?”
I said, “I know somebody is coming to the house, and you are afraid.” And they were naturally afraid, because I made them feel embarrassed. The guest may be some important person, and I may do something that will spoil their whole relationship.
Once, eating, suddenly I started laughing. The whole family knew that something was bound to happen, because there was a guest. But the guest was shocked. He said, “Why are you laughing?”
I said, “Laughing needs no cause. In fact, I should ask you, ‘Why are you all sitting with long faces?’ Laughter has an intrinsic value; long faces don’t have any value at all. And since you have come, even people in my family are looking very sad, serious. I don’t understand what is wrong with you. Do you create this kind of atmosphere wherever you go?”
I may suddenly start dancing. The conversation between the guest and my parents would stop suddenly, because I was dancing in the middle of them. They would say, “You can go out and play.”
I said, “I know the exact spot where to dance. If you choose to go out, you can go and have your stupid conversation – which means nothing! Talking about the weather and the season…you all know, even I know. What is the point?”
In polite conversation people never discuss subjects which are controversial because that may create some antagonism. They only discuss non-controversial subjects – the weather…. Naturally, there is no controversy about it. If it is cold, it is cold; if it is hot, it is hot.
“And I am dancing here only to make you realize that you are wasting your time. Better join me in the dance!”
A child who is not conditioned is in many ways embarrassing to the parents. But if they love, they will be ready to do anything. Even if it brings embarrassment, there is no harm. Their child is growing into a unique being. They will help him to remain free, to remain open, to remain available to the unknown future.
They will make him a seeker, not a believer. They will not make him a Christian, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, because all these religions have done so much harm – it is more than enough.
It is time for all the religions to disappear from the planet. Unconditioned children can make that miracle happen because tomorrow they will be young people, mature, and they will not be Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans. They will be just seekers; seeking will be their religion.
That’s my definition of a sannyasin: searching, seeking, inquiring is his religion.
Beliefs stop all inquiry.
Give the child all your experiences. Make him aware that he was conceived in a very loving orgasmic moment, that love is a great gift of existence. And you have to make love the central point of your life, because only through love can you step beyond blind nature into the world of super-nature, where no blindness exists, where you become a seer.
Yes, it is possible, but not possible through biology alone. It is possible if you are courageous enough to make your love your temple, your place of meditation. Then you will be attracting a soul already having the potential of uniqueness. And then give him every possibility for freedom, even if it goes against you. The freedom of your child is more valuable, because your child is the future of mankind.
Your days are past. What does it matter if it goes against you? What have you gained by it? you are empty, you are beggars. Do you want your children also to be empty and beggars? That’s what every parent is trying to do – to reproduce copies, carbon copies. And remember, existence accepts only the originals. Carbon copies are not acceptable in existence.
Let your child have his original face.
It may create fear in you, it may create concern in you, but those are your problems. Don’t in any way inhibit the child. And a child who has been given freedom – even against his own parents – will respect you forever, will remain grateful to you forever.
Right now, just the opposite is the case: every child is full of anger, rage, hatred for the parents, because what they have done to him is unforgivable.
So by giving freedom, by allowing the child to be himself whatever that means, accepting him in his natural self wherever it leads, you are creating a child who will worship you. You have been not only ordinary fathers and mothers, you have been givers of life, freedom, uniqueness.
He will carry the beautiful memory in his heart forever, and his gratitude toward you will make him absolutely certain that what has been done for him, he has to do for the future generations.
If every generation behaves toward the children with love and respect, and gives them freedom to grow, all this nonsense of the generation gap will disappear. If you respect your children, if you are friends to your children, no generation gap is possible.
Ordinarily what is happening around the world is, there is no communication between the children and the parents. They kiss each other, they shake hands, but it is all hypocrisy – done because it has to be done.
My father was being told by his friends, “You are going too far, giving so much freedom to your boy. Not only that, you talk with him as if he is your age. It seems you are not father and son but friends. This is not good – the father has to be authoritative.” But my father was a simple man. He could not be authoritative.
From my very childhood I remember him only as an older friend. Perhaps that created a situation. In my whole life I never had friends of my own age, always older people. I could not understand what the generation gap is, because I was always having friendships with people who were forty years older than me, fifty years older than me. One man, Pandit Sunderlal, was ninety years old – seventy years older than me, but we were great friends. Perhaps because of my father, the generation gap did not exist for me.
And I could communicate only with these people. The people of my own age looked to me very childish, stupid. I was never interested in their football games and in their hockey matches, in their volleyball. I could see only silliness. Throwing a ball from this side of the net to the other side, then returning it – what is the point? You can have two balls and sit silently, meditate!
And my colleagues – while I was a student or while I was a lecturer in the university – never felt that I belonged to their generation.
In the university common room…it was just by chance, the first day I entered the common room a corner chair was empty. So I went to that chair. Strangely enough, I always found it empty. I inquired of the peon, “What is the matter?”
He said, “Since you have sat on that chair, not only that chair is empty, but a few chairs on both sides are empty. Nobody wants to disturb you, nobody wants to discuss with you. There is a certain fear.”
I said, “Strange, because I am absolutely harmless!”
The old peon said, “You are harmless, but there is no common ground between you and the other professors in the university. They are professors but they are talking only about girls in their classes, gossips…. They are always talking about how to pull somebody’s leg. They are always interested in politics – university politics, inside politics. They cannot do that in front of you, they feel embarrassed.”
Rarely did it happen that somebody would come and sit by my side, asking my permission, “Can I sit here?”
I would say, “This is a common room. The seat is empty and I don’t own….”
“No,” they would say, “somehow these three seats on this side and three seats on that side…you are occupying seven seats. People keep away. I also keep away,” the person would say, “but today all the seats are full. I am sorry to disturb you, but can I sit here?”
I would say, “You can sit happily. And if you want to talk about all your gossips, all your love affairs, you can talk with me.”
He would say, “No, I don’t want to talk about anything with you. I want just to sit silently here.”
I said, “That’s great, because that is my teaching: Sit silently.”
Just a single unconditioned person, and you create a center of the cyclone. Wherever he will be, he will have his uniqueness, and only a very few courageous people will be able to come close to him.
You will not find my photo in any of the photos of the university, for the simple reason that when for the first time the philosophical association was going to have its annual photograph, the head of the department asked me to come.
I said, “You are so old – and still interested in photographs!” Since then, nobody asked me. They understood it perfectly well, that it is a childish game. And the man was almost sixty years old – what are you doing with a photograph?
Children can be raised unconditioned. You will have to be very alert, aware not to impose yourself on them. And it is possible only if your orgasm becomes one with your meditation.
In fact, that is the intention of nature: to give you the orgasmic experience so that you start longing for more. But religions have prevented you even reaching the orgasmic state, so the question of longing for a meditative blissfulness, blessedness, does not arise.
Osho,
I find myself in a po position. More and more deeply I can see myself, but I still don't find the way through. Is the patience that grows out of trust all that is needed? Could you comment, please?
You are certainly fortunate to find yourself in a position of po, because yes is binding, no is binding. Both are limited, but po is simply an opening. There are no boundaries to po.
This is the place from where inquiry can start.
If you say yes, inquiry has stopped there.
If you say no, you have stopped inquiry again.
Po is the position for a true seeker.
Hence, I say you are fortunate. Don’t feel despair.
Certainly there will be a turmoil. Yes gives a consolation that you have arrived. No also is an arrival, a settlement. You don’t have to seek any more. But po? That should be the most precious word invented. It is not a position, it is only a great question mark. From that question mark you have to move in search of the truth, in search of your own being.
You ask me, “Is patience, trust in patience enough?”
No that is falling from the position of po. That is coming to the position of yes. You want consolation, you want me to say to you, “Yes, just trust and be patient.”
No, I am not going to give you such pleasure so easily. You will have to inquire, doubt, and go into the darkness.
Don’t be afraid, because there is nothing to be afraid of. Man alone has intelligence, and nothing is higher in existence than intelligence. In your having such a quality, fear should simply disappear.
And yes, trust will arise. You have not to accept it now. As you will move in your inquiries, in the darkness of the unknown, first there will be fear, but soon you will see the darkness is becoming thinner. You start seeing things – although they are still only dimly seen. But that will give you trust that you are moving in the right direction.
And of course, once trust arises, patience follows it, because trust can wait for infinity but will not betray its inquiry. It wants to know; however long it takes does not matter.
So first, start the inquiry. Then trust comes of its own accord and is followed by infinite patience. And the moment there is trust and patience, you have almost arrived.
Perhaps one step more – and that is the most difficult step. When you have reached near the goal, you can start taking it for granted: “I have already arrived, now I can rest a little; there is no hurry.” The goal is there, just one step and you will be in.
Never do that, because in existence everything is fast-moving, changing. If under a tree you start resting for a little while…. You are, of course, tired – it is a long inquiry, journey, there is doubt, skepticism – you are tired, but just for one step don’t rest.
People have lost at the very last step because they thought that they had arrived at the goal. But existence is continuously moving; by the time you wake up the goal may be gone. Nothing is static. Perhaps it may take years for you to find the same situation again. And again you will be tired, more tired than before.
Remember it, that the first step and the last step are the most difficult – the journey itself is not difficult. The first step is difficult because you are moving into the unknown – all kinds of fear and phobia…and the last step because you feel at rest: “I have arrived. Why not rest a little after such a long journey?” No, one step more, then there is restfulness and peace and relaxation forever.
But don’t think of trust and patience right now; otherwise, the same things that will be of immense help on the way will become hindrances. This is one of the tragedies of human life: all beautiful and good things which could have led anybody to the ultimate truth have become hindrances, because rather than letting them come on their own, you have started believing in them from the very beginning.
It is not the same trust that comes on its own. The imposed trust is an impostor. The practiced patience is nothing but impatience.
Let them come on their own. And remain alert when you have reached – don’t think that it is time to rest. It is not the time to rest, it is the time to pull all your energy together and take the final jump.
Before existence moves and things change, you have to merge yourself with the truth you have been seeking so long. And the miracle of miracles is that what you will find is your own being. It has always been at the innermost core of your existence, but sometimes it takes a very long, circuitous route to come back to your own home.
When Ford made his cars, his first model had no reverse gear; nobody had thought about it. But a problem arose: if you had gone a few feet away from your house and you wanted to come back, you had to go around the whole city. This was too much; Ford invented the reverse gear.
If there had been a God, by now he would have given you also a reverse gear. But because there is no God you have to live without a reverse gear. You have just to go on and on…even to reach to yourself you may have to travel the whole universe. But the journey too is immensely beautiful. It is good that you don’t have a reverse gear; otherwise you would have missed the glories, the beauties of the journey. Many people are missing them.
When you go by airplane from one country to another you don’t know what you have missed. Going by plane is not a journey – it is a kangaroo jump.
One of my friends, a very rich man, used to travel always in the third class, and always in the passenger trains; never in the express trains, faster trains, no – the slowest trains, which stop at every station. They never reach in time because to every express train they have to give right-of-way.
I asked him, “What nonsense is this?” – because sometimes in India you can travel for seven days in a passenger train, only then will you reach the goal.
He said, “It is so beautiful. The journey is so beautiful, passing through the country – the farms, the forest, the waterfalls, the rivers, the ocean.”
And in third class – of course, in India third class is a great experience. I have traveled third class only once – under compulsion, because I missed the train, and the train I had to catch instead had no first class, no air-conditioned class. It is called “the people’s train”: all third-class compartments. So there was no other way, that was the only possibility for me to reach in time to where I was going. So I traveled in the train – it was really hilarious.
Something was strange, that at stations the lights in the compartments would come on, and as the train left the station, the lights would go off. And when the lights went off….
You don’t know Indian third class: if it is meant for forty people, there are at least eighty people in it. It is so crowded – just like the whole of India is crowded; it is representative.
By my side was sitting a Hindu monk, a renowned sage, and just in front of him was sitting a very ferocious lady. Everything was so overcrowded, that when the light went off, nobody knew what was happening, you could only hear.
I would hit the sage, and he would shout, “Somebody is beating me! this is not right!”
And I would pull the leg of the woman, and she would jump upon the sage, and he would say, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” And the whole compartment enjoyed…!
People were sitting on their suitcases, on their luggage, on the upper seats. It was only for two hours, but it was really a psychedelic experience! The sage would look at me, but I was sitting silently and seriously, and I would show him all my respect, that this is not right: “Who is hitting you, and why don’t they hit you in the light?”
The sage said, “This is strange! And this woman, do you think I would pull her leg? I don’t touch women at all.”
Next time the woman said, “This is too much – he is now pulling my sari!”
Then a few people around the sage started beating him, because this was too much: “Making a woman naked? This man is not respectable and not a sage at all. Let the next station come and we will take all his symbols of a Hindu monk. This is a dangerous fellow,” – and they took them away.
I told them, “Don’t – he does not seem to be that type. And what does it matter if he had pulled the sari? – The woman is not naked.”
But the woman was ferocious, because she said, “He was almost going to make me naked.”
And people said, “For what were you trying to make her naked?”
They took away his begging bowl and threw it out of the train. They took away his monk’s staff and threw it out of the train, and they told him, “If you do any mischief again, we will give you to the police at the next station.”
I said to the sage, “You had better get down at this station. At the next station you will get caught by the police, because so many people are witnesses.”
He said, “This is strange! I have not done anything. I have been beaten unnecessarily, continuously; my things have been thrown away – and this woman is sitting on my luggage.”
And the woman simply refused to move, saying: “I will not move from here, because of what you have done to me; you deserve all this.”
He said, “How can I get out?”
I said, “It is up to you, because these people are really dangerous. They beat you in the darkness; now they have thrown away your symbols, and I am certain, before the next station, they may throw you! From a moving train….”
The monk said, “Perhaps you are right, I should get out here and leave the luggage too, because that woman is really dangerous. I have not touched her feet, I have not touched her sari; I don’t know who is doing it.”
I said, “I know, but you get down.”
It was such a joy – in darkness, what people can do and what people can understand and how people can behave! All these people were touching the feet of the man when I had come into the compartment. And now he was almost denuded of his glory, respectability, sagehood.
Traveling in trains I have felt how much people who are flying are missing: so much beauty all around, such scenic spots – virgin, because nobody will go there.
Remember, perhaps that’s why nature has not given you a reverse gear. You will have to go around the whole existence. It is a great learning, brings great maturity, great understanding, great wisdom; and finally when you find your home, and come to know that this has always been within you, it is such an ecstasy. One feels like dancing, singing….
If you see a saint who is not laughing, singing, dancing, know perfectly well he is just hocus-pocus.
Osho,
The other day when you were talking about being a misfit in society, I thought of the sannyasin discos and restaurants in Europe, in the middle of society. How can sannyasins be misfits there? Are we trying to fit into society?
No, never! My sannyasins, wherever they are, are creating more misfits, and in the society there are many people who are ready to become misfits. Seeing a group of misfits enjoying life so terrifically, those other misfits go on joining.
In fact, in Germany we have won a case just now, because the minister concerned had stopped the opening of one of our discos on the grounds that these discos are strategies to attract young people and then convert them into sannyasins.
We went to the court – and it was absolutely absurd, we have never tried to convert anybody. But if people want to be converted, then to refuse is not gentlemanly either.
So our discos, our restaurants, our centers, ashrams, communes, they are shelters for all rebels, unfits – because they are real people. People who are fitting with the dead, rotten society are themselves rotten and dead. Anyone who is alive is bound to be a misfit in this dying society. But feeling alone, it becomes more difficult to get out of this. Our places are giving them opportunities: “Don’t feel alone. We have an alternative society of unfits – everybody is an unfit. All that you need to fit into our society is to be an unfit.”
We won the case. It was so simple – not a single piece of evidence that we have converted anybody. We are not missionaries; the word “missionary” is a four-letter word. We don’t interfere in anybody’s life, we don’t interfere in anybody’s freedom; but if somebody feels at home with us, he is welcome. He is coming on his own decision – and if he wants to leave, nobody prevents him.
We won the case, and in The Osho Times German edition, our legal expert who had fought in the courts against the minister wrote about the case and called the minister a “supra-fascist,” a high-class fascist, so sophisticated that you would not be able to think that he is a fascist.
The minister filed a case of defamation against Sadhu and The Osho Times but we proved that he is a “supra-fascist.” His fascism is sophisticated, subtle. We exposed him from his statements, speeches; we gathered all the material and just placed it before the court.
The court must have been in a difficulty. It took six or eight months for them to make a decision, but they had to make it, because they know my people – that if they go against the truth, the case will move to the higher court. It must have been a shock to the minister that the court accepted that he is a “supra-fascist,” and that we have not defamed him, we have simply stated a factuality.
Now, if that minister had any sense of shame, he would jump in the ocean and disappear forever. A court decision about him, and he is still clinging to his post, seems simply – the man is shameless!
My people, anywhere, are not going to fit with the rotten, the dead, the graves, the graveyards, no.
We will create our own oases where all unique individuals can live, with their uniqueness respected, with their differences respected.
It has never happened in history; unfits have never gathered together. It is for the first time that one million unfits around the world have gathered together – dancing, and fighting with the dying society. And it is a simple job, because that society is dying by itself. Anybody who has any sense, intelligence, would escape that society and join a sannyasin commune.
Just a few days ago, I was talking to a very intelligent and loving Swiss journalist. As I looked into his eyes, I told him, “Though I am not an astrologer or a prophet, about you I cannot resist the temptation of making a prophecy.”
He said, “What prophecy?”
I said, “You are so intelligent and so loving, you cannot remain long without becoming a sannyasin.”
And the next day he became a sannyasin! He did not wait even for a few days.
I recognize my people immediately – just a look into their eyes and I know they belong to me. And to belong to me does not mean to fit with me or with anything or anybody.
To belong to me means to belong to freedom, to belong to your individuality, to belong to your purity, your naturalness….
Please let me, allow me to drift a little bit. Just this word “naturalness” created trouble, because the other day I was telling you about plastic ladies, so I have received letters saying, “This is very unnatural.”
Sitting in a car is not unnatural, traveling in a plane is not unnatural, listening to me through technological devices is not unnatural.
As far as the plastic lady is concerned, we will make it as natural as you want. It is a very simple phenomenon: if you want her to nag you, she will nag you; she will throw clothes at you. She just has to carry a recording, a tape within herself, and she will call you all the dirty words that you are accustomed to. And while you are making love to her, she will shriek and say, “My Jesus!”
Is there any biological chance of an unconditioned, free and loving relationship between child and parent?
Absolutely no. Biology is blind; hence there is no biological chance. But you can get over biology. You are conscious, intelligent human beings, so there is a possibility; but the possibility will be through meditation, not through biology.
If the parents are meditative, if the child is born not only through biological sexual intercourse, but also through a deep meditative love….
The meditative love means melting into each other’s beings, not just the bodies. It means putting your egos away, your religions away, your ideologies away – becoming simple and innocent. In that unconditioned state of the parents, if the child is conceived there is every certainty, not only possibility, that the child will not be conditioned at all.
There are a few things which you have to understand. I cannot give any proofs for them, they are beyond proofs. Only your experience will give you the proof.
For example, the biological organism is capable of transcending itself. It transcends in certain moments. Those are the moments most cherished in the human mind, because in those moments you have known freedom, an expanded self, an utter silence and peace; love without its counterpart, hate, following it.
That moment we call orgasm. Biology gives you orgasm; that is the most precious gift from blind biology. You can use those moments of freedom, melting, disappearing, for meditation. There is no better space from which to jump into meditation than orgasm. Two lovers feeling one soul in two bodies…everything has stopped for the moment; even time has stopped. There are no thoughts, the mind has stopped. You are in your simple is-ness. Those are the little spaces from where you can get beyond biology.
All that you have to know is that this is what meditation is: timelessness, egolessness, silence, blissfulness, an all-pervading joy, overwhelming ecstasy.
This has happened through biology between two persons. Once you know that it can happen in your aloneness too, you just have to fulfill those conditions. My own understanding is that man came to know about meditation through sexual orgasm, because in life there is no other moment which comes so close to meditativeness.
But all the religions are against sex. They are for meditation, but they are not for the beginning, the basic experience that will lead you to meditation. So they have created a poor humanity – not only materially poor, but spiritually poor too. They have conditioned your mind against sex so much that under biological pressure you go into it. But in that pressure you cannot experience the orgasmic freedom, the infinity that suddenly becomes available to you; the eternity in the moment, the depth, the abysmal depth of the experience.
Because man has been deprived of orgasmic blissfulness, he has become incapable of knowing what meditation is. And that’s what all the religions want: that you never become meditative. Talk about it, read about it, do research on it, listen to lectures on it…. All that will create more frustration in you, because you understand everything about meditation intellectually, but you don’t have any existential base – not even a drop of the experience which can prove that if the drop is there, the ocean also must be somewhere.
The drop is the existential proof of the ocean. Biology is far more compassionate than your churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques. Although biology is blind, it is not so blind as your Moses, Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed.
Biology is your nature.
It has nothing but compassion for you.
It has given you everything possible that is needed to go higher, to reach to a super-natural state.
My whole life I have been fighting against idiots. They cannot answer me, my argument, which is simple: you talk about meditation but you will have to give some existential proof in human life; otherwise, people will understand only words. You will have to give them something that can make them aware of what is possible: love made without any guilt, without any hurry, without thinking that you are doing something wrong. You will be doing the best and the most right thing in the world.
It is strange to see that people can kill without any guilt – not one but millions of people – but they cannot create a child without guilt.
All the religions have been nothing but a calamity.
Make love only when you are ready to be in a meditative space. And create a meditative atmosphere while you are making love. You should treat the place as sacred. Creating life…what can be more sacred? Do it as beautifully, as aesthetically, as joyously as possible. There should be no hurry. And if the two lovers meet in such an atmosphere outside, and such a silent space within, they will attract a soul, the highest available.
You give birth to a child according to your state of love. If every parent is disappointed, he should think about it, that this is the child they deserved. They never created a possibility for a higher and more evolved soul to enter into the womb – because the male sperm and the female egg only create an opportunity for a soul to enter. They create the opportunity for a body, so some soul can become embodied. But you will attract only that kind of person which your sexual activity makes possible.
If the world is full of idiots and mediocre people, you are responsible; I mean, parents are responsible. They never thought about it, their children are accidental. There cannot be a bigger crime than to create a life accidentally.
Prepare for it. And the most essential thing is to understand the orgasmic moment: thoughtless, timeless, mindless, just a pure awareness. In that pure awareness you can attract a Gautam Buddha. The way you are making love, it is strange that more Adolf Hitlers, Mussolinis, Stalins, Nadirshahs, Tamerlanes, Genghis Khans, are not attracted. You attract only mediocre people. You don’t attract the lowest either, because for the lowest your love has to be almost a rape. For the highest, your love has to be a meditation.
The child’s life begins from the moment the soul enters into the womb. If it has come into a meditative space, it is possible to have a child without conditioning him. In fact, a child who is born out of meditation cannot be conditioned; he will rebel against it. Only mediocre people can be conditioned.
And a couple who is capable of meditativeness while making love is no ordinary couple. They will be respectful to the child. The child is a guest from the unknown, and you have to be respectful to the guest. Parents who are not respectful to their children are bound to destroy their lives. Your respect, your love, your gratitude that, “You have chosen us as your parents,” will be responded to with deeper respect, more gratitude, more love.
And when you love a person, you cannot condition him. When you love a person, you give him freedom, you give him protection. When you love a person you would not like him to be just a carbon copy of yourself, you would like him to be a unique individual. And to make him unique you will arrange all the conditions, all the challenges which provoke his potential.
You will not burden him with knowledgeability, because you would like him to know the truth himself. Any borrowed truth is a lie. Unless it is experienced by you, it is never the truth.
You will help the child to experience more and more things. You will not tell him lies, that there is a God. It is a lie, because you have not seen God. Your parents lied to you, and you are repeating it in your turn to your child. Your parents conditioned you, and what is your life? – a long misery from cradle to grave. Do you want your child’s life also to be just a misery, full of suffering, anxiety, despair?
There is only one statement in the whole Holy Bible which I am not against. The statement is, “God can forgive everything, but not despair.” Whoever wrote it must have been a man of immense understanding. God cannot forgive only one thing, and that is despair. But everybody is living in despair – God or no God, despair is a reality. It is self-destruction. If you love your child, you will make him rejoice, laugh, enjoy, dance. But just the opposite is being done.
In my house in my childhood, it used to be that when some guest was coming they used to get rid of me by sending me somewhere. And the moment they started talking about sending me somewhere – that I have to go to see the doctor because I have had a cold for so many days, I would say, “Nothing doing. I know my cold and I know the doctor; I will choose my time to go. At least this time I cannot go – cold or cancer, it makes no difference.”
They said, “But why?”
I said, “I know somebody is coming to the house, and you are afraid.” And they were naturally afraid, because I made them feel embarrassed. The guest may be some important person, and I may do something that will spoil their whole relationship.
Once, eating, suddenly I started laughing. The whole family knew that something was bound to happen, because there was a guest. But the guest was shocked. He said, “Why are you laughing?”
I said, “Laughing needs no cause. In fact, I should ask you, ‘Why are you all sitting with long faces?’ Laughter has an intrinsic value; long faces don’t have any value at all. And since you have come, even people in my family are looking very sad, serious. I don’t understand what is wrong with you. Do you create this kind of atmosphere wherever you go?”
I may suddenly start dancing. The conversation between the guest and my parents would stop suddenly, because I was dancing in the middle of them. They would say, “You can go out and play.”
I said, “I know the exact spot where to dance. If you choose to go out, you can go and have your stupid conversation – which means nothing! Talking about the weather and the season…you all know, even I know. What is the point?”
In polite conversation people never discuss subjects which are controversial because that may create some antagonism. They only discuss non-controversial subjects – the weather…. Naturally, there is no controversy about it. If it is cold, it is cold; if it is hot, it is hot.
“And I am dancing here only to make you realize that you are wasting your time. Better join me in the dance!”
A child who is not conditioned is in many ways embarrassing to the parents. But if they love, they will be ready to do anything. Even if it brings embarrassment, there is no harm. Their child is growing into a unique being. They will help him to remain free, to remain open, to remain available to the unknown future.
They will make him a seeker, not a believer. They will not make him a Christian, or a Jew, or a Hindu, or a Mohammedan, because all these religions have done so much harm – it is more than enough.
It is time for all the religions to disappear from the planet. Unconditioned children can make that miracle happen because tomorrow they will be young people, mature, and they will not be Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans. They will be just seekers; seeking will be their religion.
That’s my definition of a sannyasin: searching, seeking, inquiring is his religion.
Beliefs stop all inquiry.
Give the child all your experiences. Make him aware that he was conceived in a very loving orgasmic moment, that love is a great gift of existence. And you have to make love the central point of your life, because only through love can you step beyond blind nature into the world of super-nature, where no blindness exists, where you become a seer.
Yes, it is possible, but not possible through biology alone. It is possible if you are courageous enough to make your love your temple, your place of meditation. Then you will be attracting a soul already having the potential of uniqueness. And then give him every possibility for freedom, even if it goes against you. The freedom of your child is more valuable, because your child is the future of mankind.
Your days are past. What does it matter if it goes against you? What have you gained by it? you are empty, you are beggars. Do you want your children also to be empty and beggars? That’s what every parent is trying to do – to reproduce copies, carbon copies. And remember, existence accepts only the originals. Carbon copies are not acceptable in existence.
Let your child have his original face.
It may create fear in you, it may create concern in you, but those are your problems. Don’t in any way inhibit the child. And a child who has been given freedom – even against his own parents – will respect you forever, will remain grateful to you forever.
Right now, just the opposite is the case: every child is full of anger, rage, hatred for the parents, because what they have done to him is unforgivable.
So by giving freedom, by allowing the child to be himself whatever that means, accepting him in his natural self wherever it leads, you are creating a child who will worship you. You have been not only ordinary fathers and mothers, you have been givers of life, freedom, uniqueness.
He will carry the beautiful memory in his heart forever, and his gratitude toward you will make him absolutely certain that what has been done for him, he has to do for the future generations.
If every generation behaves toward the children with love and respect, and gives them freedom to grow, all this nonsense of the generation gap will disappear. If you respect your children, if you are friends to your children, no generation gap is possible.
Ordinarily what is happening around the world is, there is no communication between the children and the parents. They kiss each other, they shake hands, but it is all hypocrisy – done because it has to be done.
My father was being told by his friends, “You are going too far, giving so much freedom to your boy. Not only that, you talk with him as if he is your age. It seems you are not father and son but friends. This is not good – the father has to be authoritative.” But my father was a simple man. He could not be authoritative.
From my very childhood I remember him only as an older friend. Perhaps that created a situation. In my whole life I never had friends of my own age, always older people. I could not understand what the generation gap is, because I was always having friendships with people who were forty years older than me, fifty years older than me. One man, Pandit Sunderlal, was ninety years old – seventy years older than me, but we were great friends. Perhaps because of my father, the generation gap did not exist for me.
And I could communicate only with these people. The people of my own age looked to me very childish, stupid. I was never interested in their football games and in their hockey matches, in their volleyball. I could see only silliness. Throwing a ball from this side of the net to the other side, then returning it – what is the point? You can have two balls and sit silently, meditate!
And my colleagues – while I was a student or while I was a lecturer in the university – never felt that I belonged to their generation.
In the university common room…it was just by chance, the first day I entered the common room a corner chair was empty. So I went to that chair. Strangely enough, I always found it empty. I inquired of the peon, “What is the matter?”
He said, “Since you have sat on that chair, not only that chair is empty, but a few chairs on both sides are empty. Nobody wants to disturb you, nobody wants to discuss with you. There is a certain fear.”
I said, “Strange, because I am absolutely harmless!”
The old peon said, “You are harmless, but there is no common ground between you and the other professors in the university. They are professors but they are talking only about girls in their classes, gossips…. They are always talking about how to pull somebody’s leg. They are always interested in politics – university politics, inside politics. They cannot do that in front of you, they feel embarrassed.”
Rarely did it happen that somebody would come and sit by my side, asking my permission, “Can I sit here?”
I would say, “This is a common room. The seat is empty and I don’t own….”
“No,” they would say, “somehow these three seats on this side and three seats on that side…you are occupying seven seats. People keep away. I also keep away,” the person would say, “but today all the seats are full. I am sorry to disturb you, but can I sit here?”
I would say, “You can sit happily. And if you want to talk about all your gossips, all your love affairs, you can talk with me.”
He would say, “No, I don’t want to talk about anything with you. I want just to sit silently here.”
I said, “That’s great, because that is my teaching: Sit silently.”
Just a single unconditioned person, and you create a center of the cyclone. Wherever he will be, he will have his uniqueness, and only a very few courageous people will be able to come close to him.
You will not find my photo in any of the photos of the university, for the simple reason that when for the first time the philosophical association was going to have its annual photograph, the head of the department asked me to come.
I said, “You are so old – and still interested in photographs!” Since then, nobody asked me. They understood it perfectly well, that it is a childish game. And the man was almost sixty years old – what are you doing with a photograph?
Children can be raised unconditioned. You will have to be very alert, aware not to impose yourself on them. And it is possible only if your orgasm becomes one with your meditation.
In fact, that is the intention of nature: to give you the orgasmic experience so that you start longing for more. But religions have prevented you even reaching the orgasmic state, so the question of longing for a meditative blissfulness, blessedness, does not arise.
Osho,
I find myself in a po position. More and more deeply I can see myself, but I still don't find the way through. Is the patience that grows out of trust all that is needed? Could you comment, please?
You are certainly fortunate to find yourself in a position of po, because yes is binding, no is binding. Both are limited, but po is simply an opening. There are no boundaries to po.
This is the place from where inquiry can start.
If you say yes, inquiry has stopped there.
If you say no, you have stopped inquiry again.
Po is the position for a true seeker.
Hence, I say you are fortunate. Don’t feel despair.
Certainly there will be a turmoil. Yes gives a consolation that you have arrived. No also is an arrival, a settlement. You don’t have to seek any more. But po? That should be the most precious word invented. It is not a position, it is only a great question mark. From that question mark you have to move in search of the truth, in search of your own being.
You ask me, “Is patience, trust in patience enough?”
No that is falling from the position of po. That is coming to the position of yes. You want consolation, you want me to say to you, “Yes, just trust and be patient.”
No, I am not going to give you such pleasure so easily. You will have to inquire, doubt, and go into the darkness.
Don’t be afraid, because there is nothing to be afraid of. Man alone has intelligence, and nothing is higher in existence than intelligence. In your having such a quality, fear should simply disappear.
And yes, trust will arise. You have not to accept it now. As you will move in your inquiries, in the darkness of the unknown, first there will be fear, but soon you will see the darkness is becoming thinner. You start seeing things – although they are still only dimly seen. But that will give you trust that you are moving in the right direction.
And of course, once trust arises, patience follows it, because trust can wait for infinity but will not betray its inquiry. It wants to know; however long it takes does not matter.
So first, start the inquiry. Then trust comes of its own accord and is followed by infinite patience. And the moment there is trust and patience, you have almost arrived.
Perhaps one step more – and that is the most difficult step. When you have reached near the goal, you can start taking it for granted: “I have already arrived, now I can rest a little; there is no hurry.” The goal is there, just one step and you will be in.
Never do that, because in existence everything is fast-moving, changing. If under a tree you start resting for a little while…. You are, of course, tired – it is a long inquiry, journey, there is doubt, skepticism – you are tired, but just for one step don’t rest.
People have lost at the very last step because they thought that they had arrived at the goal. But existence is continuously moving; by the time you wake up the goal may be gone. Nothing is static. Perhaps it may take years for you to find the same situation again. And again you will be tired, more tired than before.
Remember it, that the first step and the last step are the most difficult – the journey itself is not difficult. The first step is difficult because you are moving into the unknown – all kinds of fear and phobia…and the last step because you feel at rest: “I have arrived. Why not rest a little after such a long journey?” No, one step more, then there is restfulness and peace and relaxation forever.
But don’t think of trust and patience right now; otherwise, the same things that will be of immense help on the way will become hindrances. This is one of the tragedies of human life: all beautiful and good things which could have led anybody to the ultimate truth have become hindrances, because rather than letting them come on their own, you have started believing in them from the very beginning.
It is not the same trust that comes on its own. The imposed trust is an impostor. The practiced patience is nothing but impatience.
Let them come on their own. And remain alert when you have reached – don’t think that it is time to rest. It is not the time to rest, it is the time to pull all your energy together and take the final jump.
Before existence moves and things change, you have to merge yourself with the truth you have been seeking so long. And the miracle of miracles is that what you will find is your own being. It has always been at the innermost core of your existence, but sometimes it takes a very long, circuitous route to come back to your own home.
When Ford made his cars, his first model had no reverse gear; nobody had thought about it. But a problem arose: if you had gone a few feet away from your house and you wanted to come back, you had to go around the whole city. This was too much; Ford invented the reverse gear.
If there had been a God, by now he would have given you also a reverse gear. But because there is no God you have to live without a reverse gear. You have just to go on and on…even to reach to yourself you may have to travel the whole universe. But the journey too is immensely beautiful. It is good that you don’t have a reverse gear; otherwise you would have missed the glories, the beauties of the journey. Many people are missing them.
When you go by airplane from one country to another you don’t know what you have missed. Going by plane is not a journey – it is a kangaroo jump.
One of my friends, a very rich man, used to travel always in the third class, and always in the passenger trains; never in the express trains, faster trains, no – the slowest trains, which stop at every station. They never reach in time because to every express train they have to give right-of-way.
I asked him, “What nonsense is this?” – because sometimes in India you can travel for seven days in a passenger train, only then will you reach the goal.
He said, “It is so beautiful. The journey is so beautiful, passing through the country – the farms, the forest, the waterfalls, the rivers, the ocean.”
And in third class – of course, in India third class is a great experience. I have traveled third class only once – under compulsion, because I missed the train, and the train I had to catch instead had no first class, no air-conditioned class. It is called “the people’s train”: all third-class compartments. So there was no other way, that was the only possibility for me to reach in time to where I was going. So I traveled in the train – it was really hilarious.
Something was strange, that at stations the lights in the compartments would come on, and as the train left the station, the lights would go off. And when the lights went off….
You don’t know Indian third class: if it is meant for forty people, there are at least eighty people in it. It is so crowded – just like the whole of India is crowded; it is representative.
By my side was sitting a Hindu monk, a renowned sage, and just in front of him was sitting a very ferocious lady. Everything was so overcrowded, that when the light went off, nobody knew what was happening, you could only hear.
I would hit the sage, and he would shout, “Somebody is beating me! this is not right!”
And I would pull the leg of the woman, and she would jump upon the sage, and he would say, “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” And the whole compartment enjoyed…!
People were sitting on their suitcases, on their luggage, on the upper seats. It was only for two hours, but it was really a psychedelic experience! The sage would look at me, but I was sitting silently and seriously, and I would show him all my respect, that this is not right: “Who is hitting you, and why don’t they hit you in the light?”
The sage said, “This is strange! And this woman, do you think I would pull her leg? I don’t touch women at all.”
Next time the woman said, “This is too much – he is now pulling my sari!”
Then a few people around the sage started beating him, because this was too much: “Making a woman naked? This man is not respectable and not a sage at all. Let the next station come and we will take all his symbols of a Hindu monk. This is a dangerous fellow,” – and they took them away.
I told them, “Don’t – he does not seem to be that type. And what does it matter if he had pulled the sari? – The woman is not naked.”
But the woman was ferocious, because she said, “He was almost going to make me naked.”
And people said, “For what were you trying to make her naked?”
They took away his begging bowl and threw it out of the train. They took away his monk’s staff and threw it out of the train, and they told him, “If you do any mischief again, we will give you to the police at the next station.”
I said to the sage, “You had better get down at this station. At the next station you will get caught by the police, because so many people are witnesses.”
He said, “This is strange! I have not done anything. I have been beaten unnecessarily, continuously; my things have been thrown away – and this woman is sitting on my luggage.”
And the woman simply refused to move, saying: “I will not move from here, because of what you have done to me; you deserve all this.”
He said, “How can I get out?”
I said, “It is up to you, because these people are really dangerous. They beat you in the darkness; now they have thrown away your symbols, and I am certain, before the next station, they may throw you! From a moving train….”
The monk said, “Perhaps you are right, I should get out here and leave the luggage too, because that woman is really dangerous. I have not touched her feet, I have not touched her sari; I don’t know who is doing it.”
I said, “I know, but you get down.”
It was such a joy – in darkness, what people can do and what people can understand and how people can behave! All these people were touching the feet of the man when I had come into the compartment. And now he was almost denuded of his glory, respectability, sagehood.
Traveling in trains I have felt how much people who are flying are missing: so much beauty all around, such scenic spots – virgin, because nobody will go there.
Remember, perhaps that’s why nature has not given you a reverse gear. You will have to go around the whole existence. It is a great learning, brings great maturity, great understanding, great wisdom; and finally when you find your home, and come to know that this has always been within you, it is such an ecstasy. One feels like dancing, singing….
If you see a saint who is not laughing, singing, dancing, know perfectly well he is just hocus-pocus.
Osho,
The other day when you were talking about being a misfit in society, I thought of the sannyasin discos and restaurants in Europe, in the middle of society. How can sannyasins be misfits there? Are we trying to fit into society?
No, never! My sannyasins, wherever they are, are creating more misfits, and in the society there are many people who are ready to become misfits. Seeing a group of misfits enjoying life so terrifically, those other misfits go on joining.
In fact, in Germany we have won a case just now, because the minister concerned had stopped the opening of one of our discos on the grounds that these discos are strategies to attract young people and then convert them into sannyasins.
We went to the court – and it was absolutely absurd, we have never tried to convert anybody. But if people want to be converted, then to refuse is not gentlemanly either.
So our discos, our restaurants, our centers, ashrams, communes, they are shelters for all rebels, unfits – because they are real people. People who are fitting with the dead, rotten society are themselves rotten and dead. Anyone who is alive is bound to be a misfit in this dying society. But feeling alone, it becomes more difficult to get out of this. Our places are giving them opportunities: “Don’t feel alone. We have an alternative society of unfits – everybody is an unfit. All that you need to fit into our society is to be an unfit.”
We won the case. It was so simple – not a single piece of evidence that we have converted anybody. We are not missionaries; the word “missionary” is a four-letter word. We don’t interfere in anybody’s life, we don’t interfere in anybody’s freedom; but if somebody feels at home with us, he is welcome. He is coming on his own decision – and if he wants to leave, nobody prevents him.
We won the case, and in The Osho Times German edition, our legal expert who had fought in the courts against the minister wrote about the case and called the minister a “supra-fascist,” a high-class fascist, so sophisticated that you would not be able to think that he is a fascist.
The minister filed a case of defamation against Sadhu and The Osho Times but we proved that he is a “supra-fascist.” His fascism is sophisticated, subtle. We exposed him from his statements, speeches; we gathered all the material and just placed it before the court.
The court must have been in a difficulty. It took six or eight months for them to make a decision, but they had to make it, because they know my people – that if they go against the truth, the case will move to the higher court. It must have been a shock to the minister that the court accepted that he is a “supra-fascist,” and that we have not defamed him, we have simply stated a factuality.
Now, if that minister had any sense of shame, he would jump in the ocean and disappear forever. A court decision about him, and he is still clinging to his post, seems simply – the man is shameless!
My people, anywhere, are not going to fit with the rotten, the dead, the graves, the graveyards, no.
We will create our own oases where all unique individuals can live, with their uniqueness respected, with their differences respected.
It has never happened in history; unfits have never gathered together. It is for the first time that one million unfits around the world have gathered together – dancing, and fighting with the dying society. And it is a simple job, because that society is dying by itself. Anybody who has any sense, intelligence, would escape that society and join a sannyasin commune.
Just a few days ago, I was talking to a very intelligent and loving Swiss journalist. As I looked into his eyes, I told him, “Though I am not an astrologer or a prophet, about you I cannot resist the temptation of making a prophecy.”
He said, “What prophecy?”
I said, “You are so intelligent and so loving, you cannot remain long without becoming a sannyasin.”
And the next day he became a sannyasin! He did not wait even for a few days.
I recognize my people immediately – just a look into their eyes and I know they belong to me. And to belong to me does not mean to fit with me or with anything or anybody.
To belong to me means to belong to freedom, to belong to your individuality, to belong to your purity, your naturalness….
Please let me, allow me to drift a little bit. Just this word “naturalness” created trouble, because the other day I was telling you about plastic ladies, so I have received letters saying, “This is very unnatural.”
Sitting in a car is not unnatural, traveling in a plane is not unnatural, listening to me through technological devices is not unnatural.
As far as the plastic lady is concerned, we will make it as natural as you want. It is a very simple phenomenon: if you want her to nag you, she will nag you; she will throw clothes at you. She just has to carry a recording, a tape within herself, and she will call you all the dirty words that you are accustomed to. And while you are making love to her, she will shriek and say, “My Jesus!”