The first question:
Osho,
You said life and existence have no goal, they are a purpose unto themselves. Other masters, for instance, Sri Aurobindo, teach evolution as the aim of the world, evolution in always reaching for still higher levels of consciousness – from the kingdom of minerals to the kingdom of vegetables, animal, man, from present man to enlightened man.
Are these teachings wrong? Or is there a bridge to purposelessness?
Sri Aurobindo is a great philosopher but not a master at all. He is very intelligent, very scholarly, a great intellectual, but not an enlightened master. He talks about God and talks beautifully, but it is all talk, it is all abstraction; it is not a realization.
If it is a realization, then there cannot be any goal. For example, if the world has evolution as the goal, then what will be the goal of evolution? Why evolution at all in the first place? You will have to create another abstraction, and it will be a regress ad infinitum. Whatsoever you fix as the goal, the question will remain relevant about that. Why?
If this is the goal of evolution, to realize godliness, then what is the goal of realizing godliness, the ultimate? Just ask that question and you are back to the same place. If enlightenment is the goal of life, then what is the goal of enlightenment? And then you can see the point: enlightenment will have no purpose. And if the ultimate itself has no purpose, then what is the point of saying that life has purpose and the world has purpose? If the ultimate is purposelessness, then that ultimate permeates all.
This goal-orientation comes from the ego. The ego cannot accept that there is no goal. The ego cannot accept that there is no hierarchy. The ego cannot accept that minerals and trees and animals and man and enlightened people all exist in a great simultaneity – there is no gradation. You would like to be higher, you would like to be somebody special. You are man, not a mineral. But what is so great in being a man? What is so great in being an animal, or a man or an enlightened man? Why create the hierarchy? Finally the whole thing falls flat – in the end God has no purpose, and God is all.
Those who have experienced, those who have not just been thinking about God, but those who have experienced will say godliness is nothing but the cosmic simultaneity of all. Minerals are exactly where man is, in their own way, in a different form. Trees are exactly where enlightened people are, in their own way, in their own form. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower. The ego cannot accept that, because if there is nobody higher, nobody lower, it cannot exist at all. The ego can exist only through comparison; it has to put somebody lower and somebody higher. It can exist only in the middle of these two falsities. It has to put somebody lower so it can feel good: “I am special.” Then it has to put somebody higher so it can go on striving, so that it can go on achieving, so that it can go on ladder-climbing.
But if the ultimate has no purpose, what purpose is there in enlightenment? Buddha is purposeless – just think of it – and you are purposeful; existence is purposeless, and you are purposeful. If existence is purposeless, you are purposeless, because you are not separate from existence. Who is existing in the trees? Who is treeing in the trees? Who is hidden in the rocks? Who is singing in the birds? Who is speaking in me and who is listening in you? It is all one. The speaker and the spoken to are one, the knower and the known are one, the lover and the beloved are one.
Once this becomes comprehensible to you, you relax – you relax in the cosmic simultaneity. That’s what I mean when I say, “Be natural.” Ego brings unnatural desires in you; it drives you crazy. Life is simple, but to be simple one has to be purposeless. Any goal, and you can’t be simple; any goal and you can’t be herenow. Any goal and the desire to reach it will rock you. Any goal, and you are on the way, again moving, unable to enjoy this moment, the grace of this moment, the benediction of herenow.
Once you understand this, all goals disappear and with all those goals, you disappear – then what is left is enlightenment. To know that there is no purpose is to become enlightened, to know that all is good as it is. And we are all participating in the same reality. Nobody is higher and nobody is lower; no comparison is needed.
Which is higher, ice or water? Is vapor higher than ice? We know that there is nothing higher or lower – ice, water, vapor, are all manifestations of one reality called H₂O. H₂O has these three forms. Existence has millions of forms: man, woman, beautiful, ugly, stupid, intelligent, sinner, saint. Nobody is higher, nobody is lower. To see it is to be transformed. From that very moment you start disappearing, you start melting.
People like Sri Aurobindo will give you a new kind of ego, a spiritual kind. You start striving for supra-mental states, supra-conscious states, and you are again in the same rut, the race has started again. First it was for money, power, prestige; now it is for supra-mental states. And all that comes as a shadow with it will be there. There will be competition: somebody going higher than you, you are lagging behind, or going higher than somebody else. Everybody has to prove that he is higher, and has to continually fight those who are competing, and the whole nonsense has entered again. Then you are in a marketplace again, a spiritual marketplace, of course, but what is the difference? In the ordinary marketplace somebody was richer than you, now somebody has more satori quality in him, now somebody is more meditative, now somebody is more enlightened.
If there is a goal, then even enlightenment will be in degrees – more or less. If there is no goal, you can become enlightened this very moment. You are! You just need the courage to recognize it, the courage to be it. It hurts because the ego will have to be left, and all that you have tried in your life has been because of the ego. You may even be meditating because of the ego and for the ego. You want to have that attitude of “holier-than-thou” so you can condemn the whole world and you can say, “I am a spiritual person, you all are materialists.”
You can go around India and you can see: every Indian thinks that the whole world is materialist except Indians – holier-than-thou. And then people have to invent ways so they can prove that they are holier-than-thou. They will eat this and they will not eat that; they will live according to a certain pattern, they will have a certain style. All these are mind games. Beware of people like Sri Aurobindo!
My approach is not that of evolution. Nothing is going anywhere: all is here. Things are changing, certainly, but there is no evolution. Things are moving, certainly, but nothing is going higher and nothing is left behind as lower. Drop those categories. By dropping them you will immediately be entering into a new world. Suddenly you will find friendship with trees, because they are no longer lower; you will find a great affinity with birds, because they are no longer lower. Suddenly you will look into the eyes of your dog, and you will find a buddha there too. Then the sheer joy of it is infinite. You will look into the eyes of your woman, and a buddha is hiding there too.
I make all things divine. I don’t want you to go to God – I bring godliness to you. And not only to you – I bring godliness to the whole existence. It is really there; there is no other reality; this is the only reality there is. This is the only dance there is. Don’t miss this dance! Don’t get obsessed with ideals, otherwise you will be losing an opportunity.
Sat Bodhi asks: “You said life and existence have no goal, they are a purpose unto themselves.” Yes, it is so. It is not a philosophical statement. I am simply sharing my experience. I am not saying anything which I have not seen, felt, lived. I am simply opening my heart to you.
It is so. It is not an argument. I am not trying to convince you of anything at all. I am simply making it clear to you what has happened to me. And I say to you: this is available to you too, this very moment. Not a single moment’s postponement is needed because enlightenment is a state of nature.
Relax, don’t be tense about goals, because all goals make tension, create tension, stress, strain – because you always have to look ahead, to look far away. You have to think of future things, to plan for them; you have to strive. Naturally, tension arises, anxiety arises, anguish arises. You are torn apart: your reality is here and your heart is somewhere else. You become schizophrenic.
When I say relax, I mean drop all goals, drop all ideals. Relax into this moment, listen to this moment, live this moment, have a taste of it. Be surrounded by the reality that is already here, and suddenly you will also have the same taste I am talking about. It is an experience, existential. It is not speculation.

You say: “Other masters, for instance, Sri Aurobindo, teach evolution as the aim of the world… I don’t teach you anything “as the aim of the world.” I teach you only life, love, joy. I don’t want you to become obsessed with the future. Now is my teaching, if it can be called a teaching. Rather than calling it a teaching I would like to call it a sharing. I am not a teacher in that sense. I am not giving you a doctrine so that you can adapt yourself to the doctrine and you can become a follower. I want you to become me, not a follower.
But you are so miserly. Not only in giving: even in taking you are miserly. To hide that miserliness you philosophize in so many ways – these are strategies. You are afraid to relax. First you were tense for money, for a better house, for a better job, for a more beautiful woman. Now you are tense for evolution: how to become enlightened, how to become a buddha. You need a good kick in the pants! That’s exactly what happened…

A great seeker, a philosopher, a thinker, came to Ma Tzu. Ma Tzu is one of the rare Zen masters. The philosopher, a university professor, asked how to become enlightened, how to become a buddha. Ma Tzu, who was sitting in the temple just by the side of a great Buddha statue, said,, “To talk about such solemn and serious things, let us start by the right approach: you first bow down to Buddha.”
It looked so right: to talk about buddhahood, to talk about enlightenment, and Ma Tzu had said with great seriousness, “Bow down to Buddha,” so the philosopher bowed down. Ma Tzu gave him a good kick, a terrific kick in the pants. And something happened – not only that you are laughing: the philosopher started laughing, seeing the whole ridiculousness of it – his first satori; in that moment he had some taste of buddhahood.
What really happened? He was not expecting such a kick from such a great man, such an enlightened sage. You never expect such things. It was such a shock that for a moment, his thinking stopped; for a moment, he could not think at all. This was so unexpected.
That moment, bowing down to the statue of Buddha, and Ma Tzu kicking him so unexpectedly, was like an electric shock. It must have gone to the deepest core of his mind. For a moment, all thinking stops, all time stops and he is looking at Buddha’s statue. In that very moment, that meditative moment, he started laughing.
Years later, he was asked again and again, “What happened to you? – because you have never been the same man since.” He would answer, “Something strange happened. Since the day Ma Tzu kicked me, I have not stopped laughing. Whenever I bow down to Buddha, I remember Ma Tzu and the kick is there again. For a moment my thinking stops and I can see what this man means. He taught me without using a single word.”

That’s exactly what you need: a kick in the pants – a terrific kick. You are buddhas, you have simply forgotten. You need only remembrance, not evolution. It is not that you have to become a buddha, you are a buddha, fallen asleep. Somebody needs to kick you, somebody needs to shout at you, somebody needs to hit you. That is the purpose of a master. Ma Tzu is a master.
Sri Aurobindo is not a master; Sri Aurobindo is just philosophizing, giving consolation to people. Many people come to him, thousands became interested in him because it is cheap to become interested in philosophy. Nothing is lost, nothing is at stake, and you learn beautiful words, and you start dreaming about things, and somebody systematizes the whole thing. He is a great systematizer: he labels things, categorizes them; he goes with a system that has great appeal to the logical mind, the modern mind. But his appeal simply shows that he suits the modern mind, and anything that suits the modern mind is not going to change it.
You need somebody who can possess you unexpectedly, who can shatter your ideas, who can shatter you, who can take the very earth from beneath your feet. Only very courageous people become interested in a master. To be with a master is dangerous. One never knows what he is going to do; one never knows what he is going to say. He himself does not know! Things are happening. He is in tune with the whole, so whatsoever happens, happens.
Remember, Ma Tzu has not kicked this man: if Ma Tzu had kicked this man there would have been nothing, maybe a fight. Existence has kicked through Ma Tzu; Ma Tzu functioned only as a hollow bamboo.
The ways of a sage are strange, illogical, paradoxical. Sri Aurobindo cannot be a sage: he is so systematic, so logical. His very logicalness is enough proof that he knows nothing. He is clever with words, a genius with words. I don’t think anybody else in this century has been as capable with words, or had his talents of logic, scholarship, reading, research. But behind all that jargon there is nothing.
Another man was alive in Sri Aurobindo’s day, Ramana Maharshi. He had the experience. Very few people went to him, very few, but those who went were benefited. But to see Ramana Maharshi needs a totally different kind of approach. He will not speak much; he will not try to convince you. He will be sitting there – if you are available, he is available. And his ways will be very simple; unless you have a heart to feel that vibe, you will miss him.
It is not always so. J. Krishnamurti is there. He talks; talks very intelligently. Remember, I will not say logically: he talks very intelligently; goes into the analysis of any problem as deeply as is humanly possible. But he is not a philosopher. All of his talk is like uprooting weeds from the garden; he destroys your problems through his analysis. He does not give you anything; he simply takes away all that you have been carrying in your mind. For a moment you are utterly lost, and in that very moment you can see his reality. His experience starts flowing in you. People can miss him also.
People used to miss Sri Ramana because he was silent; he would not say much. Just the other day I mentioned U.G. Krishnamurti. When he saw Ramana Maharshi reading joke books and looking at cartoons, he was very frustrated. Not only that: a man asked a question about God and U. G. Krishnamurti was present there when, very seriously, bowing at his feet, the man asked about God. And what did Sri Ramana do? – do you know? He gave him a joke book and said, “Read it!”
Naturally, U. G. Krishnamurti was very much offended: “Is this a way? This seems to be disrespectful to the man who has asked such a serious question, giving him a joke book.” This is again a kick in the pants, in its own way.
What he is saying is, “What nonsense are you talking about? God? It is not a thing to be talked about – better read a joke book and have a good laugh.
“If you can laugh, maybe you can know God – not by what I will say. But if you can laugh a hearty laugh, a belly-laugh, in that moment thinking stops.”
Now, he has given a great message without saying a single word. Have you not watched it? When you laugh, for a moment you are no longer in the mind. Laughter takes you somewhere else. Where does it take you? It takes you to the same place where meditation takes you. So if you see a very serious and sad man and he claims that he is meditating, know well that he is not meditating. Meditation is always dancing; it is never serious, sad. It is sincere, of course, but never sad; it is joyous, it is gay.
You must have heard the old proverb: “Laugh and the whole world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone.” They have changed this proverb a little bit in modern times. Now they say: “Laugh and the whole world laughs with you; weep and you sleep alone.” But it is the same.
In the moment of laughter, you are suddenly one with the harmony of existence. Weep, and you have fallen apart, you are no longer part of it. In sadness, in seriousness, in despair, you are not in rhythm with existence. In laughing, in dancing, in singing, in loving, you are in rhythm with existence.
There is no evolution, only rhythm or no rhythm. These are two states, and they are available right now. You can be in rhythm, you can be not in rhythm – that is the freedom of man. Trees are continuously in rhythm, birds are continuously in rhythm. Man can choose. These are different manifestations. Because you can choose, you have chosen the wrong. The wrong has an appeal: by choosing the wrong, you become important; by choosing the right, you disappear. And you have been taught from the very childhood to be important, to be the first in the world. You have been taught ambition; you have been poisoned to the very core. You always want to be important.
Now, this U. G. Krishnamurti missed Sri Ramana, and something great was happening. Sri Ramana giving a joke book to a man who is asking about God, is almost like Buddha giving his flower to Mahakashyap or Ma Tzu giving a terrific kick in the pants. U. G. Krishnamurti missed Ramana. Then he missed J. Krishnamurti, too, and he lived for years with J. Krishnamurti.
Now, J. Krishnamurti is totally different in his expression, very logical, very rational. The beginning of his work is always with the mind; then slowly, slowly he leads you beyond the mind, But U. G. Krishnamurti thought it was all abstraction, philosophy. He stopped going there because “it is all abstraction.” He left Sri Ramana because there was no philosophy, he left Krishnamurti because there was too much philosophy; in both cases he missed.
He lived with Sri Shivananda of Rishikesh for seven years doing yoga postures. For seven years there he thought, “Something is here.” And there was nothing! Shivananda is a very ordinary teacher. You can find dozens of them all around this country teaching people how to stand on their heads, teaching people stupid things. U. G. Krishnamurti remained there for seven years and became a disciple.
Now, he missed two pinnacles. This is what goes on happening. You have a mind, a certain mind, and when you go to a master, you look from your mind. If it fits, you are happy; you start clinging. But that is not going to help, because if it fits, it will strengthen the same mind that you brought with you. If, by chance, you come across a real master, nothing is going to fit. He is going to disrupt all your ideas about how a master should be; he is going to sabotage you. He is not going to meet your expectations. He is going to frustrate you, he is going to disappoint you in every possible way because that is the only way real work can start. And if you still can be with him, then you are going to be awakened.
Sleep is easy, cheap; awakening is arduous. You will have to renounce your dreams and you will have to renounce much comfort, much convenience. You will have to renounce many ideas that you have always thought were very valuable.
My approach is that no evolution is happening. The world is exactly where it has always been, and will remain there. And I don’t mean that things are not changing – bullock-carts have disappeared and cars have come, and cars are on the way to disappearing sooner or later; soon private airplanes will be around.
Many things have changed, but really nothing has changed. At the core, everything is exactly the same. Do you think that if you become enlightened today you will be more enlightened than Buddha because twenty-five centuries have passed and man has evolved? Do you think the people who were there in Buddha’s day were more unenlightened than you are? Or go still further back to Moses, or still further back to Krishna. Do you think in the days of Krishna, five thousand years ago, there were fewer enlightened people or more unenlightened people than there are today? It is exactly the same.
Time makes no difference. When you become enlightened, the date will not be a decisive factor. When you become enlightened, you become enlightened! You simply become aware. You are no longer asleep. You remember, you recognize your reality, and you are in tune. Cars may be passing by, or bullock-carts – do you think it makes any difference? Would Buddha have been more enlightened if cars had been passing by in Bodhgaya and trains had been shrieking and airplanes had been rushing from one airport to another? What happened to Buddha in Bodhgaya twenty-five centuries ago would have been the same – bullock-carts or cars or airplanes or spaceships make no difference. And the people who were unenlightened were as unenlightened as the people are today.
At that depth nothing ever changes, there is no evolution. Otherwise, Buddha will have to come back to become more enlightened this time – and then there is no end. Then, every time you become enlightened, after a few centuries you have to come back and become more enlightened because now more sophisticated enlightenment is available. At the deepest core, nothing is changing. Only on the periphery do things change.

“Other teachers, for instance, Sri Aurobindo, teach evolution as the aim of the world…” These people appeal to you because you want something – longing, ambition, desire, passion – and these people supply you with it. Whatsoever is demanded is supplied. Because you want something to cling to, they give you spiritual commodities. You can’t remain without desires, so you say, “Now I am no longer interested in the world” – and they give you otherworldly desires.
They say, “Okay, take this, now worry about this. You have worried enough about the world, now worry about meditation, worry about enlightenment. You have competed enough to reach to Delhi, now forget about Delhi and reach moksha, nirvana, paradise, but go on reaching!” You feel very happy: a new toy has been given to you and you start playing with the new toy. Sooner or later you get fed up with that toy, then some other toy has to be given to you.
Just the other day, somebody had written a letter to me. In Germany, somebody has invented something new, far superior to enlightenment that is called “transformation.” Now you have played with the word enlightenment too long, now somebody is bound to come and say, “That is nothing. Take transformation. Enlightenment is simply enlightenment – we transform! We take you to another, a new formation. Enlightenment means you remain the same and light comes to you. Transformation means you become totally new.” Now this has appeal, it is a new toy. Then somebody will come and will give another word. People go on playing with words. Beware!
I really want to do work here. I don’t want to give you any more toys; I want to destroy all toys. It is going to be hard work; it is going to be painful. But if you can move with me just one step – I ask only one step – your dreams, your sleep, will have gone for ever, and then real life starts. Real life is with the whole; unreal life is alone.

“Are these teachings wrong?” Sat Bodhi has asked. They are neither right nor wrong, they are simply illusory. You cannot call them wrong. They are not right, they are not wrong, they are simply illusory. They have nothing to do with truth. They have something to do with your mind. Your mind demands those things; somebody comes and supplies you. It is a con game.

The second question:
Osho,
Does anything or anyone need correction? It puzzles me.
Nobody needs correction. And who is going to correct? The moment it is said that somebody needs correction, sooner or later somebody is needed to dominate you, to manipulate you, to make a slave out of you.
That’s why leaders down the ages have been calling and shouting from the housetops that everything needs to be corrected, everything needs to be changed, improved. If nothing needs to be corrected, they won’t be leaders any more. They live on the idea that things need to be improved, revolutions have to be done, then they are great leaders.
And nothing is ever improved, nothing can ever be improved. You can either be fast asleep or awake. And awakening is not a correction, remember. It is not correcting your sleep. If sleep is corrected that will mean a few more tranquilizers are injected in you so that you can sleep better. This is correction: new pillows, more comfortable; a new bed, more convenient; a better bedroom. These are corrections so you can remain asleep in a better way, so you can almost remain in a coma.
Sleep does not need correction. Awakening is not a correction in sleep, it is simply dropping sleep. It is moving into another kind of reality, having a totally different kind of relationship with existence.
Moralists, politicians, puritans, priests, they are always after you, calling for correction. Everything needs to be corrected, every person needs to be corrected – that is their power. Because of this, the world is dominated by politicians. They always go on finding what has to be corrected, and they always go on deluding you that now the correction can be made. But there is only one way: if they are in power then the correction can be made.
First they convince you that the correction is needed; then naturally when you become convinced, the correction is needed. And why do you become convinced? – because you are suffering. You are not suffering because of sleep, not because of immorality, not because of sin, but because you are unconscious. And they come and they say, “This is why you are suffering. A better morality, a better code of conduct, better behavior, a better character, and your suffering will disappear.”
You start correcting yourself, and you cannot do it, you need help, you need a priest, a guide to guide you. You need a leader! First they convince you correction is needed, and then naturally they come by the back door with all the paraphernalia to correct you. You become slaves. That has been the trick down the ages. People have been dominated; people have been reduced into things, they have been condemned, they have been praised, and they have been dominated through this condemnation and praise.
This is the great conspiracy. I would like to tell you once and for all: There is no need for any correction. You are not to be improved upon. Then what is needed? Awakening is needed, not correction. Not more morality, not more ethical conduct, no, just consciousness. With consciousness, morality comes on its own accord.
In deep sleep, unconscious, how can you correct yourself? At the most, you can have better dreams, maybe not in black and white but technicolor dreams, psychedelic dreams. But you can only have better dreams in sleep; you cannot have reality in sleep.
I have heard…

It was a dark, cloudy night and the drunk staggered into the cemetery and fell into a hole which had been dug in preparation for a burial the following day. The drunk hiccupped and fell asleep.
Half an hour later another drunk swayed into the cemetery. He was singing loudly and his raucous voice woke up the drunk in the grave who suddenly started to yell that he was cold.
The singing drunk tottered to the edge of the grave and peered blurrily down at the complaining drunk. “It’s no wonder you are cold,” he shouted down to the drunk, “you have kicked all the soil off yourself!”

This is what has been going on. You are asleep, your leaders are asleep; you are asleep, your priests are asleep. The problem is not that the man has kicked all the soil off himself… And if this other drunk starts helping, what do you think he will do? He will throw the soil on him again: “No wonder he is feeling cold!”
You need only one thing.
And corrections are millions, and still they never suffice. You put one thing right on this corner, and something else goes wrong on another, because your sleep keeps a certain balance. Have you not watched? You stop smoking and then you start chewing gum. You stop one thing and you have to start another, and it is the same old game. You go on changing things; you remain the same.
Corrections are millions. There is no end to them; you can go on correcting and correcting and you will never be correct. You will never be right. You can put all the wrongs right, and you will find yourself still wrong, because deep down you are still unconscious, you don’t know who you are.
The first and the only step is to know who you are, to become aware.

Timothy was on holiday in Ireland and staying at a small country inn. One evening in the bar he was amazed by the following conversation: “That’s a beautiful hat you’ve got there,” said an old man to a young fellow who was standing next to him at the bar; “where did you buy it?”
“At O’Grady’s,” replied the young man.
“Why, I go there myself!” commented the old man. “You must be from around these parts then?”
“Aye. From Murphy Street.”
“Gracious!” exclaimed the old man. “I live there too!” “Quite amazing,” commented Timothy to the barman. “that those two folk over there live in the same street and have only just met.”
“Don’t you believe it!” said the barman. “They’re actually father and son, but they’re always too drunk to recognize each other.”

No correction is needed, just awareness is needed. Become more alert. No character is needed, because all character is false if you are not conscious. And all character is a bondage if you are not conscious. All character is nothing but chains, it doesn’t bring freedom. All morality is hypocrisy if you are not aware, if you are not conscious.
So, to me, religion means only one thing: to be more conscious, to live more consciously.

You ask: “Does anyone or anything need correction? It puzzles me.” It has puzzled everybody down the ages. Forget about correction. Put your total energy into awakening. There are only two ways to be: unconscious or conscious. Choose.

The third question:
Osho,
“Enlightenment is my true nature; there is no need to do anything.”
“Only when effort is completely exhausted and one feels utterly useless does grace come.”
What is all this? I am confused. What should I do? Should I continue with meditation or should I just sit and let things happen?
Please guide me.
If you are confused then you will have to continue meditations. Confusion is the illness, meditation is medicinal. Both the words – meditation and medicine – come from the same root. If you are confused, you will have to go on meditating. When you see the point without any confusion, then there is no need. But meditation will prepare you; meditation will force you to see the point that there is no need to do anything. Only meditation can do that.
Just listening to me… I have told you that to be natural is to be enlightened. Now you think, “So, that is great! I can sit silently and do nothing.” But can you really sit silently and do nothing? If you can really sit silently and do nothing, then this question would not have arisen. You would have sat and known and you would have bowed before me and thanked me. There would have been no question. You would have come dancing to me, not with a question and a confused mind.
If you can sit silently doing nothing, what else is needed? That’s what Buddha was doing under the bodhi tree: sitting silently doing nothing – and then it happened. That’s how it happened to me. That’s how it always happens.
But doing nothing is not so easy. Because you have become so accustomed to doing something or other, even sitting will be a doing to you. You will have to force yourself in a yoga posture and you will sit strained, still, in control, holding, trying to sit silently and not do anything, and boiling within, to do a thousand and one things, and thousands of thoughts will clamor around, will distract you.
Can you just sit and do nothing? That is the ultimate; that’s what nirvana is, samadhi is. It can happen; just listening to me it can happen also, but great intelligence is needed. Then, simply, you have seen the point: that to be natural is all. Then where is the confusion? What is the confusion? Where does it come from? You have seen it, or you have not seen it. If you have seen it, all confusion has disappeared and you will sit silently, you will walk silently, you will eat silently, you will talk silently. You will become a non-doer; you will become a natural being.
But if you have not seen it, then you will need a few more crazy things; you will have to go through them. Those meditations will force you to see the point. Either you see just by listening and sitting by my side, or you will have to see the hard way.
Buddha meditated for six years, and meditated intensely, totally. Then this realization arose in him: “What am I doing? Trees are perfectly happy, birds are perfectly happy – what am I doing? And these trees are not meditating, and these birds have never thought about meditation, and they have not read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and they don’t do yoga asanas and they don’t chant any mantras. And the whole existence is so tremendously ecstatic! What am I doing standing on my head and fasting and all that nonsense?”
He saw it, but it took six years for him to see this. And he was no ordinary man; he was tremendously intelligent. It took six years for him to see the point. But the moment he saw it, he relaxed under the bodhi tree. He fell asleep and the next morning he was awakened. Not only were his eyes opened physically, but his eyes were opened spiritually. Next morning when he opened his eyes, he was totally a different man, the real man had arisen. Just a glimpse of the real man, says Ikkyu, and you are in love. And the moment he saw his real man, he started living a life of compassion and love. There was no other way now, no choice. He became a natural man.
So, if you feel confused, then go on meditating. Meditation is not for enlightenment: meditation is for confused people. Meditation does not lead you to enlightenment; it simply makes you fed up with your confusion. Just see the point: meditation is not a way to enlightenment, it is just a way to get rid of confusion. And when there is no confusion, enlightenment comes of its own accord.
Meditation’s work is negative; it takes things away from you. It does not give you anything; it simply goes on taking things away from you. Anger disappears, greed disappears, desire disappears, and you start losing whatever you had. You become poorer and poorer every day. That’s what Jesus means when he says: Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.
Anger is not there, greed is not there, ambition is not there. Slowly, slowly, chunks of your being are cut from you. And one day suddenly nothing is there, or, only nothing is there. That very moment, light penetrates. All those things – greed, anger, passion, lust, hatred, ambition, ego – were hindering the path. They were not allowing the light to penetrate into you; they were functioning like a rock between you and existence. All those removed and suddenly existence enters into you and you enter into existence.
If you understand me, there is no need for any meditation. But if you don’t understand me, then meditation will be needed. Then go on doing it.
I understand your confusion, your trouble. You can meditate only if it leads to enlightenment. That’s what your problem is. You have not said it so clearly, but that’s exactly where the problem is. You can do it if I emphasize that it will lead you to enlightenment, and I cannot do that, because that is not true. You want me to promise you so that you can go on doing meditation. You want me to hypnotize you, you want me to go on supporting your desires, your goals, that you want to become enlightened, that you want to become natural. Now look at the whole absurdity of becoming natural! How can one become natural? You are natural. All becoming will lead you toward unnatural structures. Becoming cannot bring you to being natural; becoming means becoming unnatural.
Natural you are, but you want me to support you because you cannot sit silently. You cannot sit really; you need something to think about, something to do. You want some goal. And if I take the goal away you ask, “Then why should I do meditation if it is not needed?” It is still needed. It is needed, not for enlightenment but to destroy this constant restlessness in your mind.
It is like this: if you live in a room with closed doors the sun will not penetrate, although by opening the door you are not creating the sun. By opening the door you don’t create the sun, the sun is there, but by opening the door, you become available to the sun. Meditations are just like opening the door.
Right now if you sit, you will be sitting in confusion, and the confusion will grow more and more as you sit. You will gather it; it will become almost impossible to bear it, you will have to go to a movie or listen to the radio or TV or go to a club, or somewhere.
Meditations are cathartic. They throw all the rubbish that you contain inside. They simply cleanse you; they open the doors, they open the eyes, and the sun is there. Once you are available, it starts penetrating you.
Then you will never say, “I became natural.” You will say, “I was natural. The problem was not how to become natural; the problem was how not to go on becoming unnatural.”

The fourth question:
Osho,
Yesterday you said that there is no goal, no path, no one to lead and no one to follow. Is this statement a lie again? Were you kidding us yesterday?
That’s what I am doing every day. That’s the only possible thing to do. All statements are lies; truth remains unstated. Truth cannot be reduced to a statement; it cannot be reduced to a formula. It is vast! How can you reduce it to a statement? The moment you state anything about truth, the very expression becomes a barrier. Words cling around truth like chains.
Truth can only be transferred in silence. Those who really listen to me don’t listen to what I say, they listen to what I am. They listen to the gaps, they listen to the intervals. Words are not important, but there are small gaps between words and the meeting between you and me happens in those gaps.
Those gaps are of meditation. Slowly, slowly, words move on the periphery and my meeting, my communion, with you becomes the central phenomenon. Words are there, just distant, on the periphery. Silence starts happening.
If you fall silent listening to me, then you have listened to me. If listening to me your mind stops and there are moments when there are no thoughts, all is still and quiet, then you have been listening to me.
Hearing me is one thing; listening to me is quite another. Those who come near to me for the first time, they hear. Those who stay with me for a longer time, slowly, slowly the transformation happens and hearing starts changing into listening.
Listening is non-verbal. Then my presence is listened to; then something is bridged between me and you. My heart and your heart start beating together in one rhythm. Then it is a song, a dance of energies.
This is what in the East is called satsang – being in the presence of the master. It is not a verbal communication at all. Then why do I go on speaking? Why can’t I sit silently here? You will not be able to absorb that much silence. You can absorb it only in homeopathic doses, just once in a while.
And my words help. They don’t state the truth, but they help, they indicate; they are fingers pointing to the moon. They are not the moon themselves, just fingers pointing to the moon, arrows. Don’t be obsessed by the fingers, don’t start clinging to the fingers, don’t start worshipping the fingers – because that is how you will miss the moon. Forget the fingers and look at the moon. That moon is silence, utter silence, where not even a single word has ever been uttered.
You have that space inside you. I have become one with it. You are not one with it, but moving with me, flowing with me, hearing my words, listening to my silences, once in a while it happens. And those moments are of grace. In those moments you have the first taste of godliness. Slowly, slowly, you will become more and more capable. That’s why I go on speaking.
And then, new people are always coming; I have to speak for them. The older ones, slowly, slowly will not be bothered by my words. Hearing will disappear completely. They will listen to my words just as they listen to the sound of a waterfall; they will not search for any meaning in them, they will not search for any truth in them. They will not search even for any coherence in them. They will not be constantly looking into consistency, contradiction, logic, illogic – no, all these things by and by disappear. They will listen to my words as they listen to the songs of the birds, or the wind passing through the pine trees. You don’t ask what the meaning is, you simply listen, and in listening you become that sound passing through the pine trees, you become that wind.
Whatsoever I say is a device, so it is a lie. Truth has never been said, cannot be said. Truth is unutterable. But you can listen to it. It is unutterable, it can’t be said, but it can be listened to.
Let me repeat: it cannot be uttered, but it can be listened to. You can catch hold of it – in silence, in love, in communion. I am not able to say it, but you are able to listen to it; hence, this device of talking to you every morning, year in, year out. This is just a waterfall: listen to it, don’t remain just hearing.
I am so contradictory by arrangement. I manage it, because if I am very consistent, you will never be able to listen to me, you will go on hearing me. I am so contradictory that sooner or later you are tired. You say, “What is the point? This man is going to say one thing this morning and tomorrow he is going to contradict it.” Seeing it happening again and again… You will cling to my statement and then tomorrow I contradict it, I have to contradict it. Whenever I see that somebody is clinging somewhere to any of my statements, I have to contradict it immediately to relieve him of the burden, to relieve him of his clinging, to relieve him of the words that he has accumulated inside himself.
So I will go on, zigzag, contradicting myself a thousand and one times. Slowly, slowly, the understanding dawns on you that there is no point in clinging to any words of this man, there is no need to bother about what he says. But by that time, you have fallen in love with me. By that time you are in a totally different kind of relationship with me than you have ever been with anybody else. By that time, you have started enjoying my presence. By that time, you have started imbibing me. By that time you have started feeling the nourishment. Now you don’t care what I say: now you care more that I am. Then listening has started.
And you will understand me only by listening. You will understand me only when you have forgotten all about understanding what I am saying. All statements are lies. What Lao Tzu says is true. He says: Tao cannot be said, and the moment you say it you have betrayed it. He is absolutely true.
Truth is so infinite and words are so finite. Only when you have something infinite in you… Silence is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth. Love is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth. Trust is infinite, unbounded, it can contain truth.
Be natural, spontaneous, here with me. Be in the moment, as if all time and space has disappeared, as if the whole world has stopped. The mind has stopped, and suddenly there is truth in all its radiance, grandeur, splendor.
It is here, right this moment. If you have ears, hear it. If you have eyes, see it. And if you cannot see it, and if you cannot hear it, then don’t go on clinging here unnecessarily. I am in a hurry – I don’t want any weeds here. I will find every possible means and ways to drop people who are just sitting here like rocks.
Either throb with me, or get lost. Either be with me, or don’t be here – because I mean to do business!

The last question:
Osho,
I see I don't trust life one hundred percent. Nothing feels possible unless I do. There are moments when trust happens, but what am I supposed to do at other times when I don't feel it? Pretending trust seems even worse. Living in fear feels no good either.
Rupa, that’s how we go on creating new goals. I go on taking goals from you and you go on creating new goals. Now one hundred percent trust becomes the goal; ninety-nine percent and you are worried.
Can’t you simply be as you are? Why bother about one hundred percent trust? Trying to be one hundred percent when you are not is bound to create hypocrisy. You will become artificial, you will become unnatural.
Do you know what one hundred percent trust means? One hundred percent trust means trusting even in your mistrust – that’s what one hundred percent trust means. If there is a moment of distrust, you trust that moment, too! What can you do? One moment you trust me, good; another moment you don’t trust me, good. This is one hundred percent trust. When all is good, it is one hundred percent trust.
Now you are again trying to create trouble and anxiety for yourself. One moment you trust me – good, you feel very good. Then another moment comes distrust – now you are worried, now somehow you have to change this distrust into trust. Now you are again starting a new ladder.
Now you will compare: “Somebody has one hundred percent trust, this moment never comes to him. And somebody has even less trust than me.” You are becoming part of a hierarchy, you have started comparing, you are creating ambition and fever. And when it does not happen, what are you going to do? And anything done by you will be unnatural. So you will become artificial: when it is not there you will pretend. You will believe at least on the surface that it is there; you will become afraid of going deep into yourself, because if you go deep into yourself you will know it is not there.
One hundred percent trust means: Accept life whatsoever it brings – trust, mistrust, love, hate, godliness, evil, good, bad. You don’t try to change anything, don’t try to correct anything. Be in a let-go – that is one hundred percent trust.
Let me remind you again, otherwise tomorrow Rupa will be here saying, “I can allow let-go sometimes, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. The let-go is not one hundred percent.” Let-go again means the same: when it happens, it happens; when it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. You are not supposed to do a thing.
Do anything and you become artificial – and people have become so artificial. It is very rare, very rare, to see even a small part in a person which is not artificial. And it has all happened, this calamity has happened, because you are such a great improver, continually improving upon yourself, correcting and correcting. From your very childhood your parents were correcting you, then your teachers were correcting you, then your professors were correcting you, your priests were correcting you, the whole society has just been correcting you. And, naturally, after twenty-five years of correction by everybody, you yourself become a great corrector. Then you start correcting yourself.
In fact, you are allowed to leave the university only when you start doing the work of the parents and the teachers and the professors and the priest on your own. Then they will allow; then they will say, “Right, now there is no danger. This man will do whatsoever we were doing, and will do it far better because he will know from the inside, he will know the inside story.”
Have you not observed it? Sometimes doing something, suddenly you hear your mother’s voice: “Don’t do it!” If you have not heard it, try to hear, and you will find your mother still saying, “Don’t do it!” actually your mother’s voice you can hear, or your father’s, saying, “This is wrong. This is not the way to do the thing. Correct it!” Or your teachers correcting. They have created such a rift in you that you have become two.
This whole society exists in a kind of schizophrenia. Every person is split. This society has tried the trick of “divide and rule”; it has divided every person into two: the corrector and the one who has to be corrected. So everybody has become like a small student and the headmaster – both are there! And the headmaster with the cane shouting and threatening, and the small child always being corrected. And, of course, the small child also takes revenge. Whenever the headmaster is not looking at the child, he does something – at least he can show his tongue or laugh or joke. Or there are moments when the small child will take possession of you and will force you to do something that you never wanted to do, and will make you repent. It always says, “Yes, sir,” but it never means it. It says, “Because I am afraid I am saying yes, but I will show you!” This constant conflict goes on within you, and then everything becomes false, pseudo, phony.
I have heard…

Groom: “Would you be very annoyed with me if I confess that all my upper teeth are false?”
Bride: “Not at all, darling. At least I can now relax and take off my wig, inflatable bra, glass eye and artificial leg.”

Now what is left? Just watch what you are carrying around yourself, what you think is your personality. What is it?

An American tourist, visiting England, had just enjoyed a delicious dinner in a Winchester restaurant.
“Would you like coffee, sir?” inquired a waiter.
“Certainly,” replied the American.
“Cream or milk?”
“Neither,” said the American firmly. “Just give me what I’m used to back home: a pasteurized blend of water, corn syrup solids, vegetable oil, sodium caseinate, carrageenan, guargum, disodium phosphate, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate, potassium sorbate, and artificial color.”

Now what is left? Slowly, slowly, everything becomes false, artificial, synthetic, plastic. Then you lose the taste of life. And when you lose the taste of life, you lose contact with existence. When you become inauthentic, you become uprooted.
Please don’t try anything upon yourself. Stop trying; let things be. Let things be as they are. They are utterly beautiful; all ugliness is created by you. Yes, sometimes mistrust is perfectly beautiful. Sometimes doubt is good: it protects you from many foolishnesses, it protects you from gullibility. Sometimes trust is good, sometimes no trust is good. But whatsoever the case, I call this one hundred percent trust – that you always say, “Good, so this is the thing in this moment. So this moment existence wants me to be trustful and this moment existence wants me to be doubtful.” Leave it to existence, and you simply be at the receptive end, a receptacle, and you will be surprised. Life will start happening to you and existence will start happening to you. But we are trained very deep down from childhood to be false, to be untrue, to be formal.

An Englishwoman and her young son were traveling in a taxi in New York. As the taxi passed a particularly seedy part of the city, the small boy was fascinated by the garishly made-up ladies who were walking along the streets, accosting some of the male passers-by.
“What are those ladies doing?” asked the boy.
His mother blushed and said, somewhat embarrassed, “I expect they are lost and are asking people for directions.”
The taxi driver overheard this, and said in a loud voice, “Why don’tcha tell the boy the truth – in other words they’re prostitutes.”
The woman blushed even deeper red, and her son asked, “What are p…p…pros…what the driver said? Are they like other women? Do they have children?”
“Of course,” replied the mother. “That’s where New York taxi drivers come from.”

Truth is not accepted anywhere; people are annoyed with truth. False pretensions are very, very acceptable. We have lived in lies for so long that truth simply annoys. It is not just an accident that Socrates was poisoned – his only sin was that he was trying to make people aware of the truth. His sin was nothing else. He was a simple, innocent man, harmless, utterly harmless. He had not harmed anybody in any way, but still Athens was angry. Why were they angry? He was trying to make people feel uneasy about their lies; he was trying to force them to see the truth. Whosoever tries to make you aware of the truth is going to be thought an enemy by the society. The society lives in lies, it depends on lies.
I am not here to help in your lies. I can’t say to you to be one hundred percent in trust, or at least the way you mean by one hundred percent. Then what will happen to those moments when you can’t trust? What will you do? You will simply cover them up. You will pretend that they are not there. You will throw them into the unconscious, in the basement of your being, and will never look there. And they will accumulate there and one day they will explode. No, that is not to be done. When distrust comes, allow it to come, and know that it is there. Accept it. It must have some meaning. If it is there, it must have some meaning.
It is like a thorn in the rosebush – it is not all roses, there are thorns, too. They protect the roses. There must be some deep harmony between the thorn and the rose; so there is between trust and untrust. Accept the harmony of polarities. This I call one hundred percent trust – from my side. Trust everything that happens. Mistrust is included, doubt is included; nothing is excluded.
I teach you totality in life. And sometimes when you are not total, that too, is included in totality. Accept that too, and this will be a liberation. Then there will be no more creation of chains, no more creation of lies, no more repressions. And a man who is not repressed is bound to have a glimpse of the real man.
One glimpse of the real man, and Ikkyu is right, you are in love.
Enough for today.

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