Now medical science has become aware of certain phenomena. One of them is really very peculiar, and the phenomenon is this: every country has different types of prevalent diseases, and every community, every religion, sect, has different diseases occurring more.For example, Eastern people are more prone towards epidemics: plague, cholera, more prone towards communal diseases, infections and diseases which spread by infection, because in the East the individual doesn’t exist much. Only the community exists. In an Indian village, the village exists. Nobody exists as an individual; the community exists. When the community is too great, then infectious diseases will be prevalent, because nobody has a protective aura around himself. If one becomes ill, then the whole community by and by will become a victim to the illness. And in the same community there can be a few Westerners – they will not be affected by the infection.In fact, just the reverse should be the case, because a Western man in India should be more prone to diseases because he is not immune. He is not immune to this climate, to such diseases; he should become a victim sooner. But no. For the last hundred years it has been observed that whenever there is an infectious disease, Europeans are protected by some unknown force. Indians become victims.The Indian mind is more a communal mind. The European mind is more egoistic and personal. So in the West certain other diseases are prevalent. For example, heart attack; it is an individual disease, non-infectious. In the East heart attack is not so common unless you are Western, you are educated in a Western way and you have become almost Western. In the East, heart attack is not a big problem, diabetes is not a big problem, blood pressure is not a big problem – these are non-infectious diseases. Christians are more prone to them. The Western mind lives as an individual unit. Of course, when you live as an individual unit, the community cannot impress you too much. You will be protected from infections.In the West, infections have disappeared by and by, but people are becoming more and more personally ill. Heart attacks, suicide, blood pressure, madness – these are individual diseases. They don’t carry any infection. Tenseness, anguish, anxiety…. In the East people are more at ease. You don’t find them too tense. They don’t suffer from insomnia. They don’t suffer from heart illnesses. From that they are protected by the community. Because the community has no heart. If you live a communal life you cannot suffer from a heart disease.This is a rare phenomenon. It means your mind makes you available to certain diseases, and makes you protected against certain diseases. Your mind is your world. Your mind is your health, your mind is your illness. And if you live with the mind, you continue to live in a capsule and you cannot know what reality is. That reality is known only when you drop all types of minds – communal, individual, social, cultural, personal… when you drop all types of minds. Then your mind becomes universal. Then your mind becomes one with the mind of the universe.When you don’t have your own mind, your consciousness becomes universal. God is known not as an object. Truth is known not as an object. You become the truth. You become God himself. That is the meaning of al-Hillaj Mansoor’s famous assertion: ANA’L HAQ. He says, “I am God; AHAM BRAHMASMI, I am the Brahman.”Sufis believe in the universal mind. And they want you to drop the individual mind, the communal mind, the social mind. They want you to drop all the barriers that divide you from the universal mind. You become a drop in the ocean. You become the ocean, only then you know what it is. Only then you know what existence is, never before it. The mind has to die.Until you die, God will not be possible for you. God is not an experience. He is never separate from you. You cannot look at him because he is hidden in the looker. You cannot confront him. Where will you confront him? He is hidden in you.I would like to tell you one story, a very old Hindu story. It is said, God created the world. Everything was going well. Then he created man, and something went astray. With man trouble started. And in those days God used to live just on the Earth. He had created this Earth to live on, and to be here and in it. These trees and these flowers, and these rivers and mountains – for what should he create them? The story says he created the Earth to live on, to be here. And he was here, and everything was going well with the birds, trees, rivers and animals; everything was perfect.Then he committed a mistake: he created man, and trouble started, because man started complaining. He would not see if it is night, midnight, and whether God is asleep, he would come and knock at the door with his complaints. He was always there. Man started driving God crazy – his complaints were infinite. And the problem was this: if you solve one man’s complaint, then the very solution creates another man’s complaint.Somebody says, “I need rains today.” And if God gives rains, somebody else comes and he says, “You have destroyed my house – I had just painted it!” But somebody was needing it for his garden. It was impossible to satisfy all, so God asked his advisers what to do. Somebody said, “You had better go to the Himalayas and hide there.”God said, “You are right, but you don’t know the future. Sooner or later a man named Edmund Hillary will come even to Everest. They will not leave me alone there. And once they know I am in the Himalayas, the whole world will go there. No, that won’t help much. For a time, okay, a temporary arrangement, but you don’t know this man Edmund Hillary. I can see him already approaching, because I can see the future.”So they said, “Then it will be good if you go to the moon.”God said, “No. For just a little while it will help. But man is going there. Man is going everywhere.”Then one old adviser whispered something in God’s ear, and God nodded and said, “Yes, you are right.”That old man said, “Better hide yourself in man himself. Go deep into his heart and hide yourself there.”God said, “You are right, because he will never suspect….” This is the one place rarely possible for any man to suspect that God can be – within you.God is not an experience. He is hiding in you. You are just a hiding place. God is not an experience, he is the experiencer of all experiences.Become passive, alert, and suddenly you will find him within yourself. The story is true, absolutely true… because I followed the story and found him. You also follow the story. It is not a fiction; it is absolutely, literally true. He is hiding in you.Enough for today.Osho, Just Like That, Ch 5 (excerpt)