WESTERN MYSTICS
Theologia Mystica 11
Eleventh Discourse from the series of 15 discourses - Theologia Mystica by Osho.
You can listen, download or read all of these discourses on oshoworld.com.
The first question:
Osho,
According to what I have been hearing you say, the title of this series, Theologia Mystica, seems to be a contradiction in terms.
It is true, but the title was given by Dionysius himself, so at least I am not responsible for it. In a way, mysticism is bound to be a contradiction in terms, whether the word theologia is in it or not. Mysticism itself, by its very nature, is a contradiction because it is not an ism. It is not a creed or dogma in which you can believe. You can be a mystic, but there is nothing like mysticism. And when one is a mystic the paradox deepens, it does not disappear. When one is a mystic there is no one left; there is a mystery, but with no center to it. It is like a cloud: translucent darkness, infinite darkness.
One of the most important statements about mysticism in the Western hemisphere is the book called The Cloud of Unknowing. The name of the author is not known. It is good that we don’t know who wrote it. It indicates one thing, that before he wrote it he had disappeared into a cloud of unknowing. It is the only book in the Western world which comes close to the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, The Dhammapada. There is a rare insight in it.
First he calls it a cloud. A cloud is vague, with no definable limits. It is constantly changing, it is not static – never, even for two consecutive moments, is it the same; it is a flux, it is pure change. And there is nothing substantial in it. If you hold it in your hand only mist will be left, nothing else. Maybe your hands will become wet, but you will not find any cloud in your fist.
That’s what happens to the mystic, he becomes wet, really wet. Those countries where alcohol is prohibited they call dry, and those countries where alcohol is not prohibited they call wet. But the only wet person is the mystic. He is a real alcoholic, he cannot be helped by Alcoholics Anonymous! If a mystic enters there, they will all become alcoholics themselves!
But for Dionysius it is even more a contradiction because he was a theologian. His whole book is written with a disguise, as if it is a treatise on theology; mysticism is just something by the side, secondary, not primary. Hence the name Theologia Mystica – as if mysticism is only a consequence of getting deep into the world of theology. Just the reverse is the case.
The word theology means logic about God; theo means God. But there can be no logic about God. There is love about God, love for God, but no logic about God. There are no proofs possible. The only proof is the existence of the mystic. The presence of Dionysius, of Ramakrishna, of Bahauddin – the presence of these people is the proof that God exists, otherwise there is no proof. Because buddhas have walked on the earth, there are a few footprints of God left behind on the shores of time.
Philosophers have argued for centuries, but all their arguments are utterly futile and impotent; they have not come to a single conclusion.
The mystic has to speak in contradictions because he is speaking about the whole, and the whole contains the contradictions. It contains both the day and the night. If you call God the day, then it is only half the truth; if you call him the night, that too is only half the truth.
Hence Dionysius calls God translucent darkness – as if the sun has risen in the night.
The whole consists of both life and death. If you call God life, only life, then it is a half-statement. And remember a half-truth is far more dangerous than a complete lie because the complete lie is bound to be discovered sooner or later, just a little intelligence is needed. But the half-truth is very dangerous: even intelligent people, very intelligent people, may not be able to find that it is untrue. That is the danger of half-truths: they look like truths and they are not. They can keep you deceived for centuries.
Mysticism is the whole truth; it has to be contradictory. Somewhere logic and love have to meet because they both exist. Hence, theologia mystica. Somewhere man and woman have to meet and merge and disappear into each other because they both exist and they are both halves of one whole. Hence the beauty and the bliss of a real meeting between a man and a woman; the orgasmic joy is possible only because two halves of a single whole have come together. Both were suffering, both were missing something. Suddenly, all that feeling of missing has disappeared. Of course, the meeting between a man and a woman can only be momentary. Again they are separate, and again the misery sets in, and again the desire to be united. Because the meeting is physical it cannot be very deep and it cannot be lasting either.
But the meeting of the mystic with the whole is absolute; there is no coming back. He has gone beyond the point of no return. He has dissolved himself like a dewdrop slipping out of the lotus leaf into the lake. He has become the lake. Then whatever he says will be contradictory because a part of it will be the vision of the dewdrop and a part of it will be the vision of the total lake. A part will be the standpoint of the part and a part will be the standpoint of the whole. Hence all mystics have spoken in contradictory terms.
This is one of the reasons why intellectuals are against them – because the intellectual demands consistency and the mystic cannot be consistent. By the very nature of things that is not possible. He is helpless – he has to be contradictory. He has to say, “I am contradictory because I am vast enough to contain contradictions.”
Logic is a small thing, love is infinity.
The second question:
Osho,
These days the papers are filled with reports of communal riots erupting all over India. No real reasons for this violence and destruction of property are being given, just vague references to “antisocial elements,” whatever that phrase means. Can you throw any light on what is happening in this country, on why there is this obvious and angry unrest?
The first thing is India is a religious country, and all the religions down the ages have depended upon fear. They have exploited the fear instinct of man, they have made man afraid. Hence the word God-fearing – it exists in almost all the languages of the world, and they say it means religious! It is pure nonsense. A religious person is not God-fearing but God-loving. A God-fearing man is pseudo religious, a person who has not sought religion on his own but has been forced to be religious by others.
There are only two ways to force things on people – not in fact two, but two aspects of the same coin – fear and reward, punishment and reward, fear and greed. Hence hell and heaven: heaven is greed, reward; hell is fear, punishment.
India is a religious country, full of God-fearing people. And with the existence of fear many problems arise. The first problem is love disappears.
Remember, hate is not the real opposite of love; the real opposite of love is fear. You can still love the person you hate. In fact, the latest research says that you always hate the person you love. Hate and love are two polarities of the same energy – they are complementary, they are not opposites.
Hence you see the conflict between lovers, continuous conflict. They are always fighting, as if it is a necessary part of love affairs – and it is. A love affair is not possible without conflict; a love affair becomes possible through conflict. You fight with the person you love, you hate the person you love from your very guts, and because of this hate and this fight and this conflict you go on creating a distance between you.
There is a certain moment when the distance is so big that a desire to meet the other arises. It arises only at a certain distance. If your woman or your man has been away for a few days and then comes home, then there is great love. Those few days have created a certain appetite. Of course, if you go on eating the whole day you won’t have any appetite. Appetite depends on the fast between two meals. Everybody fasts between two meals; hence the English word breakfast: you have fasted the whole night in your sleep. Of course, when you are awake it is difficult to fast but when you are asleep what can you do?
A few people certainly manage to get up in their sleep and go to the kitchen or go to the fridge; they are sleepwalkers. But it is a strange thing, sleepwalkers always go to the fridge! They open the fridge – and they are asleep! – and they eat something and they close the fridge, and they come back in the darkness, and they go to sleep. And they go on gaining weight and they go on dieting in the day. And they are always puzzled: “What is the matter? Why does my weight go on increasing?” Otherwise, normal people have an eight-hour fast. After that eight-hour fast, an appetite arises.
The fight between lovers is like fasting: withdrawing from each other, then the desire – because love is a nourishment. Remember, love is food. It is as much food as any other food, but a very subtle food – a food for the soul. So when lovers fight they remain on a fast. Soon the appetite arises and they start moving closer to each other. After each fight they can make love in a far better way than at any other time. It has intensity, it has passion. But after each meal you have an aversion to food.
If you have eaten well, the very idea of food will be a little nauseating. One who has eaten enough, if you put all kinds of food around him, he will go crazy. He will hate the food, he will hate you; he would like to escape from the room. There is a certain aversion. That is natural, otherwise how will he stop eating?
So when two lovers have made love, a certain aversion arises. These are natural phenomena. Once we understand them, they are not problems. After each lovemaking the husband turns over and goes to sleep, and after each lovemaking the wife cries, weeps because she feels exploited. This same man who is now sleeping, keeping his back toward her, snoring, this same man, this sonofabitch, just a few moments before was talking such beautiful poetry, and now he is not at all concerned. She feels cheated. But that is wrong; that is a misunderstanding. It is a natural phenomenon – love fulfilled, aversion arises. Of course, after a twenty-four hour fast he will again talk poetry. That’s how the wheel moves.
Love and hate are not opposites, but love and fear are. The afraid person becomes incapable of love. And all the religions have depended on fear, hence they have made millions of people incapable of love. And the people who are incapable of love are only capable of violence.
So, it is nothing new in India. It erupts almost every ten years; ten years seems to be the limit. Within ten years everybody accumulates so much violence within himself that it has to find an outlet, otherwise it will destroy him. He will be burned up by his own violence. So he has to find some excuses; political, religious, social – any kind of excuse will do. And this limit of ten years is not only limited to India; it seems to be universal. Every ten years there is a great war. The whole of humanity gets involved in destruction.
Religions are responsible because they have not taught you how to love, they have only taught you how to be afraid. Remember, fear is the same energy as love, but it has been poisoned – your energies have been poisoned for centuries. So it has become a routine phenomenon that after a few months, a few years, after a certain period, one accumulates so much violence, which would not have been there if love had been flowing. Because love has been stopped there is no flow in your life. Your own energies go against you; they become destructive. Then any excuse is enough – such stupid excuses that if you look at them you will laugh; they are ridiculous!
In Moradabad, where this whole problem started – and now it has spread almost all over the country – the cause was just ridiculous. Mohammedans had gathered to pray in their idgah, their prayer place. It is an open place; they just face toward Kaaba and pray. A policeman was on duty, and a cow entered the prayer space. Now, the cow is the symbol of Hinduism, and the Mohammedans became enraged. They said, “The policeman is responsible. He was standing there. Why did he allow the cow to enter?” In fact they said that not only did he allow it, he brought the cow in! And killing started.
Now one hundred and thirty people have died just because of that holy cow which may have entered innocently. They are roaming all over the country – they don’t know which place is Hindu and which place is Mohammedan. And because one hundred and thirty people have died there – this is an official number and official numbers are never right. Multiply by four and you will find the right number. That has always been my observation, multiply by four. At least five hundred to six hundred people must have died. Now revenge has to be taken in other places.
Can you see the cause, the stupidity of human beings? The excuse is not worth calling an excuse! But this is how things begin.
The real thing is that people are accumulating great violence, anger. If you cannot release your love you will accumulate anger. Love standing on its head becomes anger. And when anger accumulates you are just looking for some excuse. If you cannot find an excuse you will invent one, but you will have to invent some cause so you can release, cathart. This is a catharsis – on what grounds it happens is immaterial.
Hindi-speaking people start killing non-Hindi-speaking people; non-Hindi-speaking people start killing Hindi-speaking people. The Gujaratis start fighting with the Marathis, the Mohammedans with the Hindus, the Jainas with the Hindus, the Sikhs with the non-Sikhs. Anybody is ready to fight with anybody else; just a small excuse, real or invented, is needed. The fight happens first, then later on we discover why it has happened.
People are gathering so much poison, anger, that these flare-ups are bound to happen. And the politicians have no understanding, so they simply go on dumping the whole thing on “antisocial elements,” as if these antisocial elements appear only once in a while and then suddenly disappear. They are always there, but the riots are not always there. For years these antisocial elements become very peaceful and very Gandhian, very nonviolent, and then one day suddenly they erupt, and they erupt all over, it is almost like a chain reaction.
The politicians have to say something. They don’t understand what is happening at all, and even if some of them do understand they don’t have the courage to say it.
The real cause is thousands of years of imposed fear on people, condemnation of love. And you are well aware of it here – if two of my sannyasins are just standing holding each other’s hands in the garden, it is obscene. Two people lovingly holding each other’s hands is obscene or two lovers embracing each other is obscene – and two people killing each other is not obscene!
If two people are fighting on the road, a crowd will gather and they will all enjoy the fight. And everybody will go home very satisfied, very contented because in a vicarious way they have also been able to cathart their anger through the fighters. But seeing two lovers, only jealousy arises, great jealousy and great anger.
But this is how they have been brought up for centuries, and this they call religion. Because I am against it, they think I am trying to destroy their religion, their morality. What morality have they got? This is the morality – that every day somewhere or other there is violence. This is Indian culture, Indian morality – these Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas! They will all say beautiful things and they will all do ugly things. Because I am pointing at the naked truth, they are all opposed to me.
The politicians cannot say the truth, even if they know it. In the first place they don’t know because they don’t have that much intelligence – otherwise they wouldn’t be politicians in the first place. Secondly, even if they have some idea of what really is happening in the psyche of the country, they cannot say it because they have to ask for votes from the same people. If they say the truth they will lose their votes, so they invent some vague excuses – “antisocial elements.”
Now, who is this antisocial element: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist? Who is this antisocial element? Just a word, a label. You can throw all the responsibility on it and you can feel very relieved.
You ask me, “These days the papers are filled with reports of communal riots erupting all over India. No real reasons for this violence and destruction of property are being given, just vague references to ‘antisocial elements,’ whatever that phrase means. Can you throw any light on what is happening in this country, on why there is this obvious and angry unrest?”
This is going to continue – unless this country drops this stupid idea of being religious, unless this country drops the rotten culture that it has carried for centuries, which is only a corpse. It is stinking, but they go on carrying it because it is so ancient; it is their past, their heritage. This country has to cut itself off from its past totally, abruptly; a discontinuity is needed. Only then will India be reborn.
One of my political friends, Seth Govind Das, was a Member of Parliament in India for the longest period. In fact, except Winston Churchill and Seth Govind Das, nobody else in the world has been a Member of the Parliament for so long. He was called the father of the Indian Parliament. He has been a Member for nearabout fifty years.
He always used to say, “There have been many civilizations in the world, but they all died.” And with great pride. He was very proud of it. “Where is Babylonia? Where is Syria? Where is Greece? Where is Egypt? All have disappeared from the world. The only ancient civilization alive is the Indian civilization.”
And I always used to say to him, “Don’t be proud of it – be ashamed! It is time that this ancient country should learn how to die and be reborn.
Unless you die you cannot have a rebirth. This country needs a death – and not a partial death, a total death – so that a new, fresh race can come up. And it is not difficult.
But the vested interests are against rebirth. They go on propounding the old tradition. The newly-born country, the newly-born race will not be so easily enslaved by them. They will lose, and they don’t want to lose. Hence they are against me.
You can see. The reasons they give against me are worth considering, contemplating. They say that I am destroying their culture, I am destroying their morality, I am destroying their civilization, that I am an enemy. In one way they are right, but in another way they are absolutely wrong. They are right because I am certainly against all that is dead and I want it to be burned – with all due respect, but burn it, say good-bye to it. Don’t look backward. Look forward, look ahead!
So in a way they are right that I am against all these things, but in a way they are wrong. I am against these things not because I am against religion, culture, morality, civilization; I am against these things because they are dead.
I am absolutely in favor of a new culture arising, a new civilization arising, a new morality arising, a new humanity arising. Otherwise this country is going to remain poor, starved; continuously fighting, quarreling, murdering each other.
This country needs to be taught ways of love. This country needs to be told: except love there is no God. Drop all fears! Don’t go to the temples because of fear, and don’t go on worshipping stupid idols and gods because of greed. Drop greed and fear and live out of love. Love people, love trees, love animals, love this existence because God is nowhere else. God is spread all over existence. God is simply another name for life, existence, that which is.
That’s my work here. It is dangerous work – dangerous because I am fighting against powerful forces, dangerous because I am fighting against almost all the vested interests. Nobody will be in favor of me; I have to stand alone. Just a few people who will be courageous enough to be with me, ready to risk their lives with me, will be with me; otherwise nobody is going to be with me.
But it is a thrilling project. It is very adventurous. It is a great challenge; it is worth accepting. And through it not only can this country’s humanity have a new birth, through it we can show the way to the whole world because the whole world needs more or less a new birth, a new man.
The third question:
Osho,
I cannot decide whether to stay here with you or not, and also whether to become a sannyasin or not. Can you help me to decide?
Toss a coin! If it is heads, stay, but don’t become a sannyasin – because the coin coming up heads shows you are a head. So accumulate as much intellectual garbage as you can, and if by chance you are a German, then it will be really good for your head too, good manure.
Looking out of my window one day, I saw two sannyasins working outside – two of Deeksha’s handymen, one Italian and one German. They were about to hammer away at a concrete pillar with a sledge hammer and a wrecking bar. The German was holding the wrecking bar and the Italian the sledge hammer.
On the first try with the sledge hammer, the Italian missed and hit the German on the head. The German, unaffected, continued to hold the bar, waiting for the next try.
The Italian again missed and hit the German on the head once more. Without batting an eye, the German continued to hold the bar. The Italian tried once again and once again missed, hitting the German again on the head.
This time the German looked at the Italian with a wary eye and said, “Swami, please be careful. If you hit my fingers you can hurt me!”
But if the coin comes up tails, then put your tail between your legs and escape from here as fast as possible!
That’s exactly the origin of the word hippie. Hippie comes from hips; one who cannot encounter a challenge and shows his hips and escapes. So if it is tails, then understand the message – escape like a hippie.
But by chance – and miracles happen! – if it stands on edge, then become a sannyasin. Then I cannot help it. Then God decides so.
The fourth question:
Osho,
Dionysius is again an enlightened male master. Is it more difficult for a woman to become enlightened than it is for a man?
You don’t understand the problem!
The fundamental reason women do not achieve as greatly as men do is that women have no wives. Until such a time as science or economics corrects this blunder of nature, we shall remain, I fear, the weaker sex.
Man is the weaker sex. And because the wives drive them crazy in every possible way, they start running in all directions, stumbling in all directions, groping in every possible way to escape. And a few of them, by chance, become masters. A few of them become painters, a few of them become poets, a few of them become scientists…
Women cannot achieve so greatly for the simple reason that there is nobody to drive them. Of course, man cannot say clearly, “You are driving me mad.” He says, “You are inspiring me! Without you I would be nothing.” And that is true, literally true.
So feel compassion for the poor men. They had to become masters, Buddhas, Zarathustras, Dionysiuses. Just think of Socrates and his wife Xanthippe; without the wife there would have been no Socrates at all. It was the wife who drove him into the world of philosophy. What else can you do to protect yourself? You have to philosophize.
A young man asked Socrates, “I am thinking of getting married, and because I have always found your advice tremendously significant I have come to ask you. What do you suggest? Should I marry or not?”
Socrates said, “You should marry, you ought to marry.”
The young man was thinking that Socrates would say, “Don’t marry,” because he knew what Xanthippe was doing to Socrates. One day she had even poured a whole kettle of boiling water on his head – the whole kettle of boiling water! She burned half his face and he remained his whole life with a burned face. She used to beat him – must have been a real woman, an Amazon!
And this young man was thinking that Socrates would say, “Never get married. Look at my life!” But Socrates said, “You ought to get married.”
The young man said, “I am more puzzled than I was before I came to you. You are saying I ought to get married? For what reasons?”
Socrates said, “If you get a beautiful wife you will live a contented life, and if you get a wife like mine you will become a great philosopher!”
The woman has not achieved in any direction, in any dimension, for the simple reason that she has no inner tension for achievement. Jokes apart, she has no inner tension for achievement. She is more relaxed than man she is more balanced than man. Man has a deep imbalance in him.
Psychologists say that because man cannot produce children – he cannot become a mother, he has no womb – he feels a certain envy deep down. The woman seems to be creative, she brings life to the world, and he seems to be almost barren. To substitute for it he creates great painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture; he goes in search of truth.
The woman is at ease, at home. In fact, she cannot understand why a man like Mahavira tortured himself for twelve years. I have heard of no woman in the whole history of man who has tortured herself in such a way even for twelve days the way Mahavira did – in search of truth. What truth? It is not a woman’s concern at all. She is more concerned about what is happening to the neighbor’s wife. What truth? And what will you do even if you get it? Can you eat it? Can you sell it? Will it increase your bank balance? What will you do with the truth? She is simply unable to understand why these people are so crazy about truth, the ultimate truth. And they want to attain eternal life when they don’t know how to live this small life!
The concerns of the woman are different. Her concerns are more pragmatic, less metaphysical. She is more concerned with love than with logic. Logic has no appeal for women. I have never seen a really intellectual woman. Today because of the Women’s Liberation Movement, many women try to become intellectuals and to smoke like men and to talk about great things, but you can see it is all shallow; it cannot be deep. It is not her nature. Her nature is totally different, and nothing is wrong in it.
Man has his own way. And of course, because all the history books have been written by man, he has written about other men; the women have been neglected, ignored. There have been great women, but of course they were great in a different way: great lovers, great mothers, great wives. They may not have been great poets, but they have been great cooks.
Just the other day the manager of the Taj Mahal Hotel was here. Now, the Taj Mahal Hotel is the biggest hotel in India, the costliest, the most world-famous hotel in India. And he even asked Laxmi, “Can you send that Italian mamma, Deeksha, just for one month to teach our people how to cook?”
Now, who will write about Deeksha as an enlightened cook? Nobody will write because that is not man’s concern. And, in fact, food is far more important than poetry. If it comes to a choice, then I will choose Deeksha instead of Dionysius! What will I do with Dionysius? Theologia Mystica – I can do it myself, but who is going to give me the food? And unless you have enough spaghetti in you, you cannot write a Theologia Mystica – impossible. It is the subtle working of spaghetti inside you; spaghetti going on and on inside creates great mysteries!
I don’t want women to compete with men; they should simply be their own selves. This has never been told, that is true, but the woman should be her own self, and whatever her nature is she should try to meditate according to that nature. Her meditation should be her own natural, spontaneous life. Then there will be enlightened women. They will not be like Buddha – they cannot be, and they need not be, and they need not feel in any way inferior – but they will have their own heights, which no Buddha can ever have. They will have their own experiences, which no Mahavira can ever have. The woman has a different interiority than the man. Man is aggressive.
You ask, “Dionysius is again an enlightened male master…” In fact, to be a master you need a little bit of aggression in you, otherwise you cannot be a master. The woman can be a tremendously beautiful disciple but cannot be a master. And remember, nothing is wrong in it, and she is not inferior because she cannot be a master.
The disciple needs receptivity; he has to receive. Even the male disciple has to function almost in a feminine way. With the master he is a womb, a receiver, a receptacle. Hence the woman proves to be the perfect disciple.
Mary Magdalene is the perfect disciple – no other disciple of Jesus even comes close to her. In fact, one of his disciples, Judas, was the cause of his death, and all the other disciples escaped when he was crucified. Who brought his body down from the cross? – three women. One was his mother, Mary, the others were Magdalene and her sister. Where were the male disciples? They had all escaped. They were afraid they might be caught. But these three women were not afraid – love knows no fear. And their disciplehood was perfect.
To be a perfect disciple is equivalent to being a perfect master. But there are different approaches. It is very difficult for the man to be a perfect disciple; he remains somehow imperfect. I have never come across a man who can be a really perfect disciple; ninety-nine percent, maybe even ninety-nine point nine percent, but because he is male, something, his own aggressiveness, somewhere remains. However refined it becomes, somewhere it remains.
But he can become a perfect master. This much is enough. If a male disciple is ninety-nine point nine percent a disciple he will become enlightened, he will become a perfect master. But the woman is a perfect disciple – so perfect that the idea to become the master never arises in her. She is so contented in being a perfect disciple, she is so fulfilled, there is no intrinsic necessity for it in her.
This is my observation: every male disciple deep down has the desire one day to become the master. Hence many male disciples have betrayed their masters because they could not wait long.
One of Mahavira’s greatest disciples was Goshalak, who betrayed him. Because one thing was certain, unless Mahavira died he would not have the same position, the same power. Even if he became enlightened he would be just an enlightened disciple. Mahavira’s death was a must. And Mahavira was very healthy; in fact, Goshalak was not such a healthy man. It was impossible to wait. He betrayed. He declared himself a master although he was not yet even a perfect disciple. His mastership was bogus, and this he realized before he died.
His last testament was, “Let it be known to the world that I betrayed my master, that I pretended to be a master myself, but it was false because I have not realized any truth in my life. In fact, something that was happening when I was a disciple of Mahavira stopped the moment I left him.”
Buddha’s closest disciple, Devadatta, his own cousin, betrayed him. And Judas was the most intellectual disciple of Jesus, the most intelligent. In fact, he would have been the head once Jesus was gone. Maybe in an unconscious way that was the reason why he conspired with the enemies, helped the enemies to catch hold of Jesus – because I don’t think that he was very interested in thirty silver coins. He was not that kind of man. He was very intellectual, refined, very cultured. He would not have sold Jesus only for thirty silver coins. But there must have been an unconscious desire in him; if Jesus was removed from the scene then he would be able to dominate the whole scene. And of course he was the most intelligent, most intellectual person around Jesus. All the others were farmers, fishermen, carpenters, gardeners – poor people, simple people.
The male disciple unconsciously carries the idea that sooner or later he will be the master. And if he remains with the master, sooner or later he will be a master. But there are very impatient people also, who are in such a hurry that they cannot wait. But the woman disciple has no desire to be a master. She has a desire to be a total disciple, an absolute disciple – and she can be, one hundred percent.
I have been thinking to choose male mediums also. Many times I have thought about it, many times I decided that now a group of male mediums should exist. But when I look around, I find difficulties: they cannot relax totally. Yes, there are a few people like Teertha – there are a few people who can be mediums without any difficulty. But I have not been able to find at least twenty men who can be mediums, who can be totally relaxed, available.
But as far as women are concerned my problem is totally different; whom to choose and whom not to choose because hundreds of women disciples are here who are capable of being mediums. I am sorry that we don’t have that much space right now. In the new commune I will have. So if some woman is not chosen, don’t feel worried about it, don’t feel that you are not worthy of it. It is only that the Chuang Tzu Auditorium is very small; I cannot have more than thirty mediums there. And the problem is not that it is difficult to choose; the difficulty is whom to choose and whom to leave because almost all are ready, totally available.
Your question is just like this: if a man asks me why it is always that women become mothers and never a man, what am I going to say? What can I do about it? Their biology is different and so is their psychology. They are different species really, and that is the attraction between them. They live on different planets.
The man lives in intellect; intellect is aggressive. The woman lives in instinct, in intuition, which is receptive. The man lives in the head, the woman lives in the heart. The man lives in logic, the woman lives in love. For man, love is only a relaxation from logic. For woman, logic can only be a game; she can play once in a while to show that she also knows it, otherwise it is not her real concern.
And when I am saying these things I am not taking account of exceptions, remember it. Exceptions simply prove the rules; I am talking about the rule. There have been a few women masters: Rabiya al-Adabiya, Sahajo, Daya, Lalla, Meera; a few, only a few women masters. They must have had a very male psychology somewhere. And there have been great male disciples. Buddha had many: Sariputta, Manjushree, Moggalayan, Ananda, Maulingaputta, and many more – totally devoted.
Manjushree became enlightened; he was his first disciple to become enlightened. And Buddha every day would ask, “Where is Manjushree?” And he would avoid him. Finally, one day, Buddha caught hold of him. He caught hold of him in the night when he was asleep, otherwise he would have escaped.
Buddha said. “What is the matter with you? You cannot hide the fact from me – I know it has happened! Then why are you avoiding me? You should have come for confirmation.”
Manjushree said, “That’s why I am avoiding you. I know it has happened and I don’t want any confirmation from you because any confirmation from you means you will say, ‘Manjushree, now go away. Spread my word to the people.’ And I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to remain here.
“It is better to be unenlightened.” said Manjushree, “and to be with you, rather than to be enlightened and to go somewhere else. So please don’t recognize me as an enlightened person – I am not! I say to you I am not! And even if you feel that I am, please keep it a secret.”
Once you are enlightened the master is bound to say, “Go now, help others.”
Now, this Manjushree is an exception, he has no desire to be a master. Sariputta was different. When he became enlightened he immediately asked Buddha himself, “Now that I am enlightened, what should I do? Where should I go? Whom should I teach?”
In fact, even before he was enlightened, even before he had ever become a disciple of Buddha, he had pretended for many years that he was a master. He had five hundred disciples when he came to see Buddha. With five hundred disciples he had really come to argue that “I am right and you are wrong.” He had come to convince Buddha to be his disciple. Now, that desire to be the master must have been there.
You can find the same examples here. Now Teertha is here – the same type as Manjushree. Even if he becomes enlightened he will not come to me to be recognized. I will have to wake him up in the night. That’s why I have given him the room just above mine, so he cannot escape anywhere!
Then there was Somendra. Somendra always wanted to be a master. He was in such a hurry that I told him, “Go to the West. Help people there.” In the beginning he went to the Western centers as a sannyasin because he must have been afraid that if he goes as a non-sannyasin then nobody will support him. But just two days ago the message came that he has dropped sannyas and is declaring that he has become enlightened. That’s what I was expecting, that he would do that. That’s what he wanted to do, but here it would have been really difficult to declare. Now in the West he can declare whatever he wants to declare. But I hope that he will not suffer like Goshalak. I hope that he will soon come back to his senses.
When Goshalak died he said, “Let the whole world know that I was deceiving people.” Not only that, he felt so guilty that he told his disciples, “Drag my corpse through the streets of the town, spit on my face and let the whole town know that I have done something very ignoble and I need punishment.”
I hope that Somendra will not wait that long, that soon he will recognize. He has the capacity one day to become enlightened, but the hurry is preventing it; the very desire is a barrier.
The last question:
Osho,
My boyfriend wants to pick a fight with me. That confuses me. What can I do about it?
It simply means he still loves you. The day he stops picking a fight with you, know well that the love affair is finished. It is simply a sign that the love affair still continues. Now, it is difficult to love a woman or a man twenty-four hours a day. You can love for a few minutes, and the rest of the time it is perfectly good to pick a fight. Just make it a little more sophisticated. Don’t let it be like Astha and Deepak.
Astha is continuously picking fights with her boyfriends; she enjoys them. If there is not a fight going on that means there is no excitement. Deepak is a very soft person, but Astha drove him to such a point that he hit her so hard that not only are her lips wounded, her head struck the wall and she had a concussion. Now she is going gaga! This is a love affair, but a little bit primitive.
So, there is nothing to be worried about. Why should you be confused? Love is a mad thing in the first place – it is maddening; if it is not maddening it is not worth it. When you are in a love affair you should know that you have accepted some mad part in you; you have given it recognition. You are following some mad element in you. That’s why it is called falling in love; otherwise it should be called rising in love. You don’t rise, you fall.
A minister visits the new mental hospital. As the director is leading him around they come to a swimming pool full of people who are obviously enjoying themselves tremendously. Some are even jumping from a three-meter high platform.
“Are these your patients?” the astonished minister asks.
“Oh yes, for sure,” exclaims the proud director, “but that’s nothing. You should see them when there’s water in the pool!”
A love affair is something like a swimming pool without water – jumping and swimming, and there is no water! It is a mad affair. Because you cannot be alone, you are not sane enough to be alone, you are not centered enough to be alone, hence you need the other. And the other is in the same situation. He needs you, or she needs you, because without the other he is just empty. So two emptinesses trying to fill each other – is it not mad, utterly mad? How can it be possible?
And then people are different. There are sadists who will torture the woman; unless they torture her they cannot love her. First they will beat her, make her cry, scream; only then they will get excited. Unless they see the woman crying and screaming they don’t get excited. Their excitement comes only when the woman starts going crazy.
The word sadist comes from the name of a famous novelist, de Sade. He was really an expert. He used to carry a bag like a doctor’s bag with all kinds of instruments in it that he had invented to torture women – all kinds of instruments. He was a very beautiful man, very rich, and he had some charisma. It was impossible not to fall in love with him. Any woman who came in contact with him would soon end up in his torture chamber – not love chamber. He had a beautiful mansion and his love chamber was a torture chamber. He would lock the door and then he would show all his instruments – he would open his bag. And on the walls also were many kinds of instrument the woman may never have seen.
But it is said, although the women were tortured, beaten, and blood would start rushing out of their bodies, many women confessed in the court – because finally he was caught – they confessed, “Although he tortured us, we had never had such a beautiful orgasmic love with anybody else in our lives.” So, there are women also who are masochistic.
The best marriage, the perfect marriage, is between a sadist and a masochist. There are men who are masochists; they want their woman to torture them, to nag them. That brings them a little life – they become alive.
People are different. When you love a person you should know it. Never try to change the person because nobody has ever been able to change the person. You can change your lover from A to B, but don’t try to change A into something else; that has never been possible. That is a sheer waste of time.
Wilma, Martha, and Liza met in the Harlem Laundromat, and as usual, the talk soon got around to sex. They began talking about their lovers and the nicknames they had given them.
“I’se calls my man Rolls,” began Wilma, “after Rolls Royce because he starts at the push of a button, never fails to get goin’, and moves just so smooth and silent like, why it’s just soopreem comfort all the way.”
“My man is just like a Ford,” said Martha, “maybe one of them old Model T’s. Sometimes I’se gotta crank him to get him started, he coughs and backfires a little, but when he gets right on chuggin’ away, why, he can go all night without stopping.”
“Well,” said Liza, “I call my man Drambuie.”
“Drambuie?” said Martha. “Why now, ain’t that some kind of fancy likker?”
“That’s my man!”
Enough for today.
Osho,
According to what I have been hearing you say, the title of this series, Theologia Mystica, seems to be a contradiction in terms.
It is true, but the title was given by Dionysius himself, so at least I am not responsible for it. In a way, mysticism is bound to be a contradiction in terms, whether the word theologia is in it or not. Mysticism itself, by its very nature, is a contradiction because it is not an ism. It is not a creed or dogma in which you can believe. You can be a mystic, but there is nothing like mysticism. And when one is a mystic the paradox deepens, it does not disappear. When one is a mystic there is no one left; there is a mystery, but with no center to it. It is like a cloud: translucent darkness, infinite darkness.
One of the most important statements about mysticism in the Western hemisphere is the book called The Cloud of Unknowing. The name of the author is not known. It is good that we don’t know who wrote it. It indicates one thing, that before he wrote it he had disappeared into a cloud of unknowing. It is the only book in the Western world which comes close to the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, The Dhammapada. There is a rare insight in it.
First he calls it a cloud. A cloud is vague, with no definable limits. It is constantly changing, it is not static – never, even for two consecutive moments, is it the same; it is a flux, it is pure change. And there is nothing substantial in it. If you hold it in your hand only mist will be left, nothing else. Maybe your hands will become wet, but you will not find any cloud in your fist.
That’s what happens to the mystic, he becomes wet, really wet. Those countries where alcohol is prohibited they call dry, and those countries where alcohol is not prohibited they call wet. But the only wet person is the mystic. He is a real alcoholic, he cannot be helped by Alcoholics Anonymous! If a mystic enters there, they will all become alcoholics themselves!
But for Dionysius it is even more a contradiction because he was a theologian. His whole book is written with a disguise, as if it is a treatise on theology; mysticism is just something by the side, secondary, not primary. Hence the name Theologia Mystica – as if mysticism is only a consequence of getting deep into the world of theology. Just the reverse is the case.
The word theology means logic about God; theo means God. But there can be no logic about God. There is love about God, love for God, but no logic about God. There are no proofs possible. The only proof is the existence of the mystic. The presence of Dionysius, of Ramakrishna, of Bahauddin – the presence of these people is the proof that God exists, otherwise there is no proof. Because buddhas have walked on the earth, there are a few footprints of God left behind on the shores of time.
Philosophers have argued for centuries, but all their arguments are utterly futile and impotent; they have not come to a single conclusion.
The mystic has to speak in contradictions because he is speaking about the whole, and the whole contains the contradictions. It contains both the day and the night. If you call God the day, then it is only half the truth; if you call him the night, that too is only half the truth.
Hence Dionysius calls God translucent darkness – as if the sun has risen in the night.
The whole consists of both life and death. If you call God life, only life, then it is a half-statement. And remember a half-truth is far more dangerous than a complete lie because the complete lie is bound to be discovered sooner or later, just a little intelligence is needed. But the half-truth is very dangerous: even intelligent people, very intelligent people, may not be able to find that it is untrue. That is the danger of half-truths: they look like truths and they are not. They can keep you deceived for centuries.
Mysticism is the whole truth; it has to be contradictory. Somewhere logic and love have to meet because they both exist. Hence, theologia mystica. Somewhere man and woman have to meet and merge and disappear into each other because they both exist and they are both halves of one whole. Hence the beauty and the bliss of a real meeting between a man and a woman; the orgasmic joy is possible only because two halves of a single whole have come together. Both were suffering, both were missing something. Suddenly, all that feeling of missing has disappeared. Of course, the meeting between a man and a woman can only be momentary. Again they are separate, and again the misery sets in, and again the desire to be united. Because the meeting is physical it cannot be very deep and it cannot be lasting either.
But the meeting of the mystic with the whole is absolute; there is no coming back. He has gone beyond the point of no return. He has dissolved himself like a dewdrop slipping out of the lotus leaf into the lake. He has become the lake. Then whatever he says will be contradictory because a part of it will be the vision of the dewdrop and a part of it will be the vision of the total lake. A part will be the standpoint of the part and a part will be the standpoint of the whole. Hence all mystics have spoken in contradictory terms.
This is one of the reasons why intellectuals are against them – because the intellectual demands consistency and the mystic cannot be consistent. By the very nature of things that is not possible. He is helpless – he has to be contradictory. He has to say, “I am contradictory because I am vast enough to contain contradictions.”
Logic is a small thing, love is infinity.
The second question:
Osho,
These days the papers are filled with reports of communal riots erupting all over India. No real reasons for this violence and destruction of property are being given, just vague references to “antisocial elements,” whatever that phrase means. Can you throw any light on what is happening in this country, on why there is this obvious and angry unrest?
The first thing is India is a religious country, and all the religions down the ages have depended upon fear. They have exploited the fear instinct of man, they have made man afraid. Hence the word God-fearing – it exists in almost all the languages of the world, and they say it means religious! It is pure nonsense. A religious person is not God-fearing but God-loving. A God-fearing man is pseudo religious, a person who has not sought religion on his own but has been forced to be religious by others.
There are only two ways to force things on people – not in fact two, but two aspects of the same coin – fear and reward, punishment and reward, fear and greed. Hence hell and heaven: heaven is greed, reward; hell is fear, punishment.
India is a religious country, full of God-fearing people. And with the existence of fear many problems arise. The first problem is love disappears.
Remember, hate is not the real opposite of love; the real opposite of love is fear. You can still love the person you hate. In fact, the latest research says that you always hate the person you love. Hate and love are two polarities of the same energy – they are complementary, they are not opposites.
Hence you see the conflict between lovers, continuous conflict. They are always fighting, as if it is a necessary part of love affairs – and it is. A love affair is not possible without conflict; a love affair becomes possible through conflict. You fight with the person you love, you hate the person you love from your very guts, and because of this hate and this fight and this conflict you go on creating a distance between you.
There is a certain moment when the distance is so big that a desire to meet the other arises. It arises only at a certain distance. If your woman or your man has been away for a few days and then comes home, then there is great love. Those few days have created a certain appetite. Of course, if you go on eating the whole day you won’t have any appetite. Appetite depends on the fast between two meals. Everybody fasts between two meals; hence the English word breakfast: you have fasted the whole night in your sleep. Of course, when you are awake it is difficult to fast but when you are asleep what can you do?
A few people certainly manage to get up in their sleep and go to the kitchen or go to the fridge; they are sleepwalkers. But it is a strange thing, sleepwalkers always go to the fridge! They open the fridge – and they are asleep! – and they eat something and they close the fridge, and they come back in the darkness, and they go to sleep. And they go on gaining weight and they go on dieting in the day. And they are always puzzled: “What is the matter? Why does my weight go on increasing?” Otherwise, normal people have an eight-hour fast. After that eight-hour fast, an appetite arises.
The fight between lovers is like fasting: withdrawing from each other, then the desire – because love is a nourishment. Remember, love is food. It is as much food as any other food, but a very subtle food – a food for the soul. So when lovers fight they remain on a fast. Soon the appetite arises and they start moving closer to each other. After each fight they can make love in a far better way than at any other time. It has intensity, it has passion. But after each meal you have an aversion to food.
If you have eaten well, the very idea of food will be a little nauseating. One who has eaten enough, if you put all kinds of food around him, he will go crazy. He will hate the food, he will hate you; he would like to escape from the room. There is a certain aversion. That is natural, otherwise how will he stop eating?
So when two lovers have made love, a certain aversion arises. These are natural phenomena. Once we understand them, they are not problems. After each lovemaking the husband turns over and goes to sleep, and after each lovemaking the wife cries, weeps because she feels exploited. This same man who is now sleeping, keeping his back toward her, snoring, this same man, this sonofabitch, just a few moments before was talking such beautiful poetry, and now he is not at all concerned. She feels cheated. But that is wrong; that is a misunderstanding. It is a natural phenomenon – love fulfilled, aversion arises. Of course, after a twenty-four hour fast he will again talk poetry. That’s how the wheel moves.
Love and hate are not opposites, but love and fear are. The afraid person becomes incapable of love. And all the religions have depended on fear, hence they have made millions of people incapable of love. And the people who are incapable of love are only capable of violence.
So, it is nothing new in India. It erupts almost every ten years; ten years seems to be the limit. Within ten years everybody accumulates so much violence within himself that it has to find an outlet, otherwise it will destroy him. He will be burned up by his own violence. So he has to find some excuses; political, religious, social – any kind of excuse will do. And this limit of ten years is not only limited to India; it seems to be universal. Every ten years there is a great war. The whole of humanity gets involved in destruction.
Religions are responsible because they have not taught you how to love, they have only taught you how to be afraid. Remember, fear is the same energy as love, but it has been poisoned – your energies have been poisoned for centuries. So it has become a routine phenomenon that after a few months, a few years, after a certain period, one accumulates so much violence, which would not have been there if love had been flowing. Because love has been stopped there is no flow in your life. Your own energies go against you; they become destructive. Then any excuse is enough – such stupid excuses that if you look at them you will laugh; they are ridiculous!
In Moradabad, where this whole problem started – and now it has spread almost all over the country – the cause was just ridiculous. Mohammedans had gathered to pray in their idgah, their prayer place. It is an open place; they just face toward Kaaba and pray. A policeman was on duty, and a cow entered the prayer space. Now, the cow is the symbol of Hinduism, and the Mohammedans became enraged. They said, “The policeman is responsible. He was standing there. Why did he allow the cow to enter?” In fact they said that not only did he allow it, he brought the cow in! And killing started.
Now one hundred and thirty people have died just because of that holy cow which may have entered innocently. They are roaming all over the country – they don’t know which place is Hindu and which place is Mohammedan. And because one hundred and thirty people have died there – this is an official number and official numbers are never right. Multiply by four and you will find the right number. That has always been my observation, multiply by four. At least five hundred to six hundred people must have died. Now revenge has to be taken in other places.
Can you see the cause, the stupidity of human beings? The excuse is not worth calling an excuse! But this is how things begin.
The real thing is that people are accumulating great violence, anger. If you cannot release your love you will accumulate anger. Love standing on its head becomes anger. And when anger accumulates you are just looking for some excuse. If you cannot find an excuse you will invent one, but you will have to invent some cause so you can release, cathart. This is a catharsis – on what grounds it happens is immaterial.
Hindi-speaking people start killing non-Hindi-speaking people; non-Hindi-speaking people start killing Hindi-speaking people. The Gujaratis start fighting with the Marathis, the Mohammedans with the Hindus, the Jainas with the Hindus, the Sikhs with the non-Sikhs. Anybody is ready to fight with anybody else; just a small excuse, real or invented, is needed. The fight happens first, then later on we discover why it has happened.
People are gathering so much poison, anger, that these flare-ups are bound to happen. And the politicians have no understanding, so they simply go on dumping the whole thing on “antisocial elements,” as if these antisocial elements appear only once in a while and then suddenly disappear. They are always there, but the riots are not always there. For years these antisocial elements become very peaceful and very Gandhian, very nonviolent, and then one day suddenly they erupt, and they erupt all over, it is almost like a chain reaction.
The politicians have to say something. They don’t understand what is happening at all, and even if some of them do understand they don’t have the courage to say it.
The real cause is thousands of years of imposed fear on people, condemnation of love. And you are well aware of it here – if two of my sannyasins are just standing holding each other’s hands in the garden, it is obscene. Two people lovingly holding each other’s hands is obscene or two lovers embracing each other is obscene – and two people killing each other is not obscene!
If two people are fighting on the road, a crowd will gather and they will all enjoy the fight. And everybody will go home very satisfied, very contented because in a vicarious way they have also been able to cathart their anger through the fighters. But seeing two lovers, only jealousy arises, great jealousy and great anger.
But this is how they have been brought up for centuries, and this they call religion. Because I am against it, they think I am trying to destroy their religion, their morality. What morality have they got? This is the morality – that every day somewhere or other there is violence. This is Indian culture, Indian morality – these Hindus and Mohammedans and Jainas! They will all say beautiful things and they will all do ugly things. Because I am pointing at the naked truth, they are all opposed to me.
The politicians cannot say the truth, even if they know it. In the first place they don’t know because they don’t have that much intelligence – otherwise they wouldn’t be politicians in the first place. Secondly, even if they have some idea of what really is happening in the psyche of the country, they cannot say it because they have to ask for votes from the same people. If they say the truth they will lose their votes, so they invent some vague excuses – “antisocial elements.”
Now, who is this antisocial element: Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian, Jaina, Buddhist? Who is this antisocial element? Just a word, a label. You can throw all the responsibility on it and you can feel very relieved.
You ask me, “These days the papers are filled with reports of communal riots erupting all over India. No real reasons for this violence and destruction of property are being given, just vague references to ‘antisocial elements,’ whatever that phrase means. Can you throw any light on what is happening in this country, on why there is this obvious and angry unrest?”
This is going to continue – unless this country drops this stupid idea of being religious, unless this country drops the rotten culture that it has carried for centuries, which is only a corpse. It is stinking, but they go on carrying it because it is so ancient; it is their past, their heritage. This country has to cut itself off from its past totally, abruptly; a discontinuity is needed. Only then will India be reborn.
One of my political friends, Seth Govind Das, was a Member of Parliament in India for the longest period. In fact, except Winston Churchill and Seth Govind Das, nobody else in the world has been a Member of the Parliament for so long. He was called the father of the Indian Parliament. He has been a Member for nearabout fifty years.
He always used to say, “There have been many civilizations in the world, but they all died.” And with great pride. He was very proud of it. “Where is Babylonia? Where is Syria? Where is Greece? Where is Egypt? All have disappeared from the world. The only ancient civilization alive is the Indian civilization.”
And I always used to say to him, “Don’t be proud of it – be ashamed! It is time that this ancient country should learn how to die and be reborn.
Unless you die you cannot have a rebirth. This country needs a death – and not a partial death, a total death – so that a new, fresh race can come up. And it is not difficult.
But the vested interests are against rebirth. They go on propounding the old tradition. The newly-born country, the newly-born race will not be so easily enslaved by them. They will lose, and they don’t want to lose. Hence they are against me.
You can see. The reasons they give against me are worth considering, contemplating. They say that I am destroying their culture, I am destroying their morality, I am destroying their civilization, that I am an enemy. In one way they are right, but in another way they are absolutely wrong. They are right because I am certainly against all that is dead and I want it to be burned – with all due respect, but burn it, say good-bye to it. Don’t look backward. Look forward, look ahead!
So in a way they are right that I am against all these things, but in a way they are wrong. I am against these things not because I am against religion, culture, morality, civilization; I am against these things because they are dead.
I am absolutely in favor of a new culture arising, a new civilization arising, a new morality arising, a new humanity arising. Otherwise this country is going to remain poor, starved; continuously fighting, quarreling, murdering each other.
This country needs to be taught ways of love. This country needs to be told: except love there is no God. Drop all fears! Don’t go to the temples because of fear, and don’t go on worshipping stupid idols and gods because of greed. Drop greed and fear and live out of love. Love people, love trees, love animals, love this existence because God is nowhere else. God is spread all over existence. God is simply another name for life, existence, that which is.
That’s my work here. It is dangerous work – dangerous because I am fighting against powerful forces, dangerous because I am fighting against almost all the vested interests. Nobody will be in favor of me; I have to stand alone. Just a few people who will be courageous enough to be with me, ready to risk their lives with me, will be with me; otherwise nobody is going to be with me.
But it is a thrilling project. It is very adventurous. It is a great challenge; it is worth accepting. And through it not only can this country’s humanity have a new birth, through it we can show the way to the whole world because the whole world needs more or less a new birth, a new man.
The third question:
Osho,
I cannot decide whether to stay here with you or not, and also whether to become a sannyasin or not. Can you help me to decide?
Toss a coin! If it is heads, stay, but don’t become a sannyasin – because the coin coming up heads shows you are a head. So accumulate as much intellectual garbage as you can, and if by chance you are a German, then it will be really good for your head too, good manure.
Looking out of my window one day, I saw two sannyasins working outside – two of Deeksha’s handymen, one Italian and one German. They were about to hammer away at a concrete pillar with a sledge hammer and a wrecking bar. The German was holding the wrecking bar and the Italian the sledge hammer.
On the first try with the sledge hammer, the Italian missed and hit the German on the head. The German, unaffected, continued to hold the bar, waiting for the next try.
The Italian again missed and hit the German on the head once more. Without batting an eye, the German continued to hold the bar. The Italian tried once again and once again missed, hitting the German again on the head.
This time the German looked at the Italian with a wary eye and said, “Swami, please be careful. If you hit my fingers you can hurt me!”
But if the coin comes up tails, then put your tail between your legs and escape from here as fast as possible!
That’s exactly the origin of the word hippie. Hippie comes from hips; one who cannot encounter a challenge and shows his hips and escapes. So if it is tails, then understand the message – escape like a hippie.
But by chance – and miracles happen! – if it stands on edge, then become a sannyasin. Then I cannot help it. Then God decides so.
The fourth question:
Osho,
Dionysius is again an enlightened male master. Is it more difficult for a woman to become enlightened than it is for a man?
You don’t understand the problem!
The fundamental reason women do not achieve as greatly as men do is that women have no wives. Until such a time as science or economics corrects this blunder of nature, we shall remain, I fear, the weaker sex.
Man is the weaker sex. And because the wives drive them crazy in every possible way, they start running in all directions, stumbling in all directions, groping in every possible way to escape. And a few of them, by chance, become masters. A few of them become painters, a few of them become poets, a few of them become scientists…
Women cannot achieve so greatly for the simple reason that there is nobody to drive them. Of course, man cannot say clearly, “You are driving me mad.” He says, “You are inspiring me! Without you I would be nothing.” And that is true, literally true.
So feel compassion for the poor men. They had to become masters, Buddhas, Zarathustras, Dionysiuses. Just think of Socrates and his wife Xanthippe; without the wife there would have been no Socrates at all. It was the wife who drove him into the world of philosophy. What else can you do to protect yourself? You have to philosophize.
A young man asked Socrates, “I am thinking of getting married, and because I have always found your advice tremendously significant I have come to ask you. What do you suggest? Should I marry or not?”
Socrates said, “You should marry, you ought to marry.”
The young man was thinking that Socrates would say, “Don’t marry,” because he knew what Xanthippe was doing to Socrates. One day she had even poured a whole kettle of boiling water on his head – the whole kettle of boiling water! She burned half his face and he remained his whole life with a burned face. She used to beat him – must have been a real woman, an Amazon!
And this young man was thinking that Socrates would say, “Never get married. Look at my life!” But Socrates said, “You ought to get married.”
The young man said, “I am more puzzled than I was before I came to you. You are saying I ought to get married? For what reasons?”
Socrates said, “If you get a beautiful wife you will live a contented life, and if you get a wife like mine you will become a great philosopher!”
The woman has not achieved in any direction, in any dimension, for the simple reason that she has no inner tension for achievement. Jokes apart, she has no inner tension for achievement. She is more relaxed than man she is more balanced than man. Man has a deep imbalance in him.
Psychologists say that because man cannot produce children – he cannot become a mother, he has no womb – he feels a certain envy deep down. The woman seems to be creative, she brings life to the world, and he seems to be almost barren. To substitute for it he creates great painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture; he goes in search of truth.
The woman is at ease, at home. In fact, she cannot understand why a man like Mahavira tortured himself for twelve years. I have heard of no woman in the whole history of man who has tortured herself in such a way even for twelve days the way Mahavira did – in search of truth. What truth? It is not a woman’s concern at all. She is more concerned about what is happening to the neighbor’s wife. What truth? And what will you do even if you get it? Can you eat it? Can you sell it? Will it increase your bank balance? What will you do with the truth? She is simply unable to understand why these people are so crazy about truth, the ultimate truth. And they want to attain eternal life when they don’t know how to live this small life!
The concerns of the woman are different. Her concerns are more pragmatic, less metaphysical. She is more concerned with love than with logic. Logic has no appeal for women. I have never seen a really intellectual woman. Today because of the Women’s Liberation Movement, many women try to become intellectuals and to smoke like men and to talk about great things, but you can see it is all shallow; it cannot be deep. It is not her nature. Her nature is totally different, and nothing is wrong in it.
Man has his own way. And of course, because all the history books have been written by man, he has written about other men; the women have been neglected, ignored. There have been great women, but of course they were great in a different way: great lovers, great mothers, great wives. They may not have been great poets, but they have been great cooks.
Just the other day the manager of the Taj Mahal Hotel was here. Now, the Taj Mahal Hotel is the biggest hotel in India, the costliest, the most world-famous hotel in India. And he even asked Laxmi, “Can you send that Italian mamma, Deeksha, just for one month to teach our people how to cook?”
Now, who will write about Deeksha as an enlightened cook? Nobody will write because that is not man’s concern. And, in fact, food is far more important than poetry. If it comes to a choice, then I will choose Deeksha instead of Dionysius! What will I do with Dionysius? Theologia Mystica – I can do it myself, but who is going to give me the food? And unless you have enough spaghetti in you, you cannot write a Theologia Mystica – impossible. It is the subtle working of spaghetti inside you; spaghetti going on and on inside creates great mysteries!
I don’t want women to compete with men; they should simply be their own selves. This has never been told, that is true, but the woman should be her own self, and whatever her nature is she should try to meditate according to that nature. Her meditation should be her own natural, spontaneous life. Then there will be enlightened women. They will not be like Buddha – they cannot be, and they need not be, and they need not feel in any way inferior – but they will have their own heights, which no Buddha can ever have. They will have their own experiences, which no Mahavira can ever have. The woman has a different interiority than the man. Man is aggressive.
You ask, “Dionysius is again an enlightened male master…” In fact, to be a master you need a little bit of aggression in you, otherwise you cannot be a master. The woman can be a tremendously beautiful disciple but cannot be a master. And remember, nothing is wrong in it, and she is not inferior because she cannot be a master.
The disciple needs receptivity; he has to receive. Even the male disciple has to function almost in a feminine way. With the master he is a womb, a receiver, a receptacle. Hence the woman proves to be the perfect disciple.
Mary Magdalene is the perfect disciple – no other disciple of Jesus even comes close to her. In fact, one of his disciples, Judas, was the cause of his death, and all the other disciples escaped when he was crucified. Who brought his body down from the cross? – three women. One was his mother, Mary, the others were Magdalene and her sister. Where were the male disciples? They had all escaped. They were afraid they might be caught. But these three women were not afraid – love knows no fear. And their disciplehood was perfect.
To be a perfect disciple is equivalent to being a perfect master. But there are different approaches. It is very difficult for the man to be a perfect disciple; he remains somehow imperfect. I have never come across a man who can be a really perfect disciple; ninety-nine percent, maybe even ninety-nine point nine percent, but because he is male, something, his own aggressiveness, somewhere remains. However refined it becomes, somewhere it remains.
But he can become a perfect master. This much is enough. If a male disciple is ninety-nine point nine percent a disciple he will become enlightened, he will become a perfect master. But the woman is a perfect disciple – so perfect that the idea to become the master never arises in her. She is so contented in being a perfect disciple, she is so fulfilled, there is no intrinsic necessity for it in her.
This is my observation: every male disciple deep down has the desire one day to become the master. Hence many male disciples have betrayed their masters because they could not wait long.
One of Mahavira’s greatest disciples was Goshalak, who betrayed him. Because one thing was certain, unless Mahavira died he would not have the same position, the same power. Even if he became enlightened he would be just an enlightened disciple. Mahavira’s death was a must. And Mahavira was very healthy; in fact, Goshalak was not such a healthy man. It was impossible to wait. He betrayed. He declared himself a master although he was not yet even a perfect disciple. His mastership was bogus, and this he realized before he died.
His last testament was, “Let it be known to the world that I betrayed my master, that I pretended to be a master myself, but it was false because I have not realized any truth in my life. In fact, something that was happening when I was a disciple of Mahavira stopped the moment I left him.”
Buddha’s closest disciple, Devadatta, his own cousin, betrayed him. And Judas was the most intellectual disciple of Jesus, the most intelligent. In fact, he would have been the head once Jesus was gone. Maybe in an unconscious way that was the reason why he conspired with the enemies, helped the enemies to catch hold of Jesus – because I don’t think that he was very interested in thirty silver coins. He was not that kind of man. He was very intellectual, refined, very cultured. He would not have sold Jesus only for thirty silver coins. But there must have been an unconscious desire in him; if Jesus was removed from the scene then he would be able to dominate the whole scene. And of course he was the most intelligent, most intellectual person around Jesus. All the others were farmers, fishermen, carpenters, gardeners – poor people, simple people.
The male disciple unconsciously carries the idea that sooner or later he will be the master. And if he remains with the master, sooner or later he will be a master. But there are very impatient people also, who are in such a hurry that they cannot wait. But the woman disciple has no desire to be a master. She has a desire to be a total disciple, an absolute disciple – and she can be, one hundred percent.
I have been thinking to choose male mediums also. Many times I have thought about it, many times I decided that now a group of male mediums should exist. But when I look around, I find difficulties: they cannot relax totally. Yes, there are a few people like Teertha – there are a few people who can be mediums without any difficulty. But I have not been able to find at least twenty men who can be mediums, who can be totally relaxed, available.
But as far as women are concerned my problem is totally different; whom to choose and whom not to choose because hundreds of women disciples are here who are capable of being mediums. I am sorry that we don’t have that much space right now. In the new commune I will have. So if some woman is not chosen, don’t feel worried about it, don’t feel that you are not worthy of it. It is only that the Chuang Tzu Auditorium is very small; I cannot have more than thirty mediums there. And the problem is not that it is difficult to choose; the difficulty is whom to choose and whom to leave because almost all are ready, totally available.
Your question is just like this: if a man asks me why it is always that women become mothers and never a man, what am I going to say? What can I do about it? Their biology is different and so is their psychology. They are different species really, and that is the attraction between them. They live on different planets.
The man lives in intellect; intellect is aggressive. The woman lives in instinct, in intuition, which is receptive. The man lives in the head, the woman lives in the heart. The man lives in logic, the woman lives in love. For man, love is only a relaxation from logic. For woman, logic can only be a game; she can play once in a while to show that she also knows it, otherwise it is not her real concern.
And when I am saying these things I am not taking account of exceptions, remember it. Exceptions simply prove the rules; I am talking about the rule. There have been a few women masters: Rabiya al-Adabiya, Sahajo, Daya, Lalla, Meera; a few, only a few women masters. They must have had a very male psychology somewhere. And there have been great male disciples. Buddha had many: Sariputta, Manjushree, Moggalayan, Ananda, Maulingaputta, and many more – totally devoted.
Manjushree became enlightened; he was his first disciple to become enlightened. And Buddha every day would ask, “Where is Manjushree?” And he would avoid him. Finally, one day, Buddha caught hold of him. He caught hold of him in the night when he was asleep, otherwise he would have escaped.
Buddha said. “What is the matter with you? You cannot hide the fact from me – I know it has happened! Then why are you avoiding me? You should have come for confirmation.”
Manjushree said, “That’s why I am avoiding you. I know it has happened and I don’t want any confirmation from you because any confirmation from you means you will say, ‘Manjushree, now go away. Spread my word to the people.’ And I don’t want to go anywhere else. I want to remain here.
“It is better to be unenlightened.” said Manjushree, “and to be with you, rather than to be enlightened and to go somewhere else. So please don’t recognize me as an enlightened person – I am not! I say to you I am not! And even if you feel that I am, please keep it a secret.”
Once you are enlightened the master is bound to say, “Go now, help others.”
Now, this Manjushree is an exception, he has no desire to be a master. Sariputta was different. When he became enlightened he immediately asked Buddha himself, “Now that I am enlightened, what should I do? Where should I go? Whom should I teach?”
In fact, even before he was enlightened, even before he had ever become a disciple of Buddha, he had pretended for many years that he was a master. He had five hundred disciples when he came to see Buddha. With five hundred disciples he had really come to argue that “I am right and you are wrong.” He had come to convince Buddha to be his disciple. Now, that desire to be the master must have been there.
You can find the same examples here. Now Teertha is here – the same type as Manjushree. Even if he becomes enlightened he will not come to me to be recognized. I will have to wake him up in the night. That’s why I have given him the room just above mine, so he cannot escape anywhere!
Then there was Somendra. Somendra always wanted to be a master. He was in such a hurry that I told him, “Go to the West. Help people there.” In the beginning he went to the Western centers as a sannyasin because he must have been afraid that if he goes as a non-sannyasin then nobody will support him. But just two days ago the message came that he has dropped sannyas and is declaring that he has become enlightened. That’s what I was expecting, that he would do that. That’s what he wanted to do, but here it would have been really difficult to declare. Now in the West he can declare whatever he wants to declare. But I hope that he will not suffer like Goshalak. I hope that he will soon come back to his senses.
When Goshalak died he said, “Let the whole world know that I was deceiving people.” Not only that, he felt so guilty that he told his disciples, “Drag my corpse through the streets of the town, spit on my face and let the whole town know that I have done something very ignoble and I need punishment.”
I hope that Somendra will not wait that long, that soon he will recognize. He has the capacity one day to become enlightened, but the hurry is preventing it; the very desire is a barrier.
The last question:
Osho,
My boyfriend wants to pick a fight with me. That confuses me. What can I do about it?
It simply means he still loves you. The day he stops picking a fight with you, know well that the love affair is finished. It is simply a sign that the love affair still continues. Now, it is difficult to love a woman or a man twenty-four hours a day. You can love for a few minutes, and the rest of the time it is perfectly good to pick a fight. Just make it a little more sophisticated. Don’t let it be like Astha and Deepak.
Astha is continuously picking fights with her boyfriends; she enjoys them. If there is not a fight going on that means there is no excitement. Deepak is a very soft person, but Astha drove him to such a point that he hit her so hard that not only are her lips wounded, her head struck the wall and she had a concussion. Now she is going gaga! This is a love affair, but a little bit primitive.
So, there is nothing to be worried about. Why should you be confused? Love is a mad thing in the first place – it is maddening; if it is not maddening it is not worth it. When you are in a love affair you should know that you have accepted some mad part in you; you have given it recognition. You are following some mad element in you. That’s why it is called falling in love; otherwise it should be called rising in love. You don’t rise, you fall.
A minister visits the new mental hospital. As the director is leading him around they come to a swimming pool full of people who are obviously enjoying themselves tremendously. Some are even jumping from a three-meter high platform.
“Are these your patients?” the astonished minister asks.
“Oh yes, for sure,” exclaims the proud director, “but that’s nothing. You should see them when there’s water in the pool!”
A love affair is something like a swimming pool without water – jumping and swimming, and there is no water! It is a mad affair. Because you cannot be alone, you are not sane enough to be alone, you are not centered enough to be alone, hence you need the other. And the other is in the same situation. He needs you, or she needs you, because without the other he is just empty. So two emptinesses trying to fill each other – is it not mad, utterly mad? How can it be possible?
And then people are different. There are sadists who will torture the woman; unless they torture her they cannot love her. First they will beat her, make her cry, scream; only then they will get excited. Unless they see the woman crying and screaming they don’t get excited. Their excitement comes only when the woman starts going crazy.
The word sadist comes from the name of a famous novelist, de Sade. He was really an expert. He used to carry a bag like a doctor’s bag with all kinds of instruments in it that he had invented to torture women – all kinds of instruments. He was a very beautiful man, very rich, and he had some charisma. It was impossible not to fall in love with him. Any woman who came in contact with him would soon end up in his torture chamber – not love chamber. He had a beautiful mansion and his love chamber was a torture chamber. He would lock the door and then he would show all his instruments – he would open his bag. And on the walls also were many kinds of instrument the woman may never have seen.
But it is said, although the women were tortured, beaten, and blood would start rushing out of their bodies, many women confessed in the court – because finally he was caught – they confessed, “Although he tortured us, we had never had such a beautiful orgasmic love with anybody else in our lives.” So, there are women also who are masochistic.
The best marriage, the perfect marriage, is between a sadist and a masochist. There are men who are masochists; they want their woman to torture them, to nag them. That brings them a little life – they become alive.
People are different. When you love a person you should know it. Never try to change the person because nobody has ever been able to change the person. You can change your lover from A to B, but don’t try to change A into something else; that has never been possible. That is a sheer waste of time.
Wilma, Martha, and Liza met in the Harlem Laundromat, and as usual, the talk soon got around to sex. They began talking about their lovers and the nicknames they had given them.
“I’se calls my man Rolls,” began Wilma, “after Rolls Royce because he starts at the push of a button, never fails to get goin’, and moves just so smooth and silent like, why it’s just soopreem comfort all the way.”
“My man is just like a Ford,” said Martha, “maybe one of them old Model T’s. Sometimes I’se gotta crank him to get him started, he coughs and backfires a little, but when he gets right on chuggin’ away, why, he can go all night without stopping.”
“Well,” said Liza, “I call my man Drambuie.”
“Drambuie?” said Martha. “Why now, ain’t that some kind of fancy likker?”
“That’s my man!”
Enough for today.